The Ballad of Peckham Rye

The waiter brought three cups of coffee, one in his right hand and two – one resting on the other – in his left. These he placed carefully on the table. Dixie’s slopped over in her saucer. She looked at the saucer.

‘Swap with me,’ Humphrey said.

‘Have mine,’ Dougal said.

She allowed Humphrey to exchange his saucer with hers. He tipped the contents of the saucer into his coffee, sipped it, and set it down.

‘Sugar,’ he said.

Dougal passed the sugar to Dixie.

She said, ‘Thank you.’ She took two lumps, dropped them in her coffee, and stirred it, watching it intently.

Humphrey put three lumps in his coffee, stirred it rapidly, tasted it. He pushed the sugar bowl over to Dougal, who took a lump and put it in his mouth.

‘I let her go up to your room,’ Humphrey said. ‘She said she wanted to put in some personal touches. There was the pot of flowers and some cretonne cushions. The old lady was out. I thought it nice of Elaine to do that - wasn’t it nice, Dixie?’

‘Wasn’t what nice?’

‘Elaine coming to introduce feminine touches in Dougal’s room.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Feeling all right?’ Humphrey said to her.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Do you want to go on somewhere else or do you want to stay here?’

‘Anything you like.’

‘Have a cake.’

‘No thank you.’

‘Why does your brother go hungry?’ Dougal said to her.

‘Whose brother goes hungry?’

‘Yours. Leslie.’

‘What you mean, goes hungry?’

‘He came round scrounging doughnuts off my landlady the other day,’ Dougal said.

Humphrey rubbed the palms of his hands together and smiled at Dougal. ‘Oh, kids, you know what they’re like.’

‘I won’t stand for him saying anything against Leslie,’ Dixie said, looking round to see if anyone at the other tables was listening. ‘Our Leslie isn’t a scrounger. It’s a lie.’

‘It is not a lie,’ Dougal said.

‘I’ll speak to my stepdad,’ Dixie said. ‘I should,’ Dougal said.

‘What’s a doughnut to a kid?’ Humphrey said to them both. ‘Don’t make something out of nothing. Don’t start.’

‘Who started?’ Dixie said.

‘You did, a matter of fact,’ Humphrey said, ‘with your bad manners. You could hardly say hallo to Dougal when he came in.’

‘That’s right, take his part,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not staying here to be insulted.’

She rose and picked up her bag. Dougal pulled her down to her chair again.

‘Take your hand off me,’ she said, and rose. Humphrey pulled her down again. She remained seated, looking ahead into the far distance.

‘There’s Beauty just come in,’ Dougal said. Dixie turned her head to see Beauty. Then she resumed her fixed gaze.

Dougal whistled in Beauty’s direction.

‘I shouldn’t do that,’ Humphrey said.

‘My God, he’s supposed to be a professional man,’ Dixie said, ‘and he opens his mouth and whistles at a girl.’

Dougal whistled again.

Beauty raised her eyebrows.

‘You’ll have Trevor Lomas in after us,’ Humphrey said. The waiter and Costa himself came and hovered round their table.

‘Come on up to the Harbinger,’ Dougal said, ‘and we’ll take Beauty with us.’

‘Now look. I quite like Trevor,’ Humphrey said. ‘He’s to be best man at our wedding,’ Dixie said. ‘He’s got a good job with prospects and sticks in to it.’

Dougal whistled. Then he called across two tables to Beauty, ‘Waiting for somebody?’

Beauty dropped her lashes. ‘Not in particular,’ she said.

‘Coming up to the Harbinger?’

‘Don’t mind.’

Dixie said, ‘Well, I do. I’m fussy about my company.’

‘What she say?’ Beauty said, jerking herself upright in support of the question.

‘I said,’ said Dixie, ‘that I’ve got another appointment.’

‘Beauty and I will be getting along then,’ Dougal said. He went across to Beauty who was preparing to comb her hair.

Humphrey said. ‘After all, Dixie, we’ve got nothing else to do. It might look funny if we don’t go with Dougal. If Trevor finds out he’s been to a pub with his girl -‘

‘You’re bored with me – I know,’ Dixie said. ‘My company isn’t good enough for you as soon as Dougal comes on the scene.’

‘Such compliments as you pay me!’ Dougal said across to her.

‘I was not aware I was addressing you,’ Dixie said. ‘All right, Dixie, we’ll stop here,’ Humphrey said. Dougal was holding up a small mirror while the girl combed her long copper-coloured hair over the table.

Dixie’s eyes then switched over to Dougal. She gave a long sigh. ‘I suppose we’d better go to the pub with them,’ she said, ‘or you’ll say I spoiled your evening.’

‘No necessity,’ Beauty said as she put away her comb and patted her handbag.

‘We might enjoy ourselves,’ Humphrey said.

Dixie got her things together rather excitedly. But she said, ‘Oh, it isn’t my idea of a night out.’

And so they followed Dougal and Beauty up Rye Lane to the Harbinger. Beauty was half-way through the door of the saloon bar, but Dougal had stopped to look into the darkness of the Rye beyond the swimming baths, from which came the sound of a drunken woman approaching; and yet as it came nearer, it turned out not to be a drunken woman, but Nelly proclaiming.

Humphrey and Dixie had reached the pub door. ‘It’s only Nelly,’ Humphrey said, and he pushed Dougal towards the doorway in which Beauty was waiting.

‘I like listening to Nelly,’ Dougal said, ‘for my human research.’

‘Oh, get inside for goodness’ sake,’ Dixie said as Nelly appeared in the street light.

‘Six things,’ Nelly declaimed, ‘there are which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth. Haughty eyes. a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. See me in the morning. A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief. Ten at Paley’s yard. A deceitful witness that uttereth lies. Meeting-house Lane. And him that soweth discord among brethren.’

‘Nelly’s had a few,’ Humphrey said as they pushed into the bar. ‘She’s a bit shaky on the pins tonight.’

A bright spiky chandelier and a row of glittering crystal lamps set against a mirror behind the bar – though in fact these had been installed since the war – were designed to preserve in theory the pub’s vintage fame in the old Camberwell Palace days. The chief barmaid had a tiny nose and a big chin; she was a middle-aged woman of twenty-five. The barman was small and lithe. He kept swinging to and fro on the balls of his feet.

Beauty wanted a Martini. Dixie, at first under the impression that Humphrey was buying the round, asked for a ginger ale, but when she perceived that Dougal was to pay for the drinks, she said, ‘Gin and ginger ale.’ Humphrey and Dougal carried to a table the girls’ drinks and their own half-pints of mild which glittered in knobbly-moulded glass mugs like versions of the chandelier. Round the wall were hung signed photographs of old-time variety actors with such names, meaningless to most but oddly suggestive, as Flora Finch and Ford Sterling, who were generally