‘I beg your pardon?’ said Miss Hobish, turning to look at him, jerking the Austin onwards, missing a woman with a pram.
‘Turn right. We’ll go up Mortimer Road. Hand signal, indicator. Draw out to the centre of the road.’
Excited, Miss Hobish allowed the car to stall.
‘More gas, more gas,’ cried J. P. Powers, apologizing to the traffic.
‘Tell me about the RAF,’ said Miss Hobish in Mortimer Road. ‘I love to hear your tales.’
‘We must concentrate on our driving, Miss Hobish.’
‘Shall we have a cup of coffee afterwards and shall you tell me then?’
‘Yes, Miss Hobish; a coffee would be nice.’
He closed his eyes and within seconds Miss Hobish had driven the Austin into the back of a stationary van.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Miss Hobish.
Powers got out and examined the damage. Both wings and the radiator grill had suffered considerably. The bumper had folded like a length of cardboard.
‘I’d better drive,’ said Powers. ‘The steering may be wonky.’
He drove in silence, reflecting upon what the incident would cost in terms of himself. Then he wondered idly, as he often did, what it would be like to be a solicitor or a bank manager. He couldn’t fit himself into either role; he couldn’t hear himself advising on the purchase of a house, or lending money, or retailing the details of the divorce laws. It seemed a truth that his tasks were destined to be expendable; only in war had he established himself.
‘Coffee now?’ Miss Hobish asked with meekness.
He looked at the front of the car again. Both headlights were smashed.
‘I’m going to give you a cheque,’ said Miss Hobish. She handed him coffee, and biscuits with icing on them. ‘For that damage to your motor. I suppose it would be two hundred pounds?’
‘Two hundred,’ said Powers, falling in with the plan. ‘J. P. the initials are.’
‘Now we’ll forget about it?’ She was anxious, and he nodded, tucking the cheque away and thinking about it.
Ransome would be at the Saracen’s Head at lunchtime. He’d park the Austin round at the back where Ransome wouldn’t see it and wouldn’t guess anything. Two hundred: he could make it last a long time, nice to have it by him, nice to be able to draw on it now and again.
‘Lovely biscuits, Miss Hobish.’
‘So forgiving, Mr Powers! I thought you mightn’t speak to me, your beautiful motor broken up.’
‘Not at all –’
‘Have another of those biscuits, I know you like them. I get them at Sainsbury’s.’
He dunked the biscuit in his coffee and sucked off the coloured icing. It was a comfortable room. The armchair he sat in was large and soft. Once he had fallen asleep in it. Once Miss Hobish, recognizing his fatigue, had invited him to take off his shoes.
‘Goodbye, Miss Hobish.’
‘More coffee? Biscuits?’
‘I fear I must make my way, Miss Hobish.’
‘Goodbye then, Mr Powers.’ They shook hands as they always did.
It was the boredom, he thought; it was that that prevented him from being the easy extrovert he was born to be. The boredom of repeating, the boredom of talking in simple terms. Hand signals and gear changes: the boredom gave him time to think, it made him think. Powers did not employ these words in his survey of his trouble, but that was the meaning he arrived at. Thoughts ran around in his brain like hares. He didn’t know how to catch them.
‘I couldn’t be happier,’ said Ransome.
Powers examined the beer in his tankard. He nodded, smiling to display enthusiasm.
‘Do you know,’ queried Ransome, ‘what I’m going to do next?’
In three months’ time Powers knew he’d be beginning to think Ransome a swine. Ransome had the makings of another Roche; probably he was worse.
‘I’m going to fire Jack Clay,’ said Ransome.
It was one thing knowing the man in the Saracen’s Head, talking over a beer about their days in the RAF; it was rather different having him in charge of one’s daily life.
‘I’m going to fire Jack Clay and put J. P. Powers in his car. What d’you think of that, a big Consul?’
‘Fine,’ said J. P. Powers. ‘Fine, fine, a Consul’s lovely.’
‘I’ve got a concern making rubber sheets and hot-water bottles shaped like a bunny rabbit. I’d like to have the lot, you know; carry-cots, everything, a full service. I’ve got a fellow in Hoxton working on a wee-control.’
