John Bingham - A Fragment of Fear

“Not right,” I muttered. “Not respected by all who know me.”

“Who wouldn’t respect you?”

“I wouldn’t respect me.”

“Final?”

“Final,” I said, “unless you explain things more.”

There was another click, and this time I knew it meant the end of the conversation. I replaced the receiver and sat staring at the window. I keep a small bowl of water there for pigeons. I like all birds, even pigeons, which are supposed to be so destructive. A pigeon landed, bedraggled and dirty white, and strutted towards the bowl, flicking its head from side to side, looking for danger, knowing danger was around, but not knowing where.

I didn’t like the silence in the flat. I wished the telephone conversation was still going on. While I could hear the voice, even with its sneers, I knew I could cope, because I was in touch with whatever was afoot; intangibly, even negatively, but at least in touch.

Now there was only the interior quietness of the flat.

Somebody knew my movements, almost from hour to hour. He knew the train I would catch from Burlington, and had seen the light go on in my kitchen, when I got up to make tea.

We are seven, he had said, or seventeen, or seventy, or seven hundred, and you are one. I walked over to the window, and the white bedraggled pigeon flew off and settled on a roof guttering on the opposite side of the street.

I looked down into the street. Nobody was noticeably hanging around in doorways, but then they wouldn’t be. Not noticeably. Across the street it was different. Across the street there were a couple of dozen windows with curtains of different kinds, varying from heavy velvet curtains to light net curtains. All equally effective, from the point of view of concealed eyes.

It is a strange feeling standing by the window, openly, knowing that somebody is certainly watching you, not with personal interest, as a neighbour might, but with meticulous, business-like attention. Heartlessly, as the pigeon was doing.

I looked at the pigeon, and the pigeon looked at me. It was waiting for me to move away from the window before landing on the sill for a drink.

I turned and went to the bathroom and shaved and had a long bath. After I had dressed I looked at myself in the mirror as I tied my tie, and I did not much care for what I saw.

I was strongly built, admittedly, but on the short side, about five feet eight inches. Round, bullet head, due to a mixture of English, Irish and Boer blood. Crew-cut brown hair, and brown eyes. Complexion still suntanned from Italy but turning fawn. Face round, rather heavy, obstinate jaw and lower lip. Poor old Juliet, I thought.

I wasn’t proud of being obstinate. Far from it. I just knew that in some matters I never had the slightest intention of deviating one iota from my intentions. One such matter was Lucy Dawson. That was the streak of Boer blood in me. The trait that got the Boers through the Great Trek, and also into a lot of grave difficulties since.

Still, it was a great trek while it lasted.

I jumped like a scalded cat when the ’phone rang again. That’s my trouble, I look phlegmatic, but I’m not, I jump like that well known scalded cat sometimes. I strode over to the telephone and lifted the receiver and said loudly:

“Well, what do you want now?”

It was Stanley Bristow, my future father-in-law, ringing to confirm or amend previous engagements for that evening. He was like that, everything had to be checked at least twice.

“What’s up with you, old boy?” said Stanley Bristow’s snuffly little voice.

“Sorry, I thought you were somebody else.”

“Who? Your bookmaker, old boy? Being dunned? Can’t you pay, old boy? You can always plead the Gaming Act, old boy!”

“No, just somebody else. I’ll tell you sometime. It’s a long story.”

“Good. And I’ve got a story for you, when I see you, old boy. About a coloured American soldier, and three chorus girls, one Irish, one Scotch, and one English. Remind me to tell you.”

“I’ll remind you. If you forget, I’ll remind you,” I said.

“Just a minute. The wife’s gone out of the room. I can probably tell you now, if you like.”

“Well, there’s somebody downstairs at the door,” I lied.

Some dirty jokes are funny, but not Stanley’s. Never Stanley’s.

“All right. I just wanted to say that I’ve had another thought about tonight. I don’t think we’d better go by car.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I’ve booked a table at that little place in Charlotte Street. Impossible to park round there, old boy. Taxi’s the only thing.”

“Taxi,” I repeated.

“Taxi, old boy. So you could drop Juliet here at five-thirty, after you’ve picked her up at the airport, then drive back to your place and change, and then either drive up here and leave your car here, or come up on foot.”

“Drive up or come up on foot,” I said patiently.

“It’s not far to walk, as you know.”

“No, it’s not far to walk. I must go now.”

“See you this evening, old boy.”

The thought of seeing him regularly through the years was appalling. Yet one had to be gentle with him. It seemed to me that there was no malice in the man. In fact, despite the irritation he aroused in me, I felt sorry for him.

He had recently retired from the post of general manager in a small, but long established firm, which over the decades had slowly evolved from making tin and wooden children’s toys to plastic ones. Stanley said that they might be old-fashioned, but they moved with the times. It was the sort of remark one might expect him to make. He also said they combined the tradition of the past with the spirit of the future. Dear me.

He had married Elaine Bristow late in life, by which time he had somehow managed to save a good deal of money, and Elaine had a little of her own. What with a small inheritance from a brother, and his pension, and his savings, and Elaine’s money, they were able to live at a reasonable standard in a ground floor flat between Kensington Church Street, and Camden Hill, which is not a cheap area.

He should have been happy, but I wondered if he was.

Since his retirement, he had spent most of his time going alone to race meetings, and interesting himself in various Service benevolent organisations, which entailed visiting people and eating and drinking for charity.

It seemed to be doubtful if he was particularly interested in racing or horses or charity. He was certainly interested in getting out of the house, not that Elaine Bristow actively nagged him. She just treated him with a faint, amused contempt.

“It is, of course, difficult to make really worthwhile money these days, if one is honest like Stanley,” she would say, or, “Personally, I would like to have had more than one child, but there, it was not to be.”

Stanley affected to take no notice of these remarks, with their snide reflections on his financial acumen and his virility. She was a tall, over-blown woman, and she was always pleasant enough to me. I played her along on her own terms, the same as I did her husband.

Sometimes I wondered how this superficial couple could ever have given birth to somebody like Juliet, with her intriguing, withdrawn manner, and her thoughtful, secretive glances. Both Stanley and Elaine were fair. Both had tall, substantial figures, though not actually stout. Stanley’s hair was sparsely distributed over his rectangular Anglo-Saxon skull, and was grey except for a few streaks here and there which remained tow-coloured.

Elaine Bristow’s hair was fair all over, and people were allowed to draw their own conclusions about it. Both had grey eyes. Both in their different ways were seemingly extrovert types.

Out of this physically consistent nordic blending had come Juliet-of only medium height, dark-haired, pale, slim, brown-eyed, and quiet.