Sean Gabb: The Churchill Memorandum

“Did they make you sit with the other coloureds in America?” he asked with a giggle. I swallowed and tried to look contemptuous. “But please, O most learned of neighbours,” he went on, his flabby, brown face creasing into a smile, “accept my felicitations on the safety of your return from the great toilet bowl in the west.” He stopped for another giggle before changing tone. “There are five wooden crates shedding splinters into my hall carpet,” he said coldly. “And it looks as if someone’s smashed the lock on your main suitcase. Shall I ask the most excellent Hattersley to help you move them into your own flat?” Smiling again, he pushed his door open and pointed at the boxes. I held my breath to avoid the blast of heated, curry-laden air that I knew was coming my way.

“Oh, there are two darkies outside in the street,” I said, stepping back from the open door. “Shall I call out of my sitting room window at them that dinner is ready?” That wiped the smile from his face. He darted a nervous look over at the lift door and fiddled with something in his overcoat pocket. There was something deeply unpleasant now about his face—far less pleasant than his usual oily grin. In the long silence that followed, I stepped forward and looked once more at my boxes. They were heavy, I knew, and I was shattered.

“Can’t we just leave them there for this evening?” I asked, suddenly emollient. I didn’t even comment for once on the smell. “I’ll drop round in the morning.” Pakeshi put his smile back on and nodded. He went inside his flat. Almost at once, he was back with a little cardboard box. He seemed to have changed his mind about going out. At any rate, he’d taken his overcoat off.

“Welcome home, O dearest neighbour,” he intoned, holding the box under my nose. “We were so worried about you in America. Mrs Dale was convinced you’d be locked away for smoking. And that was the least of our worries.” With his free hand, he stroked a bristle just under his nose. As if marking it for future attention, he tapped it twice, then let his hand drop down again. I smiled wearily and looked at the box. I reached up and took it from him. Like everything else about him, it stank of Indian spices. If I didn’t get my own stuff out soon, it would all need a month of fumigating. “A gift, and only 4s.6d,” he said quickly. I stared at the open hand. Four and bloody sixpence? Christ—you could hand over a shilling for that in Boots, assuming the pharmacist there was in the right mood, and get a farthing change. But Boots was far away, and I was shattered. I reached for my wallet. “No, no, no, my esteemed Anthony,” he cried with his oiliest smile. “Tomorrow will do—tomorrow, when you come for your boxes.”

I was beginning to feel sick from the smell of curry. I nodded, and moved towards my own door and reached up to unlock.

Except it was musty from the long absence, my flat was just as I’d left it. The funny thing about homecomings is the momentary sense of being simultaneously in two different time streams. There’s the knowledge of everything said and done while away. There’s the feeling of never having been away. There, on the kitchen table, was the bottle of generator reagent I’d bought the morning of my departure. There, at the end of its long cable, was the television remote control on my bed. There, indeed, was the bump on otherwise neatly-folded bed coverings where I’d sat and flicked through the news channels for the Atlantic weather forecasts. It’s a sensation that passes quickly enough. No doubt, it would vanish altogether once I began sorting through the bills and begging letters in that box Hattersley had given me. But that, like the boxes cluttering up Pakeshi’s flat, could all wait.

I went into the spare bedroom that I’d fitted up as my office. I sat behind the desk and looked at the self-correcting typewriter. I swore as I realised I’d left the thing switched on. No wonder all the lights were flickering. Another few minutes, unless I opened that bottle of reagent, and I’d sit in the gloom of a late afternoon in March. I got up and went into the kitchen. The Hotpoint Home Generator was tucked under the sink. I went on my knees and unscrewed the metal cap. Five guineas down, the salesman had told me, and wave goodbye to gas and electric bills. That had been the truth—though there had been nothing about the 2s.6d for top-ups every month or so, or the danger of some very nasty burns if you didn’t pour with a steady hand. Still, I got through this top-up without mishap. Another half hour, and I’d be able to put the kettle on. I might even manage one bar of the electric fire in my sitting room.

I went back into my bedroom. I took off my overcoat and then my jacket and sat down beside the bed. I tore the packaging from Pakeshi’s ready-filled syringe. He was a shifty creature, that was for sure. How he managed to practise with that stamp in his passport was anyone’s guess. But he’d saved me the trouble of going out and negotiating with some pharmacist. I rolled up my shirtsleeve and looked at the veins of my left arm. The pale flesh around them would surely have passed as Italian or perhaps Spanish at worst. I put the syringe down and stood up. I went over to the mirror and stared at my reflection. Vicky’s praise, perhaps, had strayed into flattery—though plain buttering up was more likely. But, if you like fine bones and a Mediterranean tint, you’ll not deny a certain handsomeness—a certain boyish handsomeness, if you want to be specific. If only, though, I’d taken on a little more of my father’s colouring. Why couldn’t I have looked more English?

Oh, here, in England, I nearly always passed. It would have been rude to take me as other than Dr Anthony Markham, son of the Rev. Richard Markham, and author of Churchill: Lion of Empire , and of those monographs on the national recovery since 1931. The Americans had been far more brutal. In the end, I’d just let them think I was Jewish. It had got me barred from the indoor swimming pool. But at least I’d been able to check into the hotel. Perhaps Vicky was right. Perhaps I should have done everything through agents from Montreal.

I sat down again and looked at the coloured portrait of the Queen above the fireplace, and at the crossed Union Flags that were above it. Bible in one hand, her husband and son stood modestly behind, she was dressed in her coronation robes as Empress of India. It had been my mother’s last Christmas gift to me. I bowed solemnly without getting up, then looked away.

I tapped at one of my veins and reached once more for the syringe. I laughed, breaking the cold quiet of the flat. No point whining about America, I thought. I really had to think how I’d get that bloody manuscript in by October, and how I’d live in the meantime. I had £34.8s.2d in my account. Once the next quarter’s rent was paid, that would give me £23.18s.2d. Based on the last cheque I’d had, the royalties Vicky had mentioned would bring in another £25. Put 15s in the income tax account, and it would leave me the grand total of £48.3s.2d. That should keep me going in moderate comfort well into the summer. But I didn’t know what would be in my broker’s letter. It had been on top of the box of post Hattersley had handed over. I’d open it tomorrow and see the full ghastly truth.

No—I’d open it now. Some things you can’t put off. I ripped at the envelope and scanned its contents.

“Bastard money people!” I snarled. I threw the letter down and went back to looking at my veins. It was no consolation the broker had himself lost money in the venture. What mattered to me was that he had, in advising me to buy those shares, helped turn £20,000 into slightly under £2,000. Unless gold recovered pretty sharpish, I was stuffed—no more swanning about as the gentleman-scholar.