Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

“I could.” They went into the kitchen. “Salvation Army. Scotland Yard. Your mother’s place.”

“She’s dead. Died four years ago.”

He sat down and immediately stood up: the fly on his pajama pants had flared open. His raincoat lay nearby. He put it on. What’s the matter with you? he asked himself. She’s seen it all before, a thousand times. She was drying her face with a tea-towel. “Are you unwell, Miriam?” he asked.

“No.”

He waited. “Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I’m not going to ask.”

“You never knew what sacrifices I made for you, Rollo,” she said. “I gave—”

“Stop!” he shouted. “Don’t say you gave me the best years of your life. I can take the Blitz, and I can take cheap dialogue, but not both together.”

She filled the kettle with water. That simple action amazed him: it was as if she had never been away: what gall! “There’s no gas,” he said. “They’ve turned it off. A bomb.” She struck a match, and the gas flowered obediently. “What a cow you are,” he said. “You can’t stay here.”

“I’ve been bombed out.”

“Well, obviously.” Rollo kicked her suitcase. “I didn’t think you were selling lavatory brushes. You still can’t stay here.”

Miriam simply looked at him. Her hair was damp; she tucked it behind her ears. She seemed five or six years older, and this disappointed Rollo until he did the arithmetic and realized she was five or six years older. So was he. Bloody hell.

“But I really need to stay here,” she said.

“There’s no damn room! You’re not my wife, I don’t have to feed and clothe you and keep you in household crockery to smash on my head. You told me to go to hell, remember? Well, I went to hell and here I am, slightly grilled and smelling of sulfur but otherwise happy in my hell-hole, and you can’t have it!”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

He threw a cup at her, and missed by a yard. She flinched, and smiled sadly. “Christ Almighty!” he roared. “Don’t you remember anything? If you stay here, one of us will kill the other before sunset. We hate each other, Miriam.”

“But I’ve nowhere else to go.”

He pulled the raincoat over his head and closed his eyes. He said: “I can’t see you, so you don’t exist.” The raincoat stank of blitzed buildings. Ah, happy days , he thought.

“House two doors away got hit,” she said. He heard her making tea: the hot rush and bubble of water into the pot. “Next door wasn’t safe. They pulled it down and half my house came down with it.”

A milk bottle clinked, a teaspoon rattled. He wanted a cup of tea. More than that, he wanted to chuck her into the street. In the movies men got chucked into the street all the time. Why not a woman, for once? The phone rang and she picked it up.

“It’s for you,” she said.

“Of course it’s for bloody me.” Now he had to come out of hiding. “Look: go and stay in a hotel, Miriam. I’ll pay, if I must. Hello. Rollo Blazer speaking.”

It was a brief conversation.

“That was the office,” he told her. “The boss wants to see me. Drink up. I’ll drive you to a hotel.”

“There’s Desmond as well,” she said. “He’s been living with me. As a paying guest, so to speak.”

“Spare me your feeble euphemisms, Miriam. If the bugger’s your boyfriend, say so. Do you fuck each other?”

She nodded. He thought he saw a tiny smile of pride.

“Well, you can do it in the gutter. This is a very small flat. I need every square inch.”

“Desmond’s waiting outside. We came in his car.”

Rollo raised his arms and howled like dog. The effort was tiring and soon he had to stop. She was still there, sipping tea, watching. “Cover yourself up, Rollo,” she said. “You know the neighbors can see in, and it’s not a pretty sight.”

“If I come back and find bloody Desmond in this bloody flat I’ll bloody kill the pair of you.”

He shaved and dressed, and went out to his car. The rain had stopped. One other car was parked nearby, and a man stood beside it: a naval officer, tall, broad, very bearded. He was carrying a pair of gloves, and he made a jaunty little salute with them. Rollo nodded. As he drove away he wondered what the chap saw in Miriam. Then he wondered what he, Rollo, had seen in Miriam. Whatever it was, it had turned out to be an optical illusion.

He put it out of his mind. Quite soon he would be back in the real world, the world of film. It was a reassuring thought.

“Warmest congratulations,” Blake Gunnery said. Frobisher was working on the cork. Rollo Blazer smiled modestly. The cork ricocheted off the ceiling. Frobisher made haste to pour. “There are few privileges in my job,” Gunnery said, “but one is seeing the work of true genius, and another is toasting its creator.”

They clinked glasses and drank. Blazer drank deep; this was breakfast. Or lunch. “The real heroes are out there,” he said.

“Let’s drink to London,” Gunnery said, and they did.

“It’s literally unforgettable,” Rollo said, “because it’s all on film.”

Frobisher gave him more champagne. “Not all,” he said. Rollo glanced up, but Frobisher was looking at Gunnery.

“A year ago, during the Battle of Britain,” Gunnery said, “Churchill told us men would look back and say: ‘This was their finest hour.’ I wonder what men will say when they look back on the Blitz?”

“Eight horrible months,” Frobisher said confidently.

“Not quite a massacre,” Gunnery said. “The word carnage suggests itself. You’ve seen more of it than anyone, Blazer. Would you find carnage acceptable?”

Rollo thought of some of the things he had seen. “It’s not too strong.” His glass was full again.

“Some of the raids… ” Gunnery shook his head. “Unspeakable. Right? Nobody should be asked to stomach… I mean to say, in all decency, isn’t it beyond all…?” Rollo found himself nodding. “I’m so glad you agree,” Gunnery said. “There’s no middle way, is there?”

“We can’t show your Blitz film,” Frobisher said.

Rollo had sensed the coming punch, but he could find no words, only an angry noise. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. It was not enough. “Hey”

“Rollo, my friend,” Frobisher said. “You’ve shot forty-odd reels of brilliant horror movie. People won’t go to the cinema and pay to see that kind of horror. They can stay at home and see it for real. For free.”

“Not everybody,” Rollo protested. “Millions don’t live in cities, they’ve never heard a bomb drop, they don’t know- ”

“And they would prefer not to know,” Gunnery said. “You are aware of Mass Observation? Their researchers go all over Britain with their clever questionnaires, and they get surprising answers. Yes, folk in the provinces are sorry for Londoners, but not all that sorry. There has always been a feeling that Londoners are a snotty lot who deserve to be cut down to size.”

“I don’t believe nobody cares.”

“And of course you are right,” Gunnery said. “People feel very badly about the Blitz, not just on London but on Liverpool, Coventry—well, you know the list. They feel very badly indeed.”

“Mass Observation,” Harry Frobisher said. He had moved away and was looking out of a window.

“Demoralization of the civilian populace is a major aim of the Blitz,” Gunnery said. “It has had a large degree of success. Now, I put it to you: should we reinforce Hitler’s success by publicizing it in the cinema?”

“Not bloody likely,” Frobisher said.

Gunnery emptied the bottle into Rollo’s glass but only an inch of fizz came out. “Somewhat symbolic of British morale.”