'You see, I'm unlucky.'
Mr Davis, in spite of his new anxiety, felt alive, vitaclass="underline" this wasn't his last day. The kidneys and bacon he had had for breakfast returned a little in his breath. The music came softly through to them: 'Your photograph is just the sweetest half...' He licked a little grain of toffee on a back tooth and said, 'You're in luck now. You couldn't have a better mascot than me.'
'You'll have to do,' the girl said with her habitual gloomy stare.
'The Metropole? At one sharp?'
'I'll be there. Unless I'm run over. I'm the kind of girl who would get run over before a free feed.'
'It'll be fun.'
'It depends what you call fun,' the girl said and made room for him on the packing case. They sat side by side staring at the tree. 'In your December, I shall remember.' Mr Davis put his hand on her bare knee. He was a little awed by the tune, the Christmas atmosphere. His hand fell flatly, reverently, like a bishop's hand on a choirboy's head.
'Sinbad,' the girl said.
'Sinbad?'
'I mean Bluebeard. These pantos get one all mixed up.'
'You aren't frightened of me?' Mr Davis protested, leaning his head against the postman's cap.
'If any girl's going to disappear, it'll be me for sure.'
'She shouldn't have left me,' Mr Davis said softly, 'so soon after dinner. Made me go home alone. She'd have been safe with me.' He put his arm tentatively round Ruby's waist and squeezed her, then loosed her hastily as an electrician came along. 'You're a clever girl,' Mr Davis said, 'you ought to have a part. I bet you've got a good voice.'
'Me a voice? I've got as much voice as a peahen.'
'Give me a little kiss?'
'Of course I will.' They kissed rather wetly. 'What do I call you?' Ruby asked. 'It sounds silly to me to call a man who's standing me a free feed Mister.'
Mr Davis said, 'You could call me—Willie?'
'Well,' Ruby said, sighing gloomily, 'I hope I'll be seeing you, Willie. At the Metropole. At one. I'll be there. I only hope you'll be there or bang'll go a good steak and onions.' She drifted back towards the stage. She was needed. What did Aladdin say... She said to the girl next her. 'He fed out of my hand.' When he came to Pekin? 'The trouble is,' Ruby said, 'I can't keep them. There's too much of this love-and-ride-away business. But it looks as if I'll get a good lunch, anyway.' She said, 'There I go again. Saying that and forgetting to cross my fingers.'
Mr Davis had seen enough; he had got what he'd come for; all that had to be done now was to shed a little light and comradeship among the electricians and other employees. He made his way slowly out by way of the dressing-rooms exchanging a word here and there, offering his gold cigarette-case. One never knew. He was fresh to this backstage theatre and it occurred to him that even among the dressers he might find—well, youth and talent, something to be encouraged, and fed too, of course, at the Metropole. He soon learnt better; all the dressers were old; they couldn't understand what he was after and one followed him round everywhere to make sure that he didn't hide in any of the girls' rooms. Mr Davis was offended, but he was always polite. He departed through the stage door into the cold tainted street waving his hand. It was about time anyway that he looked in at Midland Steel and saw Sir Marcus.
The High Street was curiously empty except that there were more police about than was usual; he had quite forgotten the gas practice. No one attempted to interfere with Mr Davis, his face was well known to all the force, though none of them could have said what Mr Davis's occupation was. They would have said, without a smile at the thin hair, the heavy paunch, the plump and wrinkled hands, that he was one of Sir Marcus's young men. With an employer so old you could hardly avoid being one of the young men by comparison. Mr Davis waved gaily to a sergeant on the other pavement and took a toffee. It was not the job of the police to take casualties to hospital and no one would willingly have obstructed Mr Davis. There was something about his fat good nature which easily turned to malevolence. They watched him with covert amusement and hope sail down the pavement towards the Tanneries, rather as one watches a man of some dignity approach an icy slide. Up the street from the Tanneries a medical student in a gas-mask was approaching.
It was some while before Mr Davis noticed the student and the sight of the gas-mask for a moment quite shocked him. He thought: these pacifists are going too far: sensational nonsense, and when the man halted Mr Davis and said something which he could not catch through the heavy mask, Mr Davis drew himself up and said haughtily, 'Nonsense. We're well prepared.' Then he remembered and became quite friendly again; it wasn't pacifism after all, it was patriotism. 'Well, well,' he said, 'I quite forgot. Of course, the practice.' The anonymous stare through the thickened eyepieces, the muffled voice made him uneasy. He said jocularly, 'You won't be taking me to the hospital now, will you? I'm a busy man.' The student seemed lost in thought with his hand on Mr Davis's arm. Mr Davis saw a policeman go grinning down the opposite pavement and he found it hard to restrain his irritation. There was a little fog still left in the upper air and a flight of planes drove through it, filling the street with their deep murmur, out towards the south and the aerodrome. 'You see,' Mr Davis said, keeping his temper, 'the practice is over. The sirens will be going any moment now. It would be too absurd to waste a morning at the hospital. You know me. Davis is the name. Everyone in Nottwich knows me. Ask the police there. No one can accuse me of being a bad patriot.'
'You think it's nearly over?' the man said.
'I'm glad to see you boys enthusiastic,' Mr Davis said. 'I expect we've met some time at the hospital. I'm up there for all the big functions and I never forget a voice. Why,' Mr Davis said,' it was me who gave the biggest contribution to the new operating theatre.' Mr Davis would have liked to walk on, but the man blocked his way and it seemed a bit undignified to step into the road and go round him. The man might think he was trying to escape: there might be a tussle, and the police were looking on from the corner. A sudden venom spurted up into Mr Davis's mind like the ink a cuttlefish shoots, staining his thoughts with its dark poison. That grinning ape in uniform... I'll have him dismissed... I'll see Calkin about it. He talked on cheerily to the man in the gasmask, a thin figure, little more than a boy's figure on which the white medical coat hung loosely. 'You boys,' Mr Davis said, 'are doing a splendid work. There's no one appreciates that more than I do. If war comes—'
'You call yourself Davis,' the muffled voice said.
Mr Davis said with sudden irritation, 'You're wasting my time. I'm a busy man. Of course I'm Davis.' He checked his rising temper with an effort. 'Look here. I'm a reasonable man. I'll pay anything you like to the hospital. Say, ten pounds ransom.'
'Yes,' the man said, 'where is it?'
'You can trust me,' Mr Davis said, 'I don't carry that much on me,' and was amazed to hear what sounded like a laugh.
This was going too far. 'All right,' Mr Davis said, 'you can come with me to my office and I'll pay you the money. But I shall expect a proper receipt from your treasurer.'
'You'll get your receipt,' the man said in his odd toneless mask-muffled voice and stood on one side to let Mr Davis lead the way. Mr Davis's good humour was quite restored. He prattled on. 'No good offering you a toffee in that thing,' he said. A messenger boy passed in a gas-mask with his cap cocked absurdly on the top of it; he whistled derisively at Mr Davis. Mr Davis went a little pink. His fingers itched to tear the hair, to pull the ear, to twist the wrist. 'The boys enjoy themselves,' he said. He became confiding; a doctor's presence always made him feel safe and oddly important: one could tell the most grotesque things to a doctor about one's digestion and it was as much material for them as an amusing anecdote was for a professional humourist. He said, 'I've been getting hiccups badly lately. After every meal. It's not as if I eat fast... but, of course, you're only a student still. Though you know more about these things than I do. Then too I get spots before my eyes. Perhaps I ought to cut down my diet a bit. But it's difficult. A man in my position has a lot of entertaining to do. For instance—' he grasped his companion's unresponsive arm and squeezed it knowingly—'it would be no good my promising you that I'd go without my lunch today. You medicos are men of the world and I don't mind telling you I've got a little girl meeting me. At the Metropole. At one.' Some association of ideas made him feel in his pocket to make sure his packet of toffee was safe.