hour lasted. She lived in a wrapping of cellophane. I could see and
touch her, but I couldn’t get at her. Oddly enough this attitude suited
me. I didn’t want to know who her father was, whether she had a
husband serving overseas, whether she had any sisters or brothers. All
I wanted was a gay companion: that was what I got.
We kept up this association for two years, then when I received
orders to sail with the invading armies we said good-bye.
We said good-bye as if we would meet again the next evening,
although I knew I wouldn’t see her for at least a year, perhaps never
see her again: she knew it too.
“So long, Steve,” she said when I dropped her outside her flat.
“And don’t come in. Let’s say good-bye here, and let’s make it quick.
Maybe I’ll see you again before long.”
“Sure, you’ll see me again,” I said.
We kissed. Nothing speciaclass="underline" no tears. She went up the steps, shut
the door without looking back.
I had planned to write to her, but I never did. We moved so fast
into France and things were so hectic that I didn’t have the chance to
write for the first month, and after that I decided it was best to forget
her. I did forget her until I returned to America. Then I began to think
of her again. I hadn’t seen her for nearly two years, but I found I could
remember every detail of her face and body as clearly as if we had
parted only a few hours ago. I tried to push her out of my mind, went
around with other girls, but Netta stuck: she wouldn’t be driven away.
So when I spotted that horse, backed it and won, I knew I was going to
see her again, and I was glad.
I arrived in London on a hot August evening after a long,
depressing trip down from Prestwick. I went immediately to the Savoy
Hotel where I had booked a reservation, had a word with the
reception clerk who seemed pleased to see me again, and went up to
my room, overlooking the Thames. After a shower and a couple of
drinks I went down to the office and asked them to let me have five
hundred one pound notes. I could see this request gave them a jar,
but they knew me well enough by now to help me if they could. After
a few minutes delay they handed over the money with no more of a
flourish than if it had been a package of bus tickets.
It was now half-past six, and I knew Netta would be home at that
hour. She always prepared for the evening’s work around seven
o’clock, and her preparations usually took the best part of an hour.
As I was waiting in a small but select queue for a taxi, I asked the
hall porter if he knew whether the Blue Club still existed. He said it
did, and that it had now acquired an unsavoury reputation as it had
installed a couple of doubtful roulette tables since my time.
Apparently it had been raided twice during the past six months, but
had escaped being closed down through lack of evidence. It seemed
Jack Bradley managed to keep one jump ahead of the police.
I eventually got a taxi, and after a slight haggle, the hall porter
persuaded the driver to take me to Cromwell Road.
I arrived outside Netta’s flat at ten minutes past seven. I paid off
the driver, stood back, and looked up at her windows on the top floor.
The house was one of those dreary buildings that grace the back
streets off Cromwell Road. It was tall, dirty, and the lace curtains at
the windows were on their last legs. Netta’s flat, one of three, still had
the familiar bright orange curtains at the windows. I wondered if I was
going to walk in on a new lover, decided I’d chance it. I opened the
front door, began the walk up the three flights of coco-nut-matted
stairs.
Those stairs brought back a lot of pleasant memories. I
remembered the nights we used to sneak up them, holding our shoes
in our hands lest Mrs. Crockett, the landlady who lurked in the
basement, should hear us. I remembered too, the night I had flown
over Berlin with a R.A.F. crew and had arrived at Netta’s flat at five
o’clock in the morning, too excited to sleep and wanting to tell her of
the experience, only to find she hadn’t come home that night. I had
sat on the top of those stairs waiting for her, and had final y dozed off,
to be discovered by Mrs. Crockett, who had threatened to call the
police.
I passed the doors of the other two flats. I had never discovered
who lived in them. During the whole time I had visited Netta I hadn’t
once seen the occupiers. I arrived, a little breathless, outside Netta’s
front door, and paused before I rang the bell.
Everything was exactly the same. There was her card in a tiny
brass frame screwed to the panel of the door. There was the long
scratch on the paint-work which I had made when slightly drunk with
the latchkey. There was the thick wool mat before the door. I found
my heart was beating a shade quicker, and my hands were a little
damp. It seemed to me all of a sudden that Netta had become
important to me: I’d been away too long.
I punched the bell, waited, heard nothing, punched the bell again.
No one answered the door. I continued to wait, wondering if Netta
was in her bath. I gave her a few more seconds, punched the bell
again.
“There’s no one there,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned, looked down the short flight of stairs. A man was
standing in the doorway of the lower flat, looking up at me. He was a
big strapping fellow around thirty, broad and well-built but far from
muscular. With a frame like a hammer-thrower, he was yet soft, just
this side of fat. He stood looking up at me with a half-smile on his
face, and the impression he gave me was that of an enormous sleepy
tom-cat, indifferent, self-sufficient, pleased with himself. The waning
sunlight coming through the grimy window caught the gold in his
mouth, making his teeth come alive.
“Hello, baby,” he said. “You one of her boy friends?” He had a
faint lisp, and his corn-coloured hair was cut close. He was wearing a
yellow and black silk dressing-gown, fastened at his throat; his pyjama
legs were electric blue, his sandals scarlet. He was quite a picture.
“Go jump into a lake,” I said. “Jump into two if one won’t hold
you,” and I turned back to Netta’s door.
The man giggled. It was an unpleasant hissing sound and for no
reason at all it set my nerves jumping.
“There’s no one there, baby,” he repeated, then added in an
undertone, “she’s dead.”
I stopped ringing the bell, turned, looked at him. He raised his
eyebrows, and his head waggled from side to side ever so slightly.
“Did you hear?” he asked, and smiled as if he were privately amused
at some secret joke of his own.
“Dead?” I repeated, moving away from the door.
“That’s right, baby,” he said, leaning against the door-post, giving
me an arch look. “She died yesterday. You can still smell the gas if you
sniff hard enough.” He touched his throat, flinched. “I had a bad day
with it yesterday.”
I walked down the stairs, stood in front of him. He was an inch
taller than I and a lot broader, but I knew he hadn’t any iron in his
bones.
“Calm down, Fatso,” I said, “and give it to me straight. What gas?
What are you raving about?”