I ALWAYS KNOW there’s going to be trouble when Houghton pops his gleaming pate around my door and trills, ‘Luncheon, Hazlewood? The East Street?’ The last time the two of us luncheoned he demanded I display more local watercolours. I agreed, but have managed to ignore the demand thus far.
The East Street Dining Room is very Houghton: large white plates, silver gravy boats, knocking-on-a-bit waiters with crumbling smiles and no hurry to get your food to you, everything boiled. But the wine is usually passable and they do a good pud. Gooseberry pie, treacle sponge, spotted dick, that sort of thing.
Following a long wait for any service at all, we finally finished our main courses (a rather chewy Sussex lamb chop with what I’m sure were potatoes out of a tin, dressed up with a few sprigs of parsley). Only after this did Houghton announce he’d decided to give my art-appreciation afternoons for schoolchildren the go-ahead. However, he could not, on any account, agree to the lunchtime concerts. ‘We’re in the business of the visual, not the aural,’ he pointed out, polishing off his third glass of claret.
I’d had a couple of glasses, too, so I countered: ‘Does that matter? It would be a way of encouraging the aurally inclined towards the visual.’
He nodded slowly and took a deep breath, as if this was just the sort of challenge he’d expected from the likes of me and he was, in fact, glad I’d responded in a way for which he was fully prepared. ‘It seems to me, Hazlewood, that your job is to ensure the continuing excellence of our collection of European art. The excellence of the collection – not some musical gimmick – is what will bring the public into the museum.’ After a pause, he added, ‘Do you mind if we skip pudding? I’m in rather a rush.’
Pudding, I wanted to say, was the only thing that would have made this experience worthwhile. But, of course, his question required no answer. He asked for the bill. Then, fiddling with his wallet, he made the following little speech: ‘You reformers always push things too far. Take a tip from me and let it rest. It’s all very well steaming in with new ideas, but you need to let a place settle around you before asking too much of it, d’you see?’
I said that I did. And I mentioned that I’d now been at the museum for almost four years, which, I thought, gave me the right to feel fairly settled.
‘That’s nothing,’ he said, waving his hand. ‘Been there twenty myself and the board still think I’m a newcomer. It takes time to allow your colleagues to get the real measure of you.’
Very politely, I requested he clarify this statement.
He looked at his watch. ‘I didn’t mean to bring this up now, but’ – and I understood this was actually where our lunch had been heading all along – ‘I was talking to Miss Butters the other day and she mentioned a project of yours about which I knew absolutely nothing. Which was rather odd. She said it involved portraits of ordinary townsfolk.’
Jackie. What on earth was Jackie doing in Houghton’s office?
‘Now, of course I don’t listen to the prittle-prattle of office girls – at least one tries to block it out …’
On cue, I gave a laugh.
‘… but on this occasion my ears were, as they say, pricked.’ He looked at me, his blue eyes steady and clear. ‘And so I’m asking you, Hazlewood, to please observe museum protocol. Each new project must be approved by me, and, if I think fit, by the board. Proper channels must be utilised. Otherwise, chaos reigns. Do you see?’
Didn’t you ever ignore protocol, I wanted to ask, when you were an aesthete at Cambridge? I tried to imagine Houghton in a punt on the Cam, some dark-haired mystery of a boy resting his head on his knee. Did he ever follow through? Or was it merely a flirtation with him, like leftist politics and foreign food? Something to be experimented with at the Varsity and swiftly discarded upon entrance to the real world of adult male employment.
‘Now. We’ll take a walk back, and you can tell me what this portrait thingummy is all about.’
Out in the street, I insisted that Jackie must have got the wrong end of the stick. ‘It’s just an idea at the moment. I haven’t taken any action.’
‘Well, if you have an idea, for Christ’s sake tell me and not the office girl, will you? Damned embarrassing, being wrong-footed by your Miss Butters.’
And then something quite beautiful happened. As we were crossing North Street, the Duchess of Argyle swanned past. And he did look like a swan. Gauzy white neckerchief. Tight-fitting cream jacket and trousers. Shoes the colour of a setting sun, with lipstick to match. My heart gave a big DUM-de, but I needn’t have feared. The Duchess didn’t throw me so much as a glance. I should’ve known the Argyle would never employ the type to scream at you in the street.
Someone hissed, ‘Bloody queer,’ and a few women giggled from the pavement. North Street on a weekday lunchtime is perhaps not the best place to troll. The Duchess is getting older, though – in the stark daylight I could see his crow’s feet – and perhaps doesn’t much care any more. I had a sudden itch to run after him, kiss his hand and tell him he was braver than any soldier, to wear that much make-up in an English seaside town, even if that town did happen to be Brighton.
This appearance silenced Houghton for a few moments, and I expected him to pretend the whole incident hadn’t occurred. He was certainly walking fast, as if to escape the taint of the very air through which the Duchess had just swanned. But then he said, ‘I suppose the fellow can’t help it. But he needn’t be so blatant. What I don’t understand is what one gains from such behaviour. I mean, women are such lovely creatures. It’s degrading to the fairer sex, his sort of carry-on, don’t you think?’ He looked me in the eye, but his own face was clouded with what I can only think was confusion.
Something – perhaps my policeman’s presence at the flat the other night, perhaps pique with Houghton’s attempts to put me in my place, perhaps bravado brought on by the Duchess’s fine example – compelled me to reply: ‘I try not to let it bother me, sir. Not all women are lovely, after all. Some look very like men and no one bats an eyelid at them, do they?’
For the rest of the way back I could feel Houghton searching for a reply. He found none, and we walked into the museum in silence.
Outside my office, Jackie looked up expectantly. I requested a word, almost addressing her as Miss Butters in my annoyance.
She sat in the armchair opposite my desk. I paced about a bit, hating myself for being in this situation. A dressing-down was necessary, I knew. Houghton had done it to me, and now I had to do it to Jackie. Who would Jackie do it to, though? Her dog, perhaps. I once saw her in Queen’s Park, throwing a stick for a cocker spaniel. There was an enormous smile on her face and something unfettered in the way she knelt down to congratulate the creature for bringing the stick to her feet, letting it put its paws on her shoulders and cover every inch of her face with its reaching tongue. She looked almost beautiful in that moment. Free.
I was just clearing my throat when she said, ‘Mr Hazlewood, I’m ever so sorry if I’ve caused any trouble.’
She clutched at the hem of her skirt – she was wearing the lemon ensemble again – pulling it down over her knees and shifting her feet about. ‘It was such a long lunch with Mr Houghton, and I said to myself, that usually means trouble.’ Her eyes were wide. ‘And then I remembered that I’d mentioned your portrait project to Mr Houghton the other day and he looked so strange when I said it … and I wondered if perhaps I’d spoken out of turn?’
I asked her what, exactly, she had told him.
‘Nothing really.’
I sat on the edge of my desk, meaning to smile benevolently down at her and thus appear powerful but essentially unthreatening. But God knows what expression was on my face – utter terror, probably, as I said, ‘You must have said something.’
‘He asked me if you were up to anything new. I think that’s how he put it. But it was just … talking. Sometimes he does ask me things.’
‘He asks you things?’
‘After you’ve gone home. He comes in here and he asks me things.’
‘What kinds of things?’
‘Silly things. You know.’ She batted her eyelids coyly and looked to the floor, but still I failed to grasp her meaning.
‘You know,’ she said again, ‘chit-chat.’
Chit-chat? I wanted to hoot. Houghton does chit-chat? Then it dawned on me. ‘Do you mean to tell me that old Houghton comes in here and flirts with you?’
She gave what can only be described as a giggle. ‘I suppose you could call it that.’
I could see it, all too clearly. Him leaning over her shoulder, fingering her still-damp sheaf of carbon copy. Her taking off those winged specs and breathing all over his hot hands. And it completely wrong-footed me. So much so that I could think of nothing else to say.
There followed a long silence. Then Jackie piped up: ‘It’s nothing serious, Mr Hazlewood. He’s a married man. It’s just a bit of fun.’
‘It doesn’t sound like much fun to me.’
‘Please don’t be cross, Mr Hazlewood. I’m ever so sorry if I’ve caused any trouble.’
‘You haven’t,’ I stated. ‘But I’d rather you didn’t mention the portrait project during your little … chats with Houghton again. It’s at an embryonic stage and there’s no need for anyone else to hear about it yet.’
‘I didn’t tell him much.’
‘Good.’
‘Only that that nice-looking copper dropped by. Nothing else.’
I certainly tried not to flinch. Jackie smoothed down her skirt again. Despite her careful grooming, her nails are bitten to the quick. I stared at these ragged stumps and managed to say, ‘That’s fine. It’s simply best for me to present the project to Mr Houghton when I’m ready.’
‘I understand.’
I told her she could go. At the door she repeated, ‘I understand, Mr Hazlewood. I won’t say anything.’ And she took her leave.
Now, at home, I’m thinking of Michael’s landlady. Mrs Esme Owens, widow. She lived downstairs, asked no questions, knitted endless socks for the poor and, on Fridays, made Michael fish pie, which he swore was delicious. He always said she was the soul of discretion. She’d seen a thing or two in the war, old Esme, and nothing shocked her. In return for his company, she offered her silence. For she must have noticed the frequency of my visits, and speculated on what it was that kept Michael out of the house every Wednesday night.
But I’ve often wondered who wrote those letters to Michael. He said it was no one we’d know, a professional outfit that probably made a good living from blackmailing homosexuals. The first letter was nothing if not to the point: SEEN YOU IN P RODIS WITH RENT. FOR SILENCE SEND FIVE POUNDS BY FRI. The address was a house in West Hove. Our righteous indignation caused us to blunder over there together that Sunday afternoon with no plan, no clue of what we were doing. Once we’d walked past the door a few times we realised the place was utterly empty. It was this emptiness that made me suddenly aware of the seriousness of the situation. This threat was faceless. It was something we couldn’t see, let alone fight. We came home in silence. Although I tried to tell him not to, Michael sent the money. I knew he’d no choice, but felt I should be the voice of dissent. He refused to discuss it any further.
Some weeks later I found another note in his flat, and this time the price of silence had doubled. Within two months of that first letter, Michael had killed himself.
So I do wonder, sometimes, about Mrs Esme Owens and her discretion. At Michael’s funeral she was wearing a very expensive-looking fur stole. And acting rather more distraught than was necessary for a landlady.