Looking back over events as she did sometimes in a vague and unanalytical way, Pearl supposed that it had all really begun with the date she made with Ned McCrea. Perhaps the queerest part was that she’d never much cared for Ned; he was red-faced and he sweated; but he’d been on at her some time, and eventually it became easier to say yes than no.
It was the first week in March, and they made up a foursome with her friend Hazel and her fiancé Chris, and it was at Pearl’s own suggestion that they went to the Trad Hall in Redgate because Geoff Houseman and his band were there, and she loved his clarinet playing.
The evening didn’t start off too well because Hazel and Chris were in the middle of a row to begin with, and when they got there they found the hall only supplied coffee and soft drinks, which didn’t please Ned, who loved his beer. He thought Pearl had done it on purpose because the only other time she’d gone out with him he’d got tight and this was another reason why she’d said no to him since. Hazel always told Pearl that she was too choosey about her men but in fact it was a pure accident about there being no licence; it had just never occurred to her to think. You didn’t go to a dance hall to drink.
The Trad Hall was fairly crowded when they got there because Houseman was quite a draw. Pearl had a dance early on with Chris because Hazel had whispered to her would she because dancing with her always put Chris in a good humour and she said he certainly needed it. Chris Coke was heavy going both on the floor and off; Pearl always thought he took himself too seriously, and when he was dancing he twisted his elbows and scowled and moved his tongue against his teeth like a small boy learning to draw. Tonight she did her best with him, but obviously his row with Hazel was still simmering and he hadn’t much thought for anything else.
After that one dance Pearl danced pretty solidly with Ned till about nine-thirty and then the band took a breather. Chris said: ‘I can’t think why we came to a morgue like this. Come out for a quick one with me, Ned, while the girls powder their noses.’ Ned grinned and said: ‘O.K. by me, Chris.’ It was just what he wanted.
As soon as they’d gone Hazel launched into a whole history of the row. ‘Sometimes it’s like walking a tightrope. I can’t put a foot right. I hope he comes back sober.’
‘If it’s like this now, what’s it going to be like after you’re married?’
‘I don’t know, honest I don’t,’ Hazel said, but with a flicker of dislike at the question. ‘Oh, he’ll be all right in a couple of days. He always is.’
‘Maybe it would be better if you stood up to him,’ Pearl said.
‘It’s all very well for you to talk, you can take your pick of half a dozen.’
‘But what a half dozen!’
‘They’re all right, Pearl. Or all right as men go. You’re romantic! You’re a snob! You want a film star or something.’
‘No, I don’t. But I’d like something better than I’ve seen so far.’
They went off to the Ladies. Hazel was an age fiddling with her hair, and when they got back the band had already started again. There was no sign of the two young men.
Pearl began to feel annoyed. Chris was Hazel’s headache, but she didn’t appreciate being left flat by a man called McCrea who had gone off for a drink with an apologetic grin and not even invited her to go with him. And this after all his pestering for a date.
The place where you get coffee and snacks is off the side of the hall, through an arch, with a white painted fretwork fencing that you can sit beside with your sandwiches or lemonade and watch the dancing; or you can when there aren’t too many people standing in the way. The girls had to go round the floor from the Ladies and past this part to get back to where they had been before, and Pearl had noticed two men eyeing them on the way out. Now they eyed them on the way back. Obviously Hazel hadn’t noticed this because when the men came across and asked them to dance she looked quite startled and rather haughty and said, no thank you, I’m sure.
The one who had asked Pearl certainly wasn’t her type, and her impulse was to say the same; but just then Chris and Ned came in at the door and Ned’s face was even redder than usual and you could see he had been putting away just as much as he could in a short time. So she got up and said, thank you, and started to dance with this other man.
Pearl sometimes thought she would have hated to live in the days when people’s idea of dancing was to clutch each other close together and stride about the floor. For one thing it must have been awful to fit your steps in if you were strangers; for another you more or less had to talk, and she was no talker with people she didn’t know; for a third you were too close to look at each other properly. It was a sort of dancing that seemed terribly suggestive to her.
At least he was young, this man who had asked her, early twenties, but small for a man – at least four inches shorter than she was – with a mop of fine dark hair growing luxuriantly and falling like a cock’s comb, and this seemed to help his height. Under it he was awfully good-looking in a rather fierce way. He had very dark eyes, deep set, a fine but sallow skin, a long straight nose, a wolfish, mischievous smile. One eyebrow was divided by a thin scar. Silk shirt, black bootlace tie, light-weight belted jacket, tight check trousers, suede boots. Everything of the finest quality. And he could dance. Not as good as a professional, but he put such life into it. You could hardly see his feet.
When it was over he just said: ‘Thanks,’ and looked at nothing in particular, and Pearl was going to turn away when he said: ‘Like a drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s thirsty work.’
The two young men had stood by the door till the end of the dance; now they were going across to where Hazel was sitting; they hadn’t seen Pearl yet. She said on impulse: ‘All right,’ and went into the refreshment room with him. He ordered two milk shakes and they found a seat and he sucked his drink and eyed her. In the five years since she was fifteen she had got used to looks, so her skin didn’t prickle any more.
‘Pearl,’ he said at last. ‘Smashing name.’
‘Who told you it?’
‘Your friend called you that. Is it for real?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mine’s Godfrey. God for short.’
She smiled politely at the joke and wondered how soon she could leave him. In spite of his fine clothes he wasn’t much class.
‘My surname’s Vosper,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Friedel.’
‘Pearl Friedel. Quite a name. And where d’you live?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Now we’re introduced it’s nice to know.’
‘In Selsdon.’
‘That’s a few miles from here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, a few. Just out of Croydon actually.’
‘I live in a little village on the Thames,’ he said. ‘Called London. North bank nowadays. Moved up in the world, see.’
She said no more but finished her drink. She was not anybody’s easy pick-up and she didn’t want him to have ideas of that sort. As the band began again she could see Ned peering across the floor.
‘Dance this?’ said Godfrey.
‘Thanks, but I have a partner.’
‘That silly gett that kept you waiting? I tell you honest, if it was me in his place I’d never dare. I’d think I was on too good a pitch.’
Expressed more elegantly, this would have been rather along her line of thinking about Ned, so she danced with him again. Even his dancing was a bit common; one couldn’t say how, it just was. Halfway through, Geoff Houseman took the music on his own, and she stopped dancing in the centre of the floor and listened. Godfrey said: ‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’
When it was over she began to dance again, feeling good in the way only a clarinet could make her feel good.
‘Is he a boy friend of yours?’
‘Who?’
‘The guy with the trumpet.’
‘No, I’ve never spoken to him.’
‘Is that other one your boy friend – that one sneering at us over there?’
‘I came with him.’
‘He thinks he owns you.’
By the time they finished they had moved round and were on the far side from Ned. Godfrey held her hand. He had awfully hard hands, hard and bony.
‘You got a regular boy friend?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Not to worry. I expect you’ve got so many queuing up. It’s the pie-faced ones like your girl friend over there who’ve got to snatch at any mug that’s mug enough.’
‘I don’t think she’s pie-faced.’
‘Well, what does she paint her eyebrows up there for? Those bare bumps look as if she’s got tumours.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to like her if you don’t want to,’ Pearl said, amused in spite of herself.
‘Nobody’s asking me to like you, but I can’t help it. Once in a lifetime you get struck that way.’
She got her hand back as Ned came across. One thing about Ned, he was tall, a good six feet. That was one of Pearl’s problems, not to look downwards at a man.
‘How about coming back and joining us again,’ he said sullenly, and without so much as looking at Godfrey. ‘I reckon it’s about time, isn’t it?’
‘Excuse me, I don’t think you’ve met, Pearl said. ‘Mr Ned McCrea, Mr Godfrey Vosper.’
They looked at each other, they never said a word.
‘Well?’ Ned said to her.
‘Tell Hazel I’ll be over in a few minutes.’
‘And what about me?’
‘What about you?’ Pearl said, getting angry and breathless for once in her life.
‘I don’t know if you happen to have forgotten but you came with me.’
‘I think you forgot first!’
‘Look, Pearl—’
‘Look, Jack,’ said Godfrey, ‘ wrap it up. The lady says she’ll come back when she feels like it. O.K., she’ll come back when she feels like it and not before. Now fade.’
Ned turned on him, towering over him. ‘I’ll thank you to keep out of this! When I bring a girl to a dance I don’t expect her to go off with some little twerp who hasn’t even been able to find a girl of his own—’
‘Don’t press your luck,’ said Godfrey looking at him. ‘Run away and play with your toys before you get trod on. You’ve heard what she says! Now – beat it!’
Pearl had only seen a fight once in a dance hall and that was in Streatham; there had been a sudden scuffle, a couple of angry blows, and almost while the men were squaring up again three attendants had appeared as if from nowhere and hustled them – almost thrown them out. It had been done with immense swiftness. She did not want that to happen here. Funny how the heart thumps, quite different from just beating fast when you’re dancing. But thank God just then the band started up again and she began to move slowly in rhythm, and she happened to be opposite Godfrey, so he joined in and Ned was left glowering. After a few seconds when she was afraid he might take Godfrey by the scruff he turned on his heel and stalked off.
So that way the choice was made. She’d never taken up with anybody in this way before. Obviously Ned was in such a flaming temper that nothing but the completest apology would satisfy; and this he was certainly not going to get.
They danced most dances from then on, she and Godfrey. She was taken with his looks, a sort of dark dynamism that made up for his smallness. It was fun to kick over the traces a bit. About eleven Hazel came across and said she had a headache and they were all going. Unfortunately she said it as if she had been bitterly insulted as well as Ned, and this put Pearl out of step.
‘Stay a bit longer,’ said Godfrey to her. ‘We’re just getting in the slot. I’ve got my car outside. I can buzz you home in no time.’
‘Please yourself entirely, I’m sure, Pearl,’ said Hazel. ‘But don’t forget you’re supposed to be in by twelve-thirty.’
That settled it. ‘Thank you. I can find my own way home.’
‘Definitely,’ said Godfrey. ‘I’ll see her safe in, I promise you. Not to worry. She’ll be there.’
You could tell by the way she put her heels down as she walked away that Hazel was annoyed. Pearl hoped it wouldn’t start a feud that would last till their skiing holiday.
‘Not to worry, Oyster,’ said this odd dark small dynamic good-looking wicked-looking man. ‘Little God’ll look after you.’
They stayed through until the Queen, which was at midnight, and then with everybody streaming for the exit Pearl grabbed her coat and Godfrey was waiting for her and they went out to the car park.
This was the awkward part, this being taken home, because different men expected different things, and sometimes men who pick girls up expect a lot; Ned of course would have wanted to paw her about in the back of Chris’s car on the way home, and they would almost certainly have stopped for ten minutes somewhere on the way, but ten minutes would have been all. Actually Pearl was not wild about that sort of thing, although sometimes it was better than others. But usually it simply meant that one’s frock got crumpled and soiled and one often had a bit of a struggle not to let things go too far. It was different, Pearl felt, for those girls who right from the start wanted all they could get; she wasn’t blaming them; only everyone wasn’t made to a pattern and it was hard sometimes to get that point over. On the whole she found it better not to let men make too much progress, because the further they got before you stopped them the more offended they were. Anyway her view was that if she ever needed to start taking the Pill it wasn’t going to be because of a fumbling struggle in the back of a car.
Ned would have known this, and so would Chris. Little Godfrey was the unknown.
Well, you never could tell what the next surprise was going to be, because they picked their way among the cars until Godfrey stopped at a great green monster all shiny and polished and chromium, and he unlocked the doors and said: ‘Hop in the hansom cab. Right. In we get. Tuck in your frills,’ and then he went round to his door. Unbelieving she sank back into a seat like a luxury armchair, and shaded discreet light showed up a glamorous interior with arm-rests and head-rests and a most peculiar central dashboard like the console of an organ; the whole thing could have been the cockpit of a luxury aeroplane.
So he put in his key and the engine whispered and they were suddenly in effortless motion, weaving among the others like a light craft in spite of their size, pushing and edging a way to the front of the queue; then they were out in the road and with sudden tremendous acceleration surged past a line of newly started crawling cars with their exhausts smoking, came to traffic lights and over-shot them as the cross traffic was just finishing. Horns blew, but they were left far behind, and there was just the rushing of air and a faint whispering murmur of power. Pearl felt a sense of pleasure, of exhilaration.
She said: ‘Super car.’
‘Yes. Cost over five and a half thousand. Not a bad bus. It’ll do 140. Six and a quarter litre engine. Pass anything on the road.’
‘Like now.’
‘Like now. You got to have some kick out of motoring, else you might just as well own an old Morris 1000.’
‘That’s what Chris drives!’
‘Who’s Chris?’
‘The other boy. Hazel’s fiancé.’
He laughed. ‘See it. And the face that came with you, the one as thinks he owns you?’
‘Nobody owns me.’
‘That’s right. What does he do?’
‘He’s a radio mechanic.’
‘And drives a little van during the day, eh? Knock, knock, excuse me, Mrs Smith, I’ve come to look at your telly.’
‘It’s honest work.’
‘What isn’t these days?’
She studied his face in the light of a passing car.
‘You must be very rich to have a car like this.’
‘Rich? No, I make do, see. But I’m going to be in the real money soon.’
‘What do you do?’
‘What would you say I did?’
She stared again, this time at his expensive clothes; then she glanced out. ‘Are we on the right road?’
‘No, but it’s easier this way. Should join the Brighton road in a minute, no bull. Cigarette?’
‘Thanks.’
He took one out of the cubby hole and lit it with the cigar lighter in the car. She said: ‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘Don’t smoke. You haven’t guessed yet.’
‘You run a garage.’
‘Ha, ha, clever. No. Try again.’
She said: ‘These are like ladies’ cigarettes. Small and—’
‘That’s right. I keep ’em for ladies.’
They turned out onto a bigger road, swung left, snorted past four cars following two all-night lorries, began to climb a snakey hill.
‘You work for the films.’
‘Wish I did. Mine isn’t easy mun. No, I box.’
‘Box?’
‘Box. That’s why it’s dead lucky for your flabby friend he didn’t start anything.’
Of course as soon as he said it, it seemed the only thing he could have been, but she would never have guessed because of his size.
‘Like to drive?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, heavens, no thanks!’
‘It’s easy on these big jobs. No gears. As much guts as a jet. Watch me put my foot down.’
They surged to the top of the hill, lights staring into the sky, swooped down the other side as if they were flying. There was just the rush of the dark countryside and the snort of the wind.
She said: ‘What are you – middle-weight or what?’
‘You joking?’
‘No. I just don’t know about things like that.’
‘Feather-weight, me. That’s nine stone and under. That’s why they call me Little God. You’ve never seen nothing faster than me. I’m going to the top. You watch me.’
‘You’ll be going to hospital if you drive like this.’
‘Don’t you like it? It turns me on. What’s life about if it’s not taking risks?’
All the same he slowed down, and it was just as well, as they came to a roundabout and swivelled round it with a lurch of the great car. (She was relieved to recognize the road: they were heading in the right direction now.) It all fitted in: his wealth in one so young, the hardness of his hands and arms, the darting way he danced. It was lucky Ned hadn’t hit him. She warmed to Godfrey.
‘What do you do?’ he asked.
‘Oh, not very up-in-the-world. I’m a perfumery adviser at a big London shop.’ She usually said this: it sounded better than ‘selling scent’.
‘You live at home, eh?’
‘Yes. I travel up every day.’
‘Where d’you live?’
‘12, Sevenoaks Avenue. You turn off to the right in a minute.’
‘Like to see me box sometime?’
‘What? Oh, well, I never have—’
‘Come on Wednesday. Next Wednesday, I’m meeting a fat little Mick from Liverpool called Ed Hertz.’
‘I can’t Wednesday. I’m going on holiday on Friday night.’
‘That don’t make sense. What’s wrong with Wednesday?’
‘Well, you know what it’s like: I’ve things to do, pack, get clothes ready – You turn here!’
When he’d turned and she had given him the next direction she thought: there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t. He’s not my type, he’s common, he talks badly, he’s too sure of himself. Champ’s girl friend. Well, really. It doesn’t suit me. The very opposite. People say I’m too quiet, too reserved, too choosey for twenty. Perhaps I am.
‘Where now?’
‘Straight on, and it’s the first on the left. Number 12 is this end on the left-hand side.’
He did as he was told and they stopped outside the house among the other parked cars, and he switched off the engine and put on a low interior light that just showed things dimly, and they looked out at the small but respectable semi-detached.
‘Well, thanks for the dance,’ he said. ‘How about Wednesday, Oyster? I’ll come for you. Bring you back. All luxe. No effort. I’m on early so we needn’t stay to the end if you find it a drag.’
‘Where is it?’ she said. ‘The boxing, I mean.’
‘Walworth. No distance. No problem. I’ll pick you up here 7.30 in the old bus. Eh?’
‘I really mustn’t, Godfrey.’
‘Call me God.’
‘I really mustn’t come. I have so much to do—’
‘Which you can do Thursday just the same …’
There were no lights in the house. She would get a row from Dad if he heard of all this.
‘That’s fixed then,’ said Godfrey, and leaned across and kissed her on a corner of the mouth. ‘Little Oyster. Thanks again.’
‘Thank you for bringing me home,’ she said, surprised and more than a trifle impressed that this apparently was all he expected.
‘Think nothing of it. See you Wednesday. Be my guest. Seven-thirty here?’
‘All right,’ she said.
Then she stood on the pavement and listened to the low pitched well-bred bobble of the exhaust as the car accelerated away.
Frank (formerly Franz) Friedel worked as an accountant for Huntingdons, the great furniture firm, who have their headquarters in Croydon. He was not the chief accountant, and many people had felt – and said – that he could easily have bettered himself by taking work in London. But he had a sense of loyalty to the firm and a sense of belonging to the district in which for thirty years he had made his home. He prized this, this sense of having a root and a home, he who had been rootless under the shadow of Hitler during the formative years of his life. And anyway no one in his home ever lacked for the necessities.
Pearl’s own mother had died when she was eight – she came from Nottingham – and her father had married Rachel a couple of years later and they had two boys and a girl. Rachel was Austrian like Frank, but unlike him her attitudes had been formed before she left. Frank had been careful to adapt, so that his speech was almost accentless and without foreign syntax. The boys, Leslie and Gustave, grew noisier every year and Julia, aged five, was going to be a little tyrant. If Pearl had been the bossy type she could have used her age superiority to keep on top, but somehow it never seemed worth the nagging and the disguised bullying.
A lot of things to Pearl didn’t seem worth the effort. She was not lazy but she was placid. She lived a lot of the time in a quiet private world of her own, and this earned her a reputation for dignity and reserve. But she wasn’t really shy; only a little slow-spoken and latent. She didn’t much care what people thought – or if she did she never said so. She was ill at ease with children because they demanded too much of her. She liked cats but not dogs. She had herself a cat-like love of comfort and of being on her own.
She had joined the D. H. Evans’ rota training scheme at seventeen, so that she could be earning her own keep and be out of the way, but went on living at home because her father would not let her leave. An intelligent man within narrow limits, his liberal English views did not extend to giving girls their freedom while they were still under age. Besides, a certain strictness towards Pearl was evidence of their special relationship: she was the surviving reminder of his first and English wife; more was expected of her than of the others. Pearl got on well enough with Rachel but often wondered why the marriage had happened – not because Rachel was not a good wife but because she did not measure up to his standards.
In spite of Pearl’s being the odd one out, they were a fairly close-knit family, and on Sunday morning she was asked about the dance and had to tell a few lies and hope Hazel and Chris would back her up if need be. Pearl was never very happy at the sun going down on anyone’s wrath, so she made an effort to call and see Hazel that afternoon. It was a frosty meeting to begin, but after a bit they turned to talk of Chris, and Hazel unthawed. The last thing Pearl wanted was a blight over the start of their holiday. But she didn’t mention her date with Godfrey on the Wednesday. Although she longed to talk to somebody about him, afterwards she was glad.
So it was Wednesday, and coming home she had the usual fight to get on a 25 bus, and she just caught the 6.14 from Victoria, and another bus from the station and was in by seven. It didn’t give her much time, but Rachel was busy with her own brood and her father wasn’t back yet, so she just called she would be out to supper and pretended not to hear Rachel’s ‘Where are you going?’
Working at a shop and living at home, she had made enough money to spend what Rachel called ‘ a fortune’ on clothes, and her narrow oak wardrobe overflowed beneath a rail and curtain. She hadn’t an idea what the done thing was at a boxing match, but Walworth sounded pretty sordid. After a lot of lip biting she put on a strawberry pink number of fine wool with a square neck line and a flared short skirt, and took her second best coat.
She had told him not to ring but to wait on the other side of the road, and sure enough by 7.25 the great green car was there, looking a monster among the shabby saloons and the family runabouts. She grabbed her bag and was going to leave, but suddenly remembered his size and kicked off her ordinary shoes and pulled on a pair of black patent leather with flat heels.
‘’Lo, Oyster,’ he said. ‘Wow, you look good. Smashing. Hop in. That’s what I’m going to do tonight.’
‘What?’
‘Smash someone’s face in.’ He laughed. A harsh gasping sound, breath escaping. No mirth. ‘O.K.? Let’s go.’ He started the car and they slid off.
He was in a polo-necked sweater and track trousers. There was a smell in the car of lotion or embrocation. He really was handsome in profile, and you could see a lot of girls would fall for him, and you could see he was used to it.
‘Ought you to have come for me?’ she asked. ‘I mean, shouldn’t you be getting ready or something before …’
‘Oh, definitely. Robins is working up a head of steam because I’m not waiting around. But I’ve checked in, so what? I’ll be back in time.’
‘Who’s Robins?’
‘My manager. He’s a wet fish, a fold, a drop out.’
‘Why do you let him manage you if you think he isn’t good—’
‘Chance is a fine thing, lady. There’s a lot to be learned in the boxing world; and three-fourths of it isn’t to do with boxing at all. Someday I’ll put you hip.’
They talked on the way in, but you could see that half his attention was lacking and that he was tense inside. Not surprising. Fighting and winning was his living, and he obviously made a lot of money out of it and couldn’t afford to slip up.
‘Is feather-weight the lightest weight?’ she asked.
‘Jees, no. There’s bantam and there’s fly. Light-weight’s the next above me. I sometimes take on light-weights. That’s the only time I got stopped.’
‘Stopped?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it someday. Here we are. Just in time.’
They parked the car among a lot of others in the street and walked across to an odd town-hall-like building called Manor Place Baths.
‘I got to leave you now, Oyster. Here’s your ticket. I’ll come and sit next to you soon as I’m through.’
‘Why do you call me Oyster?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ His hand on her elbow was as hard as iron. ‘Here, Terry, look after my girl, will you. I got to buzz. See she’s looked after.’
This big man with great ham hands and a bent nose showed her to her seat, which was three rows from the front. She felt conspicuous, out of her element. It would have been all right with Hazel there or someone to talk to. A biggish hall with seats like cinema seats, but otherwise very bare. In the entrance were tiled corridors and various notices about the baths.
It wasn’t really as sordid as she had expected; the people were fairly ordinary, working class and some better, a sprinkling of ex-pugilists with their profession on their faces. There was one fabulously striking but fabulously common girl with platinum hair and imitation spectacles and a tiny skirt and great boots. Pearl decided to keep her coat on.
The thing started with two bantam-weights who lashed into each other for a couple of rounds and then one went down and was counted out. It was much like you saw on T.V. except that being live it was suddenly real and not on a tube in a box, and therefore different. Godfrey was third on the list. ‘6 (3 min.) rounds Feather-weight Contest at 9 st. between Godfrey Vosper, Kensington and Ed Hertz, Liverpool.’ She was surprised this was in smaller print than two of the others. She wondered if it was anything to do with the weight of the fighters.
But it didn’t seem so because the second contest, which was in even smaller print, was between two heavy-weights who scrambled and mauled for the full eight rounds before the black one won on points.
Then Godfrey came in in a red dressing gown with Little God printed across the middle of the back. He grinned at Pearl and climbed into the ring. The young man he was going to fight had a round pasty face and long fair hair. The M.C. announced the fight, the referee had them together in the middle of the ring and then they both went back to their corners and took off their robes. Because she was below the level of the ring, they did not look particularly small, and Godfrey had a beautiful physique, a creamy olive skin, dark soft hair on his legs, muscles that only showed as he moved. By contrast Hertz looked white and bow legged, squatter, more bunched up.
At the bell they began to go round each other, sparring for an opening; and suddenly one thought he’d found it: there was an explosion of gloves: thump, thump, thump, hands going too fast to see; then it was over and they were circling round each other again. This went on all through the first two rounds: great flurries of violence mixed with sparring and weaving and circling. She couldn’t for the life of her believe that she had anything to do with the small, beautiful, violent young man in the ring, that he had brought her here, or that she’d ever agreed to come. She was excited by it all but not thrilled. She noticed that Godfrey’s left hand kept going out like a piston, and once in every two or three times it caught Hertz on the face, and Hertz’s face was turning red and his nose had a smear of blood at the corner; but it was Hertz who was doing most of the rushing in, and several times he got Godfrey in a corner and there was a set-to before he got out of it.
She couldn’t see his face between rounds except when he turned to spit water into a bucket; but when the third round started there was a change in the tempo. There was less sparring, more toe-to-toe fighting, gloves flailing, and the crowd began to roar. It went on like that for a full minute, and then the man next to Pearl said: ‘’E’s ’ad it!’ Pearl couldn’t see what he meant because there was no change in either of the fighters. And then Godfrey stepped aside from one of Hertz’s rushes and just stood there, his hands half lowered, dancing on his toes, as it were tempting Hertz to come on. Hertz rushed again and Godfrey did just the same again: it must have been maddening, Pearl thought, to hit thin air again and again and just have your opponent dodging and weaving, always near yet always just out of reach. People shouted. Then the gong went and the two men went back to their corners. But the referee followed Hertz to his corner, and after peering at him, walked back to Godfrey and raised Godfrey’s hand. There was both cheering and booing at this. Then the M. C. came on and announced the winner, the referee having ‘stopped the fight at the end of the third round to save Hertz further punishment.’
Catcalls and cheers, and Godfrey raised his hands, while his second put the robe over his shoulders. He hardly looked out of breath.
After that she watched another bout, but near the end of it the big man with the bent nose came behind her and breathed beer on her with the news that Godfrey was waiting outside in the hall.
She slid out and there he was – hair still wet from a shower – in a smart brown leather jacket and a white collar and a maroon tie over a striped silk shirt, and sand-coloured tight line trousers. He took her by the arm – that hard hand again – and again she felt a twinge of disappointment at his smallness, when he had seemed quite big in the ring. Walking to the car he explained how mad he was about the fight. ‘ Ref stopped it when it was all wrapped up. Next round I’d have thrown the whole book at Hertz. Just ready, he was, to be sewn up.’
‘What does it matter?’ she said. ‘If you win, you win. It counts just the same, doesn’t it?’
He handed her in and then went round and slid in beside her. ‘You don’t get it, Oyster. Boxing’s not like needlework. It’s like bull-fighting. You weigh up a man in the first round, see what he’s made of, sum him up, if you’re smart you plan for the next rounds, see. Then you get to work on him like you’ve planned, and when he’s weakened, he’s ready for the kill.’ Godfrey put his hand palm upwards on the steering wheel and slowly clenched it. ‘But just then a lily-livered ref steps in and says, oh dear me no, he’s had quite enough and stops the fight just when you’re getting ready to put him away. Refs, they ruin your life!’
‘But couldn’t you have hit him more in the third round instead of dancing around him?’
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, but it would have been the end of the round! I wanted another three whole minutes before I laid him out for keeps!’
Pearl shivered. He patted her hand. ‘Now, come on now, didn’t it give you a lift deep down? Didn’t it turn you on?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes. But it’s a bit brutal, isn’t it. I mean …’
‘Life is brutal. I’m brutal. So what?’ He dabbed at his lip. ‘ Is it swelling? Jees, I’m out of condition. I only did a week’s training for this one. But mind, I run a lot. Every morning you see me padding it round the squares.’
They went to an expensive restaurant in Chelsea, a better one than Pearl had been in before. She drank a glass of wine but he would only have Coca-Cola. He ate badly and while he ate his mop of black hair slowly dried and seemed to rise into a comb over his forehead of its own vitality. His handsome dark eyes were always admiring, and something more. She got a tingling feeling in her spine. When they had finished he pulled a crumpled wad of notes out of his pocket and signalled the moustached waiter to bring the bill. It was nearly six pounds, and he gave the waiter a pound tip.
‘Do you fight often?’ she asked.
‘Not like I want to. That’s my crummy manager’s fault: if he got around a bit more. Sometimes I do sparring as well; mind, punching up with a top notcher you learn things, but you only get two quid a round; it’s not cushy.’
‘But tonight.’ She pointed at the roll of crumpled notes he was stuffing in his back pocket. ‘Is that what you earned tonight?’
‘What? This? Yes. Fifty quid. It’s not bad for fifteen minutes, is it? Of course, there’s the real money higher up.’
She frowned her perplexity. ‘But you must fight quite often. Or else, how can you afford such a super car?’
He laughed that gasping, breath-escaping laugh. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
They went out to the car.
‘Home now?’
‘Yes, please.’
It was a mild muggy night but she snuggled back pleasantly into the luxury interior.
‘Do you have some other job as well?’ she asked.
‘You got the idea. Bright girl.’
He switched on the light and twisted the mirror to look at himself. ‘ It is swelling a bit. Nothing else though, is there, wouldn’t know I’d been in a ring, would you. That’s the way of it: the real smart lads never even get marked.’
‘What else do you do, Godfrey?’
‘What’ll you give me if I tell you?’
‘Oh, that’s an old game.’
‘No worse for being old, is it?’
‘Is this your car?’ she asked. ‘ You know, I mean …’
‘What’s the odds if it wasn’t? I got it quite legit. It’s mine to use when I want to. Little God’s honour.’
‘Of course,’ she said quickly. ‘Sorry I asked. It’s not my business.’
‘Could be, Oyster. Leather pushing’s what I like doing and I promise you I’m on the up and up. Soon as I get a break I’ll be in the big money. A man can make fifteen, twenty thousand in no time. Since I saw you last Saturday I thought about you a lot.’
‘But you must be in the big money now in something. The way you dress, the way you spend …’
He said: ‘ I tell you I think a lot about you. That mean anything? How’d you like to be my regular girl?’
She opened the cubby hole, just for something to do, but the cigarettes weren’t there. ‘I’m not sure I want to be anyone’s regular girl yet.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Nearly twenty.’
‘I’m twenty-two. Why not? I mean, why don’t you want to be anybody’s regular girl?’
‘It’s just – well, it’s just the way I feel.’
‘Want a cigarette?’
‘I have one in my bag, thanks.’
‘You’re a bit special for me, Oyster. I could do things for you.’
She managed to get the cigar lighter to work. It glowed a red end and she tasted the cigarette smoke.
‘How about meeting next week?’
‘I’m going ski-ing.’
He blew out a breath of disgust. ‘Stone me. Going with that Ned McCrea, I suppose.’
‘No, I’m going with Hazel and Chris. We’re in a party.’
‘When you come back?’
‘Yes … Yes, thanks, I’d like to. But – you’re a mystery man.’
He sighed in resignation, switched off the light, drove away. They wandered for fifteen or twenty minutes through the lighted car-choked suburbs of south London. He drove in fits and starts, would overtake a bunch of cars and bully his way to the front, provoking headlamp flashings of protest, then dawdle along a piece of road as if he were killing time or did not know the way. All evening he had been more tensed up than at their first meeting; this tenseness had not evaporated with the fight. He was still a coiled spring, impressive, dangerous.
‘Mystery man,’ he said, ten minutes after she had used the phrase, as if it had been rankling all the time. ‘What’s the mystery except you don’t know where all the folding comes from? Typical woman. Don’t be a typical woman.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You’re not typical. You’re the tops. See? What d’you want to know that’ll make you happy?’
‘Nothing. Honestly. It doesn’t matter. I only thought you lived from boxing or something like that.’
‘Who does? Maybe the first two in any ranking list. The rest … well, the rest work part time. Anything wrong with that?’
‘No, nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
‘I’m not a jewel thief, if that’s what’s worrying you. Wish I was.’
‘Nothing’s worrying me, Godfrey.’ But that sort of thought had occurred to her.
They drove on a long way in silence.
‘I could do things with you as well,’ he said. ‘As well as for you. With you, see.’
They were going across some open country, almost the first country they had found.
‘What time is it?’
‘Half ten.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Near Keston. You’re nearly home. You don’t trust me far, do you?’
‘I was only wondering.’ She felt depressed, let down. What had seemed like the beginning of an adventure was suddenly down to earth, tatty, rather sordid.
‘That ref,’ he muttered. ‘I’d like to flatten that ref, knock him on his poop. Crummy old woman.’
They turned off the main road and bumped along a muddy lane. He drew in and stopped under some trees. For the last half hour she had been hoping this wouldn’t happen but knowing it almost certainly would. He put his arm behind her along the seat and looked closely into her face. He still smelt of the ring, a sort of carbolic and resin and Vaseline smell. It was quite dark here but she could see the glow of his eyes. He bent over and began to kiss her.
You could feel the slight lump on the side of his lip where it was swollen, but it didn’t seem to trouble him. After a bit the kisses became more sexy. ‘Look, can you get your coat off. Just as a start, like.’
‘Let’s make a date,’ she said, ‘ for when I come home. I’m only away two weeks.’
‘Right. Correct. Agreed. But tonight’s tonight. Tomorrow, what say, we might both fall under a bus.’ He started unbuttoning the top of her frock. She pushed his hands sharply away. It was more an impulse than anything – an instinctive reaction in which there was a twist of fear. If he had been one of half a dozen other men whom she would have expected to try this, she would have managed it much more tactfully.
He sat back and ran a hand through his flowering head of black hair. ‘Little Oyster. You’re fabulous. You send me, you really do. Where’s the pearl? I’ve got to open the shell.’
He tried to slip her frock off her shoulders but the coat got in the way and it only slid back a bit. Then he changed direction and put his hand on her knees and ran them up inside her skirts.
She brought her knees quickly together and twisted away to get out of the car. She couldn’t find the handle and scraped with her fingers all over the door. He sat back again gasping, and she realized he was laughing. His extraordinarily unattractive laugh seemed very out of place just then. She stopped fumbling along the door, feeling a fool but short of breath all the same, scared.
‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘You must know what it’s all about. There’s no need to be shy.’
‘Did you steal this car?’ she said.
‘Suspicious little oyster. No, I didn’t, see. It belongs to an aunt. I work for her. She’s got plenty. I borrow her car when I want to. Right? I’ll take you round to meet her next time if you like, just to prove it.’
They were off the main road by a quarter of a mile: you could see the lights of cars passing. The night was hazy and the headlamps looked like searchlights. They were at the edge of a copse – low trees and the like.
He said: ‘O.K., O.K. You’ll not be happy till you know, will you. Not happy. Part time I work for an old girl as her chauffeur. She’s not my aunt. That’s all. That’s all the diff. She likes me so she lends me her car. Any time I want it. That way and leather pushing I get by. Like I said. Money it’s no problem. I make enough to get by. But any time now I’ll be in the big money. See the way I wrapped up that Mick tonight. In a few months now I’ll be a big wheel. Just that. Little God’s honour. So now you know. Satisfied?’
‘Thanks. Yes, I wondered.’
‘So now you know.’
‘Yes.’
‘That makes a difference?’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, now, it don’t need spelling out. Look, – these seats lean back. You just wind ’em.’
‘I’m sorry, Godfrey. It’s just that—’
He patted her hand. ‘Only take ten minutes. You won’t come to no harm, even if you’re not fixed up. Little God’s honour.’
She sighed and wished her voice was easier, more assured. ‘Sorry.’
‘What’s wrong? Not that corny old story. Or do I smell bad?’
‘No, of course not. It’s difficult to explain.’
‘Try me. Don’t be so scared.’
She didn’t answer because she felt that whatever she said he would misunderstand. It’s not always the moral thing that makes one moral. How can you claim to have a sense of dignity, a sense of privacy, of at least a little personal importance? How can you say that without inviting hoots of laughter? Pearl never could stand men who waded in, who seemed to think they owned you. But for heaven’s sake, she’d dealt with this before. What was the difference between him and others?
He offered her another cigarette and she took it though she didn’t really want it. He used his lighter this time on purpose and the lighter showed up her pure skin and clear features. It showed up too the intentness, the uncomprehending intentness of his own look.
They smoked in silence. She was anxious only for him to start the car, to move on, but she did not say so. She told herself that he had been nice to her, he had spent hard earned money on her, and he expected what he normally got. Although he was only twenty-two, she felt she might be dealing with a man ten years older than that. Although she had in a sense been invited out under false pretences – and this irked – she could not show him this or he would think her a gold digger and a snob.
At last. ‘Is that the time?’ she asked, pointing to the clock.
‘Yes. O.K., not to worry. Just one last good-night kiss, eh?’
So they kissed a few times more, and that was all right. It was less predatory than last time and she quite enjoyed it. But suddenly his hand slipped quietly under her skirt and began tugging at the elastic at the top of her tights. It was fantastic because it was so expert, she couldn’t have done it quicker herself. She fought his hands away and they came back. For about two minutes they had a terrible sexy struggle: he seemed to have four hands and they were everywhere at once. She began to scream.
That stopped him, but one hand came up to her throat and clamped hard on it so that she choked. ‘Hi! you’ll have somebody coming!’
She clutched at his hand. ‘Let go! You’re choking me!’
He eased his grip but did not move it. ‘That’s a stupid piece of jazz. Lay off it, Oyster. If somebody heard you—’
‘I swear if you lay hands on me again—’
‘And if you scream again, what about that? What about that?’ His fingers tightened again and then relaxed. ‘Grip, grip, and you wouldn’t scream no more. I won’t stand for you trying to get me into trouble deliberate. Little God wouldn’t stand for that.’
Panic kept coming in great waves. ‘Let me go.’
‘All right, all right. But there’s got to be fair play, like in the ring. Screaming’s not fair play. You could get me in the nick for that. They’d say I’d done things to you.’
Not so far away a car’s headlights swung across the sky. The car came nearer, passed the end of the lane, lights like radar beams that didn’t quite reach.
He was stroking her neck now, smoothing her down. ‘You came out with me willing enough. It beats me what you expected … Jees, you’re all right. Super neck, like a – like an urn. And as cold as ice, eh?’
‘Will you drive me home, or shall I get out and walk?’
‘Look, I got a proposition. There’s three rugs in the boot. What say we get out and sit down among those trees for a bit? Nothing serious if you don’t want it. I promise …’
She knew then with the most awful certainty that she was in real danger. Her heart was bumping like a car wheel with a puncture.
‘I promise. Don’t you believe me? Look, I’m in a way about you. I want to be friends next time. I won’t bite. I don’t make girls do things!’
‘Yes, but you—’
‘Think this is ordinary with me? Well, it’s not. I’m dead gone on you. I’ll only hug you a bit if that’s what you say. I want you to be my girl. I’ll buy you things, give you things. I want to show you off to people. I’ll be good.’
‘You promise?’
‘Promise? I don’t promise, I swear. You can trust Little God. He won’t let you down.’
‘It’ll be cold outside.’
‘Not on your life! Not wrapped in a rug.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But—’
‘Good girl. Good little Oyster. Little God’s a man of his word. You’ll see.’
He leaned over and found the door catch she had been unable to locate. While doing this he pressed his cheek against hers. Then he turned to get out. Before he could open his door she had slipped out and was running down the lane.
She heard him shout, then she heard him laugh, and he suddenly switched his powerful headlights on, and there she was, her flying shadow leaping about like a scarecrow strangled on a wire. She had never run so fast in her life, didn’t know she could. Then she heard the car door slam and he was running after her.
In the struggle one leg of her tights had been ripped away from the top, and this rolled down and nearly tripped her. Then she turned her ankle on a stone and caught at a branch of a tree, anything to be out of this light; soon his shadow would be stretching out to reach her. A gate and she scrambled over it somehow, skirt tearing, into a field. The field was bare, no corn, ploughed or something; heavy going; he would catch her, no escape. More trees on the left. She angled for them and lunged over the second gate.
Dark in the undergrowth, lungs fit to burst, a ditch; she fell into it anywhere; it was dry; brambles scratched then closed over her.
He came panting up. He was half laughing, half cursing. She couldn’t understand him: they might have been playing lovers’ hide and seek if it had not been for her certainty that they were not. Perhaps he’d be laughing when he raped you. He was close by somewhere now listening. She put her hand over her mouth trying to filter air in silently, breath she had to have to live.
‘Oyster,’ he said cautiously, and his voice shattered her it was so close – could he see her? ‘I know you’re here, so be a nice chickie and call it a day. I’ll not lay a glove on you if you do. Take you straight home. Little God’s honour. It was all a lark, wasn’t it, so let’s go.’
No answer from her.
‘It was all a lark, see; but if you keep me hanging around I may get cross. So come out now. It won’t make no diff. I’ll hang on here till midnight.’
Pearl was not really the praying sort, but when you’re in a real panic the words come. ‘Dear God …’ And then she stopped because it seemed as if he had stolen the name and she was praying to him. ‘ Christ … Christ help me. Jesus Christ help me.’ Because, whatever calmer thought might come later, she was certain then with an inner conviction that if he caught her he would rape her. And if she struggled he would strangle her as well.
He moved a bit away. He obviously had no torch, otherwise he would have seen her at once. But the car lights weren’t far away. They wouldn’t last for ever, if he didn’t go back soon he would have a flat battery.
He stumbled over something and cursed, and he must have disturbed a bird because there was a frightened fluttering.
‘Oyster,’ he called, and began to come back. ‘I know you’re near by. I can wait. I’m not in all that hurry. I’ll fix you yet.’
As his eyes grew used to the dark he would see her, her coat was dark but her face was white and one of her legs was white and she didn’t dare move to draw it up under her.
He went away again. That is, his footsteps moved away, but on the soft earth you soon lost the sound of them and you couldn’t tell how far. Complete silence. She was lying just as she had fallen, and there was a branch digging in her shoulder. Something began to crawl over her bare knee. It was a snail. She groped round the shell, got it and pulled it off; the thing had a horrible suction on her skin. She dropped it away, and the shell made a rattle among the branches.
‘That you, Oyster?’ he said, still close.
Another bird fluttered and flew away.
He went right past. ‘Now come on, chickie, enough’s enough. I’m getting razzed. If you don’t come out now you can walk home – and it’s five miles or more – I’m going to wrap for the night. Jees, d’you think I want you now? I’ve gone right off, I can tell you that! Not me. I’d sooner have an honest tart any day!’
He was still fuming as he went out of earshot, back the way he had come. A car started and then it seemed to die away. But she wasn’t absolutely certain, and long after it had gone she lay where she was, only shifting her shoulder to get away from that branch.
She began to count. She thought, when I get to 1000 I’ll move on. I’ll go then. I’ll be safe. I’ll wave a car down on the main road and … When I get to 1000. But it took too long and she was too cold. At 241 she lost count and jumped to 750. It seemed as if she couldn’t lie there a minute longer.
And then suddenly his voice shouted at her close by: ‘ Well, chickie, I hope you rot in your ditch and get pneumonia! But remember, there’ll be a next time. Don’t you worry, I know where you live. There’ll be a next time!’
A rough crackling in the undergrowth and she heard him move off. Almost at once she scrambled out of the ditch and knelt on the dry soil listening. And this time she heard him start the engine and the lights moved as he backed and turned. When the lights were pointing the other way she stood up and watched them flicker off down the lane and turn into the main road and flash eastwards. She ran across the field in the other direction looking for another road.