A Gun for Sale

       The landlady stuck her head in at the door and said, 'It's your gentleman. On the 'phone.'

       'On the 'phone?'

       'Yes,' the landlady said, sidling in for a good chat, 'he sounded all of a jump. Impatient, I should say. Half barked my head off when I wished him good evening.'

       'Oh,' she said despairingly, 'it's only his way. You mustn't mind him.'

       'He's going to call off the evening, I suppose,' the landlady said. 'It's always the same. You girls who go travelling round never get a square deal. You said Dick Whittington, didn't you?'

       'No, no, Aladdin.'

       She pelted down the stairs. She didn't care a damn who saw her hurry. She said, 'Is that you, darling?' There was always something wrong with their telephone. She could hear his voice so hoarsely vibrating against her ear she could hardly realize it was his. He said, 'You've been ages. This is a public call-box. I've put in my last pennies. Listen, Anne, I can't be with you. I'm sorry. It's work. We're on to the man in that safe robbery I told you about. I shall be out all night on it. We've traced one of the notes.' His voice beat excitedly against her ear.

       She said, 'Oh, that's fine, darling. I know you wanted...' but she couldn't keep it up. 'Jimmy,' she said, 'I shan't be seeing you again. For weeks.'

       He said, 'It's tough, I know. I'd been thinking... Listen. You'd better not catch that early train, what's the point? There isn't a nine o'clock. I've been looking them up.'

       'I know. I just said...'

       'You'd better go to-night. Then you can get a rest before rehearsals. Midnight from Euston.'

       'But I haven't packed...'

       He took no notice. It was his favourite occupation planning things, making decisions. He said, 'If I'm near the station, I'll try...'

       'Your two minutes up.'

       He said, 'Oh hell, I've no coppers. Darling, I love you.'

       She struggled to bring it out herself, but his name stood in the way, impeded her tongue. She could never bring it out without hesitation—'Ji—' The line went dead on her. She thought bitterly: he oughtn't to go out without coppers. She thought: it's not right, cutting off a detective like that. Then she went back up the stairs; she wasn't crying; it was just as if somebody had died and left her alone and scared, scared of the new faces and the new job, the harsh provincial jokes, the fellows who were fresh, scared of herself, scared of not being able to remember clearly how good it was to be loved.

       The landlady said, 'I just thought so. Why not come down and have a cup of tea and a good chat? It does you good to talk. Really good. A doctor said to me once it clears the lungs. Stands to reason, don't it? You can't help getting dust up and a good talk blows it out. I wouldn't bother to pack yet. There's hours and hours. My old man would never of died if he'd talked more. Stands to reason. It was something poisonous in his throat cut him off in his prime. If he'd talked more he'd have blown it out. It's better than spitting.'

5

The crime reporter couldn't make himself heard. He kept on trying to say to the chief reporter, 'I've got some stuff on that safe robbery.'

       The chief reporter had had too much to drink. They'd all had too much to drink. He said, 'You can go home and read The Decline and Fall...'

       The crime reporter was a young earnest man who didn't drink and didn't smoke; it shocked him when someone was sick in one of the telephone-boxes. He shouted at the top of his voice: 'They've traced one of the notes.'

       'Write it down, write it down, old boy,' the chief reporter said, 'and then smoke it.'

       'The man escaped—held up a girl—it's a terribly good story,' the earnest young man said. He had an Oxford accent; that was why they had made him crime reporter; it was the newseditor's joke.

       'Go home and read Gibbon.'

       The earnest young man caught hold of someone's sleeve. 'What's the matter? Are you all crazy? Isn't there going to be any paper or what?'

       'War in forty-eight hours,' somebody bellowed at him.

       'But this is a wonderful story I've got. He held up a girl and an old man, climbed out of a window...'

       'Go home. There won't be any room for it.'

       'They've killed the annual report of the Kensington Kitten Club.'

       'No Round the Shops.'

       'They've made the Limehouse Fire a News in Brief.'

       'Go home and read Gibbon.'

       'He got clean away with a policeman watching the front door. The Flying Squad's out. He's armed. The police are taking revolvers. It's a lovely story.'

       The chief reporter said, 'Armed! Go away and put your head in a glass of milk. We'll all be armed in a day or two. They've published their evidence. It's clear as daylight a Serb shot him. Italy's supporting the ultimatum. They've got forty-eight hours to climb down. If you want to buy armament shares hurry and make your fortune.'

       'You'll be in the army this day week,' somebody said.

       'Oh no,' the young man said, 'no, I won't be that. You see I'm a pacifist.'

       The man who was sick in the telephone-box said, 'I'm going home. There wouldn't be any room in the paper if the Bank of England was blown up.'

       A little thin piping voice said, 'My copy's going in.'

       'I tell you there isn't any room.'

       'There'll be room for mine. Gas Masks for All. Special Air Raid Practices for Civilians in every town of more than fifty thousand inhabitants.' He giggled.

       'The funny thing is—it's—it's—' but nobody ever heard what it was: a boy opened the door and flung them in a pull of the middle page: damp letters on a damp grey sheet; the headlines came off on the hands: 'Yugoslavia Asks for Time. Adriatic Fleet at War Stations. Paris Rioters Break into Italian Embassy.' Everyone was suddenly quite quiet as an aeroplane went by; driving low overhead through the dark, heading south, a scarlet tail-lamp, pale transparent wings in the moonlight. They watched it through the great glass ceiling, and suddenly nobody wanted to have another drink.

       The chief reporter said, 'I'm tired. I'm going to bed.'

       'Shall I follow up this story?' the crime reporter asked.

       'If it'll make you happy, but That's the only news from now on.'

       They stared up at the glass ceiling, the moon, the empty sky.

6

The station clock marked three minutes to midnight. The ticket collector at the barrier said, 'There's room in the front.'

       'A friend's seeing me off,' Anne Crowder said. 'Can't I get in at this end and go up front when we start?'

       'They've locked the doors.'

       She looked desperately past him. They were turning out the lights in the buffet; no more trains from that platform. 'You'll have to hurry, miss.'

       The poster of an evening paper caught her eye and as she ran down the train, looking back as often as she was able, she couldn't help remembering that war might be declared before they met again. He would go to it; he always did what other people did, she told herself with irritation, although she knew it was his reliability she loved. She wouldn't have loved him if he'd been eccentric, had his own opinions about things; she lived too closely to thwarted genius, to second touring company actresses who thought they ought to be Cochran stars, to admire difference. She wanted her man to be ordinary, she wanted to be able to know what he'd say next.