‘Oh, well, you could look about a bit. But those small houses are fetching big prices nowadays, and the smaller they are the more they fetch, so to speak.’
Fred Worple laughed.
‘Oh, I’m not set on anything as small as all that. Four or five bedrooms and a couple of sitting-rooms and a nice piece of garden – that’s about the ticket. Used to be plenty of them knocking about in Grove Hill. Mum tells me you’ve moved right up on the top yourself – Hillcrest Road, isn’t it? Nice and breezy up there. How would you like to have me for a neighbour?’
Mr Martin wouldn’t like it at all. He kept his tongue quiet, but his face spoke plainly enough. There was nothing he would like less than to have a shady stepbrother round the corner.
Mr Worple had a hearty laugh at his expression.
‘Not respectable enough for you? You just wait and see! Now what about one of those houses in Belview Road – nice gardens at the back they had. I’m a whale at gardening – you’d be surprised! Someone told me the corner house was going.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Oh, just someone. I walked by and had a look at it from the road, but there isn’t any board up.’
‘Well, there’s someone after it, but the people don’t want to sell.’
Fred Worple whistled.
‘What are they asking?’
‘They don’t want to sell.’
‘Holding out for a bigger price?’
Mr Martin raised his eyebrows.
‘They have had a very good offer, but they won’t sell.’
‘Like to tell me what the offer was?’
‘No.’
‘Would it be three thousand – four – five – six – you don’t mean to say they’ve said no to seven!’
During the little pause after each of the figures he kept those sharp, rather near-set eyes of his watchfully fixed upon his stepbrother’s face. When he reached the final sum, Mr Martin said firmly,
‘I don’t mean to say anything at all.’
‘No, but look here, Bert, it’s absurd. Why on earth would anyone be landing out seven thousand for a house like that? You’re having me on. And as if anyone would refuse! They’d be crackers if they did! Now look here, if you’re not telling me what this other chap has offered you’re not. All I’ve got to say is, whatever it is I’ll go a hundred pounds better. Now what about it?’
Mr Martin looked at him attentively. He hadn’t been drinking, and he appeared to be in earnest. He spoke lightly – well, that had always been Fred’s way, but the hand on his knee was clenched and the knuckles white. Fred was up to something, and whatever it was, the respectable firm of Martin and Steadman wasn’t going to mix or meddle with it. He said so.
‘Look here, Fred, I don’t know what you’re driving at, and I don’t want to. I can’t have two clients bidding against each other for the same house and one of them a family connexion. It’s not the way we do business.’ He didn’t get any farther than that, because Fred had burst out laughing.
‘All right, all right, keep your hair on! I just thought I’d give the old firm a chance, that’s all. Jones down the street will do the job for me if I really want it done.’ He pushed back his chair and got up. ‘Well, it’s been nice seeing you, Bert. You’ll like having me just round the corner, won’t you? So long!’ He went out whistling.
Mr Worple walked down the High Street. It hadn’t really changed. There was a new cinema, and different names over one or two of the shops, but otherwise just the same old spot. A good respectable class of custom and a good respectable class of customer. Not the sort of place where you would expect anything much to happen…
It was at this point that he ran into Ella Harrison.
She was looking into a shop window, and when she turned round, there they were, face to face and near enough to have kissed without so much as taking a forward step. He thought of doing it, but only for a moment. Then he said ‘Ella!’ and she said ‘Fred!’, and there they were, looking at each other. He thought she hadn’t worn at all badly. A fine woman, and one who knew how to make the most of herself. The touched-up hair and bright make-up, the extravagantly cut suit, were very much to his taste.
‘Fred! Where on earth did you spring from?’
He gave her the smile which she had once admired so much. As a matter of fact she admired it still. He had a way of looking right into your eyes… He said,
‘That’s telling!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting my mum like a good boy.’
‘Go on!’
‘Believe it or not, that’s just what I’m doing. Did I never tell you I came from these parts?’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Well, maybe not, but it’s true all the same. I’m respectably connected I am, and that’s something you didn’t know either. Martin & Steadman the house-agents half a dozen doors up – well, Bert Martin is my brother.’
‘Your brother!’ Her voice was shrill with disbelief.
‘Well, step – my mum married his dad. And weren’t we a happy family – I don’t think! Why, I used to work in that dead-alive old office.’
Ella Harrison came to herself with a jerk. They couldn’t stand here in the High Street with the chance of somebody who knew her bumping into them. One of the Miss Pimms for instance – help! And at that very moment whom should she see on the other side of the street and waiting to cross over but Mabel, the eldest and if possible the nosiest of the three. She said quickly,
‘There’s quite a good café at the corner of Sefton Street. Come along and we’ll have a cup of coffee. We can’t talk here.’
Since she had seen Miss Pimm, Miss Pimm had of course seen her. Practically all that the Miss Pimms went down into the High Street for was to see what there was to be seen. They kept an extremely sharp look-out for it and very little escaped them. Mabel’s glance skimming across the road had already taken note of the fact that Mrs Harrison was wearing a new and expensive-looking suit, when she saw her turn round and greet a stranger. She was quite sure that he was a stranger, because nobody in Grove Hill wore the kind of clothes that he was wearing. But not a stranger to Mrs Harrison – oh, no! The way he was looking at her – well, she could only tell her sisters afterwards that she didn’t think it was at all nice. Bold was the way that she would describe it – distinctly bold.
It was just as she had made up her mind on this point that Mabel Pimm had her view interrupted by what amounted to a traffic jam. The bus coming down the hill was discharging its passengers, and a furniture-van which had just turned out of Sefton Street took up nearly all the rest of the road. She couldn’t see the opposite pavement at all. She had been most interested. That fast-looking Mrs Harrison – the Miss Pimms still employed the vocabulary of their youth – and a flashy-looking man standing very close together and engaged in what was obviously an intimate conversation! When she told Nettie and Lily about it afterwards, this was the term that she employed. ‘They were standing much too close together – it really looked as if he might be going to kiss her! Not an elderly man at all, and I suppose some people would have called him good-looking, but not the sort of person one would meet socially! Of course one wouldn’t expect Mrs Harrison to be particular, but there he was, smiling at her in the most intimate manner! And then that wretched van came along, and by the time the road was clear again they had completely disappeared. I thought they might have gone into the Sefton café, so I went in and bought half a dozen scones, but I couldn’t see them. Of course there are those little screened alcoves…’ Ella Harrison and Fred Worple sat in one of the alcoves and sipped their coffee. The Sefton had very good coffee. After the first shock – and frankly it had been a shock – Ella found herself astonishingly pleased to see him again. You don’t always want bits of your past to come bobbing up so to speak out of nowhere, but she had had a bit of a soft spot for Fred. There was a time when she had gone right off the deep end about him, but that was all over and done with. It had been very uncomfortable while it lasted, because they had neither of them had a bean and they both had tempers. There were scenes and recriminations, and a furious parting. It was all a long time ago and the anger had faded out, but the soft spot remained. They were being very comfortable together. He told her she had better forget all about his having called himself Selby, because Worple was his real name – ‘and don’t you forget it, ducks.’ And she told him about getting ill and losing her job in the chorus and running into Jack Harrison down at Brighton, where she was staying with her Aunt Annie.