London was a misty grey with scarlet trimmings, and Grant looked at it with affection. Army nurses used to have that rig-out; that grey and scarlet. And in some ways London gave one the same sense of grace and power that went with that Sister’s uniform. The dignity, the underlying kindness beneath the surface indifference, the respect-worthiness that compensated for the lack of pretty frills. He watched the red buses making the grey day beautiful, and blessed them. What a happy thing it was that London buses should be scarlet. In Scotland the buses were painted that most miserable of all colours: blue. A colour so miserable that it was a synonym for depression. But the English, God bless them, had had gayer ideas.
He found Mrs Tinker turning out the spare bedroom. There was not the slightest need for anyone to turn out the spare bedroom, but Mrs Tinker obtained the same pleasure from turning out a room that other people get from writing a symphony, or winning a cup at golf, or swimming the Channel. She belonged to that numerous species once succinctly described by Laura as ‘the kind of woman who washes her front doorstep every day and her own hair every six weeks’.
She came to the door of the spare bedroom when she heard the key in the lock, and said: ‘Well, now! And not a bite in the house! Why didn’t you let me know you was comin’ back from foreign parts before your time?’
‘It’s all right, Tink. I don’t want a meal anyhow. I’ve just looked in to leave my luggage. Get in something and leave it for me when you go, so that there is something for me to eat tonight.’
Mrs Tinker went home every night, partly because she had to see to the evening meal of someone she referred to as ‘Tinker’, and partly because Grant had always liked to have the flat to himself in the evenings. Grant had never seen ‘Tinker’, and Mrs Tinker’s only connection with him seemed to consist of this matter of an evening meal and some marriage lines. Her real life and interest was in 19 Tenby Court, S.W.1.
‘Any telephones?’ Grant asked, thumbing through the telephone pad.
‘Miss Hallard telephoned to say ring her up and dine with her as soon as you were back.’
‘Oh. Did the new play go well? What were the notices like?’
‘Stinkers.’
‘All of them?’
‘Every one I seen, anyway.’
In the days of her freedom, before Tinker, Mrs Tinker had been a theatre dresser. Indeed, if it had not been for this ritual of the evening meal it was likely that she would still be dressing someone each evening in W.1 or W.C.2 instead of turning out spare bedrooms in S.W.1. Her interest in theatre matters was therefore that of an initiate.
‘Have you seen the play?’
‘Not me. It’s one of them plays what means something else. You know. She keeps a china dog on the mantelpiece, but it isn’t a china dog at all, it’s ’er ex-husband, and ’e breaks the dog, the new boy-friend does, and she goes mad. Not gets mad, you know; goes mad. ‘Ighbrow. But I suppose if you want to be a Dame you got to act ’ighbrow plays. What was you thinkin’ of ’avin’ for your supper?’
‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘I could leave a nice bit of fish poachin’ over some hot water for you.’
‘Not fish, if you love me. I’ve eaten enough fish in the last month to last me a lifetime. As long as it isn’t fish or mutton I don’t mind what it is.’
‘Well, it’s too late now to get any kidneys out of Mr Bridges, but I’ll see what I can do. You ’ad a good ‘oliday?’
‘A wonderful, wonderful holiday.’
‘That’s good. You bin and put on a little weight, I’m glad to see. And you needn’t slap your stomach in that doubtful way neither. A little bit of weight never ’urt no one. It don’t do to be as thin as a rail. You don’t ’ave no reserves.’
She hung around while Grant changed into his best town suit, doling out bits of gossip as they happened to occur to her. Then he shooed her back to her piece of self-indulgence with the spare bedroom, dealt with the small businesses that had piled up in his absence, and went out into the calm of the early April evening. He went round to the garage, answered questions about his fishing, listened to three fishing stories that he had listened to before he set out for the Highlands a month ago, and reclaimed the little two-seater that he used when on his own business.
Number 5 Britt Lane took some finding. In this huddle of old houses all kinds of adaptation and conditioning had taken place. Stables had become cottages, kitchen wings had become houses, odd storeys had become maisonettes. Number 5 Britt Lane seemed to be just a number on a gate. The gate was in a brick wall, and its iron-studded oak seemed to Grant a little affected in so unpretentious a stretch of ordinary London brick. However, it was solid and in itself unexceptional, and it opened easily when asked to. It opened on to what had been a kitchen yard when Number 5 had been merely the back wing of a house in another street altogether. Now the yard was a small paved court with a fountain playing in the middle of it, and the one-time wing was a small flat stucco house of three storeys, painted cream with green window-sashes. As Grant crossed the little court to the doorway he noticed that the paving was of tiles, some of them old and many of them beautiful. The fountain too was beautiful. He mentally applauded Heron Lloyd for not having replaced the plain London electric bell-push by some more aesthetic piece of fancy-work; it augured a good taste that the inappropriate gate had left open to question.
The interior of the house, too, had the Arab bareness and space without any suggestion that a piece of the East had been transported to London. Beyond the figure of the manservant who answered his ring, he could see the clean walls and the rich carpet; an idiom adapted, not a décor transposed. His respect for Heron Lloyd mounted.
The manservant appeared to be Arab; an Arab of the towns, plumpish, lively-eyed and good-mannered. He listened to Grant’s inquiry and asked in a gentle too-correct English if he had an appointment. Grant said no, but that he would not detain Mr Lloyd more than a moment. Mr Lloyd could be of some help in giving information connected with Arabia.
‘If you will come in, please, and wait for a moment, I ask.’
He ushered Grant into a tiny room just inside the front door which, judging from its limited space and scanty furnishing, was used for just this purpose of waiting. He supposed that someone like Heron Lloyd must be used to strangers appearing on his doorstep to claim his interest or help. Even perhaps just to ask for his autograph. A realisation that made his own intrusion less deplorable.
Mr Lloyd had not debated his desirability very long, it seemed, for the man was back in a few moments.
‘Will you come, please? Mr Lloyd will be very happy to see you.’
A formula, but such a pleasant formula. How good manners did cushion life, he thought as he followed the man up the narrow stairs and into the big room that occupied the whole of the first floor.
‘Mr Grant, hadji,’ said the man, standing aside to let him come. Grant caught the word and thought: That is the first piece of chi-chi: Englishmen don’t make the pilgrimage to Mecca, surely.
Watching Heron Lloyd as he was made welcome, Grant wondered whether he had first thought of going to desert Arabia because he looked like a desert Arab, or whether he had come to look like a desert Arab after years in desert Arabia. Lloyd was the Arab of the desert idealised to the nth. He was, Grant thought with amusement, the Arab of the circulating libraries. It was across the saddle of Arabs like Heron Lloyd that blameless matrons in the Crescents and Drives and Avenues had been carried off to a fate worse than death. The black eyes, the lean brown face, the white teeth, the whip-lash body, the delicate hands, the graceful movements: it was all there, straight out of Page Seventeen of Miss Tilly Tally’s latest (two hundred and fifty-four thousand, new printing next week). Grant had to remind himself forcibly that he must not judge on looks.