“One moment!”
He took out his pocket-book, extracted a pound note, then said:
“You’d better take this. I cannot have my favourite daughter wandering about with only half a crown.”
Drina took the note, kissed him, then I went to the front door with her.
Directly we were out of earshot, she said.
“You know. I’m awfully worried about one thing, and it’s this: Mervyn must have had no end out of you already. You won’t get a ha’penny back. You know that, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter. For the time being. I’ve more money than I need. Anyhow, it was essential for me to have Mervyn here. I can’t explain—yet—but it’s a fact. No one else could have done for me what he’s done. I owe Mervyn more than he owes me.”
Then I added:
“I admit it shook me a bit that he couldn’t face up to your problem. But I’ve known him do things for some people which only he could have done. You don’t know how to place Mervyn. By all ordinary standards, of course, he’s no good—but I’m not particularly interested in ordinary standards. Anyhow, I come back to one fact, and that is: he’s the only person who could have got me through the last few weeks.”
“It’s grand to hear you say that. I’m awfully fond of him—I always have been. He used to tell me all sorts of things, which would have made mama faint, even when I was a child. Perhaps I am a little like him. He says I have his social flair.”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“But you’re the only person I’ve ever met who feels about him as I do. Fancy letting Mervyn go to the war! Just criminal! Anyhow, what I’m always telling them at home is that, if he weren’t as he is, he’d be something worse. Something much worse.”
“There’s no doubt whatever about that. It’s been a close call for Mervyn—and it still is. He lives on a hair-line. Only those will understand him who have been on a hairline themselves.”
We went down to the main entrance.
“I bet you, Drina, he’ll do a marvellous job with that room. He’ll give it all he’s got—and all he can borrow. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself at tea-time to-morrow.”
When I returned to the sitting-room, I found Mervyn leaning against the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette. He regarded me with an abstract philosophical expression for some moments, then said:
“I say, Max! it must be an heroic spirit who is coming to this earth, via Drina. It will probably be born just as the war ends—and the peace-loving nations start squaring up to one another. Yes, an heroic spirit!”
Pause.
“I suppose this means I shall be a grandfather, doesn’t it?”
“That’s certain.”
He remained silent so long that I was wondering if a sense of responsibility had stirred in him—when he suddenly asked:
“Is there a government grant of any kind for grandfathers?”
Chapter Five
AN ARREST
At an early hour the next morning it became clear that Mervyn intended to implement his promise to transform the little room for Drina. By eight o’clock it was empty, its contents having been housed in Carshalton’s flat, which had “enough spare space to open a roller skating-rink.”
By eight-thirty the “decorative Mrs. Dalrymple”—to whom Mervyn described the Drina situation in minute detail—was flitting from our flat to hers, then back again, with a tape measure in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. When the room’s possibilities had been fully explored, an expert conversation ensued as to which pieces of Mrs. Dalrymple’s furniture could be most effectively installed.
At nine o’clock I decided to go out to breakfast—and to stay out till Drina arrived.
It was still extremely cold. I bought a paper—saw that the Russian offensive continued unchecked—then went to a restaurant near Charing Cross and joined the breakfast queue.
Twenty minutes later I managed to get a seat at a table where a ginger-haired man had propped his newspaper against the tea-pot and was reading it while eating a dismal yellow substance which bore a ghostly and ghastly resemblance to scrambled eggs.
Despite these dual activities, this forceful-looking individual performed a duet of curses regarding the news in the paper and the food on his plate. I did not know whether this duet was intended for conversation, or whether it was a broadcast to humanity as a whole, but he resolved the problem by exclaiming:
“Don’t have the bloody scrambled eggs! I thought nothing could be worse than the sausages! I underrated the chef. And don’t imagine you’ll get a kipper because the menu says they’ve got ’em! You can’t expect fish—if you live on an island. Gets worse every day! Any one’d think we’ve been liberated.”
I thanked him for his advice, then ordered rolls and coffee, which arrived with a promptitude that astounded him.
“Blimey! You must be one of Rose’s boy friends! I waited twenty minutes for this jaundiced cement. Here! Don’t you take sugar?”
“No. You can have it.”
“Thank the Lord for that!”
He resumed his study of the paper, then exclaimed:
“Strewth! Talk about an asylum! Listen to this! It’s reported that the Foreign Office have not listed Hitler as a war criminal. What is he, then? Santa Claus?”
Pause.
“Lord! There’s world war raging, and some silly bastard is running a jitterbug competition—and they put it on the front page! You ever been to one of those things? Ever found yourself surrounded by a mob of jitterbuggers?
I said I had not.
“God bless my soul—what’s left of it!—I wish I was fifteen years younger.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d get out—just as quick as I could. That’s why! Europe is going to be a very good place after this war—to get out of.”
A moment later, he exclaimed:
“I’ve got it! Couldn’t think what they’d put in this margarine. It’s machine oil.”
He pushed his plate aside, then lit a cigarette.
“We’ve done it this time! You’ll see! I was talking to a bloke here last night—educated feller—and he thinks we’re for it, good and proper. He said that Science will soon be dictator. We’ll all be ruled by a Formula—and that will be worse than a Fuehrer. After all, with a bit of luck, a bomb will blow off the back hair and the pants of a Fuehrer—but what the hell can you do to a bloody Formula?”
I did not know the answer to that, so I said nothing.
“Ah, well! It don’t matter a lot to me. I’m alone in the world, thank God! I run my own business—or I used to. Now, it’s run for me. All I do is fill in forms. Have to do ’em myself. I used to have a clerk—but he went mad.”
He put his cigarette in an ash-tray, then said:
“You look as if you’ve knocked about a bit. What do you make of the whole set-up?”
“Not a lot. It’s obvious that there’s anarchic self-assertion everywhere. What do you expect? Most people believe that there’s only this world—that you’re not here long—so you’d better get all you can, as quickly as you can, by any and every means. Plenty of people always believed that—but when nearly everyone believes it, the game’s up. You’re back to Babel. Incidentally, Babel was an early example, if not an inspiring one, of big-scale planning.”
“Ah, well! there it all is. One thing’s certain—it would puzzle the devil to understand us English. In 1940, when we thought the Huns would invade any day, we felt fine. Everyone was matey—and so polite we didn’t know ourselves. But now, when the Germans are on their way out, we snap and snarl and bite each other in a proper free-for-all.”
He gave a laugh which shook the building, then exclaimed: