She apologised hastily and introduced herself. She mentioned Colossus. She said Jack’s name. Could she have a word with Mrs…? She hesitated. Who the hell was this woman? she wondered. She should have sussed that one out before barreling over here.
Mary Alice Atkins-Ward, the old lady said. And it was Miss and proud to be so, thank you very much. She sounded stiff-a pensioner who remembered the old days when people had manners defined by courteous queues at bus stops and gentlemen giving up seats to ladies on the underground. She held the door open and manoeuvred herself back from it so that Ulrike could enter. Ulrike did so gratefully.
She found herself immediately in a narrow corridor much taken up by the stairway. The walls were jammed with photos, and as Miss A-W-which was how Ulrike began thinking of her-led the way into a sitting room overlooking the street, Ulrike took a peek at these. They were, she found, all photos taken from television shows: BBC1 costume dramas mostly, although there were also a smattering of gritty police programmes as well.
She said in as friendly a fashion as she could, “You’re a fan of the telly?”
Miss A-W cast a scornful look over her shoulder as she crossed the sitting room and deposited herself in a ladder-backed wooden rocking chair sans a single softening cushion. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
“The photos in the corridor?” Ulrike had never felt so out of step with someone.
“Those? I wrote them, you ninny,” was Miss A-W’s retort.
“Wrote?”
“Wrote. I’m a screenwriter, for heaven’s sake. Those are my productions. Now what do you want?” She offered nothing: no food, no drink, no fondly reminiscent conversation. She was a tough old bird, Ulrike concluded. It was going to be no easy feat to pull the wool here.
Nonetheless, she had to try. There was no alternative. She told the woman that she wanted to have a few words about her tenant.
“What tenant?” Miss A-W asked.
“Jack Veness?” Ulrike prompted her. “He works at Colossus. I’m his…well, his supervisor, I suppose.”
“He’s not my tenant. He’s my great-nephew. Worthless little bugger, but he had to live somewhere once his mum chucked him out. He helps with the housework and the shopping.” She adjusted herself in her chair. “See here, I’m going to have a cigarette, missy. I hope you’re not one of those flag-waving ASHers. If you are, too bad. My house, my lungs, my life. Hand me that book of matches, please. No, no, you ninny. Not over there. They’re right in front of you.”
Ulrike found them among the clutter on a coffee table. The book was from a Park Lane hotel where, Ulrike imagined, Miss A-W had doubtless terrified the staff into handing matches over by the gross.
She waited till the old lady had extracted a cigarette from the pocket of her cardigan. She smoked unfiltered-no surprise there-and she held the burning fag like an old-time film star. She picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue, examined it, and flicked it over her shoulder.
“So, what’s this about Jack?” she asked.
“We’re considering him for promotion,” Ulrike replied with what she hoped was an ingratiating smile. “And before someone’s promoted, we talk to those people who know him best.”
“Why do you suppose I know him any better than you do?”
“Well, he does live here…It’s just a starting point, you understand.”
Miss A-W was watching Ulrike with the sharpest eyes she had ever seen. This was a lady who’d been through it, she reckoned. Lied to, cheated on, stolen from, whatever. It must have come from working in British television, notorious home of the thoroughly unscrupulous. Only Hollywood was meant to be worse.
She continued to smoke and evaluate Ulrike, clearly unbothered by the silence that stretched between them. Finally she said, “What sort?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “What sort of promotion?”
Ulrike did some quick thinking. “We’re opening a branch of Colossus across the river. The North London branch? He may have told you about it. We’d like Jack to be an assessment leader there.”
“Would you now. Well, he doesn’t want that. He wants community outreach. And I’d expect you’d know that if you’d talked to him about it.”
“Yes, well,” Ulrike improvised, “there’s a hierarchy involved, as Jack’s no doubt mentioned. We like to place people where we think they’ll…well, blossom actually. Jack’s probably going to work his way up to community outreach eventually, but as for now…” She made a vague gesture.
Miss A-W said, “He’ll be in a snit about that when he hears. He’s like that. Sees himself persecuted. Well, his mum didn’t help with that any, did she. But why can’t you young people just get on with things instead of sniveling when you don’t get what you want when you want it? That’s what I’d like to know.” She cupped her hand and flicked ash into it. She rubbed this into the arm of her rocking chair. “What does this assessment leader do?”
Ulrike explained the job, and Miss A-W picked up on the most relevant part. “Young people?” she said. “Working with them to build trust? Not exactly up Jack’s street. I’d suggest you move right along to another employee if that’s what you want, but if you tell him I said that, I’ll call you a filthy liar.”
“Why?” Ulrike asked, perhaps too quickly. “What would he do if he knew we were talking?”
Miss A-W dragged in on her cigarette and let out what smoke wasn’t otherwise adhering to her doubtless blackened lungs. Ulrike did her best not to breathe in too deeply. The old lady seemed to consider what she wanted to say because she was silent for a moment before she settled on, “He can be a good enough boy when he sets his mind to it, but he generally has his mind on other things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as himself. Such as his lot in life. Just like everyone else his age.” Miss A-W gestured with her cigarette for emphasis. “Young people are whingers, and that’s the boy’s problem in a teacup, missy. To hear him talk, you’d think he’s the only child on earth who grew up without a dad. And with a loose-knickered mum, who’s flitted from man to man since the boy was born. Since before that, as a matter of fact. From the womb, Jack was probably listening to her try to recall the name of the last bloke she slept with. So how could it be a surprise to anyone that he turned out bad?”
“Bad?”
“Come now. You know what he was. He went to Colossus from borstal, for heaven’s sake. Min-that’s his mum-says it’s all to do with her never being quite sure which lover was actually his dad. She says, ‘Why can’t the lad just cope? I do.’ But that’s Min for you: blaming anyone and anything before she’d ever take a real look at herself. She chased men all her life, and Jack chased trouble. By the time he was fourteen, Min couldn’t cope with him any longer and her mum didn’t want to, so they sent him to me. Until that arson nonsense. Stupid little sod.”
“How do you get on with him?” Ulrike asked.
“We live and let live, which’s how I get on with everyone, missy.”
“What about with others?”
“What about what about?”
“His friends. Does he get on with them?”
“They’d hardly be friends if he didn’t get on with them, would they?” Miss A-W pointed out.
Ulrike smiled. “Yes. Well. D’you see them much?”
“Why d’you want to know?”
“Well, because obviously…Jack’s interactions with them indicate how he’d interact with others, you see. And that’s what we’re-”
“No, I don’t see,” Miss A-W said tartly. “If you’re his superior, you see him interacting all the time. You interact with him yourself. You don’t need my opinion on the matter.”
“Yes, but the social aspects of one’s life can reveal…” What, she thought? She couldn’t come up with an answer, so she cut to the chase. “Does he go out with friends, for instance? In the evenings. Pubbing or the like?”