was on terms of easy familiarity. ‘They’ll be glad to see you and give you some advice. It’s worth while cultivating men like that. You can telephone their secretaries for an appointment.’
My position in the firm was so ill-defined and the problems left over from my earlier service in the Stockroom were proving so difficult to resolve that I welcomed any mission, however unproductive it might seem, providing that it took me out of the building.
‘Would it be a good idea if I got in touch with them right away?’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ said my father. ‘Ring ’em up.’ He was so taken aback that I had adopted one of his suggestions without demur that he seemed to find nothing suspicious in my enthusiasm. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, as I rose to go. ‘Your wife seems a decent sort of girl. Pity about her religion. But it can’t be helped. No good crying over spilled milk.’
I thought it an unfortunate metaphor, and said so; but he seemed not to hear. ‘I bought this on the way in this morning. I thought you might like to read it. Wanda might enjoy it, too.’ He handed me a paper-back edition of H. G. Wells’ Crux Ansata , a violent diatribe against the Roman Church.
‘I’d like it back when you’ve finished with it,’ he said. And, with a hint of menace, ‘I’ve put my name on the flyleaf.’
I turned to the inscription. THIS BOOK BELONGS TO G. A. NEWBY. IT IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY! it read. Under it he had written his home and business addresses and both telephone numbers, rather like a small boy who writes ‘England, Europe, World, Universe’ in a school exercise book.
Of the two chairmen, X and Y, X was leaving for America, which, for an inhabitant of the British Isles in 1946, was the equivalent of a journey to Tibet in 1900. Y, on the other hand, I was told could see me that very morning.
I was surprised by the ease with which I had been able to make the appointment. It was something that my previous experience in the commercial field had not led me to expect. Foolishly I attributed it to the fact that I was older, more a man-of-the-world. I was glad too that I was wearing my new suit, the one that had been made for me by the man who had been blown up in the Burlington Arcade, now re-constructed completely by a patient Italian artisan. ‘ Com’è ridotto il vostro Impero ,’ he had said wonderingly when he first unpacked it and looked with disbelief at the label in the inside pocket of the jacket that was adorned with the coats of arms of two royal houses.
At the vast store Sir Harold’s name acted as a strong tonic on those members of the staff from whom I asked the whereabouts of his office. Vicariously I savoured the pleasures of power.
Even in the lift I was given special treatment. To the inconvenience of other shoppers, most of whom were women wearing hats adorned with regimental badges picked out in diamonds, who wished to stop at intermediate levels, I was whisked to the top floor in one: past China and Glass, Corsetry and Books, Baby Linen and Overdue Accounts, where firm but deferential men stood waiting at the receipt of custom on the thick beige carpet like pelicans on a mudbank.
I arrived on time.
‘Ah! Mr Newby,’ said Sir Harold’s secretary. In these few words she managed to convey the impression that I had done her an infinite kindness by coming at all. Her hair, which was cropped short like a man’s, was dyed a fashionable shade of executive blue. She was the sort of secretary who, unprompted, sends flowers to her employer’s wife and mistresses on a graduated scale of munificence.
I was ushered into the sanctum. The effect that it produced derived not from its contents but from its emptiness. There wasa glass-topped desk, modishly asymmetrical like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier; a full-length portrait in oils of Sir Harold as Master of the Ropetwisters Company, and a very small photograph in a silver frame of Lady Y wearing an expression that
My position in the firm was so ill-defined and the problems left over from my earlier service in the Stockroom were proving so difficult to resolve that I welcomed any mission, however unproductive it might seem, providing that it took me out of the building.
‘Would it be a good idea if I got in touch with them right away?’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ said my father. ‘Ring ’em up.’ He was so taken aback that I had adopted one of his suggestions without demur that he seemed to find nothing suspicious in my enthusiasm. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, as I rose to go. ‘Your wife seems a decent sort of girl. Pity about her religion. But it can’t be helped. No good crying over spilled milk.’
I thought it an unfortunate metaphor, and said so; but he seemed not to hear. ‘I bought this on the way in this morning. I thought you might like to read it. Wanda might enjoy it, too.’ He handed me a paper-back edition of H. G. Wells’ Crux Ansata , a violent diatribe against the Roman Church.
‘I’d like it back when you’ve finished with it,’ he said. And, with a hint of menace, ‘I’ve put my name on the flyleaf.’
I turned to the inscription. THIS BOOK BELONGS TO G. A. NEWBY. IT IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY! it read. Under it he had written his home and business addresses and both telephone numbers, rather like a small boy who writes ‘England, Europe, World, Universe’ in a school exercise book.
Of the two chairmen, X and Y, X was leaving for America, which, for an inhabitant of the British Isles in 1946, was the equivalent of a journey to Tibet in 1900. Y, on the other hand, I was told could see me that very morning.
I was surprised by the ease with which I had been able to make the appointment. It was something that my previous experience in the commercial field had not led me to expect. Foolishly I attributed it to the fact that I was older, more a man-of-the-world. I was glad too that I was wearing my new suit, the one that had been made for me by the man who had been blown up in the Burlington Arcade, now re-constructed completely by a patient Italian artisan. ‘ Com’è ridotto il vostro Impero ,’ he had said wonderingly when he first unpacked it and looked with disbelief at the label in the inside pocket of the jacket that was adorned with the coats of arms of two royal houses.
At the vast store Sir Harold’s name acted as a strong tonic on those members of the staff from whom I asked the whereabouts of his office. Vicariously I savoured the pleasures of power.
Even in the lift I was given special treatment. To the inconvenience of other shoppers, most of whom were women wearing hats adorned with regimental badges picked out in diamonds, who wished to stop at intermediate levels, I was whisked to the top floor in one: past China and Glass, Corsetry and Books, Baby Linen and Overdue Accounts, where firm but deferential men stood waiting at the receipt of custom on the thick beige carpet like pelicans on a mudbank.
I arrived on time.
‘Ah! Mr Newby,’ said Sir Harold’s secretary. In these few words she managed to convey the impression that I had done her an infinite kindness by coming at all. Her hair, which was cropped short like a man’s, was dyed a fashionable shade of executive blue. She was the sort of secretary who, unprompted, sends flowers to her employer’s wife and mistresses on a graduated scale of munificence.
I was ushered into the sanctum. The effect that it produced derived not from its contents but from its emptiness. There wasa glass-topped desk, modishly asymmetrical like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier; a full-length portrait in oils of Sir Harold as Master of the Ropetwisters Company, and a very small photograph in a silver frame of Lady Y wearing an expression that
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