Albertine gasped in horror. She raised a hand as if to ward off a blow. A half-cry, half-moan escaped from her. It could have been a name.
Amélie
.
‘I heard about that,’ said Giselle. ‘But I never knew it was true.’
‘Well, now you do,’ said Michelle. ‘They wouldn’t have printed it if it weren’t.’
‘Who told them? That’s what I want to know,’ wondered Minette.
‘Oh, Mr Blackley has no shortage of enemies,’ said Marie-Claude with a grim smile. ‘There’s plenty who want to destroy him. One day he’ll go too far, you mark my words. Then the whole rotten House of Blackley will come falling down around him.’
‘What’s going on, Blackley? It may be All Fools’ Day, but I will not be made a fool of like this!’
The countess’s sharp tone did not seem to perturb Blackley. He bowed deeply, employing the full serenity of his smile. ‘I do apologize, Your Ladyship. It seems that one of our mannequins has gone missing. I shall look into it myself, personally.’
Lady Ascot gestured impatiently with her hand. ‘You will do no such thing! So a girl’s gone missing? Good riddance to her, we say. Have one of the other girls model her costumes. It’s all the same to us. You can chastise the miscreant later. We don’t have all day, you know. We have a lunch appointment with the Duchess of Brecknock at twelve. When you do catch the idle hussy, be sure to remember the inconvenience she has caused us. We trust you will deal with her with the utmost severity.’
‘You may count on me to take all appropriate action.’ Blackley straightened himself. He signalled to Monsieur Hugo. ‘On with the show, Monsieur Hugo. We must not keep Her Ladyship waiting.’
Monsieur Hugo clapped his hands and called out
numéro sept
.
With Lady Ascot distracted by the next costume, Mr Blackley moved discreetly away. He signalled to one of the sales assistants. ‘Arbuthnot, isn’t it?’ Blackley’s voice was an urgent whisper. ‘I want you to do something for me.’
A look between terror and pride showed on the young man’s face. This curious expression betrayed how Blackley’s employees felt towards the great man more eloquently than any article in
The West End Whisperer.
Young Arbuthnot had been chosen for a commission. More than that, Mr Blackley knew his name. This was undoubtedly an opportunity to be noticed. If things went well there could be a bonus – even a promotion – in it. If not, his life, it might reasonably be presumed, would not be worth living.
He listened to Mr Blackley’s words with a look of such intense concentration that it was close to panic.
‘You understand,’ said Mr Blackley, when he had finished explaining the mission, ‘the importance of discretion in this matter? I trust that my confidence in you will not prove to be misplaced.’
Young Arbuthnot gulped and nodded nervously. Mr Blackley’s mouth was formed into the same affable smile as ever. But in his eyes, there was the glint of ice.
The House of Blackley was a sprawling establishment occupying a considerable length of the south side of Kensington Road. It had grown organically over the years, as Blackley had snapped up the leases and freeholds of all the adjoining properties; all of them, that is, apart from the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. And so the store had mushroomed up around the church, a temple of Mammon surrounding one of God.
The church was only accessible through a narrow entrance passage that gave on to Kensington Road, a kind of tunnel through the House of Blackley. The church’s location seemed to give its name an extra significance: was it the sacred heart at the centre of Blackley’s commercial empire? An emblem of his conscience, perhaps?
A thorn in his side, more like.
The complete destruction of the original store premises in a fire some years ago had afforded Blackley the opportunity of radically remodelling the site (although he was still unable to do anything about the presence of the church, which had stubbornly survived the fire intact). However, apart from the addition of the Grand Dome, and the transference of the Menagerie from the fourth floor to the ground floor close to an exit, he chose to retain most of the store’s original haphazard design.
The result was a veritable warren of consumerism, in which it was possible even for regular visitors to lose their way. But that was part of the pleasure of shopping at Blackley’s: to be lost, and yet to find precisely what you were looking for, even if you didn’t know you were looking for it.
Even members of staff were not immune to this spirit of disorientation, especially those like young Arbuthnot who had only recently started working there. As he hurried across the floor of the Grand Dome, he had no clear idea of where he was heading. He was impelled only by a sense of urgency. He had been charged with a task by Benjamin Blackley himself. There could be no delay, not the slightest hesitation or uncertainty. The situation clearly called for him to be eager and brisk; for rushing about, in other words. If he could not be purposeful, then at least he would be energetic.
It was only when he was out of sight of Blackley that Arbuthnot paused to take his bearings. He had come out of the Grand Dome into the Frills and Fripperies department, in the eastern wing of the store. Or was it the western?
Arbuthnot caught the attention of Mr Dresden, an old commissionaire who had been with the store since the beginning. Indeed, his presence was so permanent that it seemed probable his spectre would walk the floors of Blackley’s for all eternity. ‘I say, Mr Dresden, sir. Is this the right side for the Abingdon Road exit?’
‘You’re on the wrong shide here, shonny,’ said Mr Dresden, his dentures whistling sibilantly. ‘You want the other shide of the Grand Dome.’
The commissionaire moved on, giving Arbuthnot no opportunity to explain that he could not possibly go back into the Grand Dome and risk being seen by Mr Blackley.
Arbuthnot hurried on through Boots, Shoes and Waterproof Articles into Locks, Clocks and Mechanical Contrivances.
The arrangement of departments in Blackley’s might have appeared curious at times, or even random. But there was always some subtle logic behind the juxtapositions.
To take Arbuthnot’s journey so far as an example: the Costumes Salon in the Grand Dome naturally led on to Frills and Fripperies. Mr Blackley’s instinctive understanding of the female psyche told him that any woman who had indulged her passion for the Fashionable would before long seek to redress the balance by striving towards the Practical – without, however, going too far in that direction. Hence his placement of Boots, Shoes and Waterproof Articles nearby, a department in which the Fashionable and the Practical were harmoniously combined.
Waterproof Articles keep out the rain; Locks keep out unwanted intruders. Thus, one form of protection leads to another. Put so crudely, the connection may seem contrived. But in fact it revealed a sophisticated grasp of psychology. If the relationship between one department and the next was not consciously perceived, so much the better. The subconscious association was always felt. An almost dreamlike state of existence was conjured up. And as the Viennese doctors will tell you, the wellspring of dreams is wish-fulfilment.
And so the visitor to Blackley’s found herself not in a shop, but in a dream and, more precisely, in the kind of dream where every desire is capable of satisfaction. She only had to reach out and . . . purchase.
For a moment, Arbuthnot, too, felt like a figure in a dream, though in his case it was a nightmare. Surrounded by a perplexing assortment of locks, he suddenly found himself incapable of movement. It was as if the idea of imprisonment in the department was so strong that he himself was fixed in place. His sense of the urgency of his mission did not diminish. On the contrary, he felt it all the more intensely. And the more intensely he felt it, the more powerfully was he immobilized.
‘What do
you
want?’ The voice was charged with antagonism and suspicion, which was not unusual among Arbuthnot’s colleagues. In fact, it was Spiggott, one of the sales assistants for this department, who made the enquiry.
‘I want to get out of here.’
‘Then go. I am not detaining you.’
‘Yes, I shall. Just as soon as I . . .’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Disgust rather than concern showed on Spiggott’s face.
‘I can’t . . . move my feet!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can. I saw you run out of the Costumes Salon a minute ago.’ Spiggott looked past Arbuthnot back into the Grand Dome where the fashion show was still in progress.
‘This is terrible,’ protested Arbuthnot. ‘Believe me when I say that I am trying with all my strength to move my feet.’
‘Well, you can’t stay here. You’ll get us both into trouble.’
‘You don’t understand! I don’t want to stay here! Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to leave! I have been charged with an urgent commission by Mr Blackley himself! I must
not
delay!’
At that moment, quite unexpectedly, a customer made his presence felt. It was impossible to say if he had been there all the time, unobserved by the two young men, or if he had just stepped into the department of Locks, Clocks and Mechanical Contrivances. The former seemed improbable because he was a man of considerable bulk, dressed in a voluminous Inverness cape – a veritable mountain of tweed. And yet, he must have been there for some time, for he demonstrated a complete understanding of Arbuthnot’s predicament.
The man, who was wearing a monocle, stared fixedly into Arbuthnot’s eyes, raised his right hand and moved it in front of Arbuthnot’s face in a mysterious manner. At the same time he murmured something softly to Arbuthnot.
To his amazement, Arbuthnot felt himself instantly released. He was aware that the stranger had spoken to him, but had no memory of what he had said. And now he was gone, as suddenly and inexplicably as he had arrived.
‘How strange,’ said Spiggott. But then he began to berate Arbuthnot. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, he would have bought something. You’d better go before you scare away any more of
my
customers.’ But there was no conviction in his complaint.
Even so, Arbuthnot needed no further encouragement to be on his way. He put his head down and ran through the shrieks and howls of the Menagerie into the stockroom at the back of the store. From here, he could exit to the street via the delivery entrance.
A warehouseman in a brown coat was sweeping the floor, stirring the scents of cardboard and boxwood into the air. He stopped to light a cigarette, watching Arbuthnot’s progress with a dark, envious glare. But what was there to envy about Arbuthnot? Only his urgent sense of purpose, perhaps.
A
rbuthnot shot out on to the street like a pea expelled from a peashooter.
The air had a resentful edge to it, as if to say he had no business being at liberty. But he was
not
at liberty. He had no time to appreciate the strange, unearned licence of being out of the store during trading hours. He must put his head down and hurry.
But he was only human. To expect him not to lift his head and take in his surroundings, not to breathe deeply of that air, however sharp, however chill, not to be diverted by the passing of a pretty face, or the gleam and growl of a polished motor car, was to expect too much.
Naturally he did not allow such distractions to waylay him from his course, but he did allow a certain jauntiness to enter his step. He did not go so far as to attempt a whistle. Somehow he could not quite shake himself free of the impression that Mr Blackley was watching him. Or if not Mr Blackley himself, then his spies. Arbuthnot imagined that Mr Blackley must have any number of spies. He glanced nervously at the shops on the opposite terrace, then up at the windows of the apartments above them. No sign of anyone lurking, but still, you could never be too careful.
Whistling during working hours was forbidden under Mr Blackley’s rules. For a young man of ambition such as Arbuthnot, it was not just the sixpence fine that had to be borne in mind; more serious was the black mark against his name. These things were noted down, he knew. If he hoped to progress, it was important to keep a clean sheet.
The turning into Caper Street – the street of his destination – was opposite a public house. For a moment, Arbuthnot was tempted to stop off there, for a quick dose of Dutch courage. But then the absurdity and horror of what he had just contemplated struck home. He had rigorously been on his guard against whistling in the street, and yet had come this close to casually wandering into a public house for a furtive snifter. It was not that Arbuthnot was a toper, far from it. The example of his father had been enough to immunize him against that particular vice.
He and his six siblings had grown up with the old man’s drunken rages. Booze made him a fighter, but he was too much of a coward to take on any of his cronies at the Dog and Whistle. He’d stagger home and pick a fight with Ma, pulling her from the bed by her hair. She always took her beatings stoically, silently. It was Pa’s snarling curses that would draw them from their beds, not any sound from Ma. They cowered behind the washing that Ma took in, taking their lead from her, keeping mum, mute witnesses to the violence. Was that where the expression came from?
Then came the day when young Arbuthnot could keep mum no longer. He rushed out from behind a hanging sheet and threw himself at his father. The state Pa was in, together with the element of surprise, worked in Arbuthnot’s favour. It was shockingly easy to overpower the old man. And in that moment, the moment of his father’s befuddled toppling, young Arbuthnot grasped the full extent of the degradation and shame that alcohol wrought. A grown man knocked off his feet by a scrawny twelve-year-old kid.
His father never hit Ma again. At least not in front of the children.
And so Arbuthnot had never felt the allure of the public house. Not until this day. To have felt the pull now frightened him. So he was a chip off the old block, after all? Was his father’s weakness at last asserting itself in him?