Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow Read online

  The impasse was quite clear now. If he tried to get through to the girl she would be implicated. If he didn’t she would go on believing the man she loved had cruelly deserted her and in the meantime two lovers implacably separated were suffering broken hearts.

  Mrs Harris, moved to the depth of her being and close to tears, said, ‘Lord, Mr Lockwood, I wish I could ’elp yer.’

  Lockwood said gloomily, ‘Nobody can help me.’ He picked up the photograph and snapped shut the back flap which assisted it to stand.

  Mrs Harris said, ‘Don’t put ’er away. Leave ’er there. Yer never know what might ’appen. She’ll ’elp yer keep yer tucker up.’

  He replaced the photo as Mrs Harris had bidden him and then for a moment they both fell into silence and during that silence Mrs Harris indulged herself in a fantasy, the kind that often came to her when people were in trouble, or she herself fell prey to an ambition. It was in two parts, neither of them connected with anything either sensible or practical. In one she was facing a group of men behind that fortress wall and giving them a piece of her mind about separating two unhappy lovers. In the second she was ringing the doorbell to Mr Lockwood’s flat and at her side was Lisabeta something or other, or anyway as he had called her, Liz, and when he opened the door Mrs Harris would cry, ‘ ’Ere she is, Mr Lockwood, I’ve been to Russia and brought ’er back for you.’

  Lockwood now cleared his throat and said, ‘Well,’ and made motions of one about to go to work.

  Mrs Harris could take a hint and said, ‘I’ll be gettin’ on,’ and proceeded to make her preparations to leave for her next rendezvous with dust and dirt and greasy dishes.

  2

  Mrs Harris brooded all the way home that early Saturday evening over Mr Lockwood’s tragic dilemma and it was still colouring her mood when she forgathered with her bosom friend, Mrs Violet Butterfield, for their nightly path-crossing cup of tea and gossip.

  Bosom was an apt word to apply to Mrs Butterfield, as she was as stout, round and plump as Mrs Harris was thin and spare. Only the features in the full moon face were small, a mouth that formed into a tiny ‘o’ above a triple row of chins, a button nose and small, startled eyes. The shape of the mouth was just right for the instant emission of shrieks of fright.

  For whereas Ada Harris was the complete optimist and the soul of courage often to the point of recklessness, Mrs Butterfield was timid, nervous, wholly pessimistic and given to pronouncements of doom and disaster, particularly when her best friend was taking on one of her notions.

  At one time Violet had been a member of that gallant band of women who arose daily at 4 a.m. and sallied forth to clean London’s offices before the break of the business day but lately she had succeeded in acquiring the job of attendant in the Ladies’ Room of the Paradise Night-Club in Mayfair.

  It was this that solidified the nightly ritual, for just as Mrs Harris was closing down her day’s work, so to speak, Violet Butterfield was starting off on hers, enabling them to spend an hour or so together over the teapot and the evening papers.

  During those sessions, Mrs Butterfield was able to supply tidbits of scandal gleaned from the chitchat of ladies who visited her domain while Mrs Harris narrated tales of the vagaries of her smarter or more eccentric clients. Oddly that night, however, she did not feel inclined to pass on the story Mr Lockwood had told her. The tragic plight of the young lovers seemed to her somehow too sacred to furnish material for tittle-tattle. She preferred to enjoy the sorrow of their plight unshared. Besides which there shortly began a turn of events which temporarily drove it out of her head; the fur coat and the colour television set.

  ‘You and your fur coat!’

  ‘You and yer bloomin’ telly!’

  It was Violet Butterfield who for years had had her eye on a fur coat of musquash, a species of water rat, which each autumn, in the current fashion, would appear in the window of Arding and Hobbs, the department store where they did their shopping. It was a losing game. For while Violet scrimped and saved to approach the price of last year’s coat, by the time the new season rolled around, the galloping inflation had added another twenty pounds to the price and whipped it out of reach again.

  As for Mrs Harris, her television set was black and white, cantankerous, ancient and out of date and given to collapse during crucial moments of favourite programmes. She yearned for the new, modern, giant screen colour set that would turn her basement flat at No. 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, into a veritable theatre. The price of such a one was over £400, installed, insured and service guaranteed, as out of reach as her chum’s musquash wrapping.

  Time was when Ada would have tackled the problem. Once she had girded herself to save up the vast sum of £450 to sally across the Channel to buy herself, of all things, a Dior dress. But she was older now, somewhat more easily tired, more fragile. The amassing of such a sum was just not on, and hence neither was the big set. But that did not stop her from wishing. And often on her way home she would pass before a shop displaying such and look with longing upon the half dozen machines in the window all projecting the same scene in gorgeous natural colours.

  Hot water had been poured into the first dregs of the teapot, ‘sangwidges’ had been disposed of. Mrs Butterfield was already aware that her friend was unusually silent and uncommunicative. She found an item in the Evening News that she thought would awaken her interest.

  ‘ ’Ullo, ’ullo,’ she said, ‘ ’Ere’s somefink about a friend of yours.’ And she read aloud a datelined dispatch from Paris which revealed that the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne was ending his tour of duty as Ambassador of France to the United States, and upon his return to Paris would take up an appointment as Senior Adviser on Foreign Affairs at the Quai d’Orsay. ‘A real pal, wasn’t ’e?’ She added, ‘When you was getting elected to Parliament.’

  Ada examined the paragraph in turn but made no comment and Mrs Butterfield looked at her in surprise, remarking, ‘Maybe ’e’d be coming over to London like ’e used ter and then you could ’ave a visit wif ’im again.’

  Mrs Harris, still under the spell of Mr Lockwood, only nodded morosely and maintained her silence.

  ‘Blimey, luv,’ exclaimed Violet, ‘yer pecker’s down, ain’t it? One of them as you do for turn narsty on you? Dropped the keys through the door, ’ave you?’

  This last referred to the time-honoured means of resignation employed by all London chars at any moment when they felt themselves badly used or insulted by their clients. Upon departure they would deposit the keys to the door of the flat through the letter-box thus closing out the association.

  Mrs Harris merely shook her head in denial of this but still remained mute and since it was obvious that her friend was not disposed to conversation Mrs Butterfield said, ‘Well then, why don’t we ’ave a look and see what’s on the telly.’ She went over, switched it on and twiddled the knob for ITV where she got the equivalent of a violent blizzard on the screen and a vicious growl from the speaker system. BBC 1 yielded a picture whipping by which looked as though it had been given the same treatment as a scrambled egg, accompanied by a hissing and crackling of sound. The third button offered a totally blank screen and no sound whatsoever.

  Ada Harris suddenly became articulate. ‘Bloody ’ell!’ she cried, ‘and I only ’ad it fixed last week. The bleedin’ box ain’t worth choppin’ up for firewood. And me wanting to see “Stars on Sunday” tomorrow and the repair man won’t come until Monday. Turn it off, Vi, before I put me foot through it.’ Then she added, ‘Maybe I will cut down on tea and smokes and take on more jobs until I can get me a new set wif colour.’

  Her friend’s outbursts of temper were rare and when they did happen usually frightened Vi into saying the wrong thing. ‘Oh Ada, you mustn’t. You could never do it. It’s like me fur coat. They always keep twenty quid ahead of you.’

  ‘You and your fur coat,’ said Mrs Harris.

  ‘You and your telly,’ Mrs Butterfield was compelled to answer, but then she was
immediately contrite, besides which she’d had an idea to reclaim her chum’s ruined Sunday.

  She said, ‘Look ’ere, Ada, the TUC which our Office Cleaners’ Union is connected with is givin’ a big charity do at the Tradesmen’s Hall in Bermondsey tomorrow night. We all ’ad to buy two tickets. ’Ow about us going?’

  Mrs Harris said contemptuously, ‘Unions,’ for she was an independent soul, right wing politically, and steered clear of them. Mrs Butterfield, however, who had been an office cleaner before she had gone up in the world via the Ladies’ Room of the Paradise Club, had had to join.

  But Ada recognized the peace offering and with her heart momentarily flooded with warmth for her friend, said, ‘Okay, Vi, we might as well use them and ’ave a look.’

  Thus it was that Mrs Harris in a sense acquired a lien on a new £450 Giant Screen, Dyna-Electro, True Colour, Super Vision Television Set, and if not exactly physical possession of the article then at least what appeared to be the promise of same guaranteed and confirmed in Mrs Harris’s mind by none other than her occasional friend and protector, the All-Powerful-From-On-High, her Personal God.

  The affair at the Tradesmen’s Hall the next night turned out to be a happy and relaxed evening for the two. Ada and Vi met a number of their kind, some of whom were friends, uncomplaining, hardworking women who in support of their families tackled the work of cleaning up the big city’s offices or scrubbed and mopped and dusted as dailies from sun up to sun down. There was music, food and a floorshow, but best of all, the opportunity to win prizes. There was not only a tombola, where for a few pence one could purchase a sealed cylinder, containing a number of which perhaps one out of every fifty collected a small gift, but also a Grand Lottery for which the list of rewards was dazzling, with tickets priced at a pound each.

  The Union, an expert at the modern type of coercion, had been more than usually successful in coaxing ‘contributions’ out of the companies interested in having their premises cleaned without any trouble. Thus they were able to present an alluring and tempting array of loot headed by an elegant maroon Mini Minor car mounted on a rotating pedestal plus a long list tacked up on either side of further valuables, many of them displayed in a roped-off enclosure. Giant refrigerators, electric stoves, washing machines, package tours for two to foreign climes, hi-fi and stereo equipment, complete furniture suites, carpets, expensive cameras and the like.

  But Mrs Harris did not even consult this catalogue nor did she spare so much as a glance for the revolving motor car or any of the other winners, for there amongst them it was; her television set.

  Oh, the beauty of it. In a polished and carved mahogany cabinet, its doors thrown wide, the set was in full operation and on its giant glass screen a pair of ballet dancers in multi-coloured costumes leaping and pirouetting through the air. Every shade of the rainbow was represented and the music which emerged from the speaker was flawless.

  While Mrs Butterfield wandered over to the tombola, Mrs Harris remained riveted. A pound was still a great deal of money to her and translated into two hours of hard labour on her knees. But against that treasure trove displayed before her eyes? And yet for another moment she hesitated and waited for she knew that she was on the verge of playing one of her famous hunches which occasionally would suffuse her and were received and accepted as messages dispatched to her by her Personal Deity sitting in his office somewhere behind the firmament and part of whose job it was to concern himself with her affairs. By and large Ada could look back upon the fact that up to that point he had not done too badly by his client.

  And as she waited the message came through loud and clear. ‘Buy the ticket, Ada.’ She opened her purse, produced a pound note and handed it to the pretty girl selling the chances and received in exchange a piece of white pasteboard bearing the name of the TUC Charity Committee Grand Annual Lottery, Number 49876TH. She filled in a stub with her own name and address as Mrs Butterfield returned triumphant, carrying a bottle of cheap champagne. ‘Look what I got,’ she crowed, ‘and it only cost me five pence and I might ’ave won one of them electric pop-up toasters standing right next to it.’

  ‘Cor,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘that’s nuffink,’ and she waved her lottery ticket, ‘I’ve got me telly.’

  Violet looked confused and the pretty girl smiled in sympathy.

  ‘Well, I mean I will ’ave it,’ explained Ada.

  All Mrs Butterfield’s pessimism rose to hand. ‘Ada Harris, a quid! You know you ain’t got that kind of money to spend. You’re the limit. Whatever makes you fink you’ll win it? They’re sellin’ thousands of those tickets, not only ’ere, but all over London. You ain’t got a chance.’

  Mrs Harris’s snapping dark eyes twinkled mischievously, almost disappearing in the recesses made by her apple cheeks as she replied, ‘I ’ad a hunch. You know me and me hunches. I carn’t lose. It’s as good as in me front room. ’Ere, look,’ and she exhibited her ticket which stated that the drawing would be made in three weeks and showed the number 49876TH. ‘You know what the TH stands for? Television Harris. Come on, Vi, I’ll buy you a drink at the bar to celebrate.’

  Mrs Butterfield had a shandy, while Ada indulged in her favourite, a port and lemon, and raised her glass with, ‘ ’Ere’s to me new telly.’

  Hence she was not unduly surprised three and a half weeks later when she returned from work to find a letter had been dropped through her slot, on the envelope of which was the imprint TUC Charity Committee Grand Annual Lottery. The telly, of course. It had to be. Nevertheless, she had the fortitude and courage to wait for the arrival of Mrs Butterfield for the evening tea so that she, too, would be able to share in the excitement.

  It therefore came as a considerable shock when the envelope produced a letter from the committee advising Mrs Ada Harris of 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, that as holder of Ticket Number 49876TH she was the winner of a five-day round-trip package tour to Moscow for two, all expenses paid and enclosing vouchers to be presented at the Intourist Bureau in Upper Regent Street in exchange for same. Congratulations!

  3

  The result of this astonishing and wholly unexpected side-swipe by Lady Luck was to draw almost immediate battle lines between Vi and Ada and furnish the subject of the first serious rift in the long-standing friendship of the two women.

  For when the vouchers upon the London office of Intourist, the Soviet Union’s all-embracing travel service, to supply them with two round-trip tickets for Package Tour 6A, five days and four nights in Moscow, were produced and lay on the table, Mrs Butterfield, with as much horror as though they had been a pair of black mambas, shrieked, ‘Roosha! I wouldn’t go there if you gave me a million pounds. Torturers, murderers, savidges is what they are. I’ve read all about them in the newspapers and so ’ave you, Ada ’Arris. And don’t get any idea of taking any trips to where we can get our ’eads cut off or get put in some dungeon for the rest of our lives.’

  But Mrs Harris did not reply to this tirade. She sat there staring at those trenchant bits of paper without the slightest qualm of disappointment for while she was saying farewell to her colour telly she was bidding hello to something much more exciting and beautiful. The fantasy which she had entertained some weeks back arising out of Mr Lockwood’s dilemma and which had passed from her thoughts now came sweeping back with double impetus. Who would have thought such a thing possible and yet there they were, two tickets to Russia, and to her suddenly inflamed and vivid imagination there came a vision of what surely must have been an arrangement and corroboration from On High, almost a direct communication, ‘Forget about that telly set, Ada Harris. You go off to Russia and get Mr Lockwood’s girl out for him. And here are the tickets I’ve provided for you.’ There was not the least doubt in Ada’s mind but that this was the message.

  Her first impulse was to hurry off to Mr Lockwood’s flat or at least telephone him and announce the news of establishing a possible line of communication between himself and his lost love when she remembered that he was o
ut of town for a week.

  A week’s grace and perhaps this was all for the best. It would give her time to work on Violet, for Mrs Harris was far from being a fool and while she did not subscribe to Mrs Butterfield’s portrait of unrestrained violence she was not completely happy at the thought of penetrating that sinister barrier known as the Iron Curtain by herself. Two was more of a safety measure than one lone woman.

  The speed with which an entire film strip of thought can unreel through a person’s head is well known and so hardly a second had elapsed from Mrs Butterfield’s anguished outburst before Mrs Harris replied calmly, ‘Oh, I don’t know, Vi, you carn’t believe everything you read in the papers. It might be nice for us to take a little ’oliday what’s been dropped in our laps.’

  ‘ ’Oliday amongst them monsters?’ squealed Violet. ‘Ada, you carn’t be serious. You wouldn’t get me to go,’ and she added, ‘not for a million pounds.’ And here the small ‘o’ of her mouth fell silent as she gazed at her friend in complete terror. In the world of Mrs Butterfield one million pounds was the absolute summum of impossibility of attainment and yet looking at Ada’s calm countenance and knowing her and what she was like if ever she made up her mind to something it was almost as if she expected Ada to open her handbag and lay the money on the table or borrow it from the Bank of England.

  Mrs Harris was aware that she was going to have her work cut out. She forced a laugh and remarked, ‘Oh, come on, Violet Butterfield, use your nut. Maybe it’s true about some of them bigwigs killin’ each other off, but ’oo’d ever want to make trouble for the likes of us?’

  ‘Don’t you believe it, Ada ’Arris,’ countered Mrs Butterfield. ‘The likes of them and the likes of us ain’t no different to them Rooshans. The way I’ve seen you carry on and go about and your sharp tongue and they’d ’ave you down in one of them cells pullin’ out your fingernails quicker than you could say Dick Robertson.’