Harley 14

Fiona needed a bit of mollycoddling after the operation. Dr Braisby called it a procedure. Dr Walker called it a procedure and used the analogy of taking a pencil out of a child’s nose. Fiona, at first, said nothing. The abortion lurked in the shadows under her eyes. She’d asked to see the baby. Dr Braisby didn’t know what to say. He mumbled something about it not being possible and that the foetus had been transported away to be disposed of. He made it sound like something gadgety out of Dr Who.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Fiona had been crying so hard that Catherine, standing in the background, had run to get Mary.

Dr Newton was in Braisby’s office, sitting in his fellow practioner's chair, with the door firmly shut when they returned, his voice soothing and calming, like honey.

Fiona had been given an injection, which calmed and stopped her hand wringing. She had the slightly bigger of the two pale lilac coloured bedrooms downstairs. But she could only sip at water, because she said her throat was too tight and seemed to grow thinner and younger by the day, until her little breasts and bum disappeared and she looked about twelve.

‘Do you think I did the right thing?’ she continually asked Mary, from next door, then haunting her room, on the edge of her bed, frazzling her nerves, keeping them both awake, lying and sitting smoking on the edge of sleep.

Mary was glad when the gold marine clock ticked night darkness away and Catherine started bustling about, because then Fiona slept. Part of their agreement for staying at Harley Street was that they kept the place tidy. At first Mary had washed the dishes in the mornings, and was glad of the drudgery of repetition, because that’s the way her mind felt. That wasn't, however, enough to keep her occupied. Catherine only had a coffee and a ciggie for breakfast. Mary started to join her in the same morning routine. And it wasn’t long before Mary was chaperoned by Catherine and allowed to welcome visitors to Harley Street. She made tea or coffee and the Sudanese Consul laugh by giving him a piece of white bread with raspberry jam with the crusts on. Other gifts and trinkets started appearing, little things, watches and champagne and invitations to premiere and parties.

Mary was sitting on the edge of Catherine’s desk. The Sudanese Consul’s assistant arrived, a small fastidious man that was always smiling. Mary called him Benji, because his name was too long and difficult to remember.

‘For your kindness,’ he said bowing and holding out an invitation, ‘my master has asked me to get you a gift, a small thing, for entertaining him so regally. My good self and my car is at your disposal.’

‘Thank you, just get me a plain loaf and a jar of Robertson’s Raspberry Jam and we’ll call it quits.'

‘I think my master wants me to spend a bit more than that,’ he chuckled rolling his eyes.

‘Forty Benson and Hedges then.’ Mary’s eyes twinkled.

‘Something more substantial than that.’ Benji’s teeth flashed.

Mary didn’t have to look outside to know it was a silver Roll Royce about the size of her living room at home. ‘Just give me the car you’ve left parked outside then.’

‘That is very funny,’ said Benji, but he didn’t laugh. ‘Perhaps something less substantial that that,’ looking at her face. ‘You Scottish people are like us Sudanese. You have a great sense of humour. My master will not be pleased unless you take something; a token of his largesse.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Mary said, grabbing at the phone on the desk as it rang, to indicate that the conversation was over. She held up her hand and waved to Benji at the door as he left.

She slumped over the desk. ‘What am I to do?’ she asked Catherine in a plaintive tone, ratching it up melodramatically, by putting her head down on the cool of the desk as if she was sleeping, but there was a grin on her face.

Catherine smiled primly back. ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing, refuse everything, don’t go anywhere and keep laughing at them. That seems to drive them wild. Dr Newton has already said that his patients come to see you and not him and that you are far better for their health than he is. He called you a natural palliative.’ Catherine lit them both a cigarette; her face growing suddenly serious. ‘The thing is, I’d like you to work here full time with me. Dr Newton demands it. Even Mister King thinks it’s a good idea.’

Mary took a long draw on her cigarette filling her lungs. ‘Oh, well, if Mister King thinks it’s a good idea, then it’s a done deal.’ She looked out and a song thrush looked in, cocking its head to get a better view then flying off, as if spooked. ‘The thing is I’ve got so much cleaning to do. You don’t realize how much dirt is in these old places until you start. And there’s Fiona.’ Her voice trailed off.

Catherine reached across the desk and briefly clutched at Mary’s hand on the desk, and then patted it, as if in commiseration, as if someone had died. ‘Fiona is not a child.’ She looked up to see how Mary was taking it. She seemed much the same, staring out the window, wisps of smoke framing her face. ‘She’s not your child.’

‘She’s my friend.’ Mary’s eyes were glacial blue.

‘Quite.’ Catherine straightened some papers that were on the desk. She tried on a smile, making her face light. ‘Why don’t you hire a cleaner? That’s what I did. Cleaning is such a bore.’

‘You mean?’

‘Yes,’ said Catherine laughing and reaching for the phone and dialling a number. ‘This is the agency I used.’ She pushed the phone towards Mary.

‘You’re such a…such a…’ for once Mary was lost for words. She held her hand up as she got through to the agency. ‘They’ve put me on hold,’ she snatched at her fags on the table to light one as she waited.

‘Give me the phone please.’ Mary shrugged and handed Catherine the receiver. Her voice seemed to up a gear and her vowels were barely contained by phone wires making the pigeons on the poles flutter away and the agency secretary on the other end of the phone sit up. ‘Please put me through to your manager. It’s Catherine Reynolds here; 192 Harley Street.’ The rest of the conversation was more her interviewing the manger than the other way about. ‘Send me your best cleaner and remember she’ll be vetted by the police;’ with that Catherine put the phone down. She edged back into her chair and looked at Mary through her long eyelashes.

Mary grinned: ‘It’s Catherine Reynolds here; 192 Harley Street,’ she mimicked her accent.

She tickled a grin from the real Ms Reynolds. ‘It’s not like that,’ she said.

‘Not like what?’ said Mary in Catherine’s accent.

‘These people…’

‘What people?’ cut in Mary.

‘Other people.’ Catherine tested that out, her face tethered in, held back from grinning and being childish, ‘don’t like us because of our accents or our clothes, or because we represent the establishment, although all of these things may have something to do with it. They kow-tow to us because of…’ Catherine held her hand up to her ear and rubbed her thumb, index and forefinger together as if she was listening to the sound of money. ‘Taxi drivers kill for a pick up here. The tips can be more than they make in a day, sometimes a week. Dry Cleaning. Cleaning. They all kill to come here for one thing and one thing only: Money. They know this is a gravy train and if they play their cards right they can be a passenger. They don’t have to like us. But they do have to respect us.’

‘Fuck that.’ Mary smiled as she said it, taking the sting out of it.

‘Well, just wait until morning, then you’ll see, the agency will send the very best they’ve got and you’ll be surprised how much she can do in an hour.

Catherine was in the shower the next morning when the doorbell went. Mary stretched and turned over, determined to get another half hour’s sleep before she formally started work as a receptionist. She’d been fitted for a new uniform. It was skintight and she had to admit, with her hair down made her look fantastic. She finally gave up on sleep.

Fiona had already beaten her to it, tip-toeing to the door. She looked thinner, which wasn’t surprising as she hardly at anything apart from Custard Creams and smoked non-stop all through the night. ‘It’s a man,’ said Fiona, looking through the spy hole as if she’d never seen a man before. She jumped back when the doorbell rang again.

The bell rang again. Mary unlocked the door. ‘Can I help you?’ Her accent was borrowed, more Catherine’s than her own. It was indeed a man, but long faced, all hair and long coat seemed to blend into tanned sunshine smelling Blue Wildebeest frame.

‘I’m from the ARA agency,’ he reached in his pocket.

Mary looked at Fiona, who looked back at her. He might well have said I’m from Cape Canaveral. But she thought he was going to pull out some kind of credentials. Instead he pulled an unfiltered cigarette from the pit of his pocket. She was sure it was going to be dope. He sparked the flint of his lighter like a gunslinger and produced a flame too big for the meagre bit of tobacco he had cupped in his hand.

‘I’m your cleaner.’ He watched recognition flow into Mary’s face. What was unexpected was her hoot of laugher. He held palms up in surrender. ‘It’s not what you think. You asked for the best cleaner. And that’s me-by far- I’m a clean freak. I’ll make you both a cup of coffee. Just give me a couple of hours and you’ll see the difference. I like everything to be just so. And I love working with antiques.’

Fiona shrugged and went back to her room.

Mary pulled the door wide open. ‘Come in and I’ll make you that cup of coffee you were talking about.’

He wandered in, his neck craning and his eyes scanning upwards as if he’d been invited into heaven. ‘George Cornwell.’ He was looking; too busy seeing, his head bobbling up and down to the rhythm of his own making.

‘You’re very welcome George,’ said Mary, as he followed her footsteps into the kitchen.