Free The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower Page B

continued laboriously, ‘A man’s got everything he wants at home: plenty of space, view—No sense paying rent for an office. I’ll still be pushing this thing round most of the time.’ He continued doggedly in this fashion, his voice cracking occasionally so that he could stop to clear it. ‘What do you say?’
    Expressionless, Peter Trotter gave him a shilling to pay the bridge toll. ‘I say it’s a lousy idea. You save afew quid subletting the office at the factory (incidentally, I’ll be your tenant) and drop a packet.’
    ‘How do you make that out? Drop a packet!’
    ‘If you can’t see it—In your shoes, I’d be branching out, not closing down.’
    ‘Oh, would you? Who’s closing down?’
    Peter Trotter shrugged. His indifference was bottomless. Pennies and dimes. Pennies and dimes. Why was he persecuted by the natterings of small-time no-hopers like Felix Shaw with his paltry manoeuvres, when he had real plans cooking?
    Tiredly, he made Felix a further donation of his opinions. ‘That’s how it gets round. “Shaw’s doing the paperwork at home. Can’t afford a two-by-four office.” I’m not saying it’s a fact. Only how it looks to the trade.’
    Thickly, defiant, Felix said, ‘So what? Who cares what the trade thinks? Mr. Shaw’s not too worried about them.’
    ‘Yeah. Well. This is where I get off. See you.’
    ***
    ‘Would you like to ask Peter and his girlfriend—I think he’s got a girlfriend, don’t you?—ask them for dinner some night?’ Laura looked up brightly from her plate. She had begun to think that Felix was as friendless as she and Clare. Till now she had assumed that everyone else in the world had families and hosts of loved ones,but this was evidently not so. Of course, Felix had known a lot of people in his day and, strangely, when she asked of twenty different people, ‘What happened to him?’ Felix would answer, ‘He’s still kicking about. Caught sight of him the other day, as a matter of fact.’
    Why were his friends all so irretrievably in the past?
    Laura passed on to the next question. Why not start entertaining in this house made for happy gatherings? She could not doubt that Felix wanted that: his purchases of silver, china, glasses, decanters and liquor made it obvious enough. He had insisted on these luxuries at the expense of many a homely article for the kitchen. The only small difficulty was—who in the world could they invite?
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Felix said indifferently and, at the same time, critically, looking up from his rockmelon. ‘No, I don’t think we’ll bother with Mr. Trotter.’
    He had asked Peter to dinner some time ago. Peter had intimated that he was permanently tied up. Felix had kept this from Laura. He was rather miserly about any new facts he happened to acquire. He hoarded them in secret as though they were personal wealth, only popping one out occasionally to give Laura a feeling that this poor sample was the very least of all he hid.
    Felix spooned up cold, mouth-watering curves of melon. God knew he’d had dealings with thousands of fellows in the course of his several business careers. (Whocould he ask to dinner?) He had had Chinese dinners in Dixon Street with four other coves twice a week when one big sale was pending. Other times he’d eaten and drunk in cramped Kings Cross flats while documents were signed and books taken over. (Still, who could he ask to dinner?) In pubs all over the city he’d had sessions with a vast variety of boys from one trade and another. Friends? He’d had them by the gross.
    He began his nightly analysis of the Allies’ blunders. Easier to win the war than think of a fellow to ask to a meal. But business is business and time is money. When they were mutually useful, Felix and his comrades pounded backs, ‘shouted’ drinks, and mirror-eyed cried ‘friend’ as often as the fabled boy cried ‘wolf’. Let the ink dry, however, bringing the instant degeneration of all golden