Have a Change of Scene

One

It didn’t begin to show until a month after the crash. You could call it delayed shock although Dr. Melish didn’t call it that, but he is stuck with his technical jargon which is so much blah to you and me: a delayed shock is what he meant.

A month before the crash I was floating in the rarefied air of success. Take my job for instance. I had slaved for it and I finally got it: first salesman with the most exclusive jewellers in Paradise City: Luce & Fremlin. They are in the same bracket as Carriers and Van Cleff & Arpels. In this city every store, shop, gallery and jewellers strive to be the best because this city is a millionaire’s playground, where the snobs, the bulging-with-money boys, the film stars and the showoffs make it a backdrop for their display of wealth.

Luce & Fremlin are the best in their line and being their diamond expert gave me a salary of $60,000 a year which even in this city with its cost of living the highest on the Florida coast, was good money.

I owned a Mercedes convertible, a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the sea, a healthy bank balance and some $80,000 worth of Stocks and Bonds.

I had a wardrobe of good clothes. I was tall, said to be handsome and the best golfer and squash-racket player at the Country Club. Now maybe you will see what I mean when I say I was a man on a cloud of success... but wait: to cap all this I had Judy.

I mention Judy last because she was (note the past tense) my most important possession.

Judy was brunette, pretty, intelligent and kind. We met at the Country Club and I found she played a good game of golf. If I gave her six strokes, she would beat me and as I play down to — I that meant she played a good game of golf. She had come from New York to Paradise City to research for material for old Judge Sawyer’s autobiography. She quickly settled down in Paradise City, became popular and within a few weeks was an integral part of the young community at the club. It took me four weeks and about thirty rounds of golf to discover that Judy was my girl. She told me later it took her considerably less time to discover I was her man. We got engaged.

When my boss, Sydney Fremlin, who was one of those big hearted, slightly overwhelming homosexuals who — if he likes you — can’t do enough for you, heard about the engagement, he insisted on throwing a party. Sydney loved parties. He said he would take care of the financial end and the party must be at the club and everyone — but everyone — invited. I didn’t really want it, but it seemed to tickle Judy, so I went along.

Sydney knew I was about the best diamond man in the business, that without me the high standard of his shop would fall — rather like the standard of a Michelin French restaurant falls when the chef walks out — that all his clients liked me, consulted me and took my advice, so that made me very popular with Sydney, and when one is popular with Sydney he can’t do enough.

That was a month ago. I look back on the evening of the party like a man, driven crazy with toothache, grinds down on the aching tooth.

Judy came to my apartment around 19.00. The party wasn’t due to begin until 21.00, but we had arranged to meet early because we wanted to discuss what kind of house we were going to live in when we married. We had three choices: a ranch type house with a big garden, a penthouse and a wooden chalet out of the city. I dug for the penthouse, but Judy leaned towards the ranch house because of the garden. We spent an hour or so discussing pros and cons, but finally, Judy convinced me a garden was essential.

‘When the kids come, Larry... we’ll need a garden.’

There and then I had called Ernie Trowlie, the real estate man we were dealing with and told him I’d be in tomorrow to pay the deposit on the ranch house.

We left my apartment feeling on top of the world and headed for the Country Club. A mile out of the city, and as we drove along the freeway my world came unstuck at the seams. A car shot out of a side turning and rammed us the way a destroyer rams a submarine. For one brief moment I saw the car, an old beat-up Caddy, with a terrified looking kid at the wheel, but there was nothing I could do about it. The Caddy hit the Merc on the offside and threw it across the freeway. My one thought as I blacked out was Judy.

I was still thinking about her when I came to the surface in a private room in the swank Jefferson Clinic paid for by Sydney Fremlin, who was sitting by my bedside crying into a silk handkerchief.

While we are on the subject of Sydney Fremlin let me give you a photo of him. He was tall, willowy with long blond hair and his age could be anything from thirty to fifty. Everyone liked Sydney: he had a warmth and a gush that overwhelm. He was artistically brilliant and had a special flair for designing way-out jewellery. His partner, Tom Luce, looked after the financial end of the business. Luce didn’t know a diamond from a rock crystal, but he did know how to make a dollar breed. He and Sydney were considered rich, and being considered rich in Paradise City put them in the heavy cash bracket. Whereas Luce, fifty, portly and with a face a bulldog would envy, remained behind the scenes, Sydney fluttered around the showroom when he wasn’t designing in his office. I left most of the old hens to him. They loved him, but the rich young things, the wealthy businessmen who were hunting for a special present and those who had been left granny’s gems and wanted them reset or valued came to me.

Homosexuals are odd animals, but I get along with them. I have found that very often they have far more talents, more kindness, more loyalty than the average he-man I rub shoulders with in this opulent city. Of course there is the other side of the coin which can be hateful: their jealousies, their explosive tempers, their spitefulness and their bitchiness that is always much more bitchy than any woman can hope to be. Sydney had all the assets and faults of the average homo. I liked him: we got along fine together.

With his makeup smeared with tears, his eyes pools of despair, his voice trembling, Sydney broke the news to me. Judy had died on the operating table.

I had been lucky, he told me: concussion and a nasty cut on my forehead, but in a few days, I would be as right as rain.

That was what he said: ‘As right as rain.’

He talked like that. He had been to an English public school until they had booted him out for trying to seduce the sports master.

I let him sob over me, but I didn’t sob over myself. Because I had fallen in love with Judy and had planned to live with her for ever and ever I had built inside myself an egg of happiness. I knew this egg had to be fragile: any real hopes of continuous happiness in this world we live in makes for a speculative egg, but I had thought and hoped that the egg would last for some time. When he told me that Judy was dead, I felt the egg go crunch and my technicoloured world turned to black and white.

In three days I was up on my feet, but I wasn’t ‘as right as rain’. The funeral was pretty bad. All the Country Club members turned up. Judy’s mother and father came down from New York. I don’t remember much about them except they seemed to me to be nice people. Judy’s mother looked a lot like her daughter, and that upset me. I was glad to return to my apartment. Sydney stuck with me and I wished to God he would go away, but he sat around and maybe, looking back, he was helpful. Finally around 22.00, he got to his elegant feet and said he would go home.

‘Take a month off, Larry,’ he said. ‘Go golfing. Take a trip. Build up the pieces. You can’t ever replace her, but you have your life to lead... so take a trip and come back to us and work like hell.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll work like hell,’ I said. ‘Thanks for everything.’

‘I won’t have you back tomorrow!’ He even stamped his foot. ‘I want you back in a month’s time... that’s an order!’

‘Balls! Work is what I want, and work is what I’m going to have! See you tomorrow.’

To me this made sense. How could I go on a golfing trip with Judy on my mind? I wouldn’t give a goddamn if I went around in 110. During my brief stay in the clinic I had got it all worked out.

The egg was broken. Like Humpty Dumpty an egg is never put together again. The sooner I got back to selling diamonds the better it would be for me. I was being terribly sensible. This kind of thing happens all the time, I told myself. People who are loved, died. People who make plans, build castles in the air, even tell real estate agents they are going ahead with the purchase of a ranch house find things go wrong and their plans are blown sky high. It happens every day, I told myself. So who was I to pity myself? I had found my girl, we had made plans, now she was dead. I was thirty-eight years of age. Given reasonable luck, I had another thirty-eight years of life ahead of me. I told myself I had to pick up the pieces, get on with my job and, maybe later, find someone like Judy to marry.

At the back of my mind I knew that this was only stupid thinking. No one could ever replace Judy. She had been my chosen, and from now on any other girl would be judged by Judy’s standards, and that, I knew, would give them an impossible handicap.

Anyway, I returned to the showroom with a strip of plaster to conceal the cut on my forehead. I tried to behave as if nothing had happened. Everyone tried to behave as if nothing had happened. My friends — and I had many — gave an extra squeeze when they shook hands. They were all devastatingly tactful, desperately trying to make it appear that Judy had never existed. My clients were the worst to deal with. They spoke to me in hushed voices, not looking at me, and they fell over themselves to take what I offered instead of haggling happily as they used to do.

Sydney fluttered around me. He seemed determined to keep my mind occupied. He kept buzzing out of his office with designs, asking my opinion — something he had never done before — seemingly to hang on my words, then buzzing back out of sight, only to buzz out again in an hour or so.

The second-in-command in the showroom was Terry Melville, who had served an apprenticeship with Cartier’s of London and had an impressive all-round knowledge of the jewellery trade. He was five years younger than I; a small, lean homo with long silver-dyed hair, dark blue eyes, pinched nostrils and a mouth like a knife cut. Sometime in the past, Sydney had fallen for him and had brought him to Paradise City, but now Sydney was bored with him. Terry hated me as I hated him. He hated my expertise in diamonds, and I hated him for his jealousy, his petty attempts to steal my exclusive clients and his vicious spite. He hated the fact that I wasn’t a queer and, in spite of this, Sydney did so much for me. He and Sydney were always quarrelling. If it wasn’t for Terry’s know-how, and also, maybe, he had something on Sydney, I am sure Sydney would have got rid of him.

When I arrived a few minutes after Sam Goble, the night guard, had opened the shop Terry, who was already at his desk, came over to me.

‘Sorry about it all, Larry,’ he said. ‘It could have been worse — you could have been dead too.’

There was that spiteful, gloating expression in his eyes that made me yearn to hit him. I could tell he was glad this had happened to me.

I nodded and, moving by him, I went to my desk. Jane Barlow, my secretary, plump, distinguished looking and pushing forty-five, came over to give me my mail. We looked at each other. The sadness in her eyes and her attempt at a smile gave me a pang. I touched her hand.

‘It happens, Jane,’ I said. ‘Don’t say anything... there’s nothing to say... thanks for the flowers.’

With Sydney buzzing around me, the clients’ hushed voices and Terry watching me malevolently from his desk, it was a hard day to take, but I took it.

Sydney wanted me to have dinner with him, but I refused. I had to face the loneliness sooner or later, and the sooner the better. For the past two months, Judy and I always had dinner together either at my apartment or at hers; now that had come to a grinding halt. I wondered if I should go to the Country Club, but decided I couldn’t face any more silent sympathy, so I bought a sandwich and sat alone in my apartment, thinking of Judy. Not a bright idea, but this first day had been hard to take. I told myself that in another three or four days my life would become adjusted... but it didn’t.

More than my egg of happiness had broken in the crash. I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m telling you what the head-shrinker finally told me. I had confidence in myself that I could ride this thing out, but there was mind damage as well as the broken egg. We didn’t find this out until later, and the head-shrinker explained this mind damage did account for the way I began to behave.

There is no point in going into details. The fact was that over the next three weeks I deteriorated both mentally and physically. I began to lose interest in the things that had, up to now, been my life: my work, golf, squash, my clothes, meeting people and even money.

The most serious of them all, of course, was my work. I began to make mistakes: little slips at first, then bigger slips as the days went by. I found I didn’t care if Jones wanted a platinum cigarette case with ruby initials for his new mistress. I got him the case, but forgot the initials. I forgot too that Mrs. Van Sligh had particularly requested a gold, calendar watch for her little monster of a nephew, and I sent him the gold watch without the calendar. She came into the shop like a galleon in full sail and slanged Sydney until he nearly burst into tears. This will give you just an idea the way I slipped. In three weeks I made a lot of similar mistakes: call it lack of concentration, call it what you will, but Sydney took the beating and Terry gloated.

Another thing: Judy always supervised my laundry. Now I forgot to change my shirt every day — who cares? I used to have a haircut once a week. For the first time since I can remember I now had fuzz on the nape of my neck... who cares? And so on and so on.

I quit playing golf. Who the hell, except a lunatic, I asked myself, wants to hit a little white ball into the blue and then walk after it? Squash? That was a distant memory.

Three weeks after Judy’s death Sydney came out of his office to where I was sitting staring dully down at my desk and asked me if I could spare him a minute.

‘Just a minute, Larry... no more than a minute.’

I felt a stab of conscience. I had a pile of letters and orders in my In-tray I hadn’t looked at. The time was 15.00, and these letters and orders had been lying in my In-tray since 09.00.

‘I’ve got mail to look at, Sydney,’ I said. ‘Is it important?’

‘Yes.’

I got to my feet. As I did so, I looked across the showroom, where Terry was sitting behind his desk.

He was watching me, a sneering little grin on his handsome face. His In-tray was empty. Whatever else he was, Terry was a worker.

I followed Sydney into his office, and he shut the door as if it were made of egg shells.

‘Sit down, Larry.’

I sat down.

He began to move around his big office like a moth in search of a candle.

To help him out, I said, ‘Something on your mind, Sydney?’

‘You are on my mind.’ He came to an abrupt stop and looked sorrowfully at me. ‘I want you to do me a very special favour.’

‘What is it?’

He began fluttering around the room again.

‘For God’s sake sit down!’ I snapped at him. ‘What is it?’

He shot to his desk and sat down. Taking out his silk handkerchief, he began to mop his face.

‘What is it?’ I repeated.

‘It’s not working out, is it, Larry?’ he said, not looking at me.

‘What’s not working out?’

He put his handkerchief away, got a grip on himself, placed his elbows on the polished surface of the desk and somehow forced himself to look directly at me.

‘I want you to do me a favour.’

‘You said that before... what favour?’

‘I want you to see Dr. Melish.’

If he had smacked my face I couldn’t have been more surprised. I reared back, staring at him.

Dr. Melish was the most expensive, most sought after head-shrinker in the city. Considering there is about one head-shrinker to every fifty citizens in this city, this is saying a lot.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want you to see him, Larry. I’ll pick up the tab. I think you should see him.’ He raised his hands as I began to protest. ‘Wait a moment, Larry. Do give me time to say something.’ He paused, then went on, ‘Larry, you’re not as right as rain. I know the ordeal you have been through. I know your dreadful loss has done damage. This I can understand. If I had been in your place I just couldn’t have survived... I know it! I think you have been marvellous coming back here and trying, but it hasn’t worked. You know that, don’t you, Larry?’ He looked pleadingly at me. ‘You do know that?’

I rubbed the back of my hand against my chin. The rasp of stubble made me stiffen. Goddamn it! I thought. I’ve forgotten to shave this morning! I got to my feet and crossed the room to the big wall mirror in which Sydney so often admired himself. I stared at my reflection and I felt a cold qualm. Could this mess be me? I looked at my shirt cuffs and then at my shoes that hadn’t been polished for a couple of weeks.

Slowly, I returned to the chair and sat down. I looked at Sydney, who was watching me. I saw on his face his anxiety, his kindness and the tizz he was in. I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t put myself in his place. I thought of the mistakes I had made in the overflowing In-tray and how I was looking. For all the confidence I had in myself, for all the facade of bravery (can you call it that?) I just wasn’t — as he put it — as right as rain.

I drew in a long, deep breath.

‘Look, Sydney, let’s forget Melish. I’ll resign. You’re right. Something has gone wrong. I’ll get the hell out of here and you give Terry his chance. He’s okay. Don’t worry about me, because I’ve ceased to worry about myself.’

‘You are the best diamond man in the business,’ Sydney said quietly. He was now fully in control of himself, and his buzzing and fluttering had stopped. ‘I’m not going to let you resign. I can’t afford to lose you. You want adjustment, and Dr. Melish can fix it. Now listen to me, Larry. In the past I’ve done a lot of things for you, and I believe you regard me as your friend. Now is the time for you to do something for me. I want you to see Melish. I know he can straighten you out. It may take two or three months. I don’t care if it takes a year. Your job with us will always be waiting for you. You are important people to me. Let me repeat: you are the best diamond man in the business. You have had a terrible knock, but it can be straightened out. This is the least you can do in return... see Melish.’

So I saw Melish.

As Sydney had said it was the least I could do, but I had no faith in Dr. Melish until I met him. He was small, thin, balding with penetrating eyes. He had been briefed by Sydney so he knew all about my background, about Judy and how I was reacting.

Why go into details? I had three sessions with him and he finally came up with his verdict.

It came down to this: I needed a complete change of scene. I was to get away from Paradise City for at least three months.

‘I understand you haven’t driven a car since the accident,’ he said, polishing his glasses. ‘You must get a car and you must drive. The problem with you is that you imagine your loss is something unique.’ He raised his hand, as I began to protest. ‘I know you don’t want to admit this, but all the same it is your problem. I suggest you mix with people who have bigger problems than you have. In this way, you will get your own problem in the right perspective. I have a niece who lives in Luceville. She does welfare work and she needs unpaid help. I’m suggesting you should go to Luceville and work with her. I have already talked to her. I will be quite frank with you. When I told her about you she said she wasn’t in the market for a disturbed person. She wants help badly, and if she has to cope with your difficulties she doesn’t want you. I told her you would help her and wouldn’t create any problems. It took me a little time to persuade her and now it is up to you.’

I shook my head.

‘I’d be as useful to your niece as a hole in the head,’ I said. ‘No... that’s a dumb idea. I’ll find something. Okay, I’ll go away for three months. I’ll...’

He twiddled with his glasses.

‘My niece needs help,’ he said, staring at me. ‘Don’t you want to help people or have you decided people must continue to help you?’

Put like that I hadn’t a comeback. What had I to lose? Sydney was going to pay me while I was trying to get rehabilitated. I should be shot of the showroom with the sympathetic hushed voices and Terry’s sneering grin. Maybe this was an idea. At least it was something new, and how I yearned for something new!

Rather feebly, I said, ‘But I’m not qualified for welfare work. I know nothing about it. I would be more hindrance than help.’

Melish glanced at his wristwatch. I could see he was already thinking about his next patient.

‘If my niece says she can make use of you, then she can make use of you,’ he said patiently. ‘Why not give it a try?’

Why not? I shrugged and said I would go to Luceville.

My first move was to buy a Buick convertible. It took an effort of will to drive it to my apartment. I was sweating and shaking by the time I had parked. I sat at the wheel for some five minutes, then forced myself to set the car in motion and I drove along the busy main street, along Seaview boulevard, back into main street and then to my apartment. When I parked this time I wasn’t sweating and shaking.

Sydney came to see me off.

‘In three months’ time, Larry,’ he said as he shook hands, ‘you will be back and you will still be the best diamond man in the business. Good luck and God bless.’

So with a suitcase full of clothes, with no confidence in the future, I drove off to Luceville.

Dr. Melish could certainly claim credit for providing me with a change of scene.

Luceville, some five hundred miles north of Paradise City turned out to be a big straggling industrial town that dwelt under a permanent cloud of smog. Its main industry was limestone. Limestone, in case you don’t know, is crushed for lime, cement and building and road materials. It happens to be Florida’s main industry.

Driving slowly, it took me two days on the road to get to Luceville. I found I was now a nervous driver and every time a car swished by me I flinched, but I kept going, spending a night at a dreary motel and finally arriving at Luceville around 11.00, feeling drained and jumpy.

As I approached the outskirts of the town, cement dust began to settle on my skin, making me feel unwashed and gritty. It also settled on the windshield and on the car. There was no sun. No sun, however powerful, could ever penetrate the smog and the cement dust that hung over the town. Along the highway leading to the city’s centre were vast limestone factories and the noise of rock being crushed sounded like distant thunder.

I found the Bendix Hotel, recommended by Dr. Melish as the best in town, down a side street off Main Street. It was a sad affair; its glass doors were covered with cement dust, its lobby furnished with sagging bamboo chairs and its reception desk a mere counter behind which was a board with a row of keys.

A tall, overfat man with long side-whiskers dwelt behind the counter. He looked like a character who had got involved in a battle and was now licking his wounds.

He booked me in without fuss or interest. A sad-looking coloured boy took my bag and showed me to my room, overlooking a tenement block and on the third floor. We travelled together in an elevator that shuddered, creaked and jerked and I was thankful to arrive in one piece.

I looked around the room. At least it had four walls, a ceiling, a toilet and shower, but there was nothing else for it to boast about.

This was certainly a change of scene.

Paradise City and Luceville were as different as a Rolls-Royce is to a third-hand, beat-up Chevy... maybe that is insulting the Chevy.

I unpacked, hung my clothes in the closet, then stripped off and took a shower. Because I was determined to get to grips with myself, I put on a clean white shirt and one of my better suits. I looked at myself in the flyblown mirror and I felt a tiny surge of confidence. At least, I thought, I looked once again like someone in the executive bracket, maybe a little wan, but still, unmistakably someone with authority. It’s amazing, I told myself, what an expensive, well-cut suit, a white shirt and a good tie can do for a man, even such a man as myself.

Dr. Melish had given me his niece’s telephone number. Her name, he had told me, was Jenny Baxter. I called the number, but there was no reply. Slightly irritated, I prowled around the room for some five minutes, then tried again. Still no answer. I went to the open window and looked down at the street. There were a lot of people milling around: they all looked shabby, most of them dirty, most of them women, shopping. There were a lot of kids: they all looked in need of a bath. The cars that congested the streets were all covered with cement dust. I was to learn later that cement dust was the biggest enemy of this town: bigger than boredom that rated as enemy No. 2.

I called Jenny Baxter’s number again, and this time a rather breathless woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Miss Baxter?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Laurence Carr. Your uncle, Dr. Melish...’ I paused. She either knew about me or she didn’t.

‘Of course. Where are you?’

‘The Bendix Hotel.’

‘Will you give me about an hour? Then I’ll be over.’

In spite of her breathlessness — as if she had run up six flights of stairs, which I found out later was exactly what she had done — she sounded crisp and efficient.

I wasn’t in the mood to hang around in this dismal room.

‘Suppose I come over?’ I said.

‘Oh yes... do that. You have the address?’

I said I had the address.

‘Then come as soon as you like,’ and she hung up.

I walked down the three flights of stairs. My nerves were still in a bad shape and I couldn’t face the creaking elevator. I asked the coloured boy directions. He said Maddox Street was a five-minute walk from the hotel. As I had found parking for my car after a struggle, I decided to walk.

As I walked down Main Street I became aware that people were staring at me. It gradually dawned on me they were staring at my clothes. When you walk down Main Street, Paradise City, you come up against competition. You just had to be well dressed, but here, in this smog-ridden town, everyone seemed to me to be in rags.

I found Jenny Baxter in a tiny room that served as an office on the sixth floor of a shabby walk-up block. I toiled up the stairs, feeling cement dust gritty around my collar. A change of scene? Melish had certainly picked me a beauty.

Jenny Baxter was thirty-three years of age. She was tall: around five foot nine, dark with a mass of untidy black hair pinned to the top of her head and that seemed to be threatening to fall down at any moment. She was lean. By my standards, her figure was unfeminine: her breasts, unlike those of the women I knew in Paradise City, were tiny mounds and sexually uninteresting. She looked slightly starved. She was wearing a drab grey dress that she must have made herself: there could be no other explanation for its cut and the way it hung on her. Her features were good: her nose and mouth excellent, but what hooked me were her eyes. Her eyes were honest, interesting and penetrating like those of her uncle.

She was scribbling on a yellow form as I came into the tiny room, and she looked up and regarded me.

I stood in the doorway, unsure of myself, wondering what the hell I was doing here.

‘Larry Carr?’ Her voice was low toned and rich. ‘Come on in.’

As I moved in, the telephone bell started up. She waved me to the only other chair, then took up the receiver. Her replies, consisting of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, were crisp and impersonal. She seemed to have the technique of cutting off what could have been a lengthy conversation had she not been able to control the speaker.

Finally, she replaced the receiver, ran her pencil through her hair and smiled at me. The moment she smiled she became a different person. It was a wonderful, open smile of warmth and friendliness.

‘Sorry. This thing never stops ringing. So you want to help?’

I sat down.

‘If I can.’ I wondered if I really meant this.

‘But not in those beautiful clothes.’

I forced a smile.

‘No, but don’t blame me. Your uncle didn’t warn me.’

She nodded.

‘My uncle is a wonderful man, but he doesn’t bother with details.’ She leaned back and regarded me. ‘He told me about you. I believe in speaking frankly. I know about your problem, and I’m sorry about it, but it doesn’t interest me, because I have hundreds of my own problems. Uncle Henry told me you want to get straightened out, but that is your problem, and in my thinking, it is up to you to straighten yourself out.’ She put her hands on the soiled blotter and smiled at me. ‘Please understand. In this dreadful town there is a lot of work to do and a lot of help to be given. I need help and I haven’t time for sympathy.’

‘I’m here to help.’ I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice. Who did she imagine she was talking to? ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘If I could only believe you really are here to help,’ she said.

‘I’m telling you. I’m here to help. So what do I do?’

She took from a drawer a crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered it.

I produced the gold cigarette case Sydney had given me for my last birthday. It was rather special. It had set Sydney back $1,500: a cigarette case I was proud of: call it a status symbol if you like. Even some of my clients gave it a double take when I produced it.

‘Have one of mine?’ I said.

She looked at the glittering case and then at me.

‘Is that really gold?’

‘This?’ I turned it in my hand so she could see every inch of it. ‘Oh, sure.’

‘But isn’t it very valuable?’

The cement dust felt a little more gritty around my neck.

‘It was a present... fifteen hundred dollars.’ I offered it. ‘Do you want to smoke one of mine?’

‘No, thank you.’ She took a cigarette from her crumpled pack and dragged her eyes away from the cigarette case. ‘Be careful with that,’ she went on. ‘It could be stolen.’

‘They steal things here?’

She nodded and accepted a light from my gold lighter one of my clients had given me.

‘Fifteen hundred dollars? For that amount of money I could supply ten of my families with food for a month.’

‘You have ten families?’ I put the cigarette case back into my hip pocket. ‘Really?’

‘I have two thousand five hundred and twenty-two families,’ she said quietly. She opened a drawer in her battered desk and took from it a street plan of Luceville. She placed it on the desk so I could see it. The plan had been divided up into five sections with a felt pen: each section was marked from 1 to 5. ‘You should know what you’re walking into,’ she went on. ‘Let me explain.’

She went on to tell me there were five welfare workers in the town: all professionals. Each had a section of the town to look after: she was in charge of the dirtiest end of the stick. She glanced up and smiled. ‘No one else wanted it, so I took it. I’ve been here for the past two years. My job is to give help when help is genuinely needed. I have a fund which is far from adequate to draw on. I visit people. I make reports. The reports have to be broken down and put on cards.’ She tapped No. 5 section on the plan. ‘This is my beat. It contains probably the worst of the worst in this dreadful town: close on four thousand people, including kids who are no longer kids after they are seven years old. Out here...’ Her pencil moved from the ringed section of No. 5 and tapped just beyond the town’s boundary, ‘is the Florida Women’s House of Correction. This is a very tough prison: not only are the prisoners tough, but the conditions are tough: most of them are long term and a lot of them hopeless criminals. Up to three months ago, prison visitors weren’t allowed, but I’ve finally convinced the people concerned that I can be helpful.’ The telephone bell rang and again she went through her crisp “yes” and “no” routine and hung up. ‘I am allowed one unpaid helper,’ she went on as if the telephone conversation hadn’t happened. ‘People do volunteer as you have volunteered. Your job would be to keep the card index straight, take care of the telephone, handle any emergency until I can fix it, type my reports if you can read my awful handwriting. In fact, you will hold everything down until I can get back to this desk and hold it down myself.’

I shifted in the uncomfortable chair. What the hell was Melish thinking of, or didn’t he know? She didn’t want a man with my background, she wanted an efficient girl who could cope with office work. This was strictly no job for me.

I told her so as politely as I could, but I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice.

‘This is not a job for a girl,’ Jenny said. ‘My last volunteer was a retired accountant. He was sixty-five years of age with nothing to do except play golf and bridge. He jumped at the chance to help me, and he lasted two weeks. I didn’t blame him when he quit.’

‘You mean the job bored him?’

‘No... it didn’t bore him. He became frightened.’

I stared at her.

‘Frightened? You mean there was too much work for him to do?’

She smiled her warm smile.

‘No. He was a glutton for work. He did a marvellous job while he lasted. For the first time my records were really straightened out. No... he couldn’t take what came in through that door from time to time,’ and she nodded at the door of the tiny office. ‘You had better know, Larry... there is a gang of kids who terrorise this section of the city. They are known to the police as the Jinx gang. Their ages run from ten to twenty years. There are about thirty of them. The leader is Spooky Jinx — that’s what he calls himself — he imagines he is a Mafia character. He is vicious and extremely dangerous and the other kids follow him slavishly. The police can’t do anything about him: he’s far too smart. They have picked up quite a few of the gang, but never Spooky.’ She paused and then went on, ‘Spooky has the idea that I am prying. He thinks I give information to the police. He thinks all the people I try to help should get on without my help. He and his gang regard their parents as creeps because they accept the handouts I can arrange for them: milk for the babies, clothes, coal and so on and so on and because I help them with their problems like how they can pay their rent, about their hire purchase... all their troubles they share with me. Spooky thinks I interfere, and he makes my life difficult. Every so often they come here and try and frighten me.’ Again the warm smile. ‘They don’t frighten me, but up to now they have succeeded in frightening my voluntary helpers.’

I listened, but I didn’t believe. Some kid... this didn’t make sense to me.

‘I don’t think I’m quite with you,’ I said. ‘You mean this kid scared your accountant friend and he quit? How did this kid do that?’

‘He’s very persuasive. You must remember that this job is unpaid. My accountant friend explained it all to me. He is no longer young. He didn’t think the job was worth the threat.’

‘Threat?’

‘The usual thing — if he didn’t quit they would find him one dark night. They are vicious.’ She regarded me, her face suddenly grave. ‘He has a wife and a nice home. He decided to quit.’

I felt a sudden tightening of my belly. I knew all about delinquent kids. Who hasn’t read about them? A dark night and suddenly to be set upon by a bunch of little savages: no holds barred. A kick in the face could lose a set of decent teeth. A kick in the groin could make a man impotent.

But could such a thing happen to me?

‘You don’t have to volunteer,’ Jenny said. She seemed to know what was going on in my mind. ‘Why should you? Uncle Henry doesn’t think of details. I’ve said that before, haven’t I?’

‘Let’s get this straight,’ I said. ‘Are you telling me these kids — this Spooky — could threaten me if I worked with you?’

‘Oh yes, sooner or later, he will threaten you.’

‘Does his threat amount to anything?’

She crushed out her cigarette as she said, ‘I’m afraid it does.’

A change of scene?

I thought for a long moment. I suddenly became aware that during this talk with this woman I hadn’t once thought of Judy. This hadn’t happened since the crash. Maybe a kick in the face or even in the groin would make a change.

‘When do I start work?’ I said.

Her warm smile enveloped me.

‘Thank you... you start as soon as you have bought yourself a sweat shirt and jeans, and please don’t use that beautiful cigarette case.’ She got to her feet. ‘I have to go. I won’t be back until four o’clock. I’ll explain about the records and the card index system then — then you are in business.’

We went down the six flights of stairs to the street and I saw her into the cement-dusty Fiat 500. She paused before starting the engine.

‘Thank you for volunteering. I think we’ll make out.’ She regarded me for a moment through the tiny side window. ‘I’m sorry about your problem. It’ll come out all right... you have to be patient,’ and she drove away.

I stood on the ledge of the kerb, feeling cement dust settling over me and the humid heat turning the dust into gritty sweat. I liked her. As I stood there, I wondered what I was walking into. Did I scare easily? I didn’t know. It was when the crunch came that I would know.

I walked down the narrow, noisy street to Main Street in search of a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt.

I wasn’t aware when it happened, but it happened.

A dirty, ragged kid, around nine years of age, suddenly barged into me, sending me staggering. He pursed his lips and made a loud rude noise as he darted away.

It wasn’t until I got back to the Bendix Hotel that I found the back of my expensive jacket had been slashed by a razor blade and my gold cigarette case gone.