No Business of Mine

Chapter One

My name is Steve Harmas and I am a Foreign Correspondent of the New York Clarion. During the years 1940-45 I lived in the Savoy Hotel with a number of my colleagues and told the people of America the story of Britain at war. I gave up the cocktail bar and the comfort of the Savoy when the Allied Armies invaded Europe. To get me to go was like peeling a clam off a wall, but my editor kept after me, and finally I went. He told me the experience would give me character. It gave me a pain you-know-where, but it didn’t give me character.

After the collapse of Germany, I felt I had had enough of war and hardship, and I changed places with a colleague without him knowing anything about it, and returned to America and two-pound steaks on his ticket.

Several months later I was offered an assignment to write a series of articles on post-war Britain. I didn’t particularly want the job: there was a whisky shortage in England at the time, but there was a girl named Netta Scott who used to live in London when last I was there, and I did want to see her again.

I don’t want you to get me wrong about Netta Scott. I wasn’t in love with her, but I did feel I owed her a great deal for giving me such a swell time while I was a stranger in a strange country, and quite unexpectedly I found myself in the position to do so.

It happened like this: I was reading the sporting sheet on my way to the office, still in two minds about going to England, when I noticed that one of the horses running in the afternoon’s race was named Netta. The horse was a ten to one outsider, but I had a hunch and decided to back it. I laid out five hundred dollars, and sat by the radio with butterflies in my stomach, awaiting the result.

The horse won by a nose, and there and then I decided to split the five-thousand-dollar winnings with Netta: I caught the first available plane to England.

I got a big bang out of imagining Netta’s reaction when I walked in on her and planked down before her five hundred crisp, new one pound notes. She had always liked money, always grumbled about being hard up, although she would never let me help her once we got to know each other. It would be a great moment in her life, and it would square my debt at the same time.

I first met Netta in 1942 at a luxury night club in Mayfair’s Bruton Mews. She worked there as a dance hostess, and don’t let anyone kid you dance hostesses don’t work. They develop more muscles than Strangler Lewis ever had by warding off tired business men who are not as tired as all that. Her job was to persuade suckers like me to buy lousy champagne at five pounds a bottle, and to pay her ten shillings for the privilege of dancing her around a floor the size of a pocket handkerchief.

The Blue Club, as it was called, was run by a guy named Jack Bradley. I had seen him once or twice, and I thought then he looked a doubtful customer. The only girl working in the club who wasn’t scared of him was Netta: but Netta wasn’t scared of any man.

The story goes that all the girls had to do a night shift with Bradley before they could qualify for the job of hostess. They told me that Netta and Bradley spent the night reading the illustrated papers when she qualified, but that was only after she had blunted his glands by wrapping a valuable oil painting around his thick neck. I don’t know whether the yarn was true: Netta wouldn’t talk about it, but knowing her, I’d say it was.

Bradley must have made a packet out of the club. It was patronized almost entirely by American officers and newspaper men who had money to burn. They burned it all right in the Blue Club. The band was first class, the girls beautiful and willing, and the food excellent; but the cost was so high you had to put on an oxygen mask before you looked at the bill.

Netta was one of twelve girls, and I picked her out the moment I saw her.

She was a cute trick: a red head with skin like peaches and cream. Her curves attracted my attention: curves always do. They were a blue print for original sin. I’ve seen some female hairpin bends in my time, but nothing quite in Netta’s class. As my companion, Harry Bix, a hard-bitten bomber pilot, put it, “A mouse fitted with skis would have a grand run down her, and would I like to be that mouse!”

Yes, Netta was a cute trick. She was really lovely in a hard, sophisticated way. You could tell right off that she knew her way around, and if you hoped to get places with her it was gloves off and no holds barred; even at that she’d probably lick you.

It took some time before Netta thawed out with me. At first she considered me just another customer, then she regarded me with suspicion, thinking I was on the make, but finally she accepted the idea that I was a lonely guy in a strange city who wanted to make friends with her.

I used to go to the Blue Club every evening. After a month or so she wouldn’t let me buy champagne, and I knew I was making progress. One night she suggested we might go together to Kew Gardens on the following Sunday and see the bluebells. Then I knew I’d got somewhere with her.

It finally worked out that I saw a lot of Netta. I’d call for her at her little flat off the Cromwell Road and drive her to the Blue Club. Sometimes we’d have supper together at the Vanity Fair; sometimes she’d come along to the Savoy and we’d dine in the grill-room. She was a good companion, ready to laugh or talk sense depending on my mood, and she could drink a lot of liquor without getting tight.

Netta was my safety-valve. She bridged all the dreary boredom which is inevitable at times when one is not always working to capacity. She made my stay in London worth remembering. We finally got around to sleeping together once or twice a month, but as in everything we did, it was impersonal and didn’t mean a great deal to either of us. Neither she nor I were in love with each other. She never let our association get personal, although it was intimate enough. That is she never asked me about my home, whether I was married, what I intended to do when the war was over; never hinted she would like to return to the States with me. I did try to find out something about her background, but she wouldn’t talk. Her attitude was that we were living in the present, any moment a bomb or rocket might drop on us, and it was up to us to be as happy as we could while the hour lasted. She lived in a wrapping of cellophane. I could see and touch her, but I couldn’t get at her. Oddly enough this attitude suited me. I didn’t want to know who her father was, whether she had a husband serving overseas, whether she had any sisters or brothers. All I wanted was a gay companion: that was what I got.

We kept up this association for two years, then when I received orders to sail with the invading armies we said good-bye.

We said good-bye as if we would meet again the next evening, although I knew I wouldn’t see her for at least a year, perhaps never see her again: she knew it too.

“So long, Steve,” she said when I dropped her outside her flat. “And don’t come in. Let’s say good-bye here, and let’s make it quick. Maybe I’ll see you again before long.”

“Sure, you’ll see me again,” I said.

We kissed. Nothing special: no tears. She went up the steps, shut the door without looking back.

I had planned to write to her, but I never did. We moved so fast into France and things were so hectic that I didn’t have the chance to write for the first month, and after that I decided it was best to forget her. I did forget her until I returned to America. Then I began to think of her again. I hadn’t seen her for nearly two years, but I found I could remember every detail of her face and body as clearly as if we had parted only a few hours ago. I tried to push her out of my mind, went around with other girls, but Netta stuck: she wouldn’t be driven away. So when I spotted that horse, backed it and won, I knew I was going to see her again, and I was glad.

I arrived in London on a hot August evening after a long, depressing trip down from Prestwick. I went immediately to the Savoy Hotel where I had booked a reservation, had a word with the reception clerk who seemed pleased to see me again, and went up to my room, overlooking the Thames. After a shower and a couple of drinks I went down to the office and asked them to let me have five hundred one pound notes. I could see this request gave them a jar, but they knew me well enough by now to help me if they could. After a few minutes delay they handed over the money with no more of a flourish than if it had been a package of bus tickets.

It was now half-past six, and I knew Netta would be home at that hour. She always prepared for the evening’s work around seven o’clock, and her preparations usually took the best part of an hour.

As I was waiting in a small but select queue for a taxi, I asked the hall porter if he knew whether the Blue Club still existed. He said it did, and that it had now acquired an unsavoury reputation as it had installed a couple of doubtful roulette tables since my time. Apparently it had been raided twice during the past six months, but had escaped being closed down through lack of evidence. It seemed Jack Bradley managed to keep one jump ahead of the police.

I eventually got a taxi, and after a slight haggle, the hall porter persuaded the driver to take me to Cromwell Road.

I arrived outside Netta’s flat at ten minutes past seven. I paid off the driver, stood back, and looked up at her windows on the top floor. The house was one of those dreary buildings that grace the back streets off Cromwell Road. It was tall, dirty, and the lace curtains at the windows were on their last legs. Netta’s flat, one of three, still had the familiar bright orange curtains at the windows. I wondered if I was going to walk in on a new lover, decided I’d chance it. I opened the front door, began the walk up the three flights of coconut-matted stairs.

Those stairs brought back a lot of pleasant memories. I remembered the nights we used to sneak up them, holding our shoes in our hands lest Mrs. Crockett, the landlady who lurked in the basement, should hear us. I remembered too, the night I had flown over Berlin with a R.A.F. crew and had arrived at Netta’s flat at five o’clock in the morning, too excited to sleep and wanting to tell her of the experience, only to find she hadn’t come home that night. I had sat on the top of those stairs waiting for her, and had finally dozed off, to be discovered by Mrs. Crockett, who had threatened to call the police.

I passed the doors of the other two flats. I had never discovered who lived in them. During the whole time I had visited Netta I hadn’t once seen the occupiers. I arrived, a little breathless, outside Netta’s front door, and paused before I rang the bell.

Everything was exactly the same. There was her card in a tiny brass frame screwed to the panel of the door. There was the long scratch on the paint-work which I had made when slightly drunk with the latchkey. There was the thick wool mat before the door. I found my heart was beating a shade quicker, and my hands were a little damp. It seemed to me all of a sudden that Netta had become important to me: I’d been away too long.

I punched the bell, waited, heard nothing, punched the bell again. No one answered the door. I continued to wait, wondering if Netta was in her bath. I gave her a few more seconds, punched the bell again.

“There’s no one there,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned, looked down the short flight of stairs. A man was standing in the doorway of the lower flat, looking up at me. He was a big strapping fellow around thirty, broad and well-built but far from muscular. With a frame like a hammer-thrower, he was yet soft, just this side of fat. He stood looking up at me with a half-smile on his face, and the impression he gave me was that of an enormous sleepy tom-cat, indifferent, self-sufficient, pleased with himself. The waning sunlight coming through the grimy window caught the gold in his mouth, making his teeth come alive.

“Hello, baby,” he said. “You one of her boy friends?” He had a faint lisp, and his corn-coloured hair was cut close. He was wearing a yellow and black silk dressing-gown, fastened at his throat; his pyjama legs were electric blue, his sandals scarlet. He was quite a picture.

“Go jump into a lake,” I said. “Jump into two if one won’t hold you,” and I turned back to Netta’s door.

The man giggled. It was an unpleasant hissing sound and for no reason at all it set my nerves jumping.

“There’s no one there, baby,” he repeated, then added in an undertone, “she’s dead.”

I stopped ringing the bell, turned, looked at him. He raised his eyebrows, and his head waggled from side to side ever so slightly. “Did you hear?” he asked, and smiled as if he were privately amused at some secret joke of his own.

“Dead?” I repeated, moving away from the door.

“That’s right, baby,” he said, leaning against the door-post, giving me an arch look. “She died yesterday. You can still smell the gas if you sniff hard enough.” He touched his throat, flinched. “I had a bad day with it yesterday.”

I walked down the stairs, stood in front of him. He was an inch taller than I and a lot broader, but I knew he hadn’t any iron in his bones.

“Calm down, Fatso,” I said, “and give it to me straight. What gas? What are you raving about?”

“Come inside, baby,” he said, smirking. “I’ll tell you about it.”

Before I could refuse, he had sauntered into a large room which stank of stale scent and was full of old, dusty furniture.

He dropped into a big easy chair. As his great body dented the cushions a fine cloud of dust arose.

“Excuse the hovel,” he said, looking around the room with an expression of disgust on his face. “Mrs. Crockett’s a slut. She never cleans the place and I can’t be expected to do it, can I, baby? Life’s too short to waste time cleaning when one has my abilities.”

“Never mind the Oscar Wilde act,” I said impatiently. “Are you telling me Netta Scott’s dead?”

He nodded, smiled up at me. “Sad, isn’t it? Such a delightful girl; beautiful, lovely little body; so full of vigour — now, just meal for the worms.” He sighed. “Death is a great leveller, isn’t it?”

“How did it happen?” I asked, wanting to take him by his fat throat and shake the daylights out of him.

“By her own hand,” he said mournfully. “Shocking business. Police rushing up and down stairs... the ambulance... doctors... Mrs. Crockett screaming... that fat bitch in the lower flat gloating... a crowd in the street, hoping to see the remains quite, quite ghastly. Then the smell of gas — couldn’t get it out of the house all day. Shocking business, baby, really most, most shocking.”

“You mean she gassed herself?” I asked, going cold.

“That’s right, the poor lamb. The room was sealed with adhesive tape... roll upon roll of adhesive tape, and the gas oven going full blast. I’ll never be able to buy adhesive tape again without thinking of her.” The words were a vibrationless hum, intimate and secret-sounding. The perpetual smile bothered me too.

“I see,” I said, turning away.

Well, that was that. I felt suddenly deflated, a little sick, infinitely sad.

I thought: If you had only waited twenty-four hours, Netta, we’d have faced whatever it was together, and we’d have licked it.

“Thank you,” I said at the door.

“Don’t thank me, baby,” he said, heaving himself out of the chair and following me on to the landing. “It’s nice to know I’ve rendered a little service, although a sad one. I can see you’re suffering from shock, but you’ll get over it. Plenty of hard work is the best healer. Doesn’t Byron say, The busy have no time for tears? Perhaps you don’t admire Byron. Some people don’t.”

I stared at him, not seeing him, not listening to him. From out of the past, I heard Netta’s voice saying: “So the fool killed himself. He hadn’t the guts to take what was coming to him. Well, whatever I do, I’d be ready to pay for it. I wouldn’t take that way out — ever.”

She had said that one night when we had read of a millionaire who had bulled when he should have beared and had blown out his brains. I remembered how Netta had looked when she had said that, and I felt a little cold breath of wind against my cheek.

There was something wrong here. I knew Netta would never have killed herself.

I pulled my hat farther down on my nose, felt in my pocket for a cigarette, offered the carton.

“Why did she do it?” I asked.

“I’m Julius Cole,” the pixy said, drawing out a cigarette from the carton between a grubby forefinger and thumb. “Are you a friend of hers?”

I nodded. “I knew her a couple of years ago,” I said, lighting his cigarette and then mine.

He smiled. “She would be interested in an American,” he said as if to himself. “And, of course, with her figure and looks an American would be interested in her.” He looked up, his eyes sleepy. “It would be interesting to know the exact number of girls in this country who were ravished by American service men during their stay here, wouldn’t it? I make a point of collecting such statistics.” He lifted his broad, limp shoulders. “Probably a waste of time,” he added, wagging his head.

“How did it happen?” I said sharply.

“You mean, why did she do it?” he gently corrected me. Again he lifted his shoulders. The silk of his dressing-gown rustled. “It’s a mystery, baby. No note... five pounds in her bag... food in the refrigerator... no love letters... no one knows.” He raised his eyebrows, smiled. “Perhaps she was with child.”

I couldn’t continue this conversation. Talking about Netta with him was like reading something written on a lavatory wall.

“Well, thanks,” I said, and walked down the stairs.

“Don’t mention it, baby,” he said. “So sad for you: so disappointing.” He went back into his room and closed the door.