A Piece of the Sky is Missing

David Nobbs

A Piece of the Sky is Missing

Contents

1 A Joke Misfires

2 A London Night

3 Early Days

4 War

5 Above the Sex Emporium

6 Joys

7 Sorrows

8 Hopes

9 Fears

10 Just Good Friends

11 Dr Schmuck

12 Trouble at the Mill

13 In Darkest Putney

14 Mixed Company

15 Light Blue Interlude

16 Excellent Opportunities for the Right Man

17 A European Trip

18 Mr Mendel’s Pride and Joy

19 The Shy but Passionate Frances Lanyard

20 The Farewell Party

21 Sonia

22 Kentish Town Miniatures

23 An Important Session with Dr Schmuck

24 The Pre-Christmas Booze-up

25 A Brush with the Law

26 A Dip into the Mail Bag

27 A Traditional Christmas

28 More Interviews

29 A Happy New Year

30 Consequences

31 New Year Resolution

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by David Nobbs

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

A Joke Misfires

The caricature began to take shape. He drew with confident if unprofessional strokes. The forehead, redolent of drab efficiency and solemnity. The long nose, absurdly elongated. The concavity of the chin, grotesquely exaggerated. The humourless weakness of the mouth, cruelly exposed. The hint of underlying effeminacy, broadened into a positively offensive suggestion. Here was an executive with a role to play in an expanding Britain. Here was a bachelor over-fond of his mother. Here, on the rough gravelly wall, was Tadman-Evans.

Robert was pleased with his work. He added Tadman-Evans’s telephone number, pulled the chain, and left the non-executive gents.

On his way out into the corridor he met Martin Edwards, a non-executive. Martin Edwards smiled at him and said: ‘Been demoted, have you?’

‘Ours are full,’ said Robert.

Later that Friday morning he met Tadman-Evans in the executive gents and found that the caricature had drained him of dislike. The man’s combination of efficiency and effeminacy no longer got him on the raw. Tadman-Evans smiled, not yet having heard about the caricature. Robert felt ashamed.

The executive gents, like the non-executive gents, had a blue ceiling and blue doors. But here there were individual bars of soap, not a swivelling bulbous container jammed solid with yellow goo. And here the wall was smooth, and somehow less inviting to caricature.

In both the executive and the non-executive ladies the ceilings and doors were pink. Robert knew this, having been in them several times, by mistake and out of bravado. Once, for a bet, he had used the ladies for a week. That hadn’t gone down too well at Cadman and Bentwhistle Ltd. Nor would his caricature.

He thought: ‘I’ll wash it off.’ But Herr Muller was waiting, to eat lunch and talk pumping equipment, and he didn’t wash it off.

As he passed the end of the typing pool that evening Rosie giggled. It’s got around, he thought.

On Monday morning up-and-coming £2,500-a-year thirty-two-year-old executive Robert Bellamy arrived at Cadman and Bentwhistle Ltd. Promptly at nine o’clock. Five foot eleven, beginning to look prosperous and well-fed, handsome, with red hair, blue eyes, a straight slender nose, delicate well-shaped lips, light skin, freckled in summer. An unusual combination of masculinity and softness in his face. Popular with the girls of the typing pool. But nervous now. Caught in the same lift as Tadman-Evans. Avoiding his eye.

The lift smelt of damp coats this wet November morning. They were crowded into it, fifteen of them, the maximum permitted by Messrs Melrose and Oxley of Middlesbrough. He must show that he wasn’t cowed by the situation.

‘Second floor. Accounts, vouchers, canteen and lingerie,’ he said. Rosie giggled. No-one else smiled. Couldn’t expect them to. It wasn’t worth it.

He left the lift at the third floor. As he walked past the end of the typing pool he said: ‘’Morning, girls.’

‘’Morning, Mr Bellamy’, in tones that intimated: ‘Oh, you are a one’. Robert felt himself to be on their side in an endless, unacknowledged battle. He spoke clearly into the dictaphone, didn’t demand the impossible, bought them chocolates after he had lost his temper, and always kissed them at the Christmas party, not lecherously, like Wallis, or jocularly, like Perrin, or officially, like Tadman-Evans, but affectionately, because he liked them and wished life held more for them.

At the last Christmas party he had given Wallis a black eye. Things had been rather fraught in ‘Europe’ after that.

He entered ‘Europe’. In the outer office sat Julie.

‘’Morning, Julie,’ he said.

‘’Morning, Mr Bellamy,’ said Julie.

Every day he worked on her, so that by five-thirty she was calling him Robert. But every morning she called him Mr Bellamy again.

‘Sir John wants to see you at ten,’ said Julie.

Damn. No chance of pretending it wasn’t his work. His style was well-known, his doodles notorious. Sir John himself had never quite forgiven a portrait that had appeared five years ago on an official report about circular saws.

Robert gazed out over the friendly inelegant skyline. He could just see St Paul’s among the office blocks. It was still almost dark, as if the weekend was reluctant to let go. The next reorganization was just beginning. Soon he’d get a new office, his sixth in eight years. The moment one reorganization ended, the next began. There were people whose only job it was to plan them. Soon all the internal walls would be knocked down, new internal walls would be knocked up, and everything would go on exactly as before. And once again the typing pool wouldn’t get a room. They’d get the bit in the middle that was left over when all the rooms had been planned. And there they would sit, like a cargo of rotting bananas in the stuffy, airless hold.

Tadman-Evans didn’t call them reorganizations. He called them rationalizations.

Punctually at ten Senior European Sales Officer Robert Bellamy, thirty-two, presented himself at Sir John’s office. With each reorganization his title changed. He had been European Sales Liaison Officer, European Area Demonstration Consultant, European Technical Sales Adviser. The job always remained the same. He sent technical information to European agents and firms. He made visits to demonstrate and sell their machines. His judgement might be instrumental in fixing a new price for a machine, or in deciding how many of a certain line they should make. It was a responsible job. He did it, he thought, quite well.

‘Sit down, Robert,’ said Sir John Barker.

He sat down.

‘Well, how’s tricks?’ said Sir John genially.

‘Not bad, thank you.’

Sir John’s cordiality alarmed him.

‘Still not – you know – thought of taking the plunge?’ said Sir John.

Impertinent bastard. Absolute knighthood corrupts absolutely.

‘No.’

‘Nice girl, Stella.’

Sir John had met Sonia twice, once by chance in a pub near the Hog’s Back and once at a party given to drink away the profits of Europe’s bumper sales year in 1962. Suddenly it came to Robert that he ought to marry Sonia. Desire for her flooded over him, taking him by surprise. Help. Press the legs inward. Ouch. Hope he hasn’t noticed. Pretty hard to fool Sir John, from all accounts, where genitalia are concerned.

‘I believe you’re having a course of – er – er —’

‘Analysis. Yes, sir.’

Sir John wanted to say ‘Why?’ but was too much of a gentleman to do so. He tried so hard to be ruthless, but his manners were too good for him. He’d been to Winchester.

‘I hope nothing’s – er – er —’ said Sir John.

‘Wrong. No, nothing’s wrong. In fact, I’m intending to give it up,’ said Robert.

‘Good. Glad to hear it. As you know, Robert, I’ve always been a bit worried about your – shall we say your – er —’

‘Quick temper.’

‘Exactly. You’re high spirited. Emotional. Say what you think. Good thing, too. Far too little straightforwardness around, I often think.’ Sir John leant forward very seriously. ‘You’ve done some excellent work for us, Robert. Excellent. And that’s a quality we value very highly at C and B. But, Robert. But …’ and Sir John paused.

‘Well, thank you,’ said Robert.

‘I’d be the first to admit that you have great charm. Great charm, Robert. First to admit it. I like you very much as a … a chap. Which, heaven knows, you are. And a jolly good one. But in a big, highly competitive organization like ours there have to be certain ways of doing things, certain ways in which certain things for certain reasons always have been done and always will be done and always should be done. You do at times tend to be slightly – shall we say – er —’

‘Unconventional.’

‘Exactly. A fine quality, mind you. A fine quality. And you get on jolly well with those Europeans. I appreciate that. Some of our chaps are so insular, so narrow. They haven’t your culture, your flair, your vision. They’re at a premium, Robert, qualities like that. At a premium. And you have them.’

It was going to be the sack. Robert knew it.

‘God dammit, I don’t want everybody to be conformists. Far too many conformists about. But the fact remains, Robert. The fact remains.’ Sir John let out a deep sigh, forcing himself to be more ruthless still. ‘You may not see a good reason why there should be a distinction between the executive and non-executive – er – er —’

‘Loo.’

‘Exactly. Washroom. Nevertheless, that is the C and B system. Everyone’s happier that way. And we’re a team here, Robert. We must all pull together.’

‘And I pulled the wrong chain.’

‘Exactly. You pulled … oh, I see.’

‘I suppose the executives might get V.D. if they used the non-executive bogs.’

‘Really, Robert, there’s no need to be so – er —’

‘Vulgar.’

‘Exactly. You do have a way of picking the – er —’

‘Mot juste.’

‘Exactly. But, Robert, there is a time and a place for everything. And the time for talking about – er —’

‘Bogs and V.D. is not in your office.’

‘Exactly. I’m glad you understand it so well. Not that I thought you wouldn’t. You’re highly intelligent. Highly. And you have a sense of humour, too. A quality sadly lacking at C and B. Mind you, you have – er —’

‘Gone a bit far on occasions.’

‘Exactly. Exactly. Can’t overlook the odd managerial black eye entirely. Failing in my duty if I did. But to turn to this – er – caricature in the non-executive – er – washroom. Quite amusing, in its way, I grant you that. I inspected it and I must admit I had a little chuckle. Quite the talk of the – er – non-executive canteen. But, Robert. But …’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I understand why you did this. Not as unimaginative as I look. I understand that there was genuine irritation behind this, genuine dislike of the – er —’

‘Petty class distinctions.’

‘Of industrial life. Exactly. I’m aware that you aren’t just striving for cheap popularity on the shop floor. But nevertheless, nevertheless, Robert, that is the effect. To make you popular – though not necessarily respected – and to make Tadman-Evans look ridiculous. And you know it was somewhat gratuitous to use his real telephone number. He had fourteen calls over the weekend.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘So under the circumstances I really feel that I have no – er – er —’

‘Alternative.’

‘Exactly. No hard feelings, eh?’

‘Well, sir, no.’

Sir John stood up. The interview was over.

‘Glad you’re taking it like this. I quite thought I might end up with a black eye. Amuse Lady Barker no end. Huh.’

Sir John extended his hand. Robert took it.

‘Well, Robert, there it is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘There it is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sir John let go of Robert’s hand.

‘There it is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Robert made his way to the door.

‘Good luck,’ said Sir John Barker.

He walked slowly back to his office. Oh, well, what did it matter? It was time he left anyway. Twelve years was too long with one firm. This was an opportunity, not a setback.

‘Nothing wrong, Mr Bellamy, is there?’ said Julie.

‘No, Julie. Nothing wrong.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t …’

‘The sack. Yes, I rather think it must have been.’

‘Oh, Robert.’

Chapter 2

A London Night

Robert had first met Sonia twelve years previously, in the early December of 1955, at a party given by a friend of a friend of Doreen’s. Doreen shared with Brenda the room above Robert’s, at number 38. They were Yorkshire girls, from Dewsbury. They knew of every party within a six-mile radius of Kentish Town. They were waiting for the arrival of Mr Right. They liked Robert, and often dragged him off to parties, even though he wasn’t Mr Right.

Shortly after their arrival at the party, Robert found himself all alone. He took a second glass of the punch and drank it rapidly. He was twenty. He had just started at Cadman and Bentwhistle. He had never had a girl, and believed that this fact was written on his face. All the girls in the typing pool knew, and he hated it when he had to walk through the typing pool.

The room was dimly-lit, red, stripped for action, crowded. God, I hate parties, he thought.

A girl came in, apparently on her own. He made to move towards her, decided against it, decided in favour of it, did so, said: ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, in a confident upper-class voice.

He fished two butt ends out of the punchbowl and poured out two glasses.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Revolting,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Polly.’

‘I’m the Maharajah of Inverness.’ She laughed, embarrassingly loudly. ‘My real name’s Robert,’ he said.

‘What do you do?’

‘I work in a firm that makes instruments.’

‘What sort of instruments?’

‘All sorts. Just instruments.’

‘Why aren’t you at the university? You aren’t thick, are you?’

‘No. I didn’t fancy it. I wanted to get out into the real world, and do some work.’ How incredibly pompous. Any minute now she would go. He didn’t want her to go. She was attractive. Dumpy, half-way towards being fat, with big breasts. Her nose was squashed, her mouth big and lazy. She was sexy in the way that Christmas pudding was appetizing. ‘I’m sorry. That sounds rather pompous,’ he said.

‘Not particularly.’

‘I’ve been in the army. National Service.’ How utterly boring. ‘One day, when we’re married, I shall tell you my amusing experiences.’ How ludicrously twittish and coy.

‘Were you an officer?’

‘God, no,’ he said, making a face – rather an effective face, he thought. He had been to a public school. His parents had been well off. He hated privilege and rank.

‘Daddy’s an admiral,’ she said.

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes.’

She still hadn’t gone.

‘What do you do?’

‘I paint.’

‘I’d love to come and see your pictures.’

She chortled, embarrassingly loudly for a chortle, though not as loudly as her laugh.

‘I’ve heard that before,’ she said. ‘You want to get me alone in my room.’

‘Can’t anyone be interested in you and your work without being accused of being a sex maniac?’ he said. She would like that. She would begin to realize that he wasn’t just like all the others, that he had finer feelings.

‘Excuse me, there’s Bernie,’ she said.

He wandered into the kitchen, slowly, trying to look both calm and purposeful. There was still a little punch left. He fished out a cigar and poured two glasses. A very drunk man asked him if he was of Rumanian extraction. He said he wasn’t. The drunk accused him of being a liar. He pushed the drunk against the wall, and went back into the main room. Doreen gave him a cheerful hullo. He scowled back. The room smelt of cigarette smoke and sweat. A nervous young man with glasses was describing the sexual habits of an African tribe to five girls. Over by the mantelpiece stood a tall girl, unattractive but alone. He leapt across at her.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said.

‘Yes, I am. Who are you?’

‘The Maharajah of Inverness.’

She recognized this as a piece of invention and accepted it with a lack of amusement so deep and unpretentious that he vowed never to invent a false name again.

‘Robert.’

‘Sonia.’

‘Hullo.’

‘Hullo.’

He must make some brilliant remark, to capture her interest.

‘What do you do?’ he said.

‘I work for a publisher. And you?’

‘I make China models of the leaning tower of Pisa.’

‘Is there much future in that?’

‘Possibly. At the moment they’re a failure. They keep falling over. But I’m working on it.’ He sipped his drink, tasting it carefully. ‘A cross between Spanish Burgundy, Merrydown cider and a rather immature Friars Balsam. Have some,’ he said.

‘Well, the thing is, I’m with someone. He’s getting me one. Give me a ring. Bayswater 27663.’

What use was that? He was alone again, drowning. Nobody here knew that a woman had given him her phone number.

‘Hullo, love,’ said Brenda. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Dance with me.’

‘No.’

‘Come on.’

She dragged him into the middle of the room. It was packed solid. People weren’t dancing, they were just marking time sexily.

‘No luck?’ she said.

‘No.’

He resisted telling her about the phone number. Sonia seemed too mature to be boasted about.

‘And you?’

‘No.’

He pressed his body against her, but felt no thrill. In any case she lived in the same house. Mr Mendel had said: ‘Why don’t you make for our Brenda? She’s a nice girl.’ ‘Too close,’ he had said.

‘Excuse me, will you, love? There’s a feller over there I want to work on,’ she said now.

He went into the kitchen. The punchbowl was a mass of leaves and red silt and sodden butt ends. He opened a bottle of light ale.

‘Oh, there you are. Sorry about that,’ said Polly.

He gave her his glass of light ale and opened another bottle. The drink would be running out soon.

‘He’s someone I know from art school. I want him to do something for me. Carry some heavy paintings.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Nothing, but I like you.’

He must say something amusing. But nothing came. He fell back upon his memory.

‘This man was carrying a grandfather clock down the street,’ he said. ‘And he knocked over this man with it. The man got up, looked at him very crossly, and said: “Why can’t you wear a watch like everyone else?”’

‘We’ve got rather a super grandfather clock at home,’ said Polly.

‘Have you?’

‘Daddy would die if he could see me here. He’s an admiral.’

‘What attitude does he take to your being a painter?’

Polly did a loud and for all Robert knew wickedly accurate impersonation of her father. A group of people, entering the kitchen, were amazed to hear her say, in a gruff naval roar: ‘Well, it’s your choice, little Polly Perkins. All I’ll say is this. Make a success of it. Be a good painter, and we’ll be damned proud of you, the bosun and I.’

He smiled, not without a nervous glance at the new arrivals. He put a hand on her muscular arm and steered her back into the main room. Her flesh was cold and flaccid.

They began to mark time.

‘Will you be a good painter?’ he said.

‘Extremely,’ she said.

He flung his mouth on hers, too violently. She shook it off.

‘We’re supposed to be dancing,’ she said.

‘There isn’t room.’

‘Then we’d better talk. Ask me about my grisly family.’

‘Tell me about your grisly family.’

‘They think art is un-English. Unless it’s ducks and sunsets, of course. We live near Haslemere. It’s grisly.’

Up and down, up and down, marking time, a great mass of drunken people, much to the annoyance of Muswell Hill.

‘Do you really want to stay at this party, Polly?’

‘Not particularly. Why?’

‘Come home and have a drink.’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘It isn’t that.’

‘Well let me come and look at your pictures.’

‘There’s only coffee.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Well all right then.’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’d better say good-bye.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does.’

They said good-bye to Doreen and Brenda, and their host. He wanted them all to see that he was going off with a girl.

The night was cold. ‘That’s better. It was so unreal in there,’ he said.

‘I hate parties,’ said Polly.

He offered her a taxi, but she said she’d prefer to walk. ‘It’s only just round the corner,’ she said.

They walked for ninety minutes. On Hampstead Heath he held her tight against a beech tree and squeezed two fingers down as far as they would go between her breasts. Then they walked in silence. He was frozen. An owl hooted. A goods train answered. The owl hooted again.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ he said.

‘I don’t feel the cold,’ she said. ‘We admirals’ daughters are tough.’

At last they arrived. Polly lived on the top storey of a grey nineteenth-century terrace behind Swiss Cottage. Her room was quite large. It was full of dirty things, cups, knickers, brushes, overalls, paintings. The bed wasn’t made. There was a smell of cat. All three bars of the electric fire were on. It was stifling.

She began to make two very disorganized cups of coffee.

‘I’m warning you. You’re not making love to me,’ she said.

‘Well?’

‘I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea, that’s all. I’ve decided to be a virgin until I fall in love. And I hope I never do. Men want you to give yourself to them. I want to be me. I’m an individualist. I believe people should be conventional in unimportant matters like sex. I reserve my rebellion for my work.’

‘Are these your pictures?’

‘Yes.’

They were all purple. He hated them.

‘I like them,’ he said.

‘They’re pretty good. But my next ones’ll be much better.’

‘Will they be purple too?’

‘I don’t know. Why, don’t you like purple?’

‘Yes, I do. I love purple. Polly, would you mind if we opened the window?’

‘Sorry, it doesn’t. Why, are you too hot?’

‘It is rather.’

‘I don’t feel the heat.’

‘Could we switch one of the bars off?’

‘Sorry, they don’t. It’s all or nothing. The switch has gone.’

He took a sip of his coffee. He was beginning to sweat.

‘Do you think this milk’s all right?’ he said.

‘Oh, God, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll make you a black one.’

‘Thanks. Do you have a cat?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I just wondered.’

He hated to admit to himself his delicacy over smells, and sweating, and sour milk.

‘It’s funny you should say that. People often ask me that,’ she said.

‘Perhaps you strike them as the sort of person who’d like cats.’

‘I don’t. I hate them.’

The sweat was pouring off him. His skin was prickling all over. How loathsome it all was, parties and sex and purple paintings and sour milk and unmade beds.

Over their coffee Polly amused him with further mimicry, imitating to perfection such well-known characters as her mother, sister, brother and headmistress. He felt too tired to do more than laugh in the right places, and as soon as he could he took his leave.