a function. If I’d told anyone what I’ve told you, I’d have been certified. One has to be careful, Fletcher, and that goes for you too, you know. So, please, go away, get another job, and be careful.” The Chief Inspector stood up and held out his hand. “I’ve spoken to you as a man. Now I appeal to you as a Chief Inspector. You’re fired. You’ll get a week’s pay in lieu of notice.”
Fletcher felt immeasurably betrayed. He had told this man of his opinions openly and without hesitation, and that was a miracle. He had listened to a confidence without embarrassment, and that was a miracle too. And then he had been sacked. As he went out into the late morning he felt a broken man. The sky was the colour of slush, and the wind was cold, and there was one week’s pay in his pocket, as he tacked through the cold, grey nothing.
Chapter 10
“WHAT I ALWAYS SAY,” SAID MRS POLLARD, “IS THAT if a man can’t face these setbacks with a smile he isn’t a man.”
Fletcher faced this setback with a thin, wan smile. Mrs Pollard, who had seen little of him during the past fortnight, what with his shift work and everything, had been surprised to see him back so early, but she had not been nearly so surprised when he told her that he had lost his job. She had given the impression that she had known all along that he wasn’t the man for bus conducting. There was something, she let it be felt, too intelligent about him. It was not that he had told her anything about his schemes, but she had not failed to notice his studious and distant manner in the evenings. There had been nothing she could do. It had been man’s work, and Mrs Pollard had been a landlady far too long to interfere with that. She knew that she must wait until the moment came for her to swing into action, and that when the moment did finally come she must swing with all her might.
“I’ll have a nice bowl of stew ready for you in a jiffy,” she said. “Pollard always used to say there’s nothing like a nice hot stew to cheer a man when he’s down. Warm the stomach and you warm the heart.”
While Mrs Pollard was making the stew, Fletcher sat before his table, as motionless as possible, patiently awaiting the upsurge of some new emotion. Very soon he found himself in a silent world. He rolled the silence smoothly round his brain. It was a silence that might never end. It was his own silence, his great eternity, in which he might sit whenever he wanted, in his usual chair. Whenever the mood took him, whenever he felt unusually battered and bruised, he could return to it and find himself sitting there. As a point of reference it had few equals, but as a refuge it had a draw-back. It could be—and invariably was—interrupted. Perhaps he would never know what had interrupted it, and he would slide gently out of the silence. He would hear all the noises of the world as if they were far away, but coming closer, and he would begin to feel, faintly at first, like the light from the distant opening of a tunnel, his hunger. And then it would get nearer and nearer until he was suddenly out again in the sunlight, fully exposed to all his needs and fears.
On this occasion he did know what had interrupted it. It was Mrs Pollard, coming in to tell him: “It’s about the stew. It’s not coming along too well.”
“What?”
“It’s about the stew. It’s not coming along too well.”
“Oh, dear.”
“There are things in it that I wouldn’t advise. You know how it is. I thought it was going to be one kind of stew and then I realised that it was going to be a completely different sort. And now it’s got stuck at the awkward stage, and I don’t quite know what to do.” She paused, and then, when nothing happened, she went on: “I wondered if you’d come and have a look. It takes a man to understand these things.”
A ruse, to secure him to her boudoir! Well, why not go? It would be nice to sit by her fire. These coal ranges were quite delightful, and there was no time to lose. Soon they would be making it into a smokeless zone. Go then. Blossom forth. Old smokeless Fletcher, thirty-nine, of no fixed coal fire, be off with you.
But after all he had only known her for a matter of a few weeks. And it might be that she really did want his advice on the stew. A fine fool he’d look, in that case. What advice could he possibly give?
On the other hand if it was just to give some advice, well, there was no harm in that. Wise old Fletcher, what advice you could give if you put your mind to it!
No. She would make demands on him. He would be drawn in, closer and closer. He would become a part of her hearth, and of her life. He had not had time to think much of Mrs Pollard since his work had begun, but now there was time and as he thought about her his uneasiness returned. He wanted to be away from her, safe and free, out of the house, out of her reach, out on the open road, far from the open fire.
And yet to accept an invitation to advise her on a stew could hardly be said to commit him to anything. There would be no question of intimacy. A curt piece of advice, an ingredient or two suggested, and ta-ta for now. It would be churlish to refuse, and besides, it would suggest that he had read into the invitation more than was there.
So he decided that he would go. He thought he would rise from his chair, but he didn’t. He thought that perhaps if he applied an absence of pressure to his buttocks and raised the top of his head towards the ceiling, he might stand up. But it was not to be, and for about forty minutes he remained seated. Mrs Pollard left long before the end.
And then, just when he had given up all hope, he was on his feet. He was at the door, opening it. He was in the corridor, and once there he had either to walk down it or to return to his room, which seemed foolish. So he walked down it, and knocked on the kitchen door.
“Come in,” said Mrs Pollard. She was standing over the casserole, and she smiled when she saw him. “I thought you were never coming,” she said.
Stiff with self-consciousness, Fletcher walked over to the bubbling, aromatic cauldron and gazed into its depths. “It looks very good,” he said.
“But it isn’t finished.”
“I’m hungry.”
“It needs improving.”
“No. It’s all right.”
“It would have been such a lovely stew,” said Mrs Pollard, with an air of grumpy wistfulness more suited to a schoolgirl.
“I know.” For a moment their eyes met, but Fletcher quickly lowered his and the moment was gone. His heart was beating fast and he was on the verge of panicking.
“I’ll get my table ready,” he said, and he walked towards the door.
“Won’t you have it in here, then?”
“No, I—really.” He left the room as slowly as he dared, and rushed to his room. His hands were shaking.
Mrs Pollard followed with the stew, and to his annoyance she once again remained in his room.
“You aren’t happy, are you?” she asked with startling suddenness.
“Well, I’ve just lost my job.”
“There are plenty more.”
“I had hopes. Little hopes, you know. It’s always a shock when they come to nothing.”
“If there’s anything I can do…”
“No. That’s
