smile he could manage. But what were Ben’s smiles going to signify to a girl like this?
Maudie responded coldly, without any smile at all: ‘Are you sure you’ve come to the right house?’
‘Number 46, ain’t it?’
‘That’s right, but we’re not in need of any carpet- sweepers.’
Hardly a beginning likely to end up at the pictures! But Ben refused to be cowed.
‘And I ain’t sellin’ any,’ he answered, ‘but I know where to find Nylong stockin’s fer people I tike a fancy to.’
‘Nylons?’ repeated the girl, with a slight change of tone.
‘And they don’t ’ave ter pay through the nose fer ’em.’
She peered at him a little more closely.
‘I don’t see your little case,’ she said. ‘Do you get ’em out of a hat like rabbits?’
‘Oh, I ain’t brort ’em,’ returned Ben, ‘they’ll come laiter if yer good. It’s yer mother I wanter see this time. Mrs Kenton, ain’t it?’
‘That’s my mother. But who are you?’
‘Oh, I got a note that’ll say that. It’s signed O.B., if that means anything to yer?’
‘O.B.?’ she repeated, and then suddenly her expression changed completely. ‘Come in! Why didn’t you say so at once?’
She backed and pushed a door open at her side. Behind her was a dark flight of stairs, and she turned and called up as Ben went through the doorway.
‘Ma! Someone to see us! Come down!’
Then she turned again, and followed Ben into a living-room which seemed to be under the control of a baleful parrot in a large cage. The cage was in the middle of a red-clothed table, which had room for little else.
‘Where is he?’ asked Maudie.
‘’Oo?’ replied Ben.
‘Oscar—the man who wrote your note? Let me see it!’
‘It’s fer yer mother.’
‘Same thing here! Don’t be the limit! Where is he?’
‘Yer’ve got me instead.’
It was only the arrival of Mrs Kenton that prevented an explosion. Maudie Kenton had a temper. So, Ben guessed, had the parrot.
Mrs Kenton was a large untidy woman, as careless of her appearance as her daughter was particular. She looked as though she had just got up, and then not completely, or as if she had come off second-best in an encounter with the parrot. She moved slowly, with an almost swaying motion; but whether this were due to the amount of flabby flesh she carried or to the fear that too rapid movement might cause some of her clothes to come off, was a debatable point. As a household to live with, Ma Kenton, Maudie and the parrot would not have been everybody’s choice. They were not even Ben’s. But, he reminded himself, he had not come here for personal enjoyment.
‘And who is this?’ she breathed as she entered.
‘This’ll tell yer,’ replied Ben, and fished out his note.
‘It’s from Oscar!’ exclaimed Maudie.
‘Oh! Oscar?’
‘Yes, and he won’t say where Oscar is. Do read it, and then let me see it! What’s happened?’
Ma Kenton took the sheet of paper. Like Mrs Wilby, she read it through twice, while her daughter watched her impatiently; and although it was to her daughter that she spoke when at last she laid the sheet down, Ben felt that her little pig-eyes were watching him closely out of their corners.
‘Oscar’s had to go away, lovie,’ she said. ‘He told me he’d have to before he went out.’
‘And why didn’t you tell me?’ cried Maudie. ‘What’s the matter with everybody today?’
Her shrill voice penetrated to the parrot, and as she snatched the note and began to read the bird fluttered its feathers as though sharing her indignation.
‘You’ve only been home a few minutes, dearie,’ her mother reminded her. ‘I should have told you. But he’s coming back, and till he does—’
‘Yes, I’m reading it, I’m reading it, can’t you see?’ snapped Maudie.
For the first time Ma Kenton turned to Ben directly and they exchanged understanding glances, although Ben had not the least idea what he was supposed to understand. When Maudie had finished reading she crunched the paper up and threw it into a corner. The parrot, growing more and more interested in the drama outside its bars, fluttered its feathers again, and eyed the scrunched paper balefully to see that it did not come back.
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