In Loving Memory Page 6

  Many different racial strains came out of Africa. I take after the tall and slim style that I believe is Zulu in origin, and with the delicate features approved by Caucasians, though family tradition insisted that we stem from the Suris. Of course, our African tribal origins were by now confused, but my physical appearance is the only respect in which I resemble my mother. It happened that I had been born with a serious facial blemish – a small area of what they call a ‘port wine stain’ beside my left eye. This might have been operable, I was told, but for the growth, resembling a raspberry, close to the corner of the eye. This had a root that intruded on the optic nerve, so that the dangers of any operation exceeded the possible benefits.

  I felt marked. A black girl might have held her head up among her white peers but a black girl with a marked face was just that: marked. Friends were few. The pack mentality led to some bullying at school so that I tended towards an introverted mind, a loner and a reader. Boys only befriended me in the hope of sex and dumped me as soon as that hope was gone – or realized. Not that I was virtuous. If a boy was clean, well behaved and above all careful, I might accept him and did so on perhaps a half dozen occasions, but the result was always the same. I had first bestowed my virginity on a boy who had been scarred by the aftermath of a harelip operation that had been mismanaged. I thought that damaged faces might be something in common but even he had proved inconstant. Thrown back on my own resources, I remained a voracious reader.

  I gave up any idea of higher education and enrolled in secretarial school. The course was easy for me. I’m a quick learner with nimble fingers so that word processing, shorthand and bookkeeping presented no problems.

  Emerging at last into the real world I was in for a disappointment.

  The world of commerce is much less confining than school. At school, there is no escape from bullies, but out in the world a change of job is all that is needed. Friendships were easier to maintain. As things were, I could have spent my spare time socializing with other girls, but I had no taste for that. A disfigurement that attracts secret smiles is not a great encouragement towards a social life. In the workplace I found that employers, who might have been happy to engage me, were deterred by the thought of what their wives would conclude from the presence of a young, black and (apart from one blemish) comely secretary. Heads of typing pools balked at taking on a subordinate who was younger, more attractive and usually better qualified than themselves.

  My mother was not pleased to have a daughter who was bringing no more than minimal dole money into the house. In the end, to escape the endless carping, I spread my search for a job ever wider with the help of the newspapers in the public library. Finally, I was driven to accept a post in the administrative department of a printing and packaging firm in another small town a conveniently lengthy bus-ride from home. Convenient from several points of view, the principal one being that I had a useful excuse any time I wished to stay overnight with my only friend, Lorna.

  The building was an old and grubby labyrinth of red brick. The money was not good and I was working far below my capabilities, but I was not too depressed. I worked mainly under the supervision of a small and dapper man by the name of Mr Gruber but known throughout the firm as Groper. I was largely confined to the mailroom but I had made a friend of Lorna by helping out in the offset litho room. Lorna did wonders for my image by teaching me to choose clothes that suited me. Left to myself I might have continued wearing the dark or drab clothes of my schooldays, but Lorna showed me that, away from work, bright, paler colours could set off my looks.

  The round of parliamentary elections brought changes. Thanks to Mr Gruber I became involved, although my home was not even in that constituency. Mr Gruber never missed an opportunity for what he considered to be advancement. I was already politically aware and, although I had decided that the difference between the parties was almost entirely in rhetoric, I was curious to find out how the political machine worked, so I allowed myself to be persuaded to help. Mr Gruber obtained credit with the local political establishment by offering my services. For several weeks I sacrificed my spare time to stuff envelopes and post leaflets through letter boxes. Somebody must have decided that I was more willing or more competent than most of the army of other volunteers, because I was trusted with the bookkeeping and the petty cash.

  I was not impressed by the calibre of any of the candidates. Ours seemed to me to be, politically, a straw blowing in the wind. It was therefore a surprise when he returned from a vinous dinner and, finding me alone for once in the campaign headquarters, decided that I had volunteered especially for his sensual pleasure. I escaped with a tear in my dress and a broken bra-strap, but I left him with a red face and a nasty bruise in the crotch area. Most men would have considered the honours even and left it at that, but not this one. He tried to suggest to the police that I had a terrorist connection, but it was easily established that I was British born, brought up Church of Scotland and had never even met any Muslims. After I had explained, at some length, that I had grave doubts about the existence of a personal God and that in my view anyone who gave a damn about which if any God their neighbour chose to worship, let alone in what form, has to be off his chump, the police were only too glad to see the back of me. Their responsibilities did not include harassing a black girl for preaching atheism. I dare say they were relieved that I could hardly complain to my MP.

  To add insult to injury, although I had made it very clear that I had unvolunteered myself, Mr Gruber persuaded – almost forced – me to type the final accounting of the newly elected MP’s election expenses, albeit during office hours. It was high time for change.

  My opportunity for advancement, when it came, arrived by a totally unexpected route. I suppose that I was ready for rebellion. My colleagues, with one glaring exception, were friendly if reserved, but it was clear that the firm as a whole regarded my sex, age and colour as a bar against promotion. This illogical prejudice aggravated the state of depression that had long been habitual to me. I suppose that I’m introverted and depressive by nature.

  Mr Gruber had been particularly unpleasant that morning although I can’t remember now what particular slight it was that set my nerves to jangling. Perhaps it was no more than a look or a sniff. He arrived at work from his bachelor digs every morning on a slightly battered black bicycle that he chained to the rack in the firm’s small bike-shed. It was his responsibility, twice a week, to deliver proofs by hand to the firm’s largest customer and he was absent one day on this errand when I was sent out for some minor office supplies. The morning rush hour had coincided with heavy rain and, passing the cycle-shed, I noticed that only two machines were in the rack, both of them lady’s models and brightly coloured.

  Thinking it over, I was sure that I had noticed a similar absence at least once before; and I had a clear recollection of Mr Gruber removing his cycle-clips on arrival that morning. But he was generally supposed to be doing the trip by taxi and – I consulted the petty cash book – was claiming expenses accordingly. It was not a short trip. I kept observation from the only window overlooking the cycle-shed – that of the female toilet – during my lunch-hour and, sure enough, saw him return and put the padlock on his bicycle. From my customary stool at the counter I watched him enter the cubicle that served as his office. I made an excuse to knock and enter and found him taking a sandwich lunch at his desk. This was his almost unvarying habit, but I had just noticed that he was also in the habit of claiming the cost of his lunch at a restaurant near the customer’s office.

  My contempt continued to build but I took the remainder of the working week to do some further research, to think about my findings, to arrive at some very interesting conclusions and to wrestle with my conscience over what to do about them. On Saturday at noon, as the building was emptying, I bearded Mr Gruber in his den.

  At first he was indignant but also scornful. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a qualified
bookkeeper,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I only use my bike as far as the taxi rank,’ he answered. I was nonplussed for a moment but he spoiled the effect by adding, ‘And you can’t prove different.’

  ‘What about the restaurant where you’re supposed to have lunched twice a week for the last six years – which is as far back as I could go in the books. Will they recognize your face?’

  ‘Who’s going to ask them?’

  ‘The boss will, when I’ve tipped him off.’

  ‘You think he’ll take the word of a stupid black bitch against mine?’

  I kept my temper but hardened my heart. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think he probably will. You’re only a glorified janitor anyway. And these aren’t your only fiddles. You went out for special coffee for the director’s lunchroom.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything?’ But he lost colour.

  ‘You used the firm’s credit card and chucked the slip in your waste-paper basket. I have it at home,’ I added quickly as he made a move towards me. ‘Stocked your own fridge, didn’t you? You have three other fiddles that I know of and probably ten that I don’t . . . so far.’

  He looked at me coldly for what seemed to be ten long seconds before making up his mind. ‘So you want a cut,’ he said at last.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what do you want? I could turn a blind eye . . .’

  I hesitated for only an instant but it was an important instant. He could stand up to me – but how? He was vulnerable. He could hardly launch a physical attack in his own office. ‘We’re not all like you,’ I said. ‘You’ve been cheating your own employers for years. I want you out of here. Give me your keys now and bugger off and I’ll tell the bosses on Monday morning. That gives you all weekend to get clear, in case you hadn’t noticed. Any bloody nonsense and I’ll blow the whistle now, this very minute.’

  ‘They wouldn’t prosecute,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘You’re kidding yourself. Over the years you’ve taken thousands in fiddled expenses and just plain embezzlement. Could you give it back? Could you hell! Come on, the keys.’ When he hesitated, I turned to the door. ‘Mr Jensen’s still in his office,’ I said over my shoulder.

  ‘Wait.’ I heard the keys clatter on to his desk.

  It was like pushing against an unlatched door. I was unprepared for such a quick collapse, but there must have been other and bigger embezzlements about which I knew nothing and which would come to light if the partners began to look too deeply into the accounts. I had to keep going now. ‘I’m going to stand over you while you take your personal things – and nothing else – out of your desk,’ I said. ‘Then you go and you never come back. Understand?’

  His face was acid with resentment but I had him by the balls and he knew it. ‘Of course I understand. I’m not bloody stupid. You won’t get my job, you know. And one day . . .’

  I ignored the threat. He cleared out his desk in an atmosphere that pulsed with fury. When he had left, still promising revenge at some unspecified time in the future, I sat down in his chair. My knees were shaking. I was surprised that he had given up so easily, but it was only just dawning on me how his embezzlements had probably stretched far beyond the trivia that I had discovered.

  I waited for the building to become hushed. Mr Gruber was probably right. Even if I saved them from the depredations of one man on the fiddle there was no chance for a young, black girl to be promoted into the vacancy. It was unfair, but that was the way of the world and I had learned to live with it.

  The fact remained that I was saving them thousands. Literally thousands and many of them.

  Using Mr Gruber’s keys, I went through the place. I cleaned out the petty cash. In the cashier’s office, the safe was secure but the expenses of the authorised car-users had been made up and were waiting in a box-file on his desk. I pocketed them. I took the money subscribed by the lottery syndicate. I found and collected my National Insurance cards and, suddenly wise, those of Mr Gruber. Almost as an afterthought, I took a few sheets of the firm’s letterhead. I had no clear picture in my mind of how to use these things but it seemed to me that they would be the tools of the trade to somebody who was prepared to toss away their scruples.

  I hesitated before leaving. There was one more area and one more individual cheating the system. I used the photocopier.

  Downstairs again, I separated the money from the envelopes, which I put through the shredder. Then, without a backward glance, I walked out. I was conscious of an unfamiliar sensation. It was not conscience, I decided, nor apprehension, nor even freedom. I finally pinned it down. It was that, for once, I felt quite cheerful.

  At home, I took my time. There could be no question of going in to work on the Monday. I packed a case and said my farewells. The other members of my family were sorry to lose both me and the wage packet that I had brought home each week, but they consoled themselves with the thought of one less mouth to feed and a little more space to share between them.

  I caught a leisurely Sunday train. It ran through open countryside. It was in no hurry but nor was I. I had never before had the leisure to take a proper look at anything outside of the towns but now I noticed a man on a tractor. Where he had passed, the pattern of the soil was changed and I wondered why. Life, I thought, was rather similar. It was a deep thought and I would liked to develop it but I couldn’t think how. Would I change the pattern of anyone’s life by my passing, I wondered? And I decided, yes, I bloody well would.

  Chapter Nine

  Honey had managed to read thus far, despite phone calls and visits from colleagues and others, all anxious to enquire after her health and that of the Mighty Midget or to gather information about cases past or present. Having reached the point at which Cheryl Abernethy had decided to head for the hills, getting away from it all, Honey realized that this was an example worth following.

  She drove home through darkness relieved by yellow streetlights. The threatened snow had come to nothing, replaced and washed away by a light rain, just as cold. Lights danced in the droplets on her windows. The street of early twentieth-century houses glowed with lights behind curtains, murmuring of home and comfort. It was a desirable neighbourhood. The street was on the edge of Edinburgh so that the Lairds’ house backed on to farmland, now wrapped in darkness. There was no sign of Sandy’s car.

  Honey’s first call was in the kitchen, where she found that Minka was sleeping contentedly. Pippa had been walked, fed and dried. Honey congratulated June on responsibilities fulfilled. She took over responsibility for Minka and, leaving June free to cook, she settled down in the study.

  First she looked through Cheryl’s unopened mail. All of it was routine advertising flyers, unaddressed and delivered to any recipient of mail. She resumed her reading.

  *

  The geographical distance between my provincial home town and Edinburgh might be no more than a few score of miles, but in my view it was far enough. By timing my disappearance to coincide with that of Mr Gruber I calculated that, human minds being what they were, if any watch were to be kept it would be for us as a couple. If I was careful not to keep company with any middle-aged white men, I should pass unnoticed. Although, the chance, as they say, would be a fine thing. Also my new refuge, Edinburgh, is a university city with a large and ever-changing population of students from all ethnic backgrounds, so that one more black girl would melt into the background. In the event, remembering how casual the firm’s auditors were, I doubt if the printing firm will ever be aware that their losses extended back for many years. In that case, any hue and cry will be short and desultory.

  I had taken the precaution of phoning ahead to be sure that the YWPA could give me bed and board. I had no wish to call attention to my comparative affluence by taking a taxi, so I bought a street map from the station bookstall and carried my heavy case halfway across the city. I had been in Edinburgh before on a very few occasions. I was soon off the handsome but rather pompous main streets and into typically Scottis
h by-ways, mostly lined with tenement flats over shops and service industries. Larger buildings had been fitted in between and the YWPA hostel was one of these.

  My place was reserved in the name of Harriet Benskin, which, by happy chance had been the name of a girl whom I particularly disliked at school, thus forming a useful mnemonic. If I came to a bad end, let her get the credit. The newly fledged Miss Benskin was soon settled into a room which, I found, I was to share with another girl. I had no objection to this. I was quite used to sharing with a sister who was untidy and not always very particular and the signs were that I would benefit in both space and hygiene. When I arrived, there was no sign of my room-mate other than a tidy scatter of possessions on some of the flat surfaces. I took over the smaller but empty chest of drawers and identified my own bed by the similarly vacant locker beside it.

  It was still only mid-afternoon when I had finished the process of settling in. My feet were still weary from the long trek but they were recovering. (I was reminded of the TV commercial of the Spanish dancer pouring the Champagne over her feet and drinking the man’s beer.) I decided to take a more intimate look at the city. For all I knew, my room-mate might not be trustworthy, so I transferred anything that I considered valuable or confidential to my shoulder bag before changing my shoes and setting off.

  Guided by my map, I threaded my way through some picturesque old streets and a stark new shopping precinct to a public park where I relaxed as much as I could on a hard bench, enjoyed a mild winter sun while I thought dispassionately about my future. This seemed to be a large, blank canvas. I had barely begun to think of a pattern for it when my thought processes were totally disrupted by an unruly gang of children drawn to the park by the unexpectedly fine weather and determined to play some game that entailed a great deal of screaming. Any chance of reassembling my thoughts fled when I was reminded by an ominous sensation in the area of my waistband that I had not eaten anything since breakfast.