The Round Tower Read online

  Angus turned a cool eye on Mr Wilton. He liked Wilton as much as he did God-Almighty Ratcliffe. Perhaps he liked Wilton less because he had more to do with him. He walked past him now and took off his overall and hung it on a nail; then, looking into the narrow, pale face of the assistant manager, he said, ‘There are lots of places looking out for sweepings these days, Mr Wilton. One should bear that in mind.’

  He heard a sound that could have been a chuckle coming from the direction of Danny Fuller’s bench; then he went out of the shop, through the sheds, across the car park and into the building that housed the offices.

  He took the lift to the third floor and stepped out into the panelled hall, looked about him for a second, then crossed to a door which bore the name ‘Jonathan Ratcliffe’ on a gilt-lettered board. He didn’t bother to knock on the door because he knew he would have to pass the secretary before he could get into the holy of holies.

  Miss Morley raised her eyes and looked at the burly shock-haired workman. She didn’t ask what his business was, she knew. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said stiffly.

  As she went towards a far door Mr Wilton came panting into the room, and he checked her, saying, ‘I’ll see to this,’ and went swiftly through the door, closing it after him, and Miss Morley turned and favoured this Angus Cotton with a glance that told him plainly what she thought about him and all his kin: Dirty-mouthed individuals.

  It was on the point of his tongue to say, ‘Now look here you, get this straight,’ when the door opened and Mr Wilton said crisply, ‘This way, Cotton.’

  Angus was a second before moving, and then his step was slow, and as he passed Mr Wilton he looked him straight in the face before turning his attention to the man sitting behind the big black desk at the end of the long room.

  Although this was only the second time that Angus had been in the boss’s office, he guessed he knew more about this man than did any of the thousand employees in the firm.

  He had been eight years old when his mother first went to work at the Ratcliffes’ house, as a daily. That was all they could afford in those days, because although Jonathan Ratcliffe was a draughtsman and earning good money, both he and his missis thought big, and spent big. As his mother said, they knew what they were doing right from the start, for the guests they wined and dined were always people of influence. And it had paid off. Oh aye, it had paid off for Mr Ratcliffe, for he was the big noise of the town now. All you needed was a little bit of brain, a good bit of influence and a cartload of luck, not to mention the art of sucking up. It was the sucking up that had pushed him over Mr Brett’s head. If anybody should be sitting in that chair now it was Mr Brett, and everybody in the place knew it, but Mr Brett was still in the drawing office.

  ‘Remember the last time you were in this office, Cotton?’

  Neither the tone nor the words startled him as they were meant to.

  ‘I remember, sir.’

  ‘You were then doing rough work in number one shop, and out of regard for your mother’s long service with my family I wanted to help her, so I didn’t only have you transferred to number three, I put you in charge of number three.’

  Angus drew in a deep breath that pushed out his waistcoat, and he let it out again before he said, ‘You put me in number three, sir, on the recommendation of Mr Brett, who had seen some of my drawings and thought I should be given a chance to develop.’

  Jonathan Ratcliffe brought his fist firmly down on the blotting pad, and he thrust his face forward slightly as he said below his breath, ‘Mr Brett’s recommendations would have counted as nothing unless I gave the word; surely you have the sense to understand that. And let me tell you, I was criticised from a number of quarters for going over other recommendations and pushing you up. Such chances don’t often come the way of men from the floor in number one, not at your age anyway, and with your slight experience…’

  ‘Did you have me here, sir, just to tell me this? Because if you did then I’ve got me answers ready for you. The first is, I’m doing a good job along there, a damn fine one, Mr Brett says…’

  ‘Be quiet! How dare you! You’re forgetting yourself, Cotton. You take advantage because of your mother. But since you ask, no, I didn’t bring you here to remind you why you were promoted but to tell you that in my opinion—no matter what Mr Brett might say—you are not making a damn fine job of running number three because you cannot control the men under you. It is coming to something when parents demand to speak to me on the phone because their daughters are insulted every time they pass the works: schoolgirls having filth hurled at them, bar-room chatter, obscenities, and you allow it to happen.’

  ‘I allow nothing of the sort.’

  ‘You were present.’

  ‘I was WHAT!’

  ‘One of the girls said so, she even described you. Big, fair hair…’

  ‘Well, she’s a bloody liar, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Will you moderate your language, Cotton. I think you forget who you are, and where you are.’

  ‘I don’t forget either, sir; an’ I say, if she says I was there she’s a bloody liar. I heard the lads at the window and I went and stopped them and shut the window…But anyway’—he lifted his hand airily—‘what’s all the fuss about? You know yourself, sir, that all along the east side of the building where the Cut is the men have always chipped the lasses.’

  ‘These are not lasses, these are convent schoolgirls, young ladies.’

  ‘Huh!’ Angus’s head jerked backwards, and the sound infuriated Jonathan Ratcliffe further. The one desire he had at the moment was to get rid of this fellow for good and all, to say, ‘Get out! You’re finished.’ But there were two simple reasons why he couldn’t put his desire into action. The Union was one, and the second had even much more bearing: his wife. If he were to sack young Cotton they would lose Emily’s services. Now, when they had the money to employ four servants, even with the wages they demanded today, they were quite impossible to come by. Helps came and went by the week in the house; only Emily was constant. Even if her blunt manner was as big a trial to his wife as was her son’s I’m-as-good-as-you attitude, nothing must happen to cause Emily to give in her notice. That would be disastrous; especially at the present time with Susan’s wedding in the offing and the Braintrees likely to drop in at any time.

  He made a great effort to mollify his tone, but he could not look at the fellow as he said, ‘Well, I’ll overlook it this time—not that the parents concerned will, I can assure you—but should it occur again,’ he now raised his eyes without lifting his head, ‘I will be forced to take very strong measures. By the way, who are the men concerned?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters.’ He was barking again.

  ‘Roland, Weekes, Naylor…and Taggart.’

  ‘I’ll get Mr Wilton to deal with them, but,’ his finger wagged now accompanying each word, ‘I’m holding you responsible, Cotton. Remember that. That’s what you’re paid for, responsibility. That’s all.’

  He watched the big figure turn slowly about, and when the door closed on him he drew his lips tightly in between his teeth and muttered to himself, ‘Insolent swine!…Trash.’

  Jonathan Ratcliffe left his office at six o’clock. Miss Morley was still working, as was Mr Wilton, but the rest of the works seemed entirely deserted. There were only three cars standing in the car park and it was with a sense of deep irritation that he noticed a man with his head under the bonnet of a Volkswagen. As he unlocked his car door he asked, ‘Something wrong, Arthur?’

  Arthur Brett straightened himself and smiled grimly, saying, ‘Third time in a week it’s packed up on me. I’ll have to get the garage to come and fetch it.’

  There was nothing for Jonathan Ratcliffe but to say, ‘Well, hop in.’

  As he drove his Bentley through the gates that the watchman held open for him, he remarked casually, ‘You want to change it.’

  ‘Yes…yes, I know that.’

  ‘We
ll, can’t you?’ He cast a swift glance towards the man whom he had lived next door to for the past eighteen years, the man who made him feel uneasy when in his presence, the man whose head he had jumped over, which jump had enabled him to take another two jumps into dead men’s shoes, men who had died apparently long before their time. Well, as he had told himself often before, some were destined to move upwards and some to remain stationary. Arthur Brett had remained stationary because he had no push, no initiative; he was a plodder. What was more, he’d never had to strive for anything in his young days, he’d had it on a plate from when he was born. It wasn’t good to have things too easy when you were young, not if you wanted to go places.

  When he stopped at the traffic lights he stared ahead as he said, ‘I’ve been having trouble with Cotton.’

  ‘You mean Angus?’

  ‘Who else? There’s only one Cotton on the books as far as I know.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Spewing filth from the shop window at the convent schoolgirls.’

  ‘Angus! I can’t believe it. He’s a rough customer, but his roughness doesn’t take that form, I’d lay my life.’

  ‘He’s your golden-headed boy, isn’t he, Arthur?’

  ‘No, he’s no golden-headed boy of mine, but he’s got ideas. Given the chance, he’ll do things. Pity he hadn’t had more schooling though. But he’s no fool…No, he’s no fool.’ His voice had sunk on the last words and there was a silence as they drove along the embankment, round the park and up Brampton Hill, until Jonathan Ratcliffe said, ‘The trouble is he can’t control the fellows under him. Apparently, they are at this every day.’

  ‘You can’t hold him responsible for that.’

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ Jonathan cast a glance sideways. ‘That I can. If his men are hanging out of the windows, they’re not working. I’m going to put a stop to it.’

  Halfway up the hill the car turned right down a wooded lane and came to a stop at the end of a line of larches, and as Arthur Brett went to get out of the car he said, ‘Thanks, Jonathan.’ Then standing on the kerb he bent down and, looking through the window, said slyly, ‘Whatever you do to Angus will react on Emily; I don’t think Jane would be pleased if Emily went, do you?’

  For answer Jonathan slammed in the gears and drove past the remaining larches, past the blue sitka trees that marked his boundary, through the imposing iron gate and up the dull pink composition drive that led to his equally imposing-looking house.

  Bower Place, as he had named his house, was both a source of pleasure and irritation to him. Pleasure, because he had designed it himself. Its situation was one of the best in the town and its value had risen phenomenally in the last five years. He had paid old Brett five hundred pounds for the two acres in 1949, and it had cost him four thousand to build the house. Now he wouldn’t take a penny less than twenty thousand for the place, not with the money he had spent on it lately, and if only his ground had access to the river that would put another five thousand on it.

  This was the irritation, the fact that Arthur Brett, with all that river frontage, wouldn’t sell him a yard of it. He was as stubborn as his old man had been. There he was, without a penny to bless himself with—it took all his salary to keep his place going—yet he wouldn’t part with one of his six acres. It was sheer spite, that’s what it was; Arthur was jealous of him because he had got the post he thought should have been his by rights.

  At times he became so angry that he thought he’d sell his place to a speculator and let him run up a twenty-storey block of flats. That would fix Brett. And it could be done. Oh yes, it could be done. At other times he could see the council confiscating some of Brett’s six acres, and running up council houses. What did he want with six acres anyway? He never touched his land, it was like an African jungle.

  He entered the house and marched through the hall, throwing his hat onto the marble and gilt hallstand, then went into the lounge where his wife and two daughters were seated. They all looked at him, and his wife spoke first. She said briefly, ‘Well, what have you done about it?’

  ‘I spoke to him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Cotton, of course.’

  She rose to her feet. ‘It was him then?’

  ‘Well, not by what he makes out. He said it was some other fellows in the shop. But he’s in charge. What did happen?’ He turned now towards his younger daughter, where she was sitting on the couch, one leg curled under her.

  ‘Nothing as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Nothing as far as you’re concerned!’ His thick greying eyebrows were beetling. ‘Well, well! This is news. The other three were concerned; their parents were concerned. I suppose what shocked their girls didn’t shock you.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything, Father.’

  ‘You were with them, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘I was thinking. I didn’t even know the boys were at the window.’

  ‘Boys! Boys! They were men, and they were throwing filth down on you and you tell me you didn’t hear them?’

  The girl turned her head onto her shoulder and closed her eyes, and her mother said sharply, ‘Vanessa! Now don’t take that attitude, your father is talking to you.’

  Vanessa Ratcliffe unwound herself from the couch and stood up straight and looked at her father. She was almost as tall as he, and a good three inches taller than her mother. Her hair was a dark chestnut and fell straight onto her shoulders at the front, but tapered to a point in the middle of her back. Her eyes were brown and round, and the skin over her cheekbones spread to her lower lids without making the slightest hollow. Overall, her face was long and thin, but her lips were full, and when she smiled the corners of her mouth looked square. Her body was unformed and flat. In appearance, she took after neither her mother nor father, nor did she hold any resemblance to her elder sister, Susan, because Susan was a replica of their mother; with Ray, her ten-year-old brother, who had been sent out of the room a few minutes earlier, she had one thing in common, the colour of her hair.

  Vanessa was sixteen years old and she was at the turbulent, unrestful stage of adolescence. For weeks now she had been irritated by her family, her girl friends, and everyone about her; what was more, she was experiencing a feeling that both frightened and intrigued her. She knew what it was all about but she could do nothing about it. They talked about it at school, but that didn’t help, only tended to make it worse.

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘I’ve told you, Father. I don’t remember hearing anything, only the boys…. men shouting. Anyway,’ she shrugged her shoulders, ‘they always shout down at the girls, and that’s why they go along that path. They needn’t, you know.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that they go along there…?’

  ‘Yes, Father, I do. Lucy Fulton goes that way every day just to egg them on.’

  Jonathan Ratcliffe swallowed deeply, then said, ‘Well, the Fultons didn’t phone me, but Mrs Herring did, and Kathy Young’s mother. Was this the first time they’d been that way?’

  ‘I don’t know because I don’t usually go home with them. But anyway, why should those two make such a fuss? You should hear how they talk.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Jonathan Ratcliffe looked as if he were about to burst. ‘What are things coming to? Been attending the convent school since they could walk and you telling me they…’ His indignation wouldn’t allow him to go on.

  ‘Well they do. And after all,’ she gave a little laugh, ‘we’re not infants you know, Father; I’m sixteen and a half and Kathy Young is seventeen…’

  ‘Be quiet, girl! I don’t care if you’re twenty-six and a half; I wouldn’t expect you to listen unmoved to the spewing of the fitting-shop louts. The trouble with you, girl, is you’ve no sense of dignity. The convent has failed lamentably there. Don’t you realise that you’re the daughter of one of the leading families of this town.’ He al
most said ‘THE leading family’. ‘And what are people going to think if you take such talk casually, while other girls are squirming…Where are you going?’

  ‘Upstairs to do my prep.’

  ‘Well, get that defiant look off your face; and bang that door after you if you dare.’

  When the door was not closed at all Jane Ratcliffe hurried down the room and shut it; then returning to the fireplace and looking at her husband, she said in her prim, thin voice, ‘Now you’ll understand when I tell you what I’ve got to put up with; she’s getting more difficult every day. I never had this with Susan.’ She looked at her elder daughter. ‘She’s getting worse.’

  ‘It’s a phase; it’ll pass.’ Susan smiled at her mother knowingly. She had no great love for her sister—they had always been at loggerheads—but since her engagement she had felt much more kindly disposed towards her. She knew what was wrong with Vanessa; she was suffering from the same complaint herself, but soon that feeling would be alleviated; only four months and she would be married. She wished it was four weeks…four days…four minutes. Yes, four minutes. Oh, she knew what was the matter with Vanessa all right. And if her mother had any sense she’d understand too. But sex was a taboo subject in this household. Her mother would have you believe that babies came by kissing. ‘Mind, Susan; if a boy should try to kiss you keep your lips closed. Mind, now; keep your lips closed.’ That was the sex instruction she’d had. When she had children she’d tell them the whole caboodle at ten. Yes, ten. Ten wasn’t too young; just look at Ray. He didn’t need any sex training, that little devil; you could see the knowledge in his eyes. Give him another five or six years and her father would really know what trouble meant, she was sure of that. But she was getting out of it, and oh Lord, wasn’t she thankful! No more church twice on Sundays. Brian’s connections might be county and titled, but she felt sure of one thing, they were as godless as they came.