Collected Short Stories Read online

  At one o’clock he would leave the “great Gothic cathedral” (another of his expressions) for one hour, which he passed at a pub called the Havelock, where he would drink a half pint of Carlsberg lager with a dash of lime and eat the dish of the day. After he finished his lunch, he would once again smoke two cigarettes. At 1:55 he returned to the insurance records until the fifteen-minute tea break at four o’clock, which was another ritual occasion for two more cigarettes. On the dot of 5:30, Septimus would pick up his umbrella and reinforced steel briefcase with the initials S.H.C. in silver on the side and leave, double-locking his glass cubicle. As he walked through the typing pool, he would announce with a mechanical jauntiness, “See you same time tomorrow, girls,” hum a few bars from The Sound of Music in the descending elevator, and then walk out into the torrent of office workers surging down High Holborn. He would stride purposefully toward Cannon Street station, umbrella tapping away on the pavement, while he rubbed shoulders with bankers, shippers, oil men, and brokers, not discontent to think himself part of the great City of London.

  Once he reached the station, Septimus would purchase a copy of the Evening Standard and a pack of ten Benson & Hedges cigarettes from Smith’s newsstand, placing both on the top of his Prudential documents already in the briefcase. He would board the fourth carriage of the train on platform five at 5:30, and secure his favored window seat in a closed compartment facing the engine, next to the balding gentleman with the inevitable Financial Times, and opposite the smartly dressed secretary who read long romantic novels to somewhere beyond Sevenoaks. Before sitting down he would extract the Evening Standard and the new pack of Benson & Hedges from his briefcase, put them both on the armrest of his seat, and place the briefcase and his rolled umbrella on the rack above him. Once settled, he would open the pack of cigarettes and smoke the first of the two allocated for the journey while reading the Evening Standard. This would leave him eight to be smoked before catching the 5:50 the following evening.

  As the train pulled into Sevenoaks station, he would mumble good night to his fellow passengers (the only word he ever spoke during the entire journey) and leave, making his way straight to the semidetached at 47 Palmerston Drive, arriving at the front door a little before 6:45. Between 6:45 and 7:30 he would finish reading his paper or check over his children’s homework with a tut-tut when he spotted a mistake, or a sigh when he couldn’t fathom the new math. At 7:30 his “good lady” (another of his favored expressions) would place on the kitchen table in front of him the Woman’s Own dish of the day or his favorite dinner of three fish fingers, peas, and french fries. He would then say, “If God had meant fish to have fingers, he would have given them hands,” laugh, and cover the oblong fish with tomato sauce, consuming the meal to the accompaniment of his wife’s recital of the day’s events. At 9:00 he watched the news on BBC 1 (he never watched ITV), and at 10:30 he retired to bed.

  This routine was adhered to year in year out with breaks only for holidays, for which Septimus naturally also had a routine. Alternate Christmases were spent with Norma’s parents in Watford, and the ones in between with Septimus’s sister and brother-in-law in Epsom, while in the summer, their high spot of the year, the family took a two-week vacation in the Olympic Hotel, Corfu.

  Septimus not only liked his lifestyle, but was distressed if for any reason his routine met with the slightest interference. This humdrum existence seemed certain to last him from womb to tomb, for Septimus was not the stuff on which authors base two-hundred-thousand-word sagas. Nevertheless, there was one occasion when Septimus’s routine was not merely interfered with, but frankly shattered.

  One evening at 5:27, when Septimus was closing the file on the last claim for the day, his immediate superior, the deputy manager, called him in for a consultation. Owing to this gross lack of consideration, Septimus did not manage to get away from the office until a few minutes after six. Although everyone had left the typing pool, still he saluted the empty desks and silent typewriters with the invariable “See you same time tomorrow, girls,” and hummed a few bars of “Edelweiss” to the descending elevator. As he stepped out of the great Gothic cathedral it started to rain. Septimus reluctantly undid his neatly rolled umbrella and, putting it up, dashed through the puddles, hoping that he would be in time to catch the 6:32. On arrival at Cannon Street, he lined up for his paper and cigarettes and put them in his briefcase before rushing on to platform five. To add to his annoyance, the loudspeaker was announcing with perfunctory apology that three trains had already been taken off that evening because of a go-slow.

  Septimus eventually fought his way through the dripping, bustling crowds to the sixth carriage of a train that was not scheduled on any timetable. He discovered that it was filled with people he had never seen before and, worse, almost every seat was already occupied. In fact, the only place he could find to sit was in the middle of the train with his back to the engine. He threw his briefcase and creased umbrella onto the rack above him and reluctantly squeezed himself into the seat before looking around the carriage. There was not a familiar face among the other six occupants. A woman with three children more than filled the seat opposite him, while an elderly man was sleeping soundly on his left. On the other side of him, leaning over and looking out of the window, was a young man of about twenty.

  When Septimus first laid eyes on the boy he couldn’t believe what he saw. The youth was clad in a black leather jacket and skin-tight jeans and was whistling to himself. His dark, creamed hair was combed up at the front and down at the sides, while the only two colors of the young man’s outfit that matched were his jacket and fingernails. But worst of all to one of Septimus’s sensitive nature was the slogan printed in boot studs on the back of his jacket. “Heil Hitler” it declared unashamedly over a white-painted Nazi sign and, as if that were not enough, below the swastika in gold shone the words: “Up yours.” What was the country coming to? thought Septimus. They ought to bring back National Service for delinquents like that. Septimus himself had not been eligible for National Service on account of his flat feet.

  Septimus decided to ignore the creature, and, picking up the pack of Benson & Hedges on the armrest by his side, he lit one and began to read the Evening Standard. He then replaced the pack of cigarettes on the armrest, as he always did, knowing he would smoke one more before reaching Sevenoaks. When the train eventually moved out of Cannon Street, the darkly clad youth turned toward Septimus and, glaring at him, picked up the pack of cigarettes, took one, lit it, and started to puff away. Septimus could not believe what was happening. He was about to protest when he realized that none of his regulars was in the carriage to back him up. He considered the situation for a moment and decided that “discretion was the better part of valor” (yet another of the sayings of Septimus).

  When the train stopped at Petts Wood, Septimus put down the newspaper although he had scarcely read a word, and as he nearly always did, took his second cigarette. He lit it, inhaled, and was about to retrieve the Evening Standard when the youth grabbed at the corner, and they ended up with half the paper each. This time Septimus did look around the carriage for support. The children opposite started giggling, while their mother consciously averted her eyes from what was taking place, obviously not wanting to become involved; the old man on Septimus’s left was now snoring. Septimus was about to secure the pack of cigarettes by putting them in his pocket when the youth pounced on them, removed another and lit it, inhaled deeply, and then blew the smoke quite deliberately across Septimus’s face before placing the cigarettes back on the armrest. Septimus’s answering glare expressed as much malevolence as he was able to project through the gray haze. Grinding his teeth in fury, he returned to the Evening Standard, only to discover that he had ended up with the help wanted, used cars, and sports sections, subjects in which he had absolutely no interest. His one compensation, however, was his certainty that sports was the only section the lout really wanted. Septimus was now, in any case, incapable of reading the paper,