No Business of Mine

I used to go to the Blue Club every evening. After a month or so she wouldn’t let me buy champagne, and I knew I was making progress. One night she suggested we might go together to Kew Gardens on the following Sunday and see the bluebells. Then I knew I’d got somewhere with her.

It finally worked out that I saw a lot of Netta. I’d call for her at her little flat off the Cromwell Road and drive her to the Blue Club. Sometimes we’d have supper together at the Vanity Fair; sometimes she’d come along to the Savoy and we’d dine in the grill-room. She was a good companion, ready to laugh or talk sense depending on my mood, and she could drink a lot of liquor without getting tight.

Netta was my safety-valve. She bridged all the dreary boredom which is inevitable at times when one is not always working to capacity. She made my stay in London worth remembering. We finally got around to sleeping together once or twice a month, but as in everything we did, it was impersonal and didn’t mean a great deal to either of us. Neither she nor I were in love with each other. She never let our association get personal, although it was intimate enough. That is she never asked me about my home, whether I was married, what I intended to do when the war was over; never hinted she would like to return to the States with me. I did try to find out something about her background, but she wouldn’t talk. Her attitude was that we were living in the present, any moment a bomb or rocket might drop on us, and it was up to us to be as happy as we could while the hour lasted. She lived in a wrapping of cellophane. I could see and touch her, but I couldn’t get at her. Oddly enough this attitude suited me. I didn’t want to know who her father was, whether she had a husband serving overseas, whether she had any sisters or brothers. All I wanted was a gay companion: that was what I got.

We kept up this association for two years, then when I received orders to sail with the invading armies we said good-bye.

We said good-bye as if we would meet again the next evening, although I knew I wouldn’t see her for at least a year, perhaps never see her again: she knew it too.

“So long, Steve,” she said when I dropped her outside her flat. “And don’t come in. Let’s say good-bye here, and let’s make it quick. Maybe I’ll see you again before long.”

“Sure, you’ll see me again,” I said.

We kissed. Nothing special: no tears. She went up the steps, shut the door without looking back.

I had planned to write to her, but I never did. We moved so fast into France and things were so hectic that I didn’t have the chance to write for the first month, and after that I decided it was best to forget her. I did forget her until I returned to America. Then I began to think of her again. I hadn’t seen her for nearly two years, but I found I could remember every detail of her face and body as clearly as if we had parted only a few hours ago. I tried to push her out of my mind, went around with other girls, but Netta stuck: she wouldn’t be driven away. So when I spotted that horse, backed it and won, I knew I was going to see her again, and I was glad.

I arrived in London on a hot August evening after a long, depressing trip down from Prestwick. I went immediately to the Savoy Hotel where I had booked a reservation, had a word with the reception clerk who seemed pleased to see me again, and went up to my room, overlooking the Thames. After a shower and a couple of drinks I went down to the office and asked them to let me have five hundred one pound notes. I could see this request gave them a jar, but they knew me well enough by now to help me if they could. After a few minutes delay they handed over the money with no more of a flourish than if it had been a package of bus tickets.

It was now half-past six, and I knew Netta would be home at that hour. She always prepared for the evening’s work around seven o’clock, and her preparations usually took the best part of an hour.

As I was waiting in a small but select queue for a taxi, I asked the hall porter if he knew whether the Blue Club still existed. He said it did, and that it had now acquired an unsavoury reputation as it had installed a couple of doubtful roulette tables since my time. Apparently it had been raided twice during the past six months, but had escaped being closed down through lack of evidence. It seemed Jack Bradley managed to keep one jump ahead of the police.

I eventually got a taxi, and after a slight haggle, the hall porter persuaded the driver to take me to Cromwell Road.