Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [19]
My billfold, matches, the keys to Princes Gate and the snapshot foisted on me by the dying man lay on the dressing table. I stuffed them back into the pocket of the jacket and began my letter. My dear Uncle, I am bringing back with me the small painting of my mother, dated 1888, which hung on the first floor corridor at Princes Gate. I did not have time to tell Jack what—.
I had got no further when my cocoa arrived. Laying the letter aside I prepared for bed. It was a relief to switch off the light because the girl on the wall now seemed to be watching me.
TWO
Thursday, 11th April
At seven o’clock the next morning I had the salt water baths to myself and had swum eight lengths in less than five minutes without pausing for rest. On my ninth turn, a corpulent figure emerged from the cubicles and padded towards the side. I was put off my stroke; it was none other than Rosenfelder, dressed in a costume of green and brown stripes, his calves white and shapely as a girl’s. He sat for some minutes on the edge of the pool struggling to thrust his curls into a rubber cap before flopping walrus-fashion into the water. Though disconcerted I was damned if I was going to quit on his account and continued to plough back and forth, until, having blindly thrashed into my path, his arm flailed downwards and struck me on the shoulder.
We both trod water and faced each other, he spluttering apologies, myself gasping for breath from lack of fitness. I was about to respond impatiently when his bathing cap, which was already absurdly balanced like some deflating balloon on the very top of his head, suddenly rose in the air and plopped down between us. The sight was so comical I bellowed with laughter. He stared at me a second, eyes popping, and then he too began to squeal. We both clung to one another for support and were not much better composed when we climbed out, for the floor was slippery from our splashings and we were forced to walk on mincing tip-toe to avoid falling, which set us off again, our guffaws bouncing back at us from the tiled walls as we pranced to the changing boxes. We continued to behave in this cockamamie fashion while dressing, he giving vent to falsetto giggles, myself letting out staccato hoots as I towelled myself dry.
He suggested we breakfasted together, which was fine by me. I found him amusing. By the time I had tucked into my eggs, bacon and kidneys and he into his kedgeree, we were the best of friends.
After the politenesses had been rushed through, the weather, the size of the ship, the excellence of the food, he was eager to talk about himself. At some point in his unstoppable narrative Thomas Andrews and four of his design team entered the restaurant. They each carried drawing pads and Andrews had a pencil stuck behind his ear. He didn’t notice me.
Rosenfelder’s story was commonplace enough for one of his race and class. He had left Germany as a boy and come to England to be apprenticed to a tailor, an elderly cousin on his father’s side. They had lived first in Liverpool and then Manchester.
‘They were not good times,’ he confided. ‘My cousin was a hard man . . . life had made him so. Blows in the shop, blows in the home . . . never enough to eat, bugs crawling out of the skirting boards and always the rain coming down.’
‘I can imagine,’ I said. And I could. I rubbed my arm to relieve an itch.
‘Bit by bit the business began to prosper. My cousin had the customers and I had the skill at cutting. We make money. Then, when my cousin popped his clogs . . . you understand the expression?’ – I nodded – ‘he left me five sewing machines, a quantity of cloth and a year’s rent on the premises of the top floor of a warehouse in Hood Street beside the canal. Modest, you understand, but the roof didn’t leak.’
‘It’s a river,’ I interrupted. ‘The Irwell.’
‘I’d been frugal,’ he continued, ‘and in another year I’d saved enough to take a lease on a shop in a better part of town. Twelve months later, after a courtship of fifteen