Most men say it wit bouquets flowers and large boxes of chocolates. Bob said it with a very battered old harmonium
GOING, GOING, GONE
by MURIEL ROY BOLTON
ILLUSTRATED BY FANCETT
"LONG engagements," Bob said , gloomily to his fiancee, "are murder. "
Janet opened her big dark eyes even wider, in flattered wonder; "But darling, it's just a little over five months."
"Seems more like a little over five centuries," Bob grumbled, shifting his long body uncomfortably on the narrow, straight-backed chair, in the draughty auction room.
A heavy haze, of smoke faintly muted the noise of the crowd in the auction room and over it was the droning voice: ". . . going for twenty-five pounds, do I hear twenty-five pounds ten? Going, going, gone! "
Bob had thought that once he'd dared to propose and amazingly Janet had said yes, there would be a month or so of cosy evenings in his flat, and lazy weekends in the country involving dim television lights, nightingales, plans, caresses, all ending quickly in the happy day.
Instead, there'd been house hunting and auctions.
In the evenings and on Sundays, there was house hunting. On Saturday afternoon and in the lunch hours there were auctions. "Ooh!" Janet grabbed his arm. "Look at that lovely set of Toby jugs!" ,
"Sweetie," he said urgently, "can't we get the Toby jugs later?"
After all, they had the essentials. The fourposter bed, the six-foot sofa and the two winged chairs were stored under tarpaulins in a friendly neighbour's garage.
The choice of houses had been whittled down to two, the one he liked because he could get a good mortgage on it, and the one she liked with the odd-shaped sitting-room.
"What am I bid?" the sharp-eyed auctioneer was nervously demanding, "for this complete and perfect set of Toby jugs. A real collector's piece, worth at least twenty-five pounds."
That got a laugh, since nobody, including the auctioneer, thought they were worth more than five.
"Let me hear an offer," he demanded. "We're giving things away today, so be as ridiculous you like. Who opens with a bid? Do I hear four pounds?"
No, he didn't. But finally a girl just in front of Bob spoke up tentatively: "Ten shillings."
Bob frowned at the back of her head. He was beginning to dislike this girl quite actively. He'd seen her at practically every auction; a tall, slim, fair girl in a small hat with a rose on it, she made smallish bid in a hesitant voice for almost everything he and Janet bought.
But at the rate she was going. Bob couldn't remember her ever making a top bid, it'd be three years before she had furnished a home. Once or twice, her young man had been with her, looking as bored as Bob was with the whole business and Bob had felt sorry for him.
THE bidding was a pound now, and the girl cleared her throat and said: "On pound ten." Then as it went on up to two pounds she seemed to lose interest in the Toby jugs, and leaned back in her chair.
"Idiot!" Bob mumbled. "Did she think she'd get them for a quid?"
Janet laughed. "I think she's a stooge who's paid to get things going. Bet I'll get the jugs for four pounds ten." And she sat up straight and went into action.
She was very good at knowing how to get what she wanted and she got the jugs at four pounds ten.
"Shall we take our jugs and go, darling?" Bob said rising wearily.
Soothed by the acquisition of the jugs, Janet obediently gathered her bag and gloves, but her eyes were on the platform to make sure she wasn't missing a bargain. Bob took a look and felt pretty safe.
The auctioneer's assistants were , rolling out a small, very old harmonium.
It was battered, the foot pedals worn and broken, the keys discoloured.
But it had been, beautifully designed, the wood carvings were sweet with the patina of many years and the rack was chastely curved hold gentle hymn books.
"It would look amusing in the sitting-room, wouldn't it?" Janet murmured thoughtfully.
"Very funny," he agreed. "Come on, Janet let's go home."
But the bidding had started and Janet was magnetized. The fair girl said tentatively: "One pound."
PUTTING on his shocked-to-the-core expression, the auctioneer said: "One whole pound? Come now, you charming people. Do I hear three pounds for this valuable little antique, a conversation piece in your sitting-rooms, and a nostalgic sentiment to those old enough to remember their grandmothers, sitting in the parlour on a Sunday playing Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms." He sang a few bars.
Bob groaned.
Beside him, Janet said clearly: "Three pounds," and the girl in the front row:
"Three pounds ten."
Janet said four, and a man in the last row said four ten, then it was five, five ten, six, six ten, seven, seven ten and-
"Eight pounds," Janet said, with an air of finality.
"Do I hear eight Pounds ten, ladies and gentlemen? Eight pounds ten?"
There was a waiting silence and he started the going, going routine, but before he got to the gone, the fair girl in the hat stood up quite tall by her chair, and said loudly: "Nine pounds."
The auctioneer looked down at her in surprise, some of the people turned and craned for a look, but she stared straight ahead.
It was almost knocked down to the girl when suddenly Janet spoke up from beside him : "Nine pounds ten."
Bob turned to stare at her and muttered: "Are you mad?"
"I want it !" she said briefly, and tensed for battle as the girl in the hat increased the bid.
Tension spread over the whole room as the two girls fought their way up to twelve pounds.
No one else bid, all talking had stopped and everyone watched curiously as the auctioneer concentrated on goading one feminine competitor to struggle against the other. Bob was livid. with annoyance.
"Twelve pounds ten!" the girl in the hat" said.
Bob leaned over to say very distinctly in Janet's ear: "Come down to earth, Janet. And stop bidding for goodness' sake!"
She flashed him an indignant look and started to raise the bid.
In swift reflex action, before he could think, his right hand went out and closed firmly over her mouth, imprisoning her next extravagant words. The tension in the room exploded into howls of laughter.
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| "Twelve pounds ten," the girl in the hat said. Swifter than thought, Bob clapped a firm right hand over Janet's mouth.. continued on page 20 |
He looked apprehensively into Janet's furious face, not quite knowing what he'd better do next, then he took his hand away. She stood rigid, trembling with fury, ignoring the auctioneer's laughing invitation to renew, the bidding, then she turned and walked swiftly out.
BOB caught up with her at the car, and tried to pull her into his arms. "Darling," he said contritely, "I know I shouldn't have done that in front of everybody, but you were completely out of control."
She pushed him away, got into the car and sat silent all the way home. Then, just as she was closing the front door in his face, she said bitterly: "I wanted it!"
So then he knew he'd have to get it for her. It was the only way he could make amends for humiliating her like that. Cursing himself, he drove back to the auction rooms.
The auction was over and Bob had to endure the auctioneer's bright sallies before he could get the name and address of the girl in the hat, now the possessor of the battered harmonium: Miss Catherine Wells, 27 Church Road: .
It wasn't far away and Bob drove straight to 27 Church Road, where Catherine Wells opened the door and looked at him in surprise.
"Miss Wells," he said, with what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. "my name is Robert Hunt, and I wonder if I could talk to you about that harmonium."
"It's mine!" she said quickly. "I gave him a cheque for ten pounds and promised him the rest on Saturday."
"I know it's yours but I thought perhaps you'd be interested in making a little profit on it. I'll give you a cheque for twelve pounds now, and I'll pay the rest of the money to the auctioneer."
He reached into his pocket and brought out his cheque book.
"No, thank you," Catherine Wells said, and backed away from him a little.
Bob put the cheque book down for a moment, and resorted to sentiment. "Janet will never speak to me again if you don't help me. You see, she really wants this battered old thing."
"So do I," Catherine said firmly.
RESENTMENT at the contrariness of the female mind began to boil up in Bob. He was very tired. A photoraph of her young man stood on top of a Victorian desk, and Bob gestured towards it crossly.
" And what about him? Or doesn't it matter to you what he wants?"
Catherine looked at the picture and then blankly back at Bob. "What's my brother got to do with this?"
"I thought," Bob said foolishly, "he was your fiance. I'm awfully sorry."
"It's not as tragic as all that," Catherine said coldly. "I'll probably get engaged one day, but I like going to auctions and planning the home I hope to have. Is there any law against it?"
"No, of course not, but" he said and stopped. "But I don't see" He looked in bewilderment around the tiny room. "What do you want with that clumsy-thing? It'll only be a nuisance to you, but Janet really needs it."
He knew he was stretching a point.
"Needs it?" she repeated. "Your fiancee has so many things she needs or wants that I don't really think it is necessary for her to have this, too."
Catherine Wells started moving towards him then and he found himself outside the door.
Well, he had tried.
He explained all this to Janet when she finally let him talk to her over the phone two days later;
"I suppose I should be sorry for her," Janet said, "but I detest that jealous old-maid type and I think it's ridiculous of her to buy a big thing like that when she can't even afford to pay for it. I didn't know you could have things at auctions on the hire purchase system."
"You can't, usually," he explained, " but I suppose she just asked the auctioneer to wait till pay day and he'd got such a good price he agreed."
Bob was sick of talking about the wretched thing.
" Janet, I am sorry I couldn't get it for you, but don't you think you could forgive and forget now? I'll pick you up at about eight."
He rang off before she could say no.
When Janet opened the door to him, it looked as though the storm was over. She came into his arms, smiling.
The lights were low, the sofa was soft, but just as he was coming out of her welcoming kiss, he saw over her shoulder, in a shadowy comer, a dark battered object with broken foot pedals.
"Is that what I think it is?" he demanded.
She smiled triumphantly. " It's ours, now. darling! Isn't it marvellous? After I'd talked to you, I phoned the auctioneer. He was so nice when I told him about the little misunderstanding we'd had about the harmonium. He said that technically it was still for sale, as the purchase hadn't been completed yet. And by returning Miss Well’s money to her the deal could be called off. So they delivered it and Daddy gave them a cheque."
He stood up abruptly.
"I think that was a pretty dirty trick!" he accused her.
She wormed past his guard and rested warmly against him. "Perhaps it was," she confessed sweetly, "but was it as bad as what you did to me? And if I can forgive you, you'll just have to forgive me."
He attempted to make her see that this involved an innocent third party, but she was kissing him and it was hard to resist after their quarrel and all those tiring auctions. "
The sofa and Janet got softer and softer, but what with the dusty harmonium watching reproachfully in the corner and some important questions in his mind that kisses wouldn't blot out, Bob left early.
THE next morning, Bob knew exactly what he had to do. He borrowed a trailer, enlisted the help of John Turner, a promising amateur boxer and drove over to Janet's.
Janet wasn't at home and Bob felt awful when the harmonium groaned as it was being kidnapped, but he left a little note for Janet and a cheque (or her father.
What Janet would say, he could , imagine and deal with later.
But he wasn't prepared for what Catherine Wells said when she opened the door and saw him, bent over and panting from climbing the stairs.
"What's that?" she asked coldly, as though she'd never seen it before.
Bob wiped the sweat from his forehead. "You bought it," he told her. "and I'm delivering it."
She stood firmly, in the doorway. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a plaid shirt and she didn't look a bit like an old maid.
"On the contrary," she said, haughtily. "My money was refunded, and the harmonium was bought by someone else."
"But you wanted it!" he exclaimed.
"Well, I don't, now!" Catherine Wells told him and closed the door.
Bob and John Turner exchanged a thoughtful look. John said consolingly : "Women! " He took a deep breath."Back where we came from?"
Bob nodded.
He hoped they'd get the harmonium back before Janet got home and realized that it was gone, but when they panted up to the front door with it, Janet came quickly out, and closed the door behind her.
"Don't bring that thing in here!" she ordered.
"But Janet," he said miserably, "you wanted it."
"Well, I don't now! " she told him, "and now that I know that a completely strange girl means more to you than I do, I don't want this either!"
And she pulled the ring off her left hand and banged it down hard on the harmonium.
"Now listen to me, Janet," Bob was saying sharply, when the door was slammed noisily.
BOB and John stared for a moment at the glistening diamond before Bob picked it up and put it in his pocket.
John looked at Bob curiously and spoke very gently: "Have you got any more girl friends you'd like to give this thing to? If you have, suppose we telephone them first in case perhaps they don't want it either."
"No more girl friends," Bob said grimly. "Ever!"
"Why don’t you try giving them something useful,like a car or a mink Coat? Why on earth should they want a harmonium?"
"Why, indeed?" Bob asked bitterly, then bent to pick up his end of the burden. "Our neighbour's garage is crammed with equally unreasonable purchases, let's add this to it."
AFTER John Turner had disappeared wearily homeward, Bob sat in the darkening garage, on a broken drum which Janet had thought might make the most heavenly table, kicking at a box full of Japanese lanterns and some Russian icons.
He knew he could patch things up with Janet again. It was only a matter of time. It would take about three weeks, he thought. One week of phoning and being hung up on, one of tears, lots of flowers, expensive dinners, apologies.
Bob felt a great disinclination to go through that routine again. It always took so much energy, and
Suddenly, from the back of his mind, a voice clearly announced:
"Going, going, gone." and he knew that was what had happened to his feeling for Janet. It had been drowned in the welter of possessions.
"To hell with it!" he said, and stalked into the house to phone the auctioneer .
His lot didn't come up for sale for a couple of weeks, during which time he was very lonely. He went to the auction the day his garage-full was to be sold, wondering if Janet would be there to stop it.
Janet wasn’t there, and he leaned glumly against the back wall.
Suddenly, his arm was clutched and he looked down into the stricken eyes of Catherine Wells.
"Why are you selling everything, and where's your fiancee?" she demanded.
"The whole thing's off," he said.
"It's all my fault," she accused herself fiercely. "Just because I lost my temper and didn't want to let her win again. Listen!" She grabbed, his arm tighter. "Stop this auction and I'll phone Janet and explain."
"It's too late," he said firmly.
He didn't want it patched up, if Janet was heartless enough to let all the stuff she'd overbid on go down the drain without a word.
"Let me try," Catherine pleaded, pulling out of his grasp. "I owe it to you after you were decent enough to break your back trying to return the thing to me. You see, I didn't really want it so awfully, ordinarily I'd never have bid more than four for it''
"Then why did you?"
CATHERINE hesitated, and looked away guiltily. "Well, I heard what she said about my being a stooge, and, I suppose I was jealous of her."
On the platform, the harmonium was up for auction again, but Bob didn't see' it. He was looking at Catherine in an interested way.
"You see," Catherine was uncomfortably explaining, "she seemed to have everything in the world already, engaged to you and everything, so when she started bidding in that superior voice, I couldn't let her have that, too. Oh!" she groaned, her eyes on the platform. "They'll sell it and then she'll never speak to you again."
She walked briskly to the door but Bob caught her and didn't let go.
"I don't care if she never does," Bob said flatly and she stopped trying to pull away from him, surprised by the tone of his voice.
Scattered, indifferent bidding was going on, and Catherine groaned again when it looked as though the harmonium was' going for three pounds ten. But Bob was more conscious of her closeness, the clean fragrance of her hair.
"Ooh!" she said miserably, "and you paid twelve pounds for it, and all that carting about!"
A wave of warmth and companionship passed between them. Here was a girl who understood basic things. "
"Going!" the auctioneer was saying, "to the discriminating lady, in grey for three pounds ten. Do I hear four? Going, going-"
"Four!" Bob called out impulsively, and the auctioneer and Catherine both stared at him.
Catherine pushed his arm away. "I thought you didn't want to give it to her."
"I don't," he said. He grinned at her, but he had no intention of explaining. It was much too soon to explain, but he had a premonition that some day he and Catherine Wells would be grateful to the harmonium for having brought them together.
"Going for four." the auctioneer was complaining. "Going for four. Going, going, gone!" ............. the End
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