by Roy Vickers
“WillyBee will pay us just what he’s paid us for the conditioner.”
“The team must keep its temper with its kind employer.”
“That letter amounts to contemptuous treatment. If we had any guts—”
The discussion straggled on through late afternoon to evening. They became statistical. Each in turn addressed the others as if they were the board of directors. Nobody listened. Each was convinced that the other two had bungled the letter requesting payment of a royalty for inventions worked out after official hours. Each curbed his tongue, and remembered to be hearty. Soon they began to contradict each other over trifles. A triangular brawl was looming when a siren sounded on the river.
It was one of their four “regular customers”. The river traffic had fallen to less than that of the road. They had readily agreed that during the four weeks of their tenancy one of them would always be in the lockhouse to operate the lock.
“You’re nearest, Lyle!” said Stranack.
“Why d’you think you have to tell me!” grunted Canvey.
As Canvey went out to operate the lock the tension eased. Any two could get along better in the absence of the third.
“Have you noticed that Lyle always sticks up for WillyBee?”
“Only when I run him down.”
“He said he would get the Ford done, but he hasn’t. The wing doesn’t matter, but the rear window creates a draught. Surly sort of bloke, when you get to know him!”
Stranack picked up the rest of his mail—a bill, two circulars and The Prattler. He tore the wrapping of the glossy.
“It’s four weeks since they sent those chaps to interview WillyBee. It ought to be in this week, unless they’ve found out his name stinks. We’re sure to be mentioned. ‘First let me say that the success of the WillyBee Portable Air Conditioner is entirely due to three men who’—Good Lord, here he is!—patting his own dear little helicopter! Two pages of it!”
Eddis looked over his shoulder.
“What’s the girl for?”
“Something you’ll understand when you’re older. The reading under the picture, dear, says she’s Mrs. William Brengast.”
“That’s a shock! I didn’t know men like WillyBee were allowed to marry. This girl must be a misprint for his daughter.”
“She’d be a pin-up for the troops but for all those clothes.”
Eddis glanced at the letterpress and found it unilluminating. He stood by the window, gloomily watching Canvey flood the lock. Stranack continued to gaze at the photograph.
“There’s something about those eyes that betokens experience,” babbled Stranack. “Perhaps she is why WillyBee is like that!”
“If we could get a lawyer to read our contract—one of those brutal lawyers, with a genius for insult—he might find a loophole.”
When Canvey returned, the discussion started afresh. This time it was Eddis who rebelled.
“And what do we intend to do about it? We intend to talk about it to each other.”
“Why don’t we run into Renchester and take away all the stuff we’ve piled up for the cooker?” cried Stranack. “It’s our own—morally. If the cooker is as good as we think it may be, we could plant it with another company. On a royalty basis—full royalty!”
“Legally, WillyBee is on velvet,” warned Canvey. “There’s no doubt that our salary—”
“Let him sue us—and bring himself into public odium! What about Renchester—at once! Rupert is right. If we don’t do it at once we shall talk about it all our lives.”
“I’m ready to chance it,” conceded Canvey.
“If we come unstuck,” urged Stranack, “it’ll be worth it as a protest. It’s not nine yet—we could be back before midnight, if the Ford behaves itself.”
“Whose turn is it for lock duty tonight?” asked Eddis.
“Jigger that!” said Stranack. “This is a big occasion. Toss odd man out for keeping the lock.”
The three men smacked their coins on the table.
Less than half a mile from the lockhouse, Veronica could see two men crossing the road to a shed-like structure. It was some relief to be assured that humanity was not so far off. She set down the dressing case and eased the hand that was stiff and numbed, removing the glove.
She saw a car come out of the structure and turn in the direction of Renchester. If she had not wasted time waiting for a lift she might have been in that car.
She trudged on, her eyes on the lockhouse. The crisis had passed—WillyBee would no longer be waiting dinner for her. The black mood was giving way to one of self-satisfaction. Marooned in the wilds, she had not panicked. She had walked miles and miles (later discovered to be a mile and three quarters) and was still able to carry a heavy dressing case. She made the last hundred yards at a very creditable pace.
The house was both larger and uglier than seemed necessary. The architecture, if any, was of the Victorian Railway school—grey brick with a litter of gables. It stood on a natural island, reinforced and turned into a peninsular by a block of concrete, which served also as a bridgeway.
A ramp from the road gave on to a tarred strip leading to a front door without bell or knocker. After thumping it a little, Veronica followed the tarred strip round the house and came upon the lock and weir and a view over the valley.
A side door was propped open with a drain-pipe umbrella-stand. She knocked with her knuckles, without result, then put down her dressing case and entered a wide passage that smelt of floorcloth.
“Is anyone at home?” she called.
Plainly, nobody was at home. Veronica had noted the telephone wire and was not unduly concerned. She opened an inner door and entered the sitting-room.
For a moment the room itself held her attention. Over the coal grate was an overmantel—a large looking-glass, flanked with brackets. Two armchairs upholstered in a substance she took to be carpet; upright chairs and a sofa of the same suite; a massive sideboard also fitted with looking-glass and brackets; a dining table that looked as if it would bear a ton of coals without creaking. On the walls faded prints speckled with damp, depicting royal occasions. There was no bookcase but there were books on the floor, held upright against the skirting board with a wading boot for a book-end. On the wall near the door two desk-like contraptions had been fitted: one contained an open book that looked like a ledger and on the other was the telephone.
She was moving towards the telephone when she heard a footstep. A man came into the room smiling, carrying the suitcase she had left outside.
She had intended to make a dignified apology for her intrusion and ask permission to telephone for a car. But she lost her intention. Lock-keepers, she had supposed, were grizzled ex-sailors eking out their pensions. This man could be little more than her own age. He was not a bit like a lock-keeper—there came to her the odd thought that he was not a bit like any man she had met. She decided to say “good evening” as one said it to a social acquaintance, but she said:
“You see what’s happened!”
He smiled understanding, giving her the feeling that the whole business of being stranded was at an end—that it hadn’t happened—that it didn’t matter if it had.
“You need a rest, first,” he said. Among many things stacked against the opposite wall were three deck chairs. He put down her dressing case and took two of the deck chairs. She found herself following him to the lockside. He opened one of the chairs and steadied her into it. It was no idle courtesy—she had needed his support. She supposed that she was dizzy with fatigue.
For a while she was alone. The lockside had been decorated with a strip of lawn between two formal flowerbeds which looked as if they had been snipped out of a municipal park. But Veronica could see only a rustic retreat set in a landscape that had suddenly acquired a breathtaking beauty. She closed her eyes, became aware that the man had returned. He set down a wicker stool and put a tray on it.
“Thank you!” she said. It was little more than a murmur. “I’ll try and be
have properly in a minute.”
“There’s no hurry.”
The pain in her feet was flowing away. She closed her eyes again. When she opened them, he said:
“Gin and orange juice. I thought it a safer bet than rum or whisky.” He had opened the other chair and was sitting beside her. The sky was turning red with the sunset.
A strange ease crept over Veronica as she sipped her drink without speaking. There was no need to make small talk to this man, who so easily shared her mood. She was acutely conscious of him, yet incurious. Her fatigue passed so quickly that she became aware of something unusual happening to her. She forced herself back to earth.
“I shall have to see the lock-keeper presently and borrow his telephone.”
“Presently!” he echoed and added: “I am the lock-keeper.”
She turned and looked at him, learning nothing she did not know already—that he was young, vital, magnetically tuned to herself.
“It’s a semi-holiday stunt,” he explained. “We’re a stag party of three. The lock-keeper is in hospital. There’s practically no river traffic—just a few regulars, so there has to be someone here. We tossed odd man out for duty tonight and I lost. The other two are out.” He expanded: “The fishing attracted us. You see, we have to keep together for our work. But you fish—singly. So we took the job for the sake of the house and the fishing.”
She wanted him to go on talking. His words conveyed little, but his voice was teaching her truths about men which she had never guessed. He rambled widely over his own future and past, seeming to include her, as if they had been together from the first.
When he stopped talking she knew they had come so close to each other that her individuality would be lost in his. In panic she clutched at the first banality she could think of.
“It’s charming here! And do you do your own housework and cooking?”
“We keep the place from getting definitely filthy. We stick to the directions on the tins. We always wash up after a meal. Now and again we sneak off to Renchester.”
“Oh!” She was back on earth again and it hurt.
“You’re on your way to Renchester,” he interpreted. “You’re only here by chance. Mischance, from your point of view.”
“Is it mischance?”
“One of the million-to-one kind. You’ll have to go, of course. Let’s get it over. I’ll do the telephoning. What’s your name?”
“My name doesn’t suit me at all… I’ve always thought of myself as ‘Caroline’!” For an instant only she paused. “And I’ve always thought of you as ‘Peter’.”
He nodded as if he had expected her to say it.
“We’re letting ourselves in for it. My fault for showing that I funk the moment when you get into that car.”
“It isn’t your fault, nor mine. I felt it when you didn’t make a flutter about my being in that room.”
“So did I! D’you realise we’re talking love-at-first-sight nonsense?”
“Why is it nonsense?”
“You know nothing of me except what you’ve picked up from my chatter—and that’s probably misleading.” He added: “And I know nothing of you.”
“What do you want to know of me?” she asked removing her hat, “before it becomes sensible to fall in love with me?”
“Nothing!”
“Nothing!” she echoed. “You are as sure of me as I am of you.”
“Because we are caught in a whirlpool which we have created ourselves, and no one can rescue us.” He knew he was ranting, while he groped for an opening for something he must say. “There may be a dozen good reasons why we should not love each other. But I would not understand one of them, except—”
“Nothing!” She was repeating the word in a murmur to herself.
“Except the idea of hurting somebody else. I never thought I would feel like that, but I do.”
There was no more than a faint glow from the sunset—just enough for her wedding ring to catch his eye. He put his finger on it, touching only the metal.
“Does this mean anything?”
“It did, Peter. Now it means as little to me as it does to him.”
He drew the ring from her finger, held it poised on his thumbnail, then flipped it into the air. With a tiny splash it fell into the lock.
Silence again. Thought of each was carried to the other on the whispering rush of water over the weir. In front of them vapour spiralled thinly from the lock.
He raised her from the deck chair and took her into the house.
Around one in the morning the siren of a tug called him from her side.
While he was away she lay contentedly in a vacuum of thought. From outside came a sound-picture of boats creaking and nudging one another on mumbling waters, of boats and men moving along to nowhere, as meaningless to her and as pleasing as a Chinese pattern. His returning footsteps brought her back to time and place. She felt hungry but it was he who said:
“We didn’t have any supper, did we!”
He led her into the sitting room. While he lit an oil lamp he told her about the lock.
“I shall have another customer in about an hour. Two regulars at night and three or four by day. I suppose there’s some antique law that prevents the river people from shutting-up shop.” He chattered himself into the kitchen to prepare a meal.
She opened her dressing case, groped for a scarf and draped it over her bare shoulders. Standing before the speckled looking-glass she repaired her make-up as well as she could in the poor light. She dropped face tissue in the fireplace which was already in use as a waste dump.
On the table were two novels, a handbook on coarse fishing and a small camera. The next moment she saw something else.
“WillyBee Products Ltd.”
It was embossed in red on the flap of an envelope which was partly covered by the camera. Her heart thumped then steadied. It did not necessarily mean that this man was connected with her husband’s companies. He might have bought one of the products, she told herself, not knowing that the companies did not deal directly with the public.
Without scruple, she picked up the envelope. Arthur Stranack Esq., Peasebarrow Lock, Nr. Renchester. What a pity his name wasn’t really Peter! But it still might be. That envelope might have been addressed to one of the two other men staying in the house. She slid the envelope back under the camera.
Presently he came in, bringing hot soup, which he put on the floor. It did not occur to her to help him clear the table.
In the light of the oil lamp their eyes met in mutual contentment.
“You’ll be cold. I’ll shut the side window.”
“Please don’t. Leave everything as it is. I like it all.”
The soup was followed by chicken and new potatoes and a sweet.
“This must be magic!” she exclaimed. “I thought it took hours to prepare hot things.”
That woke him up to certain realities lurking in the background.
“I don’t know anything about fashions, but I do know a little about fabrics,” he said, his eyes on what he could see of her clothing. “All your clothes cost a hell of a lot!”
“Why do you suspect that they’re not fashionable?”
“And apparently you’ve never heard of can cookery!”
It was an accusation and it puzzled her.
“Darling! What does it matter how things are cooked?”
“My income, after passing through the mangle, is about a thousand all told. It might be more before long, but I mean might.”
“I don’t care what you earn. We shall have enough. I have a life interest on the income of £100,000,” she said. “I mean a marriage settlement. Oh, I forgot! It’s dum sola et casta. The sola means I should lose it all if I married again, after the divorce, doesn’t it?”
“It does. And the rest of it means that you also lose it all if you are the one to give grounds for divorce.” He glanced at the alarm clock on the overmantel—nearly two o’clock. “I’m afraid my existen
ce has already cost you that £100,000.” Then came the challenge. “I’m sorry, if you are—Caroline?”
Her heart was thumping again, as when she had seen the envelope under the camera.
“Peter, darling! Don’t be utterly and absolutely absurd!” Her voice was edged with panic, but her eyes were cold. “We must keep our heads. Those barge men couldn’t have seen me. No one knows I’m here. Your two friends! Are they coming back tonight?”
He did not immediately answer.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said.
“Are they coming back tonight? Oh, do please tell me!”
“Probably not. I had forgotten all about them. The Ford must have broken down again or they would have been here before. And now we’ve started remembering things! My fault for mentioning my income. What else have I made you remember? I have certainly made you forget—rather a lot.”
There was still hope. She groped for a dignified retreat in sweet reasonableness.
“Don’t spoil it all with bitterness!” she entreated. “I could learn—can cookery—and everything that goes with it. If you had only a labourer’s wage I would still want to live with you and—wash your shirts and that sort of thing—but—”
“But you don’t think it would be for my good!”
“I would have to turn myself into a different kind of woman—a better kind, if you like. Only, I wouldn’t then be the woman you fell in love with.” She added: “Any more than I am now!”
“Any more than you are now,” he repeated. “Quite true! You are giving me a very vivid illusion that you are now a different woman.”
“And you hate me!”
“Nonsense! I’m greatly in your debt for bringing the other woman here and letting me live a happy lifetime with her in a few hours. I will, of course, help you tell a lie to your husband. What d’you want me to do?”
“Let me go before your friends come back.”
He produced a telephone book and a railway guide.
“It’s no good my going to Renchester now.” She opened the railway guide. “My married sister at Salisbury will put me up for what’s left of the night. And she will ask no questions. I can get there an hour or two before breakfast time.” There was a train she could catch, with reasonable luck, at three-fifteen.