The Yellow Houses

by Stella Gibbons

  Mr Grant, sitting peacefully over the gas fire and reading an account of that day’s bomb explosions, while mutters of murdering bastards and I’d give them four minutes’ warning escaped his pursed lips, was interrupted by a loud and haughty knock on his door.

  That’s milord or I’m a Dutchman, he thought, and did not hurry himself in laying aside the newspaper, getting up, and crossing the room. His shoulders squared themselves, and his head went back. He gripped the door handle, swung the door wide, and stood there, staring into the insolent eyes of his Japanese tenant.

  ‘Well, my lad, and what can I do for you?’

  ‘Where is Miss Mary Davis?’ Yasuhiro demanded.

  ‘How should I know? Me and Mrs Cadman don’t go spying. Pay your rent, keep yourself respectable, and go your own way, is our rule.’

  As the other inhabitants of 20 Rowena Road were all over sixty, and terrified of everything in the contemporary world with the exception of Tide and paper handkerchiefs, Mr Grant could feel confident that this liberal attitude would not be abused.

  ‘She is not in her room. I have knocked at the door.’

  ‘Well, if you nearly bust through it, like you just done this one, p’raps she didn’t feel like answering.’

  ‘Then I turn handle. But it is locked,’ Yasuhiro went on, as if nothing had been said.

  ‘That’s all right. Her room, isn’t it? – No, I don’t know where she is. Out, I expect. Saturday night – only natural. So you be off, please.’

  He paused. Then, his feelings needing expression, he went on severely: ‘And you’d better mend your manners. I was sergeant in the Rifle Brigade for fifteen years, and we had a few like you. Fire-eatin’. ’Eroes on the bloody field o’ battle, and walking on people’s faces in between fights to keep yer ’and in . . . I know.’

  Glare met glare – then Yasuhiro’s expression changed: smoothed, polite.

  ‘I am sorry. I am rude.’ A dazzling smile, which was not returned.

  ‘And we don’t want any soap today, thank you.’

  ‘You were a warr–– a soldier?’ Yasuhiro asked suddenly. ‘In last war?’

  ‘That’s right. Rifle Brigade 1923 to ’47. Finest regiment in the Army. ’Course, they have to bugger it about, they always do, and it isn’t what it was (come to that, what is?). But the tradition’s there, and we done our duty.’

  ‘Ah. My great-grandfather was a sailor. Become Admiral. Fight at Port Arthur. Still happily alive in our house.’

  ‘Port Arthur? Crikey, he must be getting on a bit . . . Russki-Japanese war, wasn’t it? Keeps healthy, does he?’

  ‘He has yet some strength, thank you for him. That Rifle Brigade – I have heard its name.’

  ‘Yes, you might have . . . your lot come up against us in Burma. Ah well, let the best man win, is what I always say.’

  Mr Grant, having, so to speak, inflicted loss of face on the enemy, was preparing to execute a tactical retreat when he recollected that Mrs Cadman was all for encouraging friendly relations between Mary and this blighter.

  ‘You and Mary had a row?’ he demanded.

  ‘No oh no. Friends. But . . .’

  Mr Grant took what he called a dekko at the young face, which now appeared troubled. Bit of a boy, thought Mr Grant. Can’t be above twenty.

  ‘S’pose we ask Mrs Cadman?’ he suggested. ‘I know she’s got a phone number.’

  ‘You don’t get out much in the evenings then, love?’ said Wilfred.

  A shake of the head.

  ‘That boy,’ he said, resolutely but making himself use a casual tone, ‘the Japanese boy – is he still living in your house?’

  Nod. Mary’s expression became expressionless.

  ‘Doesn’t he take you out in the evenings? It’s what most boys and girls do, if they’re friends.’

  ‘We’ve been out once. To St Paul’s. At least, we went to a café near St Paul’s.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound exactly lively,’ her father said dryly.

  ‘Oh, he’s lively enough, most of the time. Tales about cutting off people’s heads, and Great-grandpop fighting in some battle about ninety years ago. Never a dull moment, really.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound quite your cup of tea, love.’

  ‘A lot of it isn’t. But . . .’ she was silent again, and he was pondering what his next remark should be when there was a sharp rap on the door and the cheerful voice of Mr Taverner. ‘Mary! Wanted on the telephone.’

  She got up reluctantly, saying ‘It’ll be old Levy or Mrs Cadman. No one else has the number. I suppose she wants me to go in tomorrow. Shan’t be a minute, love,’ and she went out.

  Wilfred shook his head, and began to pack a pipe with Old and Sweet.

  ‘Hullo?’ said Mary in the silent hall, under the benign eyes of Kichijoten. The world seemed shut out and miles away: and the next instant everything had faded and there was only one voice.

  ‘Mairly? Why did you go away from me? In that way?’ it demanded angrily.

  Mary’s impulse was to say, slowly and distinctly, ‘Well – I – am – damned.’ She resisted it, and said, on a desolate note she did not know was in her voice: ‘I just wanted to see my dad.’

  ‘Oh. So you did not go away in a rage of temper?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t go away in a rage. Why should I?’

  Now he’ll have to explain why he’s said nothing to me but ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening’ for the last week.

  ‘Well, I think you are perhaps in a rage because I have not ask you drink coffee. For seven nights, I have not ask.’

  ‘Seven? Is it really that long?’

  ‘You are sarcasm at me, Mairly.’

  ‘No I’m not. Why should I be?’

  ‘Because – I tell you previously – I have not invite you to drink coffee.’

  ‘So what?’ she said hardly, after a pause.

  ‘My heart is sad, and I have many, many thoughts.’

  She just prevented herself retorting: ‘And what about my heart?’ and stood listening, in silence.

  ‘You come home and I tell you those thoughts.’

  ‘I’ll come home tomorrow.’

  ‘Come now. At once, Mairly.’

  ‘What, tonight? It’s after nine, and I’m tired.’

  ‘I come to fetch you away in a Godfrey Davis.’

  ‘Who – what Davis?’

  ‘Godfrey. Car hire firm. Very reliable. I have used, when not wanting to walk along ugly disgraceful streets to our Embassy. You say, and I come. Near eleven o’clock I shall be at where you are. Perhaps half hour after eleven.’

  ‘No – thanks,’ she said, after a pause for consideration, in which she imagined a two-hour ride alone with him in a fabulous car. ‘I’d like to be with Dad for a bit. But if you like . . .’

  ‘What if I like? You tell me, Mairly.’

  ‘I’ll get the 11.11 to Liverpool Street tomorrow morning. It gets in at 12.25.’

  ‘We go back together to Rowena Road by the train from enormous Broad Street, and I show you my heart.’

  Her step was quicker and her expression different as she came into her father’s room.

  ‘That was Yasu,’ she said, sitting down by the fire. ‘The Japanese boy. You . . . you’d better learn his name, Dad. It’s Yasuhiro Tasu.’

  Wilfred obediently repeated the exotic sounds.

  ‘We’ve had a spot of bother,’ she added offhandedly. ‘But it’s all right now. Well, what’s your news?’

  Her father had no news, and was famishing for her confidence.

  They went to bed early.

  Wilfred always looked forward to the few moments before he fell asleep in the Yellow House. After his door was shut for the night, he was accustomed to hearing various quiet sounds which seemed to indicate that the house was still wakeful and, in some manner which he could not analyse, busy. This activity, whatever it might be, was wholly agreeable to him; soothing him before he drifted off into those dreams of an unearthly clarity and beauty w
hich had begun to visit him. The continuous subdued sounds suggested the working of something mysterious, fruitful and happy; and even if he should awaken in the small hours, he would lie restfully, listening to the living silence.

  On Sunday morning, Mary was cheerful over the breakfast he insisted on cooking for her.

  ‘Is this what you usually have, love?’ he enquired, sliding a fried egg onto its couch of bacon.

  ‘Gosh, no. I can’t rise to that. Often bacon and egg is my supper.’

  ‘Mum would say it was your duty to yourself to eat properly.’

  ‘I know, Dad. But it costs money – money,’ was the absent answer, as she sat down at the table. Raw egg and bean paste. Sounds simply disgusting. But I suppose one would get used to it.

  ‘I eat enough, you know. I don’t use up all that energy. I’m not charging about in the fresh air all day,’ she added, noting his expression.

  Wilfred shook some of his Matterhorn cereal into a bowl. He longed to ask questions about that boy. But ‘it’ might not even be serious. He himself had so little experience! Rose Carter when he was twenty-two, and then a peaceful blank until Pat, when he was forty-seven.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘You may as well know . . .’

  God, what was coming?

  ‘Yasu’s rich.’

  ‘Rich, is he? Well . . .’ Wilfred just stopped himself saying, Why doesn’t he take you out somewhere nice, then?

  ‘Yes. His family make colour TVs.’

  ‘Then what’s he doing living in your house? From what you’ve told me, it’s clean and respectable enough but not what you might call luxury, is it?’

  ‘No it is not,’ Mary said, with decision. ‘But it’s all right, I suppose, though everybody in it but me and him is about ninety.’

  ‘Seems funny –’ Wilfred spooned up the last of his chopped nuts and grains: ‘– you wouldn’t think . . .’

  ‘Well –’ she was not looking at him, ‘I never met anyone like him. Honestly, sometimes I think he’s a bit off his trolley – but clever, too. He writes poetry. And he says things . . .’

  ‘What sort of things?’ suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, funny nice things – you’d like them.’

  ‘And you – you like him, do you, love?’

  The tone was dry, carefully drained of a teasing note.

  Mary’s head was turned towards the window. There followed a longish pause.

  ‘I don’t know if I do or not,’ she said calmly, at last. ‘And I don’t know if he likes me. All I know is – when I don’t see him – and he seems to feel the same – here, don’t you move, I’ll do that.’

  She got up and began clearing the table. ‘On here? Right? Quite the little housewife now, aren’t you? – All I mean is – don’t worry. I know what I want. Have, since I was twelve.’

  This affair, thought Wilfred watching the apparently calm young woman stacking cups . . . this affair is a very different affair from love under the indifferent shadow of the Town Hall. Mary’s a bit too sensible, perhaps, he thought. And this being bowled over by a Japanese boy who writes poetry is a sort of – letting the other side out, as it were.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t know if he’s all right yet, so I’m not doing anything in a hurry – even if I have the chance to,’ she ended wryly. ‘Here – what’s the time? Gosh, if I’m going to catch that train I must get my skates on.’

  The delicious interlude was over. She was off on her own path again, moving towards her own future with absent, though always affectionate, answers to his carefully casual questions.

  ‘Dad. Mr Taverner says he’ll drive me to the station.’

  A last-minute kiss and embrace.

  ‘You’re sure you’re really all right here, Dad? Really fitting in and all that?’ she whispered unexpectedly as they went down the stairs. ‘We don’t seem to have had a minute for a real natter, the time’s gone so fast.’

  Yes. You hadn’t been here two hours before that young blighter was on the phone and off you went into Disneyland, thought her father dourly, while chirping aloud that it had been a nice little flying visit and take care of yourself and goodbye. He squeezed her firm young arm.

  ‘Oh, I forgot to ask you last night –’ said Mary, as the 1938 car rattled through the streets of Sunday Torford, past the combustion-engine worshippers cleaning their idols, ‘can you let me have a copy of that photo you took of that goddess you made up, in the snow. You know, at Christmas, Mr Taverner?’

  ‘Willingly.’ Mr Taverner slightly turned towards her. ‘But . . .’

  ‘You’ll let me pay you for it, won’t you, please? I know how expensive colour films are.’

  ‘I’d be delighted to give you one, Mary, if I had one. But I haven’t. The thing’s a blank.’

  ‘How funny,’ said Mary, wondering if Yasu would be there when her train got in. ‘It was a perfect morning for taking photos, wasn’t it, and so bright with the snow. Quite blank, was it?’

  ‘Absoballylutely blank,’ he said solemnly. ‘Now, if you’re going to catch that train, I had better step on it.’ He accelerated.

  ‘It is funny,’ Mary said dreamily again.

  ‘Isn’t it? Remarkable, really.’

  He was waiting for her at the barrier, and, having greeted her with a silent, brilliant smile, led her in his usual style through the crowds as if they had not existed, and up to a large handsome car complete with grey-uniformed chauffeur, parked like a peacock among London sparrows, in the side road that led down to the station.

  ‘Godfrey Davis, Mairly. Please go in.’

  Mary went in. She looked furtively at the immaculate grey back of the chauffeur in the front seat and hoped that the coming conversation would not be too personal.

  When the car was gliding away, Yasu did not at once begin to talk. He had seated himself beside her, but at the far end of the long seat. Presently he said:

  ‘Better only you and me. You think so, Mairly, love?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Yasu. It was kind of you.’

  She was not going to exclaim: ‘You call me love!’ though it was the first time, and her heart danced. He had the behaviour of last week to explain.

  ‘This is same kind car my father has in Japan. Will not let me drive it, though,’ and he laughed.

  She laughed dutifully also.

  ‘Peasant is a nuisance but necessary,’ Yasuhiro went on, indicating the driver. ‘Now, if you want, I tell you some of my many many thoughts.’ Mary’s eyes were fixed on the necessary peasant. ‘All of last week I think and think.’ Yasuhiro’s eyes turned towards her, and a little smile tilted the corners of his mouth. ‘What I think concerning, Mairly?’

  ‘Yasu, hadn’t you better not – I mean, let’s wait until we get home, shall we?’ she interrupted, and moved her head forward in the direction of the chauffeur.

  ‘Of course of course. Sensible. Always peasants listen, sometimes even dare repeat what heard, though not in our house. Beautiful weather now. Trees budding. Sun shining. How was in Tor-ford? Making geisha conversation, I think,’ and Yasuhiro began giggling and she joined in.

  But even as the childish, rather silly sound bubbled out of him, his eyes, dark and glittering, remained fixed on hers, making her heart beat faster, bringing the feeling that every moment spent away from this stranger from the other side of the world was not real. Only when they were together was her life actual.

  She stood by the gate while he tipped the chauffeur, staring dreamily down the length of Rowena Road, which was lined with cars.

  ‘Now you go eat lunch, I go eat lunch. Disgraceful place, no servants to cook and bring to us,’ said Yasuhiro, whose feudal instincts appeared to have been aroused by the presence of the peasant and the use of Godfrey Davis. ‘All the same, we eat. Then go for walk on that Heath and I tell you what I have do.’

  ‘Done, love.’ It slipped out.

  ‘Again, again, you call me “love”!’

  ‘
Yes. And you behave once more like you did last week, and I’ll never call you “love” again for the rest of our lives. So you remember.’

  She was trembling, though she spoke firmly, staring up at him.

  He turned from the front door, for as usual he had darted up ahead, and smiled down at her.

  ‘Oh Mairly. How much I like to hear you say “the rest of our lives”! Yes, in our lives we will rest beside together. But not always rest, have much doing together. Perhaps I even take you travelling with me. See E-gypt.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  But it was a murmur. Her thunder had been stolen by this agreeable prospect.

  She tapped on Mrs Cadman’s door before going up to her room.

  ‘Hullo, Mrs Cadman, just wanted to let you know I’m back.’

  ‘That’s right, dear – have a nice time?’

  ‘Short and sweet, thanks. Dad asked to be remembered to you.’

  Dad had done no such thing. But Mary knew that he would approve the graceful little lie.

  ‘Thank you, dear. Keeping well, is he? Settling in nicely?’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you.’ She was poised to be off.

  ‘Such a carry-on you never heard, last night.’ Mrs Cadman lowered her voice, and the plastic rollers confining her hair under a net seemed charged with importance and mystery. ‘A phone call booked to Japan, if you please, and him asking me would I please wake him up when the phone went at three in the morning. (Different time over there, of course.) Well, I said, seeing you’re the age you are and I’m the age I am, No. You have this alarm clock, I said, and that’ll wake you up all right. “Unless he passes over in the night from blood pressure,” Mr Grant said. (Not meaning it nastily, but really!) And there was I, fast asleep, and never heard a thing. But Mr Grant was awake. That wound he got at that Kidney Ridge always aches a bit in the spring. And he heard him jabbering away in Japanese for nearly an hour. What it must have cost! Well, I said to Mr Grant, there’s the money to pay for it, and at least he’s honest, and he’ll be responsible, and Mr Grant heard him reverse the charge, thank goodness, or I would not feel comfortable; you know what muddles that post office makes. Got everything you want for your lunch, dear?’

  Tinned pilchards and bread and margarine.