Blasted Things

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Got lost?’ From the dining room came the distant silly chitter of the carriage clock. ‘Got lost?’ he repeated. And then came the deeper reverberation of the grandfather in the hall, striking and striking the hour. ‘And how, pray, did it “get lost”?’

  ‘I went for a stroll this morning. It was in my pocket. I don’t know what I was thinking – that perhaps I’d walk as far as the shops, but I didn’t, of course, in this heat. I stopped in the churchyard for a rest, then I came home.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It must have fallen out or else I was pickpocketed . . . Oh, darling, my heart simply stopped when I realised it was missing.’

  She could hear him breathing, smell tooth powder, alcohol and Brilliantine. She put her hands over her face.

  ‘You didn’t mention it, at luncheon.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised then . . . Darling, I’ve been so afraid to tell you.’

  ‘My God, that is careless!’ His voice was raised. ‘Do you realise how much that is? How many consultations?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She began to cry; real tears for poor Dennis who believed every word, tears for her own lying heart.

  ‘I suppose it didn’t occur to you to inform the police?’

  She shook her head. ‘Oh, Dennis . . .’ She reached out to touch his hot bare chest.

  He frowned, pulled her head roughly against him. She could feel the tickle of his chest hair against her cheek and his bristles on top of her head. She could feel the outraged beating of his heart.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘Well, I can’t pretend I’m not upset,’ he said. ‘Fifty pounds, just like that! My God!’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘You can lie down,’ he said. ‘You careless child. Lie down and I’ll show you what for.’

  As he ram-raided her body, she stared over his shoulder at the jumping ceiling: done, done, done, done, done.

  32

  Tomorrow noon. The Crown. V.

  CLEM ROSE FROM the breakfast table to throw the note into the hearth, but on such a warm day there was no fire. She turned round and round uselessly, foot catching on the fringe of the rug, screwing the note in her fist. The raging cheek of him! No word since the ludicrous conversation in that squalid pub and she’d really begun to hope – even to believe – that he’d come to his senses.

  She sat down and regarded the breakfast paraphernalia. Though her stomach was scrunched as tight as the note, she must eat. She gazed blankly at the irises, on their last day, indeed past it, petals softened and pendulous. From below came Dennis’s voice, steady and reassuring against the querulous tone of a female patient. She spread toast with butter. Beside her plate, the note unfurled like an opening flower.

  She was so nearly in the clear now. Just this one thing. And what a pathetically queer thing! One afternoon of play-acting and then it would all be over. Really? He’d certainly seemed sincere though with that class of person can one ever really know?

  She spread honey onto the toast. Through the window came the trudge of feet on gravel, the ring of the bell, a busy surgery. An evil summer cold was doing the rounds, and going straight to the lungs of the elderly and the infirm, especially those fellows still suffering from the effects of mustard gas, Dennis told her. Each contagion did for another swathe of those.

  Her cooling tea had grown a grey skin and as she tried a sip, bile rose in her throat. No, no, no, don’t allow that thought.

  ‘He’s over there.’ The landlady nodded towards their usual nook.

  Vincent stood aside to let Clem in and, rather self-consciously, she squeezed past him. ‘So?’ she said.

  ‘Brandy?’

  She requested lemonade. Don’t risk any clouding of the mind. As he stood at the bar, she noticed that the landlady was cordial with him, friendly even, and guessed he’d been cultivating her. His witness, of course. But it was going to be all right. She glanced around at the other clientele: a man perched on a barstool with a sheepdog at his feet, another lunching on a pie. No one taking a scrap of notice.

  Vincent was soon back, offering her a cigarette, and when she shook her head, he lit his own, drew on it and leaned back, observing her.

  The smell of the smoke brought a rush of sourness to her mouth and she sipped her lemonade. ‘So?’

  He looked tired, his fingers nicotine-stained, his nails ragged. ‘This one last thing and then I’ll vanish.’ Pinching the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he picked up a beermat, folded it between his hands, and opened them on emptiness. ‘Like so.’

  She smiled faintly at his trick.

  ‘If not . . .’ he went on, ‘well, that’s your lookout. I might just book a consultation with a certain doctor. I might just tell tales to a certain nursemaid. There’s lots of things I might have a mind to do.’ The beermat appeared back on the table.

  ‘There’s no need to be unpleasant, Vincent.’

  He grimaced ironically.

  ‘I mean, even if I had a mind to, how could I?’ she reasoned. ‘To be away for an evening. What’s my husband going to think? I’m already skating on thin ice . . .’

  He shrugged, exhaled smoke.

  ‘And in any event, I don’t know if I could convincingly “make up”, as you put it, to a perfect stranger.’ Though as she spoke she was shocked by a base little thrill at the idea of being forced to do so. There was a class of women who could perfectly well do it, did it – and far more – every day, she was well aware of that. Women fashioned of the same stuff as herself.

  ‘Nothing would happen,’ he said. ‘It’s smoke and mirrors, a charade.’

  ‘A charade,’ she repeated. Through the door came Giles Hubert. What was he doing here? She shrank down in her chair. ‘Saw the little woman in the Crown,’ he might say to Dennis, if he caught sight of her. And then what?

  She picked up the beermat and examined it. Perfectly ordinary, a little soft at the edges, advertising Green King. A charade, Vincent called it. That made it sound harmless enough. ‘Do I have your word of honour that this would be the end?’

  Vincent nodded.

  ‘Swear on the Bible?’ she said.

  ‘Got one in your handbag, have you?’ Vincent smirked.

  ‘All right,’ Clem said. ‘Swear on the life of whoever you care about most in the world.’

  ‘I swear,’ he said, and she saw how his knuckles whitened.

  She fiddled with the beermat. ‘Who would I be deceiving and why?’

  ‘Just a certain party,’ he said, ‘that’s all you need to know.’

  She sipped the lemonade, wriggled her thumbnail between layers of cardboard and began to peel the beermat apart. ‘How can you be sure it would work? What, for instance, if he wasn’t taken with me?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’ Vincent twisted sideways so that he could cross his long legs and she shifted in order to stay hidden.

  ‘He’ll think I’m a tart.’

  He narrowed his eye. ‘Would it matter?’

  ‘It would matter to me!’

  The door opened and Giles stood to greet the woman who entered, a woman who was not his wife. Clem was shocked, and then she almost laughed – as if she was in a position to judge! As she peered over Vincent’s shoulder, the two shook hands before the landlady showed them upstairs.

  ‘You’d never see hide nor hair of him again,’ Vincent was saying. ‘Spin him any claptrap you like. Ask him to buy you a drink, sit close beside him, use your imagination. Just make sure the lady sees.’

  ‘If I’m to go along with this . . . this charade,’ she said, ‘it’s only fair you tell me what it’s all for.’

  He lit a new Capstan from the stub of the other, inhaled and slowly blew out the smoke. ‘Fair do’s. This lady, she’s the landlady of the Wild Man, and she and yours truly, we’re like this.’ He crossed two fingers. ‘But someone else’s got his beady eye on her and I don’t want her head turned. I just want her to see what he’s made of, that’s all.
Harmless, really.’

  She refrained from laughing. It was like a trashy romance! Of course what else could one expect from one of his ilk? Though up above – maybe in that same green room – conducting his own tawdry affair, was boring, worthy Giles Hubert, who, at dinner, had seemed so devoted to his boring, worthy wife.

  ‘Was it her life you swore on?’ she asked. ‘This landlady?’

  He nodded and said, with unnecessary fervour, ‘I did. I swear on her life.’

  ‘However it turns out?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘“On her life” – say it,’ she insisted, feeling pleasure in her power.

  ‘On her life. And my own.’

  ‘Even if it doesn’t work? If I do my bit, that’s it?’

  ‘I swear.’

  They sat in silence.

  ‘All I want’s for her to see that the sun doesn’t shine out of his . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘Then she’ll come to her senses.’

  ‘And when do you propose this pantomime take place?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘This Friday!’

  He nodded.

  She peeled the sides of the mat apart and laid them both face up. Two identical green faces looking in opposite directions. Covertly she watched Vincent smoke. All the money he’d had out of her, all the fear and fright and yet . . . still she couldn’t hate him. Poor man, with all he’d been through. And he had – hadn’t he? – helped her come to some sort of peace within herself. Came to mind the salt of that tear rising so purely, so queerly, from its duct.

  ‘He always turns up of a Friday,’ he was saying. ‘Creature of habit.’

  An idea was glimmering into life. It so happened that Dennis had his fortnightly game of bridge this Friday. She might make an excuse to be out – a Red Cross meeting in Felixstowe, say – and she could stay the night with Gwen. Dennis was invariably at the golf course on Saturday mornings. Afterwards, if she showed any interest, he’d talk about his round till kingdom come and probably never think to ask what she’d been up to. And if he were curious, the thought of Gwen would be a distraction. She could make something up.

  She picked up her gloves. ‘And this will really be the end of it?’

  ‘I swore, didn’t I? You have my word.’

  ‘Then, Vincent, I shall take you at your word.’

  33

  IT’S A DEVIL of a job getting away. Kegs to change, dicky pipe to see to, and then Kenny grazes his knee and wants patching up, and all the while Doll’s upstairs primping – the smell of singed hair drifting down. Not a word about Chamberlain since the holiday but the trouble she’s going to with them curling irons speaks volumes. You could almost feel sorry for her, going to so much trouble.

  Eventually he makes his escape, sets off on the Norton, heart in mouth. Strategy’s immaculate but you can’t control the other players, that’s what bothers him. Must be what it’s like directing a moving picture, worrying whether all the players can carry it off. Doll’s got to fall for it, of course, and Chamberlain. Unlikely he won’t; he’s a ladies man after all, eyes popping out of his head at almost anything between sixteen and forty. So why – Vince accelerates – why the hell does he have to go after Doll, just when Vince’s getting his feet properly under the table?

  This reward is due to him. After the war, the shit, the sacrifice – and it was sacrifice, it was heroism. If he hadn’t put his head over the parapet on that day, at that minute, he might have got away with it. He could still have both eyes, be back at Mostyn’s Mustards, working his way up to the board, no doubt, so yes, this is his due all right. He’s due the pub, due Doll, due a position that befits him.

  Coasting a bend, he steers to miss a grey shape, skids, begins to slide, rights himself – not too bad, not too bad – sees an old lurcher limping away, head down. Could have killed it, could have killed himself, but no, it’s all right. Take it as a warning though. Deep breaths. Keep steady, Vincey boy.

  With more care he drives towards the station. And there she is, large as life, though looking a bit on the seedy side – white face, dark shadows round her eyes.

  ‘Under the weather?’ he says.

  She just gazes at him, eyes like water. Nervous, of course, she’s bound to be, only natural.

  ‘Here.’ He hands her his spare helmet. She looks round, but it’s quiet; just the odd dog walker taking not a blind bit of notice. She removes her hat, puts it in her bag, which he stows in the pannier as she straps on the helmet. And then they’re off, taking it slowly, taking it carefully. Softly, softly, catchee monkey.

  He drives round the back and ushers her into the outhouse. Had the forethought to put a chair in there, a cushion and – brainwave! – a mirror on a hook behind the door so she can tidy herself. He wonders now about fetching some of Doll’s pots of this and that, and some scent, to liven her up a bit, but – they don’t like to be criticised, women, he knows that much – doesn’t dare.

  ‘All right? All set?’

  She’s wearing grey gloves, clenched tightly together on her lap. Through the thin cloth you can see the shape of her rings. ‘Take your rings off?’ he suggests. ‘Best if he thinks you’re single.’

  She nods and begins removing her left glove.

  ‘Well then, I’ll leave you to it,’ he says. ‘When it’s time I’ll give you the nod.’

  He’ll have to trust she comes out of herself; she looks about as seductive as a draper’s dummy at the moment. He has an idea – she wants perking up, of course!

  He shuts the door on her, hurries across the yard and into the back, through into the bar. Ted’s not yet arrived. What if he doesn’t? It’s still early, but he always comes on a Friday, regular as clockwork. He must, he has to.

  ‘Where the heck have you been?’ says Doll.

  ‘Man about a dog.’ He gives her his sideways smile – good side, of course, which usually does the trick – but she only frowns.

  ‘I don’t know what you did with that keg, but it’s clogged, wants seeing to.’

  ‘Straight away, ma’am.’ He does a mock salute.

  ‘Oi!’ She’s seen him taking a brandy, but he’s out of the door again, and she can’t follow him, not with customers waiting.

  He nips across the yard, opens the outhouse door. There she sits, stiff as a poker in the gloom. ‘Get this down you,’ he says. ‘And for pity’s sake cheer up a bit. It’s a lark!’

  Grinning, he shuts the door. A lark! He takes himself aback sometimes, he really does. A proper card they used to call him, with his jokes and his conjuring tricks. That side of him got smashed by the war, that and how he’s been treated since. But once he’s set up, back will come the jokes. He’ll stand behind that bar and have them in stitches, night after night.

  In the cellar he fixes the problem with the keg, comes up out of the hatch to find Kenny poking in the larder. ‘What are you after?’ he says. ‘You’ve had your tea.’

  ‘I’m a growing boy,’ Kenny says, cutting a hunk of cheese.

  Normally Vince’d want to clip his ear for that – growing boy indeed, I’ll give you growing boy. Once he’s married, officially the stepfather, he’ll come down like a ton of bricks, knock some manners into the kid – but not yet.

  He returns to the bar, into the thick of it.

  ‘All sorted, Doll,’ he says and she gives him a grateful nod.

  His eyes keep flicking to the clock, not half past yet. He catches Doll doing the same. He’s got a fizzing in his chest, pours lights instead of bitters, darks instead of lights, ‘Don’t know what’s got into me,’ he says. They’re all used to him by now, the regular punters; whether they know how deep in it with Doll he is or not, he’s no idea, but there’s likely gossip. He hopes there’s gossip. They must wish they were in his shoes – look at her! She’s laughing and joking now in the amputees’ corner. Sinclair, or whatever his name is, is in his bath chair, the two fat stumps of his thighs under a rug and his eyes staring straight at her bosoms, which, fair do’s, are
right in his eyeline. He’ll never get his hands on them though, poor sod.

  Right on the dot, Ted waltzes in as if he owns the place. Vince looks up from the pump. Christ he’s got his ice-cream seller’s jacket on, straw hat, moustache gleaming like a pair of brass handles. He waves at Doll who only nods, but she tenses, Vince notices, holds herself a little straighter, pats the back of her hair.

  ‘Steady on,’ says the punter as beer overflows the glass.

  Ted makes for the bar. Vince is ready for him, ‘Pint of the usual?’ he says affably.

  ‘What I ought to do is bring a tankard of my own, hang it behind the bar,’ Chamberlain says. There’s someone at his usual seat, so he stands, gets out his pipe.

  ‘Busy this evening,’ Vince remarks. ‘It’s the sunshine brings them out. How’s business for you?’ He’ll let him get settled, get the first drink inside him.

  Chamberlain’s mouth purses and he wobbles his hand from side to side. ‘Not an easy time,’ he says, ‘what with the strikes and all. A load of Bolsheviks in the works if you ask me. Just got to hold me nerve.’

  Vince nods sympathetically. The two men at the end of the bar bang down their glasses and leave, and Chamberlain claims his usual perch. Good, good, so far. That’s one duck lined up. Doll stops to have a word with him. Vince watches the gobbling way his lips go at the pipe, the yellow teeth, fat neck. Whatever does she see in him? Answer’s obvious, Vincey-boy: spondulix, it’s all about spondulix.

  Doll comes back behind the bar. ‘Just popping up to make sure Kenny’s doing his—’

  ‘Homework,’ Vince supplies. ‘You leave that to me.’

  He goes out to the backyard where the sun’s still shining, crosses to the outhouse door and steps in. She’s just where he left her, clutching the empty brandy glass, maybe not quite so stiff.

  ‘Come in the front door straight into the bar,’ he says. ‘He’s sitting at the end. You can’t miss him, jacket like a blooming deckchair.’

  He shuts the door and stands with his back against it. Christ, if he’s jittery, how must she be feeling? He opens the door again. ‘Chin up,’ he says, ‘do this and we’re square.’