The Old Devils

by Kingsley Amis

  'What, er, what outfit were you proposing to wear for this jaunt, Mum?'

  'I thought the blue denim suit - yes, there.'

  'M'm.' The accompanying nod was non-committal. 'What else?'

  'There's a white cotton sports-shirt with long sleeves that come down out of the cuffs of the jacket. Then if it gets hot I can take the jacket off and roll the sleeves up. Only when he can't see my legs, of course.'

  'Hey!' shouted Rosemary at Nelly, who in full view was carelessly lowering her hindquarters towards the carpet. 'Oogh! Urhh!' she added, scooping the puppy up and hurrying her out of the room.

  'Don't forget to tell her - '

  'I know, Mum, I know.'

  Left alone, Rhiannon sat pushing her hair into place at the mirror. She wished very much she could look forward wholeheartedly to the coming excursion. The way Malcolm had sounded over the telephone when he invited her originally, and still more so his manner as he confirmed the arrangement at the Club the previous evening, had puzzled her, troubled her, nothing to do with his old awkwardness which had never been a problem. No, there was something, perhaps the way he had kept pausing as he talked, that had suggested to her that there might be going to be more to this half-day outing than met the eye. Still sitting, she crossed fingers on both hands.

  The sound of her daughter's voice from below, duly raised in tones of unreserved triumph and admiration, got her moving again. By the time Rosemary came back to the bedroom she was in pants and bra at the dressing-table mirror putting on foundation.

  'Just you think yourself lucky she didn't drop that lot up here is all I can say.'

  'I will, I do. Thank you, dear.'

  'Right, well now let's just take a look at this, this _suit__ we've heard so much about, shall we? Tell me, you like it yourself, do you?'

  'Well, I feel nice in it.'

  'M'm.' Rosemary accepted the point. 'Any ideas about shoes at a1l?'

  'I thought these,' - lace-ups in the same or much the same blue denim.

  There was a bit of a hiccup over the shirt, with an alternative in frilled terracotta silk considered and briefly tried on, but in the end everything went through all right and, after a final squirt of Christmas-present cologne, Rhiannon trooped off downstairs carrying her linen-look sand-coloured shoulder-bag. She wore no jewellery, just her wedding ring.

  In the kitchen again Rosemary made coffee and the contents of the bag were gone over in a comparatively relaxed spirit. Compact, spare handkerchief, purse with window showing essential telephone numbers on card, toothbrush - all passed in lenient silence. But then 'What's _this__ for God's sake?' asked Rosemary, sounding at the end of her tether.

  'Plastic mac. Rolled up.'

  'I'm not blind, you know. _Honestly__, Mum. _Christ__. Why haven't you got an umbrella?'

  'I keep losing them. Leaving them in places.'

  'There are ones that fold which you clearly haven't seen, and go in your bag and don't cost the earth.'

  'Well, I haven't got one.'

  'M'm. I suppose there's a hat to match, is there?'

  'No, there's a hood attached to the collar that hangs over my eyes. I'll wear it all through lunch if you don't look out.'

  Rosemary peered into the bag. 'Funny, I can't find any wellies here.'

  'You wait, I'll fetch Dad's galoshes in a minute.'

  'I'd better get you my umbrella.'

  'No, I'll lose it. And there's no need to treat me as if I'm fourteen years old.'

  'Oh yes there is, because that's all you are. When I was that age you were much older, but now you've gone back. You are fourteen years old. Aren't you?'

  'M'm,' whined Rhiannon, cringing and trotting her feet on the floor.

  The telephone rang. Rosemary was there first and asked who was calling. With a face of stone she passed her mother the handset. 'Gwen.'

  'Hallo Gwen.'

  'Rhiannon dear, this is old _Gwen__.' These words and the way they were spoken were enough to banish expectation that any sort of genuine apology or voicing of regret might be at hand. 'Thank you for a super party. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, in fact it rather seems a bit too thoroughly towards the end and got sort of carried away. Over the top I believe you're supposed to call it nowadays. I hope it wasn't too embarrassing for you.'

  'That's all right.'

  'I'm afraid I do tend to get ever so slightly cross with poor dear Alun from time to time over, well what the hell is it over, I suppose you'd have to call it _Wales__ I'm sorry to say. The thing is that, you know, according to me there's a touch of the stage Welshman about him, he says so himself, fair play, but perhaps it's more than a touch - still, and he thinks I'm a dried-up schoolmarm. Well, there we are, and it's all right until I drink too fast because I'm having a good time and Alun says something to do with I don't know what and then I find I've - '

  'That's all right, dear. All forgotten.'

  'Well... It wasn't very seemly, I'm afraid. Turning nasty in my drink. Alun about?'

  'No, he's away all day today.'

  'I'll talk to him again. It really was a fantastic party. I'll ring you later.'

  'Good-bye, love.'

  'There's lucky you've got a fine day for your excursion now. Young Malcolm's on pins. Cheers.'

  Rosemary, who after some hesitation had stayed in earshot, gave her mother what could not but be an inquiring look and got a kind of mock-doleful one back.

  'She got cross about something Dad said about Wales.'

  'Oh I _see__. Golly, what a terrific help. Must have cost her a bomb to come clean like that.'

  'Well it is quite, a help I mean. One of us had to work out a way of us going on being friends.'

  'Had to? She's not nice enough to be a friend of yours. '

  'She's not so bad. When it's been long enough that sort of thing stops mattering.'

  'You let her down too lightly.'

  'It's much too late to start letting people like Gwen down heavily. Let's go outside. Malcolm's obviously on his way.' Rhiannon picked up her shoulder-bag. As they moved Rosemary put an arm round her waist.

  'Don't you mind about, well, any of it?'

  'What are you talking about, of course I bloody well mind. But that's all I do, I stop myself doing any more than that. Like brooding or going back or joining things up, no point in it. As long as I don't _know__. And this isn't knowing.'

  'Mum, I wish you'd let me - '

  'Let's not say any more about it now.'

  The garden in front of the house was not large but it had the bright green grass often to be found in this part of the world and a few flowers in half-overgrown beds, including an unexpected treat in the shape of a large clump of Canterbury bells. Nelly crashed into the side of it, then doubled back up the path effortlessly surmounting the obstacle presented by each three-inch-deep step. A good view stretched almost due south, over woods and shadowed lawns down over an unseen cliff to a wide stretch of sand shining wetly in the sun and, about as far out at the moment as it ever went hereabouts, the sea with half a dozen small boats sailing. Some cloud was drifting near the horizon but not much and none of it dark. There was nothing ugly or dull anywhere.

  'You are looking forward to this do, aren't you, Mum?'

  'Oh yes. Well... yes.'

  'What's the not-so-good part?'

  'Well, he's... He's a very sweet chap without a nasty or unkind thought in his head but he's a bit wrapped up in himself. He's liable to say things when he hasn't thought how they'll affect other people, just because he wants to say them. Just sort of blurts them out.'

  'Such as he's never loved anybody but you in all his life?'

  'Sort of thing, yeah.'

  'Well if it's no worse I don't think you have much to worry about. Surely you can manage that. Yon must have had plenty of practice.'

  'Oh, come on, dear.'

  Rosemary looked at her mother for a moment before she spoke again. 'Of course, I suppose he might embarrass you about Gwen and so on.'

  'No, h
e understands about not doing things like that, and besides he won't think anything happened.'

  'How do you mean, Mum?'

  'She'll have made him believe her version.'

  '_Made__ him?'

  'Yes, nothing to it with him if she sticks to it, and she will.'

  'Well, I dare say you'd know.'

  Turning to address the dog, who watched her with an air of stark terror, Rhiannon said, 'You're not coming today. I'm sorry, but you're not.'

  'Oh my God,' said Rosemary. 'You don't seriously imagine she can understand you, I hope.'

  'It wouldn't do to be too sure of that. Probably not now, but she'll understand everything like that by the time she's grown up, and there's no knowing when they start. All part of the training.'

  'Well, she's your dog... Is this him now?'

  'I think... Yes.'

  'Mum, if you're going to go out looking as nice as you do now I'm afraid you'll just have to grit your teeth and face up to him saying he loves you. Now... '

  Mother and daughter proceeded to stand to. Without waiting for orders Rosemary went and dragged the puppy out from the laurel bush she had bolted under and held her in her arms. Rhiannon turned and put her hair right by her reflection in a sitting-room· window, then nearly snapped off the half-open yellow rose she had had her eye on all along but had left on the plant as long as possible. Finally the two moved a little apart from each other so as not to look too lined-up and organized.

  When he had got out of his very shiny bright-blue car and at a second attempt shut its driver's door, Malcolm revealed himself to be wearing a hacking jacket in dark red, green and fawn checks that were too large by an incredibly small amount, cavalry-twill trousers he must have been uncommonly fond of, a pale green I'm-going-out-for-the-day-with-my-old-girl-friend cravat or ascot and, thank goodness, a plain shirt and ordinary brown lace-up shoes. Seen closer to, he proved to have an ample shaving-cut on his cheek, about like a boil on the end of his nose to him and not worth a second glance to anybody else. He carried a florist's plastic-wrapped bouquet of a good forty-quid's-worth of red roses and pink carnations which he handed over to Rhiannon fast and at arm's length.

  'Lovely to see you,' he muttered, obviously discarding on the spot an earlier draft, and called 'Hallo' with unmeant abruptness to Rosemary, whom he had met more than once before but never for long, and had not bargained on seeing now. Then he took in the puppy and loosened up a little. 'Ah, now here's a splendid fellow and no mistake.'

  'Hallo, Malcolm,' said Rosemary, 'female fellow actually,' and went on with exemplary stuff about how he would not have said that if he had been on the spot just earlier, the awful chewing, etc. Rhiannon fixed the yellow rose in his button-hole and passed the bouquet to Rosemary, who had set Nelly down on the grass as now to be considered defused.

  'Put them in that pretty Wedgwood jug - they'll look marvellous in there - and find somewhere in the cool for them.' Rhiannon was too shy herself to embark on a full-treatment head-on thank you. 'We'll decide on a proper place when I get back. That won't be before five at the earliest - I've got one or two things to see to in town first.' The last bit was said looking over her daughter's shoulder.

  2

  Immediately· upon getting into the car beside Malcolm, Rhiannon noticed a peaked cap in nearly the same pattern as his jacket folded up on the shelf in front of him. All she could do about that was hope he had already tried this and thought better of it, rather than that he was keeping it by him to spring on her later. Anyway she sighed comfortably, or tried to. There was a faint pleasant smell hanging about and the whole interior told of hours of tidying and cleaning. In a way she hardly understood, it was like something she remembered from years ago: she had complimented Malcolm on his clear neat handwriting and he had thanked her and said, well, he reckoned however boring or no-good what he wrote might be, at least whoever it was would be spared the extra chore of deciphering it. Like a lecturer's duty to be audible, he had said.

  The first few minutes passed easily enough with chat about Rosemary, then Alun briefly, then Gwen no more briefly - Rhiannon's idea, that, to rub in that the subject was ordinary. The next few went even more easily with taking notice of the approaches to Courcey and after some delay the island itself. She had been along here quite recently with some of the crowd for a Sunday-lunchtime drink at the King Arthur just off the causeway, a brief or single drink as it had turned out, because the one huge bar had been full of fat young left-wing activists from a weekend school ordering things like blue curacao with passion-fruit juice. But they were soon past there now and on to where she had not been for at least ten years, probably a good deal more.

  To Rhiannon the greenery looked greener and also thicker than it had, the hill-tops perhaps not as high, but it was hard to notice when the whole place was so tremendously more crowded. Approaching Chaucer Bay down the west road they ran into traffic like a Saturday morning in town: cars, buses from Cardiff and - she was nearly sure - Hamburg, bikes and of course caravans, of which some hundreds were stationed in lines like those of a military cantonment across the whole width of the furze-covered slope that faced the bay.

  'Sorry about this,' said Malcolm as they came to another halt. Far from sorry, he looked cheered up by the thought of how much worse matters would have to get before he had to decide or do anything.

  'We've got plenty of time.' With a qualm she realized how much.

  'I'm glad I allowed for it. But it is remarkable, eleven-thirty midweek and still in school term.'

  Rhiannon mentioned the marvellous weather and said to herself that that was good old Malcolm for you: it would simply never have occurred to him to start going on about where did all the money come from was what some of us would have liked to know, and so this was what a recession meant, and the black economy and minimum-wage agreements and the closed shop and who ever cared a curse for the pensioners. Everybody else she could think of for the moment except Rosemary would have been well into that by now. And Alun unless there had been other people around too.

  They moved on a few more yards and round a bend. Malcolm was keeping fussily closed up to the car in front, but she had plenty of room to see the shingly, littered way on to the beach through a gap in the cliff and the half-naked people hurrying along it, all loaded with food and drink containers, tents, boats, sports kits, games, anything and everything for children - plenty of them about, school term or no school term. When they drove past a minute later Rhiannon got a squint at the sort of village of plastic stalls and booths that had sprung up to screw the visitors in every available line, cosmetic, decorative, educational, you name it, some of them not so plastic, but surely... A beach-boutique on the beach? In South Wales? Now?

  Then the lights changed and they started squeezing their way up the hill on the far side between the groups of young men straggling down from the car-park with no shirts on, satisfied with that being all right and not bothering about looking horrible, being it too for not bothering. From the top Rhiannon had a view of the whole of the long, wide expanse of sand scattered over with moving or still figures as she had never seen it before. Some had wandered along as far as Rundle Bay, which they would have to move back from when the tide came up or face a steep climb up to the road, all right in the day, she remembered, but not much fun after dark with a pushy chap trying to give you a hand.

  'Seems a long time ago, doesn't it?'

  For Malcolm, this bit of advanced thought-reading was uncanny. She gave him a special look of appreciation before saying, 'Yes, thank God.'

  'What? I meant, you know, going on the beach and bathing and what-not the way everyone used to.'

  'That's what I meant. Yes, everyone did use to, didn't they? Coming for a swim?' She speeded up before he could think he was being asked to come for a swim now. 'Coming out to Courcey with us, and you just went along without thinking. Like, well, like a lot of things then. I never really liked swimming.'

  'As I remember you were pretty good at it.
'

  'Not bad, and of course it was lovely in the water once you'd survived going in, but awful being out. Hoping you looked wonderful with wet hair and feeling it standing out in the wind and starting to go like straw.'

  'Surely, didn't girls wear caps in those days? Bathing caps I mean.'

  'Only if you didn't mind your face going the size of a nut. It's amazing thinking of it now, I can hardly believe it. Sort of half sitting with your legs out to the side and smiling and trying to feel if half your bottom was out of your bathing-costume. And it wasn't just me either - Gwen was the same, Sian, Dorothy, everyone. We used to - '

  'But you all seemed so absolutely marvellously... '

  'Poised? You should have seen us. All that awful tanning. I remember a serious discussion in Brook Hall about how red in the face you could afford to let yourself get at a time. And what you did about the hair on your legs and arms. Choices to be weighed up there. Snags to all of them.'

  'But I mean you did enjoy it,' said Malcolm anxiously. 'Parts of it.'

  'Oh yes. You noticed things like your hair and what horrible stuff sand is but you didn't really take it in. You were wondering how it was going and what would happen next and whether you could handle it. We weren't poised really, just trying not to give anything away. Of course, I don't suppose it was all plain sailing for the chaps,' she wound up thoughtfully.

  'No.' He took a vigilant look at the now-empty road ahead. 'No, it certainly wasn't,' he added.

  After waiting for a moment she started again. 'It wasn't only going on the beach, not being poised. It was a big one, the beach, but it didn't really touch dancing.' When she saw Malcolm smiling and blinking uncertainly she went on, 'You know, going to a dance. With a band and partners and quick-steps and all that. Sticking together was the thing. Dorothy used to get us on parade in Brook and make sure we'd all been to the lav before we started so there'd be no sneaking away later. Then you'd stand in a bunch waiting to be asked for a dance and wanting to bite your nails and hoping the bra-strap you should have pinned was still behind your dress-strap. I was, anyway. Didn't you worry about things like that?'