Choice of Straws

by Braithwaite, E. R. ;

  To see Ruth in the kitchen you would have thought she lived there. She was wearing that Scots plaid dress she’d worn at the party, with her hair in a pony tail and bright red lipstick and smiling all the time. You could see that Mum liked her. Just when the tea was ready our Dad came in through the kitchen door and didn’t want to shake hands with Ruth because he said his were mucky from digging in the allotment, so Ruth kisses him and says okay, you weren’t digging with your face and you could see that tickled our Dad. And he washed his hands there at the sink and we sat down to tea, Mum telling our Dad he had lipstick on his face and he said what a pity it wasn’t a working day, he’d give the fellows on the site something to think about.

  After tea we were chatting in the sitting-room when the doorbell rang and there was Baldy, with his shadow close behind. Our Dad invited them in and they sat down. Baldy said they’d brought back the photograph and thanks for the loan of it. He put it down, face up, on the coffee-table and I could see Ruth looking at it, her eyes big and wondering. Our Dad said was there anything else, and Baldy said that the enquiries into the death of the fellow Carlton Thomas were still going on and he expected the police at Leman Street would come up with something soon. He didn’t say anything about Dave’s knife and our Dad didn’t ask him. All I wanted was that Baldy and his pal would hurry up and go. I wasn’t upset or anything, just bored with them coming around shooting the same stuff all the time. Now and then I could see him looking at Ruth trying to figure out who she was, but nobody introduced her to them. After a while they left and Ruth said we’d better be going as she’d promised to return the car before eight o’clock.

  ‘They were policemen, weren’t they?’ Ruth asked while we were on our way. I said yes.

  ‘They spoke about someone named Thomas. Wasn’t that the name of the West Indian who was murdered somewhere in the East End?’ She’d seen his photograph on television newsreel.

  Then she asked about the photograph, but I was getting fed up with all these questions and told her our Dad had let them borrow the photograph and I didn’t know why they wanted it, they didn’t confide in me. She took the hint, though you could see she was itching to ask more questions.

  We left the car at her friend’s, then caught a tube to Earls Court and went to the coffee-bar to meet Naomi and the others. Ruth sat with me, holding hands as if she were my girl. I wanted to phone Michelle but didn’t know where to find a phone. The others turned up, Ron and the blonde Hilary and every now and then I found myself watching them, wondering if she was in love with him, and if they made love. I felt sure they must do, the way she was all over him. He was okay when you got to know him; he knew how to take a joke and was not snooty or anything. I figured he must be different from those others, the ones who worked on the buses and the Underground. The way he spoke and everything. After all, I supposed that was natural because he was born over here.

  I told Ruth I’d have to watch the time and she said don’t be silly, I could stay at the flat. She could fix me up a bed on the sofa if I liked. Laughing when she said this, so I got the message. I said okay but I’d better ring home and say I’d be staying, so Mum would know where I was and not to expect me. I felt funny inside, telling her that while remembering that Mum would probably be asleep by then and not give a damn about where I was. Ruth said there was a phone box around the corner and why didn’t I ring from there? Instead of calling home I rang Michelle. She answered and I apologized for ringing so late but said I’d been busy all day helping a friend to move. I said I was sorry I didn’t call earlier and tried to make a date with her for during the week but she said she didn’t think it was possible, then suddenly seemed to change her mind and said she had a late demonstration lecture on Monday and if I liked we could meet in town for a snack afterwards. We agreed to meet near the ticket office at Charing Cross tube station. We talked some more. She seemed really pleased that I rang. Funny thing, she didn’t say Mr Bennett or Jack, but her voice had lots of laughter in it. After talking with her I didn’t feel like staying up town at Ruth’s, and on the way back to the coffee bar my mind was working overtime figuring out some excuse she’d swallow. Amazing how when you’re in a room with everybody smoking and talking you never notice it, then you come outside and when you go back the place stinks of stale smoke and sweat and the perfume the birds are wearing.

  As soon as I reached her Ruth began kidding me, asking if Mum said it’s okay for little Jackie to be out all night, and right away I ask her if she thinks I’m some ruddy kid or something, that I can do as I please, I’d only telephoned to let them know where I was. Well, having said that I couldn’t say I wasn’t staying. We all left the coffee shop and went to a Wimpy bar near the Underground and had hamburgers and coffee and sat around talking till some said they had to be off and the rest of us walked up the road, Ruth, Hilary, Naomi, Ron and me. You know, after a while you forget that Ron is a Spade, listening to him talk and the way he behaves, so natural, like everybody else. But always sort of gentlemanly and well-mannered. I wondered what Michelle would think of him. We left Ron and Hilary at the top of Old Brompton Road and went on to South Ken. Indoors the two girls made a big production about fixing up the sofa for me to sleep on in the little sitting-room, fetching sheets and blankets and pillows. Then Naomi comes and kisses me on the cheek and says good night and sleep tight, then goes off to her room. And Ruth says good night too, and that she’ll give me a shout when the bathroom is free. Hell, I didn’t have a toothbrush or anything. Anyway, when she calls I have a wash in the bathroom and use the toilet then go back to my bed on the sofa, undressed to my vest and shorts, and sit there wondering what’s up with Ruth. I mean, she didn’t say I could go to her room. I sat there for nearly half an hour, listening to the strange little sounds which houses seem to make late at night when everything’s quiet, as if they’re relaxing and stretching themselves after the daily tensions from the comings and goings of people. Every time I heard a little creak I imagined it was Ruth coming to call me, but it’s only the house making night noises, and after a while I realize I’m sitting on the edge of the sofa, tense and half frozen. So I get into bed and lie there listening. I must have fallen asleep, and the next thing I know is Ruth squeezing in beside me. I felt silly dozing off like that.

  ‘I was waiting for you to give me a call,’ I told her.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I couldn’t have you in the room. It’s right next to Naomi’s.’

  ‘So what?’ All this in whispers.

  ‘I don’t believe in advertising everything I do. Do you always dress up when you go to bed?’ I saw her point. The thing she was wearing hardly reached anywhere. No problem for me to slip out of mine.

  ‘Don’t forget this time,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The name’s Ruth, remember.’

  When I awoke next morning I was alone and the room was bright from the sunshine pouring in through a large window opposite my bed. I lay there thinking about Ruth and the night before and who they were, the other fellows before me. Not worrying about it but just wondering. Then I heard singing, and Naomi came out of her room calling wakey wakey.

  We had breakfast, but it was funny the way they messed around in the tiny kitchen, making Nescafé and fried eggs on toast. They couldn’t cook worth a damn, neither of them, but made so much fuss you’d think nothing but the fatted calf was being given the works. If our Mum could see what they did to those eggs she’d have a fit. Either Dad or me could cook spots off both of them any day. And yet, with talking and laughing, you ate up all the stuff without even noticing the taste. I left them around ten o’clock so as not to be late, because Mum gets a bit funny about Sunday dinner. Ever since Dave and me began working. Said it’s the only day when the family was together for the midday meal, as our Dad sometimes works Saturday.

  When I got home I said we’d been to a party and as it was late I’d had a kip down on a sofa at a friend’s house. Mum
and our Dad didn’t seem to mind. Mum chatted to me about Ruth, said she seemed to be a nice, steady girl. Dad said if he were me he’d be careful where he went and what he did, because he had a feeling those detectives were on to something and I should watch my step. I said okay but I wasn’t worried. Old Baldy and his friends didn’t fool me. If they really knew something which connected me with the Thomas affair they would have been on my neck long ago. They weren’t paid to play cat and mouse with people. Besides, from that piece in the newspaper and what they said in the TV newsreel it was plain enough they hadn’t a clue about what had happened. Anyway I told our Dad I’d be careful.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON I SLEPT like a top. Figured it must have been because of what had happened with Ruth. Come to think of it, everything had happened in such a way I hadn’t been worried or scared like I was that time with Sandra. It just happened. I wondered if Ruth realized that it had been the first time for me. Funny thing, some of those birds in the canteen where I worked, I was always cracking jokes with them and to hear the things they said I’m sure they thought I was an old hand at that stuff. But all the time I was thinking of what some of the older fellows said when they were nattering to each other in the workshop, about how some of those birds you saw swinging their tails about were really walking death traps. Stick your pecker into them and the next thing you knew you’d caught a dose of something or other. Dave and I used to talk about it a lot, but he said those old fellows were only spitting into the wind because they were too old to make it with those young birds. Sour grapes, he said, and he didn’t give a damn but would lay everyone he could and take his chance. We’d talk about it and I’d agree with him, but inside I was dead scared. I suppose that’s why I couldn’t make it with Sandra. Kept remembering what those fellows said. But with Ruth I’d not even thought of it. Funny, that.

  Sunday night I stayed in and watched television with Mum and our Dad. Ruth’s visit must have done our Mum a good turn. She was easier with me, and when we’d done the washing up after dinner it had been nearly like old times when Dave was there, Mum talking, mostly about Ruth. I guess she figured that now I wouldn’t be bothering with the Spencers. While the play was on I sat there watching, but really thinking about Michelle, impatient for the hours to pass quickly to the time when I was meeting her. After the play we’re having this cup of cocoa and our Dad starts in again about Baldy and how the police never leave a case until they land somebody in the clink, and he’s sure Baldy is on to something because he’s so smug, just waiting for the moment to pounce. Listening to our Dad carrying on about it I realize he’s dead scared.

  Mum said, ‘Let’s talk about something else, Dad. The surest way to make something happen is to keep on saying it might happen. That’s what the police are after. They want us to be so frightened that we’d do something silly to give ourselves away. Well, Dave is dead and none of us is mixed up in anything, so there’s nothing for us to worry about. By the way, those horrible little black ants have somehow got into the scullery again. Don’t know where they’ve come from. Will you have a look tomorrow?’ And the conversation got around to the best way of getting rid of ants.

  I felt sorry for our Dad worrying his head off and wondered why it was the whole thing didn’t bother me; just as if it had happened to somebody else. I just knew they couldn’t touch me, in spite of Baldy dropping in and putting on the big act.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  AFTER WORK ON MONDAY I rushed home to wash and change, telling Mum I wasn’t staying to eat, that I had a date and would get something in town. I didn’t explain. I suppose she thought I was meeting Ruth.

  Rush hour traffic and changing trains made me late, but she was waiting. Wearing a plain beige linen dress under a tan-coloured coat and a gay many-coloured silk scarf loosely knotted around her neck. Her black, high-heeled sandals were no more than a few narrow thongs fixed to the soles. A little taller than most of the women scurrying about, she stood near the ticket office, calm, aloof, hugging some heavy-looking notebooks, caught sight of me and gave me a nice smile as I approached. We said hello, and I said I was sorry I’d kept her waiting, and how was she? Laughing, she said she was starving. I didn’t know where we could go. Apart from a few coffee bars and some jazz clubs in Soho I didn’t know much about the West End. Not about restaurants and places like that. Especially where to take a girl for a real meal. I told her I didn’t know much about where to eat around there, and she said let’s go to a place where she and her parents and brother sometimes went, a place called the Angus Steakhouse just off Leicester Square, but one thing I must understand, we were going Dutch. I asked her what was that, and she said we’d go halves on the bill. She didn’t ask me. She told me. I didn’t argue although I wasn’t pleased with that.

  We cut through Villiers Street and across the Strand to Charing Cross Road, me feeling the eyes of the world and his wife on me, and wishing that for the time being I could change my fair skin and blond hair to something dark. She walked along with that cool, easy stride, telling me about the lecture, seeming not to give a damn for the way people were looking at us. I didn’t understand half of what she said, but it didn’t matter. Near to that statue of Edith Cavell there was a bit of a crowd so I took her arm, holding it just above the elbow, feeling it soft but firm in my hand. After we passed the crowd I let go, remembering that she didn’t like holding hands.

  Somebody behind us gave a wolf whistle and she smiled, saying, ‘He must be a tourist. Englishmen haven’t yet learned the art!’

  ‘Don’t you mind?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not. Last year Mummy and I were in Rome and the men tried to touch us all the time. Over there it’s a kind of compliment, actually. Otherwise it means you’re not worth noticing.’

  Full of surprises, this one. Talking about foreign parts as if it was High Street Upminster, or Leigh or Southend. Crikey! Our Mum would just about do her nut if somebody whistled at her. Funny thing, after a while, the way some of the men looked at her, I had the feeling they wouldn’t mind being me. I felt a lot easier.

  In the restaurant there weren’t many people and one waiter came up to us, smiling and saying how are you Miss Spencer, glad to see you again, and showed us to a table, handing us these menus like a Christmas calendar. I waited till she chose then I asked for the same. Avocado pears and then thin steaks with pepper. I’d never in my life been in a posh place like that, with so many waiters buzzing around you. Then they brought another menu for wine and I said to her she should choose something. Not the same waiter, another one with a black jacket instead of white. She was completely at ease as if she did this sort of thing every day. I couldn’t figure it out. The way I’d heard it, Spades couldn’t come into places like this, they wouldn’t let them in.

  ‘They seem to know you here,’ I said. All the furniture in the place was dark and heavy-looking, and the carpet thick so you didn’t hear the waiters coming till they were breathing down your neck saying something you couldn’t understand. And all those knives and forks and spoons in front of me, I hadn’t a clue which to use first but decided to wait and see what she would do.

  ‘We came here a lot when Daddy was alive,’ she replied, ‘Mummy and I sometimes lunched here with him when he came up here to demonstrate at the hospital at the corner.’

  I didn’t get it, but she spoke as if I knew what she was talking about.

  ‘How do you mean demonstrate? What hospital?’

  ‘The Royal Dental. Just a few doors away from here. The students would watch while he did something to a patient’s teeth, explaining to them while he did it.’

  ‘Is that what he was? A dentist?’

  ‘Yes. He had a practice at Hampstead and came here twice a week.’

  ‘Hampstead? That’s a long way from Leigh. Did he have to make the trip both ways each day?’

  I could never get over th
e way she laughed, that sweet, gurgling, fruity sound, the grey eyes darkening in the restaurant’s gloom, the corners of her mouth slanted upward.

  ‘No. At that time we lived in Hampstead, next to his surgery. After Daddy died we found the place at Leigh and moved.’

  ‘You were lucky to find such a nice house.’

  ‘Lucky? You should have seen it when we first bought it. Everything cluttered with weeds and rubbish like a dump, and the house nearly falling down. Hadn’t been lived in for years. But we liked the site and the view across the estuary. We literally had to rebuild the whole house to get rid of the damp.’

  We chatted about all kinds of things until they brought the avocado. I’d never had it before, and the thick, pale green meat tasted a little like soup, but I swallowed it down, encouraged by the way Michelle seemed to enjoy it. The last few spoonfuls were not bad. Probably have to acquire a taste for it. While we were eating the avocado the waiters brought a brazier and set it up near our table, and showed us the steaks for the second course, raw, then proceeded to cook them over the brazier, grinding pepper grains over the meat while it cooked. Thin steaks, which they served piping hot with sliced tomatoes and pineapple, nearly melted away in your mouth, they were so tender.

  The waiter who knew Michelle came to ask if everything was satisfactory, leaning over her, and she smiling up at him. Funny how I suddenly felt like belting him one. Then I got to thinking, Hell, I must be jealous. But it wasn’t that, really, just that it seemed strange him leaning so close to her like that. Few times our Dad and Mum had taken Dave and me out to lunch on a Saturday in Romford, it hadn’t been anything like this. I mean, the waiters couldn’t care less about us. They shoved the food in front of you and that’s that. If you didn’t like it that was just too bad. Anyway, the waiter asked me too if everything was okay and the steak to my taste, calling me sir every few words. I told him it was excellent. Nearly said it was the best I’d ever had but didn’t see any point in laying it on too thick. I had the feeling he was being so nice to me on account of Michelle, probably thought I was her boyfriend or something.