‘Him. O.K., Ruthie, I’ll see you at six.’
‘And don’t you call me Ruthie,’ she called as he went out.
When Mrs Bradshaw saw he was wearing his new suit, she sniffed and said: ‘Going courting?’
‘That’s enough of that, Mum. I’m taking Ruth to the pictures, that’s all.’
‘Ruth? Ruth who?’
‘Ruth Stevens.’
‘Oh, her. Well, she’s a nice girl. But don’t you go tying yourself down, my boy. You look around a bit. There’s a lot better than Ruth in the world.’
‘I didn’t say I was going to marry her, Mum. I said I was going to take her to the pictures.’
Mrs Bradshaw sniffed.
‘She suits me,’ he said, deliberately provoking her.
She looked at him angrily but said nothing. She poured herself another cup of tea with a steady hand. Allen got up.
‘I won’t be late, Mum. Don’t you sit up for me.’
‘I’ve got better things to do than worry about you,’ she said.
And so it had gone on for three weeks now, and though Mrs Bradshaw learned nothing from Allen, she heard from Lindy’s mother, Mrs Badham, who lived three houses down, that Lindy thought Allen and Ruth were going steady.
As he worked over the headlights, Allen thought about Ruth and how far she had let him go last time. The trouble was, it was so hard to see what you were doing in the dark. And there were all those straps. He thought again about the boy and girl at school who had had to leave. His father had said to him at the time, in a tone half of embarrassment, half of seriousness: ‘I don’t want you to get into no trouble, Allen. You can get carried away, you know, especially when you’re young. I was young once myself, you know.’ And he smiled awkwardly. ‘But I never made any mistakes, and you needn’t come to me for sympathy if you make one. That’s just bloody silly, getting caught like that. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’ And Allen had said ‘Yes’, though he wasn’t altogether certain. ‘That’s all right, then,’ said his father, and never mentioned the matter again.
Allen knew what his father meant now. He knew what he needed all right. But it wasn’t easy to see how he was going to get it. Hudson’s was the only chemist’s in Cartersfield, and Ruth worked there, and he didn’t want her to know what he was buying. He wasn’t at all sure if she would like the idea, for one thing, and for another it was a bit cold-blooded to ask the girl you were taking out to serve you with those. He wanted some, not because he had any definite plan of seduction, but because he would feel happier if he knew he had them. It was just a precaution. He didn’t want to get carried away and make a mistake.
‘Haven’t you finished yet, Allen?’ said Nisbett. He tapped on his pad with his pencil.
‘Just this minute,’ said Allen. ‘I was just giving the lights a bit of extra polishing, sir.’
‘Don’t call me “sir”,’ said Nisbett, making a mock swipe at his head with the pad. ‘Yes, yes. That looks all right.’ He opened the door and looked inside. ‘Here, you didn’t empty the ashtray.’
Allen took it from him and emptied it, wiping it clean on a rag.
‘Good,’ said Nisbett. ‘That’s a nice job you did there, Allen. Mr Solomons should be pleased. Now, I want you to take the car up to his shop. You know where it is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Mr Nisbett.’
‘Well, it’s nearly dinner-time. You take that up to him, and I don’t want to see you back here till one o’clock. On the dot. All right?’
‘Right you are, Mr Nisbett.’
Nisbett watched critically as Allen got into the car.
‘You’ve forgotten something,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Your shoes. Are they clean? Don’t muck up a car you’ve just cleaned.’
‘They’re clean, Mr Nisbett, honest they are. Look.’
Nisbett inspected them, found them satisfactory, and waved him off with ‘Good lad’.
When he came to the pumps Allen saw Archie standing in the entrance. Instead of giving him a signal to show whether or not the road was clear he came over and said: ‘I filled ’er up this morning.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘But I never checked the oil. Or the air. Or the water. We’d better check.’ Archie was a thorough man, if you gave him time.
Allen opened the bonnet from inside and said: ‘It’s a lovely job, Archie, isn’t it?’
‘A car’s a car,’ said Archie. ‘As long as it gets you there it’s all right. Not like horses. Horses have to jump. A car can’t do that.’
‘I’d like a Jaguar.’
‘What would you want with a thing like that?’ said Archie, dipping the oil. ‘At your age?’
‘Oh, I could go up to London. I could take a girl somewhere.’
‘What’s wrong with Cartersfield?’
‘It’s a dull town,’ said Allen. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Archie. ‘There’s a dance once a week, and there’s the pictures. And there’s the canal. That’s a nice walk.’
‘I’d like to go up to London,’ said Allen. ‘See some real shows. The Palladium.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Archie. ‘I’ve never been to no Palladium.’
‘I’d like to take my girl up there.’
‘What do you know about girls?’ said Archie. He didn’t ask it mockingly, but as though girls were a subject of great complexity which could be understood only by long and patient study, and by the sharing of information by all researchers. Allen was grateful to him for putting it like that.
‘Not much‚’ he said, suddenly confiding. ‘You know Ruth?’
‘Ruth?’
‘Ruth Stevens—she works up at Hudson’s.’
‘Can’t say that I do. You like her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Allen. ‘How do you tell? Yes, I like her all right, I suppose.’
‘Well, make up your mind,’ said Archie. ‘Do you like her or love her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s good. Lot of rot, love. Make yourself miserable. Know what you want, and make sure you really want it, then get it. That’s the way to be happy. It’s what my father said, and it’s what I did, and what I told my kids to do, and not a one of us regretted it.’
‘How do you make sure you really want it?’ said Allen, who wasn’t sure whether the old man meant simply the sexual act or the whole terrifying business of marriage.
‘Ah,’ said Archie, ‘that’s the problem.’ He finished checking the tyres and said: ‘I thought I’d better check.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Archie. ‘All in order. Off you go now.’ Without another word he went back into his cubby-hole.
Left with the ultimate problem, Allen drove towards the High Street. He heard the church clock begin to strike twelve. That meant Ruth would be off to lunch in a moment. He knew he shouldn’t, but he drove round for a few minutes, enjoying the power of the Jaguar, then pulled up outside Hudson’s.
‘Well,’ said Ruth, ‘look what the cat brought in.’ She was getting ready to go out.
‘I thought you’d be gone for lunch.’
‘And what did you want in here when my back’s turned?’
‘Oh nothing.’ He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered round the shop. ‘Got a prescription.’
‘Well, give it here, then.’
‘Dr Nye said I had to explain to Mr Hudson.’ Allen began to blush, and to curse himself mentally for doing so.
‘Suit yourself, then,’ said Ruth. She went to the back of the shop and called: ‘Prescription, Mr Hudson.’
‘You look real smart in that uniform,’ said Allen, trying to recover himself.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s a good idea, having your name like that.’
She fingered the yellow letters above her breast in a way that made Allen feel he ought to look away, but he couldn�
�t. She was more than desirable.
‘Can I help you?’ Mr Hudson was a big fat man, like an athlete gone to seed. He wore bi-focals with thick black ear-pieces. He stood behind the counter, drumming with his fingers, thick and blunt with tufts of hair, on the glass counter. His masonic ring seemed bedded in flesh.
‘Oh, Mr Hudson,’ said Allen. He glanced quickly over at Ruth, but she was pretending to study her nails. He lowered his voice and asked for what he wanted. Mr Hudson gave a start, looked suspicious, glanced under his thick eyebrows at Ruth, who still wasn’t looking, and said in a very low husky voice: ‘How many?’
Allen had no idea. ‘A dozen,’ he said, hoping it sounded right.
Without raising her head, Ruth had been following the conversation, though she hadn’t heard what Allen was asking for. She knew he had lied to her when Mr Hudson went to a cupboard, slid open the door, bent down to the bottom shelf and returned with a small packet. So that’s it, she thought, her legs going weak. She leaned on the counter, trying to appear casual, though no one was watching her. So that’s it.
Allen paid Mr Hudson, whose attitude throughout had been one of discreet distaste, then came over to Ruth and said: ‘Can I take you anywhere?’
‘I didn’t know you had a car.’
‘I’m taking it to Solomons’.’
‘I can walk, thanks.’
‘Let me take you, Ruthie.’
‘No. And don’t call me that.’
‘Well, see you at six, then.’
‘I’m not sure that you will,’ she said, studying her nails.
Mr Hudson turned and left the shop with great emphasis.
‘And why not?’
‘Because I’m not sure, that’s why not.’
‘What’s all this, Ruth?’ He reached across the counter to take her hand, but she snatched it away.
‘I expect you’ve a job to do,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you get along and do it?’
‘See you at six,’ said Allen, bewildered. As he left the shop he blew her a kiss. What could have got into her?
The idea, said Ruth to herself. But she went to the window and watched as he got into the Jaguar. He roared the engine for her benefit, and drove off.
‘Well I’m damned,’ said Jack Solomons, who was walking along the opposite side of the street. ‘That’s my car. Who’s that driving it, d’you know?’
Mr Drysdale peered at the disappearing car and said: ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘What does Sid think he’s up to, letting youngsters run around in my car?’
‘Serves you right for having a car in the first place,’ said Drysdale. ‘Nothing but smoke and noise and mangling of innocent pedestrians. I loathe cars.’
They crossed the road together on the way to the Brunswick Arms. They passed the window of G. H. Hudson’s, but neither noticed the small sign at the bottom of the display which said simply: ‘Durex’.
Allen delivered the car to Solomons’ shop, then went home for dinner, feeling the package burning a hole in his pocket. His mother was in a good mood, though, and went on and on about some royal progress in Reading that had taken place the day before. After the meal Allen slipped upstairs and hid the package under a pile of shirts. Then he started back to Trinder’s.
As he approached he noticed an unusual amount of commotion going on. An ambulance was drawn up across the pumps and two men were taking out a stretcher. People were gathering not at the scene but around it, in nearby doorways, watching in silence. A sympathetic distance was being kept.
‘What’s going on?’ Allen asked Nisbett.
‘Archie had a stroke‚’ said Nisbett. He took off his cap.
‘He’s dead?’
The men carried the stretcher into the showroom, to the door of Archie’s cubby-hole. Then they put it down. One of them beckoned to Nisbett. He turned white and said to Allen: ‘You go, Allen. I can’t stand the sight of blood.’
Allen looked startled, then went in. His shoes squeaked on the composition floor of the showroom. The white coats of the ambulance men shone with an antiseptic cheerfulness in the polished sides of a new Rover 105.
‘We can’t get round,’ said one of the men. ‘Can you move that car forward a couple of feet?’
Allen took off the Rover’s hand-brake and pushed the car to the front of the showroom.
‘Thanks,’ said the man.
‘Can I help?’
The man shook his head. Through the door of the cubby-hole Allen could see Archie sitting in his chair, his head fallen forward. There was no blood. He looked all right. He often dozed like that.
‘Will he be all right?’
‘He’s dead,’ said the man.
Allen went out again and stood by Mr Nisbett.
‘Thanks,’ said Nisbett. ‘I just can’t stand it. Never could.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Allen. ‘Archie’s dead.’
Nisbett moved away quickly towards the washroom. At the same moment a telephone began to ring in the office. Joan Cartwright, who was standing beside the pumps, went to answer it. In a minute she came out again and said to Allen: ‘It’s Mr Solomons. Something about his car. You took it up to him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I think you’d better speak to him.’
He went into the office and picked up the receiver. ‘Hallo.’
‘Is that you, Sid?’
‘No, sir, it’s me, Allen Bradshaw. Was there something wrong with the car?’
‘No, the car’s all right. But can you tell me what it was doing outside Hudson’s this morning when it was supposed to be being washed and delivered to me?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. It was me. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘It was you, was it? Well, I do mind, I mind very much. I saw you, roaring the engine like that.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I’d like a word with Mr Trinder, if you don’t mind.’
‘He’s busy, sir. Archie just died.’
‘What?’
‘Archie just died. He had a stroke.’
‘Oh.’ Allen could hear Solomons clearing his throat. ‘Oh. I see. I’ll call back later.’ Allen heard the line go dead. As he hung up, Trinder came into the office.
‘What was all that about?’ he said.
‘It was Mr Solomons, sir. I went by Hudson’s and he saw me. That’s all.’
‘I haven’t got time for that now,’ said Trinder. He went into his own office and began to dial a number.
When Allen came out the ambulance men were putting the stretcher with Archie on it into the back of the ambulance. The body was completely covered by a blanket, except for the feet. Two sturdy black boots pointed to heaven. The door of the ambulance shut and the men drove away.
Mr Nisbett came out of the washroom, still looking pale, and watched them go.
‘Poor old Archie,’ said someone. ‘I thought he’d go on for ever.’
People began to move away. In ten minutes work was going on as usual. Allen was assigned to the pumps, but he didn’t use Archie’s cubby-hole. From the repair-shop he could hear someone whistling, the tune echoing loud above the hammering and the testing of engines.
That evening, as they walked towards the cinema, he said to Ruth: ‘I had a near squeak today.’
‘Did you?’
‘Mr Solomons saw me with his car outside Hudson’s.’
She removed her arm from his and said: ‘What were you doing in there, I’d like to know.’
Slipping his arm round her waist he said: ‘That’s my business, isn’t it?’
‘Could be,’ she said. ‘Could be mine, too.’
‘Could be,’ he agreed.
They walked along in silence for a while, both thinking about the same thing, without either of them knowing that the other was thinking about it. Then Allen said: ‘It’s a nice evening. Would you like to walk down by the canal? We can go to the pictures any night.’
‘Now l
isten to me,’ said Ruth, pulling herself away from him.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t want any of your nonsense, that’s all.’
‘Archie told me something today,’ said Allen, putting his arm round her again as they turned towards the canal. ‘He said you’ve got to know what you want. Funny he should say that to me. Just before he died. I may have been the last person to see him alive.’
Awed by the thought, they held each other tighter, walking in silence to the old towpath.
‘He said he never regretted anything,’ said Allen.
‘What did he have to regret? He was pretty old, wasn’t he?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Well,’ said Ruth, with the air of one saying something profoundly new, ‘we all have to go sometime.’
‘Might as well get what you want first, though,’ said Allen.
Archie had been right to trust the wireless. It was a warm evening. The trees were just beginning to move from fluffiness to leafiness, bare branches still visible against the very pale blue sky. The day’s wind had dried the puddles. Allen and Ruth found themselves a place to sit under a beech tree in Chapman’s Wood. In front of them the canal, long stagnant, reflected nothing but clear sky, paler every minute.
‘Now stop that,’ said Ruth. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you were buying this morning.’
‘I’ve never done it,’ said Allen, happy to find himself completely unembarrassed. ‘Have you?’
‘No,’ said Ruth. She was going to add: ‘And I’m not going to tonight, either,’ but for some reason she didn’t. The words were there in her mind, but her tongue wouldn’t say them. And Allen’s arm was strong and warm around her, his lips soft against her ear.
Allen kissed her very long and slow on the mouth. His hands began to fumble under her dress.
‘Let’s move back a bit,’ Ruth whispered, ‘someone could see.’
They moved back into the woods, hand in hand, both seventeen.
Mr Drysdale, out for his evening walk, heard a boy and a girl laughing softly together. He walked on along the towpath, shaking his head, muttering, and from time to time allowing himself to smile.
PART TWO
1
A LONE porter walked down the platform, past the still hissing length of the train, shouting: ‘Cartersfield! Cartersfield!’ When he reached the luggage van he peered in and said: ‘Anything for us, mate?’
A Disturbing Influence Page 11