Mavis Belfrage

by Alasdair Gray

  He stood beside Mrs Dewhurst in a high-ceilinged room that had been the master bedroom eighty years earlier when the mansion housed a family and six servants. An ostentatiously solid bed, wardrobe, dressing-table and set of chairs survived from that time. The gas heater in the hearth of a white marble fireplace was recent, also a Formica-topped table, Laura Ashley window curtains, wall-to-wall fitted carpet with jagged green and black pattern. The carpet was mostly covered by twenty-three full cardboard boxes, a heap of metal struts and shelving, a heavy old typewriter, heavier Grundig tape player, a massive black slide and picture projector called an epidiascope which looked as clumsy as its name.

  “I am monarch of all I survey, my right there is none to dispute,” said Mr Goodchild. “Forgive me for stating the obvious Mrs Dewhurst, but you are NOT the pleasant young man who showed me this room two days ago and asked for – and received! – what struck me as an unnecessarily huge advance on the rent.”

  He smiled at her to show this was a question. Without smiling back she told him the young man was an employee of the letting agency and she did not know his name because that sort come and go; she, however, lived in the basement with her husband who cleaned the hall and stairs and shared bathroom. He also looked after the garden. It was her job to collect the rent, change sheets, pillowcases and towels once a fortnight and also handle complaints.

  “You will hear no complaints from me or about me, Mrs Dewhurst. A quiet, sensible, sober man I am, not given to throwing wild parties but tolerant of neighbours who may be younger and less settled. Who, exactly, are my neighbours on this floor?”

  “A couple of young women share the room next door. They do something secretarial in the office of the biscuit factory.”

  “Boyfriends?”

  “I haven’t bothered to ask, Mr Goodchild.”

  “Admirable! Who’s above and who’s below?”

  “The Wilsons are above and the Jhas are below: both married couples.”

  “My age or yours Mrs Dewhurst? For I take you to be a youthful thirty-five or so.”

  A very slight softening in Mrs Dewhurst’s manner confirmed Mr Goodchild’s guess that she was nearly his own age. She told him that the Wilsons were young doctors and would soon be leaving for a bigger place because Mrs Wilson was pregnant; that Mr Jha had a grocery in a poorer part of town, his wife was much younger than him with a baby, a very quiet little thing, Mr Goodchild would hardly notice it.

  “Jha,” said Mr Goodchild thoughtfully. “Indian? Pakistani? African? West Indian?”

  “I don’t know, Mr Goodchild.”

  “Since I have no prejudice against any people or creed on God’s earth their origin is immaterial. And now I will erect my possessions into some kind of order. Cheerio and off you go Mrs Dewhurst.”

  Off she went and Mr Goodchild’s air of mischievous good humour became one of gloomy determination.

  He hung his coat and jacket in the wardrobe. He unpacked from his suitcase a clock and radio which he put on the mantelpiece, underwear he laid in dressing-table drawers, pyjamas he placed under the pillow of the bed. Carrying the still heavy suitcase into a kitchenette he took out bottles, packets, tins and placed them in a refrigerator and on shelves. This tiny windowless space had once been the master’s dressing-room and had two doors, one locked with a putty-filled keyhole. This useless door had once opened into the bedroom of the mistress, a room now rented by the secretaries. Mr Goodchild laid an ear to it, heard nothing and sighed. He had never lived alone before and sounds of occupancy would have soothed him.

  In the main room he rolled up shirtsleeves, produced a Swiss army knife, opened the screwdriver attachment and by twenty minutes to six had efficiently erected four standing shelf units. Returning to the kitchenette he washed hands and put a chop under the grill. Faint voices from the next room showed it was occupied though the tone suggested a television play. He opened tins of soup, peas and baby potatoes and heated them in saucepans which he clattered slightly to let the secretaries know they too were no longer alone. Ten minutes later he ate a three-course dinner: first course, soup; second, meat with two vegetables; third, cold apple tart followed by three cups of tea. Meanwhile he listened to the six o’clock news on the BBC Home Service. Having washed, dried and put away the kitchenware he brooded long and hard over the positions of the rented furniture.

  The Formica-topped table would be his main work surface so had better stand against the wall where the wardrobe now was with his shelf units on each side of it. He would shift the small bedside table to the hearthrug and dine on that. The dressing-table would go beside the bed and support the bedside lamp and his bedtime cup of cocoa. The wardrobe could then stand where the dressing-table had been. The boxes on the floor would make these shifts difficult so he piled as many as possible onto and under the bed. The hardest task was moving the wardrobe. It was eight feet high, four wide and a yard deep. Mr Goodchild, though less than average height, was proud of his ability to make heavy furniture walk across a room by pivoting it on alternate corners. The top part of the wardrobe rested on a base with a deep drawer inside. He discovered these were separate when, pivoting the base, the top section began sliding off. He dropped the base with a floor-shuddering thump. The upper part teetered with a jangling of wire coathangers but did not topple. Mr Goodchild sat down to recover from the shock. There came a tap upon the door and a voice with a not quite English accent said, “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yes yes. Yes yes.”

  “That was one heck of a wallop.”

  “Yes I’m … shifting things about a bit Mr … Jha?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve just moved in and I’m shifting things about. I’ll be at it for another hour or two.”

  “Exercise care please.”

  Mr Goodchild returned to the wardrobe and wrestled with it more carefully.

  Two hours and several heavy thumps later the furniture was where he wanted it and he unpacked his possessions, starting with a collection of taped music. After putting it on a shelf beside the Grundig he played Beethoven symphonies in order of composition while unpacking and arranging books and box files. Handling familiar things to familiar music made him feel so completely at home that he was surprised by rapping on his door and the hands of his clock pointing to midnight. He switched off the third movement of the Pastoral and opened the door saying quietly but emphatically, “I am very very very very –”

  “Some people need sleep!” said a glaring young woman in dressing-gown and slippers.

  “– very very sorry. I was so busy putting my things in order that I quite forgot the time and how sound can propagate through walls. Perhaps tomorrow – or some other day when you have a free moment – we can discover experimentally the greatest volume of sound I can produce without disturbing you, Miss … Miss?”

  “Shutting your kitchen door will halve the din where we’re concerned!” hissed the girl. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard from the Jhas. He’s up here complaining if we drop as much as a book on the floor.”

  She hurried away.

  With a rueful grimace Mr Goodchild closed the door, crossed the room, closed the kitchen door and pondered a moment. He was not sleepy. The encounter with the young woman had pleasantly excited him. Sitting at his newly arranged work table he wound paper into what he thought of as “my trusty Remington” and, starting with the boarding-house address and date in the top right-hand corner, typed this.

  My Very Dear Son,

  You receive this communication at your work-place because I am no stranger to married life. If it arrived with other personal mail on your breakfast table Myra might feel hurt if you did not let her read it and equally hurt if you did. I must not offend either partner in a successful marital arrangement. My fortnight in Foxdene was a worthwhile but unsuccessful experiment. It has proved me too selfishly set in my ways to live without a room where I can work and eat according to my own timetable, a timetable which others cannot

 
; He was interrupted by hesitant but insistent tapping and went to the door full of lively curiosity.

  The young dressing-gowned woman outside was different from the previous one. He smiled kindly and asked, “How can I help you Miss . .?”

  “Thomson. Gwinny Thomson. My friend can’t sleep because of the clattering your machine makes. Neither can I.”

  “To tell the truth Gwinny, when typing I get so engrossed in words that it’s years since I noticed my machine made any noise at all. Your room-mate must be flaming mad with me.”

  Gwinny nodded once, hard.

  “What’s her name, Gwinny?”

  “Karen Milton.”

  “Tell Karen that from now on my name is not George Goodchild but Mouse Goodchild. She won’t hear a squeak from the kitchen tonight for I will go to bed with a small malt whisky instead of my usual cocoa and toasted cheese. But she must first endure the uproar of a flushing toilet if that sound also pierces your walls. Does it? And YOU must remember to call me George.”

  “We’re used to the flushing so it doesn’t bother us, Mr … George.”

  “Then Karen may now rest in peace. Good night, sleep tight Gwinny.”

  Gwinny retired. Mr Goodchild changed into slippers and pyjamas, took towel and toilet bag to bathroom, brushed teeth, washed, shat and smiled approvingly into the lavatory pan before flushing it. Sleek fat droppings showed that his inside still harmonized with the universe.

  Next morning he arose, shaved, washed, dressed, breakfasted and waited until he heard the girls leave for work. Then he switched on the end of the Pastoral symphony, read the last six lines of his interrupted letter and completed it.

  My fortnight in Foxdene was a worthwhile but unsuccessful experiment. It has proved me too selfishly set in my ways to live without a room where I can work and eat according to my own timetable, a timetable which others cannot be expected to tolerate.

  This is my second day of boarding-house life and I am settling in nicely. My closest connections so far have been with Mrs Dewhurst our saturnine house-keeper, Mr Jha an excitable Asiatic shopkeeper, and two young secretaries in the room next door. Karen Milton is sexy and sure of herself and thinks I’m a boring old creep. No wonder! Gwinny Thomson is a sort teachers recognize at a glance: less attractive than her friend because less confident and needing someone she feels is stronger to hide behind. I’m afraid Karen bullies her sometimes. Gwinny ought to “shack up” (as the Americans say) with an experienced man who thoroughly appreciates her, then she might blossom. But I’m far too old for that little job.

  So have no fear, son o’ mine. When I kick the bucket all I have will be yours, apart from £2500 for the UCF who will probably spend half of it renovating a Victorian drinking fountain on Ilkley Moor and waste the rest attaching a bronze plaque inscribed to my memory. I should put a clause in my will forbidding such wicked waste but there are uglier ways to be remembered.

  The Fellowship is forwarding my mail here. A big stack arrived by first post this morning so my editorial work with the newsletter has not been interrupted. The only upsetting thing here is the pattern of the carpet. It looks fierce enough to bite off any foot standing on it. Give my love to Myra and the kids. I will visit Foxdene for a couple of days when she feels fit enough for a short dose of me. Ask her to suggest a weekend when I can babysit while you take her out for “a night on the town”. Take care of yourself, son.

  Mr Goodchild lifted his fountain pen from a small glass tray of stamps and paperclips, pulled the letter from the drum and wrote Love from Dad neatly at the foot of it. A week later he typed this.

  Dear, Dear Harry,

  I have solved the problem of the carpet by turning it upside down. Through the weave of the brown backing the jagged pattern looks faded, antique and restful. When Mrs Dewhurst called for the rent yesterday she stared at the carpet, then at me. I smiled sweetly back. She must think I’m daft.

  I would have liked a reply to my last letter because I’ve been feeling a bit lonely and dreaming a lot about your mother. She comes to me quite unlike her usual self and accuses me of all sorts of improbable crimes – dismantling the British rail system was the worst. A family man suddenly deprived of family must feel low until new friendships fill the gap and last night I had a surprising social triumph.

  Gwinny Thomson, probably acting under orders from Karen, had come to me the night before and said she and her friend were going to have a party – not a rowdy do, but there might be music and chat till after midnight if I had no objection. I said I had no objection to anything which happened at their party as long as I was invited. She was horrified but tried to hide it by saying “of course” I was invited. But I let the girls down gently by joining the party late after it had plenty of time to warm up. But it hadn’t warmed up. The guests were all office workers in their twenties and early thirties, female colleagues of the girls and male colleagues of their boyfriends. They stood huddled in groups of three or four, talking in low voices and obviously waiting for the earliest possible moment to leave without seeming rude, while Karen served them drinks and tried without success to get them chatting and mingling. The source of embarrassment was Gwinny and her boyfriend, Tom. Gwinny was on the verge of tears. Tom kept turning his back and talking to other women whenever she came near.

  Enter Mr Goodchild looking exactly like his name – small, stout, cheery and too innocent to notice anything wrong. This act of mine is not a phony one. Humanity would have become extinct centuries ago if what holds folk together were not stronger than what pulls us apart. My act worked. Folk clustered round me. The UCF also came in handy. Karen’s boyfriend is an architect and thanks to the Fellowship urban conservation is a source of more profitable commissions than it was ten years ago. Karen’s bloke asked such detailed questions about our projects that I took him back to my room to show him photographs. Karen was not pleased about that and came too, so I sweetened her by offering both of them a tot of The Macallan. Then everyone but Gwinny and Tom came here too so I set up the epidiascope and gave my introductory lecture on the renovation of Britain’s industrial heritage. You’ve never attended my lectures, Harry, so don’t know that this one, though devised for schoolchildren, draws bigger laughs from adults. I got a round of applause which brought the Dewhursts up from their basement. Them too I sweetened with nips of The Macallan. Lastly Tom and Gwinny entered hand in hand, him grinning as smugly as an office boy who had just seduced a company director’s daughter, her as bashful as a bride on her honeymoon. They had obviously been reconciled by a bout of what the Scotch call “hockmagandy” and the nasty lad liked flaunting the fact more than poor Gwinny did. I sent everyone away by saying it was my bedtime.

  I understand your silence, Harry. Perhaps my stay at Foxdene would have ended more kindly – or not ended at all – if I had discussed my domestic problem with you instead of Myra. We might have found a solution she would have accepted – like me buying a modern Portakabin with all mod cons, one you could have set up behind the big hedge hiding the kitchen garden from the lawn. Myra need never have seen me during the day and I could have shared the regular evening meals and Sunday lunch, and helped the kids with their homework. You and I could have enjoyed an occasional game of chess like in the old days and my music would have irritated nobody. But you and I never discuss things. It’s my fault. When you were little I always told you everything I knew in such detail that you recoiled into reticence like your mother and, unlike your mother, never told me to shut up. No wonder you won’t answer letters. But I will burble on to you since I have nobody else.

  I enclose bulldozer, roadroller and pickup truck for Nigel’s Dinky Toy collection, and a set of Flower Fairy books for Tracy.

  Love from

  Dad.

  Exactly a week later Mr Goodchild started typing his last letter in that boarding house.

  Dear Harry,

  When I came here a fortnight back I told the housekeeper that nobody over fifty can foretell how they’ll be living a few
months hence. I was wrong. A few days, a few hours hence would be more accurate. I’ll explain this.

  On the evening of the day after the party I accidentally passed Karen, then Gwinny on our landing. The quick angry manner of one and the glum look of the other suggested a quarrel, though their replies to my greeting showed it was not with me. Later I heard a slamming of doors then silence. Thinking both had gone out I started playing Mendelssohn’s “Italian” symphony louder than I’ve dared play anything since my first night here. The rhythm was helping me rattle through my report for our annual general meeting when someone tapped the door. Was this Mr Jha? Had my long-lost son motored over from Bracknell? It was Gwinny. I said, “Sorry, I thought you were out, I’ll turn down the noise.”

  “I like that music – it’s cheerful,” said she.

  “Come in and listen,” said I, “if you can stand the noise of my typewriter too.”

  She sat by the fire while I finished the report, then I put on Vivaldi’s “Seasons” and made us a little snack. We consumed it seated on opposite sides of the table like a married couple. Suddenly she said, “Karen’s not the bad one. It’s me who’s bad. I’m jealous of her lovely boyfriend so I make scenes when she borrows my hairbrush or leaves a crumby plate on the mantelpiece.”

  I hate heartfelt confessions. I told her I enjoyed the company of quiet folk and sometimes liked the company of talkative ones but complainers bored me, especially if they complained about themselves. She pulled a sour face at that then suddenly cheered up and told me horrible stories about her boyfriend Tom, playing them for laughs. She’s a good little comedian so I laughed quite a lot though I said not one word for or against him. I told her I wanted to do some reading now and if she decided to stay she could play any of my tapes she liked. That’s how the rest of the evening went. At half past ten I noticed her listening for the return of Karen so got rid of her by saying it was my bedtime and we parted with expressions of mutual esteem – I said she’d been as good as a pussy cat. I tell you all this, Harry, to show that I did not invite what follows.