by John Braine
"That's better than not worrying at all," Charles said, and hiccuped. "What is worrying our friend is unimportant, and his action was childish and futile, even if he'd hit the right person. What matters is that he felt something was wrong and he did something about it."
The car skidded again turning into the lane to the cottage and I was too busy wrenching it into control to answer him. Roy had passed out cold by the time we reached the cottage; when we'd unloosened his collar and put him to bed on the sofa downstairs, Charles returned to the attack.
"You want some supper?" he asked.
"I'm going to bed. The floor won't keep still."
"You'd better eat something, then you won't get alcoholic poisoning."
He went into the kitchen, tripping up twice over his own feet, and came back in a surprisingly short time with a pot of tea and a plate of corned beef sandwiches.
He pulled up a chair opposite me, sitting astride it. "You're not going to marry Alice," he said. He took a huge bite from his sandwich. "Though I'm grateful to her for leaving all this lovely grub behind."
"Who says I'm not going to marry her?"
"I do." He took off his spectacles. Deprived of them, his eyes seemed paler and larger and colder; his round red face wasn't jolly any longer.
"Get this straight," I said. "I love Alice. She loves me. I'm happy with her. Not just in bed either."
"Love? That's a funny word to use. What would your Aunt Emily say if you went to her and said that you loved a married woman ten years older than yourself?" He took a gulp of tea. "She'd vomit, she really would."
"You can't possibly understand. Her husband doesn't come into it. He doesn't love her and she doesn't love him."
"No," Charles said. "Of course not. But he keeps her. You said that she had no money of her own. All that tinned stuff in the larder, that bottle of whisky, that silver cigarette case she gave you -- it all came from him."
"My God," I said disgustedly, "don't turn moral on me. He can well afford it."
"That's not the point, you fool. If she'd do it to him, she'd do it to you."
I rose quickly. "I ought to hit you." I felt sick and murderous; the blood was drumming in my ears and there was a nasty sugary taste in my mouth.
Charles smiled. "Don't, Joe. It wouldn't help, believe me. Besides, you know perfectly well that it's true."
I didn't answer him, but walked round the room as if taking an inventory for the bailiffs: Windsor chairs, horsehair sofa, scrubbed deal table, a radio with a separate receiver and amplifier, a big Gramophone cabinet, a glass-fronted bookcase.
"Who owns the place?" I asked.
"An actor. Friend of Roy's. He's working for once, so he thought he might as well sublet the place. Why do you ask?"
"I wondered. It has an odd feeling at times. Cold."
"It's supposed to be haunted. This is the Black Magic area. Not that you'll have noticed. You'll have been too much under her spell."
I poured myself a cup of tea and lifted it to my lips with both hands. Roy began to snore, his snortings and rumblings competing with the steady hiss of the Aladdin lamp.
"A man of twenty-six can marry a girl of sixteen," Charles said. "The only reaction will be one of envy. Look at all these society weddings: grooms of thirty and thirty-five and brides of nineteen and under. And all these elderly film stars buy dewy-eyed young brides, too. Sometimes a man marries an older woman for her money -- people call him nasty names but as long as he's got the money why should he care? In our class we marry women of our own age, which I suppose is the most decent arrangement. But you want to make the worst of both worlds. You want to marry an older woman who hasn't any money. It would be bad enough if she were unmarried; but in addition to everything else you'll be dragged through the midden of the divorce courts."
"He has a mistress," I said. "They only live together for the sake of appearances."
"God give me patience! He has a lot more money than you, chum, and he's a lot brighter. He won't be caught out whatever he does. Did you enjoy your nude bathing with her, by the way?"
"I never told you that."
"You haven't told me much at all. That's why I know that you're serious about her. I was given a full report of your activities on the beach, right down to the last sigh. In the village pub yesterday. Such an ancient gaffer he was too. Her only had a red bathing cap on , he said. Her even took that off . You certainly cheered his declining years; he went blue in the face with excitement when he remembered it."
"Apart from making me feel mucky all over," I said slowly, "what does all this add up to?"
"You're very dense tonight. If Mr. Aisgill wanted a divorce, he could afford detectives to trace you here. That would be enough in itself, but for good measure they'd ferret out the old boy too. Can't you imagine it? Can't you imagine the story in the Sunday papers? Face facts, Joe. You couldn't bear to be shown up like that. You don't belong to the class that thrives on scandal. You'd have your heart broken." He looked away from me and said in a low voice, "And you'd break the hearts of a lot of other people. People who don't wish you anything but good."
I tried to think of Alice just as the person I loved, the one with whom I could be kind and tender and silly, the one whom I was certain of to the last breath, the one who'd tear her heart out for me to eat if I wanted it; but all I could remember was the lifted skirt on the sofa where Roy now lay snoring, the soft naked body on the beach where we'd bathed that morning; I could only remember pleasure, easy pleasure, and that wasn't enough to set against his words.
"And what about Susan?" he asked.
"That's all over. You know perfectly well that it's all over."
"I don't. You've made no attempt to get her back."
"It wouldn't be any use." I yawned. "I'm tired." I got up and stretched myself. "The floor's steady. We've drunk ourselves sober."
"Never mind that. Look. Joe, I don't often ask you a favour. This isn't for me, either. It's for you. Promise me to write to Susan."
27
"Gosh, isn't it hot?" Susan said.
We were lying in a clearing in the bracken above the Folly; the afternoon sun beat down upon us like a pleasurable peine forte et dure .
" You shouldn't feel hot," I said, looking at her off-the-shoulder blouse and cotton skirt. "You've nothing on."
" Wicked!" she said, and pulled up the blouse till it covered her shoulders. "Happy now? Joety happy now his Susan back?"
I pulled her blouse off her shoulders again. I kissed each shoulder gently. "Happy now. Only happy now I'm with you."
Women over thirty look younger at dusk or by candlelight; a girl nineteen looks younger, childish almost, in the hard glare of the midday sun: at that moment Susan looked no more than fourteen. Her lipstick had been kissed away, her powder had disappeared; her lips were still red, her skin flawless.
"It was a lovely letter," she said. "Oh Joe, I was so miserable until I got it. It was the best surprise I've ever had in my whole life."
Charles had helped me to write it, after a long argument, in the course of which he'd called me, among other things, a sex-besotted moron and an unsuccessful gigolo. "There now," he'd said when I signed it, "that should bring the silly bitch running back with the lovelight in her eyes. You can always depend upon your Uncle Charles."
Indeed I could; and there was Susan to prove it. I'd been back from Dorset a week and she'd only just returned from Cannes; she'd phoned me the minute she'd read the letter. The sour smoky smell of the bracken caught at my throat; I raised myself on my elbow and looked down at Warley in the valley below. I could see it all: the Town Hall with the baskets of flowers above the entrance, the boats on the river at Snow Park, the yellow buses crawling out of the station, the big black finger of Tebbut's Mills in Sebastopol Street, the pulse of traffic in Market Street with its shops whose names I could recite in a litany -- Wintrip the jeweller with the beautiful gold and silver watches that made my own seem cheap, Finlay the tailor with the Daks and the V
anteila shirts and the Jaeger dressing gowns, Priestly the grocer with its smell of cheese and roasting coffee, Robbins the chemist with the bottles of Lenthéric after-shave lotion and the beaver shaving brushes -- I loved it all, right down to the red-brick front of the Christadelphian reading room and the posters outside the Coliseum and Royal cinemas, I couldn't leave it. And if I married Alice I'd be forced to leave it. You can only love a town if it loves you, and Warley would never love a co-respondent. I had to love Warley properly too, I had to take all she could give me; it was too late to enjoy merely her warm friendship, a life with a Grade Six girl perhaps, a life spent in, if I were lucky, one of the concrete boxes of houses on the new Council estate. People could be happy in those little houses with their tiny gardens and one bathroom and no garage. They could be happy on my present income, even on a lot less. But it wasn't for me; if the worst came to the worst, I would accept it sooner than not live in Warley at all, but I had to force the town into granting me the ultimate intimacy, the power and privilege and luxury which emanated from T'Top.
"Joe," said Susan. "You're very naughty. You're not listening."
"I am, honey," I said. "It wasn't a lovely letter, though. I was too agitated when I wrote it. I was frightened that you'd recognise the writing and throw it away. I haven't had a happy moment since you told me it was all over between us."
"You promised me never to see Alice again. Have you told her?"
"You know she's in the hospital. She's very ill too."
Susan's face was set very hard; she didn't look like a schoolgirl now, but more like one of those female magistrates who are always sending someone to jail without the option so that no one will be able to accuse them of womanly softheartedness.
"You must tell her now." She looked like her mother: the soft curves of her face seemed to change to straight lines and her mouth became tight and disciplined -- not exactly cruel, but set in an expression of judgement.
Alice had come home the day before me and had been taken to the hospital in the middle of the night. I never did find out what the illness was; it wasn't cancer but it was some kind of internal swelling that was quite serious -- serious enough for an operation -- but not serious enough for the doctors to give her the dope necessary to keep away the pain. She was waiting for the operation now, and wasn't allowed any visitors except for family. I hadn't written her because she'd sent me a note saying that it was wisest not to; but my conscience troubled me about it because I knew that she didn't really expect me to take her at her word.
"Do you hear me, Joe?" Susan's voice had a shrill note. "Tell her now. She's not going to die. If you don't write to her straightaway I really have finished with you this time. I mean it."
"Shut up. I'll do what I promised -- I'll finish the affair once and for all. When she comes out of hospital. And face to face. Not by letter. That's cowardly."
Susan stood up. "You're absolutely hateful and despicable. You won't do anything I ask you to, and now you're going back to this -- this old woman just because she's supposed to be ill. I wish I'd never met you. You've spoilt France for me and now that I'm happy again you're doing this . I hate you, I hate you, I hate you -- " She burst into tears. "I'm going. I don't want to see you again. You never loved me -- "
I took hold of her roughly, then slapped her hard on the face. She gave a little cry of surprise, then flew at me with her nails. I held her off easily.
"You're not going," I said. "And I'm not going to do what you asked me either. I love you, you silly bitch, and I'm the one who says what's to be done. Now and in the future."
"Let me go," she said. "I'll scream for help. You can't make me stay against my will." She started to struggle. Her black hair was dishevelled and her brown eyes were gleaming with anger, changed into a tigerish topaz. I shook her as hard as I could. I'd done it in play before, when she'd asked me to hurt her, please hurt her; but this time I was in brutal earnest, and when I'd finished she was breathless and half fainting. Then I kissed her, biting her lips till I tasted blood. Her arms tightened round my neck and she let herself fall to the ground. This time she did not play the frightened virgin; this time I had no scruples, no horizon but the hot lunacy of my own instincts.
"You hurt me," she said when I came to my senses afterwards, my whole body empty and exhausted. "You hurt me and you took all my clothes -- look, I'm bleeding here -- and here -- and here. Oh Joe I love you with all of me now, every little bit of me is yours. You won't need her any more, will you?"
She laughed. It was a low gurgling laugh. It was full of physical contentment. "Tell her when she comes out of hospital if you like, darling. You won't need her any more, I know that." She smiled at me; the smile radiated an almost savage well-being.
"I won't need her any more," I repeated dully. There was a taste of blood in my mouth and my hand was bleeding where she'd scratched it. The sun was hurting my eyes now, and the bracken round the clearing seemed actually to be growing taller and closing in on me.
28
It was almost two months before Alice came out of the hospital. The day before, I had a phone call from Brown at the Town Hall. He rang me direct, with none of the usual secretary nonsense. "Mr. Lampton? Lunch at t'Con Club. Leddersford. One."
"Are you sure it's I you want?" I asked.
"Of course I'm sure. It's important, too. See you're there on the dot."
His tone annoyed me. It was a grey drizzling September morning, muggy and cold by turns; my in-basket was full, and after I'd cleared it I had to see our junior, Raymond, about the shortages in the petty cash. Now that Raymond is a solid citizen occupying my old job, it seems hard to believe what he was like then: a skinny little boy with a white pimply face, and a shiny blue serge suit with frayed turn-ups and shirts that were never quite clean and never quite dirty. He was cleaning the inkwells when Brown rang and singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" in a quavering voice, trying to keep his spirits up, I suppose.
"Are you having a prayer meeting?" Brown asked. "I can hardly hear myself speak." I noticed that he'd dropped his Yorkshire accent.
I covered the mouthpiece. "Shut up, Ray, I'm busy. What was it you wanted to see me about, Mr. Brown?"
"I can't tell you over the phone, and even if I could, I haven't the time." He hung up.
I lit a cigarette; it didn't taste very good. I hadn't really enjoyed tobacco since my return from Dorset. I've been lucky to avoid this till now, I thought; Hoylake, having failed to scare me off Susan, has handed the job over to Brown who, in some unpleasantly direct way, is going to kick me in the guts. A man with only a few hundred in the bank -- and lucky to have that -- is powerless against a man with a hundred thousand. I would be forced to leave Warley. Already I had a premonition of my future status at the Town Hall whenever I saw Teddy swelling visibly with his promotion (he'd been given APT Four, too). I'd been with Susan last night; she'd been silent and tearful and distrait, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong with her. I knew now. Daddy had put his foot down, she was sprinting towards the already rising drawbridge and the slowly closing portcullis. And Jack Wales would be home for Christmas -- what chance had the swineherd against the Prince? Now it had come, it was actually a relief: there was nowhere I could retreat to, no need to be pleasant to anyone, I could afford the luxury of speaking my mind.
I looked at Ray, his hands red and blue with ink, his lower lip trembling. He'd noticed me spending much more time than usual over the petty cash books, and he knew what was coming. I had it in my power to alter his whole life: he came from a poor family, and I knew just what happened to people who were sacked from local government. The Efficient Zombie had a junior sacked once for exactly the same offence as Ray's and he'd ended up as a labourer. The reference system, unless you're very lucky or very rich or very talented, can be your implacable enemy for the rest of your life if you do one thing out of line. Ray was in the dock, all five foot four of him: I was the judge and the jury. One word from me to Hoylake, and out he went.
&nbs
p; "Bring me the cashbox and the stamp book and the petty cash book," I said. He took them out of the safe and came over to my desk with them, dragging his feet in their down-at-heels shoes.
"I went over these this morning, Ray," I said. "There seem to be some discrepancies."
He looked at me dumbly.
"Errors," I said. "Errors that should have been revealed by a surplus but weren't. Fifteen shillings over the last fortnight. Have you got that fifteen shillings?"
He shook his head. The tears were coming to his eyes. "All right, then. Maybe I've made a mistake. We'll go over the books together."
He stood over me while my finger traced down the rows of figures, his red-and-blue hand with the bitten fingernails following mine. It was that, and those down-at-heel shoes, that sickened me: I saw myself through his eyes, old and sleek and all-powerful. I shut the books with a bang.
"You damned idiot, what did you do it for? You knew you'd be found out."