The Habit of Widowhood

by Robert Barnard

  I was twenty-six when we married. We’d been living together for eighteen months, and I knew Sam through and through. I wouldn’t have married him if I hadn’t already made some suggestions on business matters, seen him consider them seriously, then act on them. When we got back from the honeymoon (which was in Brighton, because Sam hated “abroad,” and loved going to swish hotels with his king-size prize on his arm—or more accurately with him on mine), I lost no time in involving myself in the business. I went around with him to the different branches of Occasionals, sussed out the tastes of the various locations they were situated in, and made suggestions about stock, staffing, moves toward a different market. Sam already knew I had a flair. Soon he began to say I had a sort of genius.

  “I just don’t know what I’d do without you now,” he often said.

  In point of fact his doing without me was not at all what I envisioned for the future.

  I quite soon became a sort of fixture—a power that the shop managers had to reckon with. If Sam couldn’t pay his regular visit—because of a board meeting, a business deal or whatever—I went instead. Most of the managers would very much rather have had Sam than me, but one or two of them recognized a kindred soul in me, understood what I was trying to do with the business, and I noted them down for preferment when the time came.

  It was the moment for the firm to be branching out, diversifying, developing other interests. Sam saw that, but he was too timid to act on it. It was me who gave him the backbone. “What else do I know about but clothes?” he would wail. “What else do we know about?” I corrected him. We bought into a small chain of jewelers specializing in Oriental pieces, a firm of delicatessens based in Hampstead and one or two other things. We were testing the waters, enlarging my experience.

  And so things went on for a year, eighteen months. I had a timetable, and I didn’t envisage rushing things. It’s people who rush things who get caught out, one way or another. Apart from the expansion of the business I wanted gradually to detach Sam from his hoity-toity family. I didn’t want any of the loot willed in their direction on the principle of “to them that hath.” Though oddly enough it was after only a few months of marriage that one night, when we were smooching away in front of late-night television, Sam said:

  “You’ve made me so happy, do you know that? There isn’t anybody else in the world could have made me so happy. I’m going to make a new will tomorrow leaving everything to you. So there’s no questions, or nastiness.”

  And he was as good as his word. In a couple of days’ time he showed me a copy, entrusted it to me. I did question in my mind whether that was a will designed to prevent any nastiness after his death, but I gave him a big sloppy kiss and kept quiet about that. I could cope with the Kopinskis in all their ramifications.

  But, as I say, I was in no hurry. I would have been happy to stay married to Sam three, four, even five years, so as to get every detail of the business under my belt, under my skin. Even in the eighteen months I had got various friends and like minds into positions of responsibility, including a job for Val in the small PR department at the head office. So when fate struck, at a party there, Val was present to witness it.

  It was a party to celebrate a tie-up between Occasional and a production company, Banglawear—a British company which used the cheap labor of Bangladeshi women living in Britain. It was a neat, lean operation, and the tie-up had great possibilities. I was the hostess at the party, but everybody there knew I was also one of the brains behind the expansion of Kopinski Limited. Sam and I were standing by the food table watching the throng when a man came up.

  “Wonderful party—just what was needed to get this off the ground,” he said. “You’re lucky, Sam—your wife’s not only beautiful, but she’s got a fine business brain as well.”

  And that was it. It may have been his voice—cockney, but softened, rather like mine. It may have been the fact that he was six foot three, with strong shoulders, dark wavy hair and a square chin. I always did like my men, when there was a choice, big. Whatever it was, I knew that this was him, this was the man I had to have.

  “Here,” said Sam, chuckling, “I’m not sure I like my business associates making up to my wife in public.”

  I folded him to my midriff, mussing his hair, and looked at the man. Val was watching us. She says that when she saw that look she knew that Sam was a goner.

  His name, I found out very quickly, was Wayne Donovan. He was officially the head accountant, actually the creative financial brain behind Banglawear. I made sure I rang him the next day on business. By the end of the week we were lovers.

  Sam never knew, I’m quite sure of that. I told him shortly after Wayne bedded me for the first time that what I needed to do was an economics diploma.

  “What do you want with one of them?” he demanded. “I’ve never felt the need.”

  “I’ve got to see the larger picture,” I said. “I understand about cash flow, diversification, things like that, but I need to get the context.”

  Nothing could have been further from the truth. My business sense is pure instinct, and I don’t need any poncy professors pushing their theories at me. Still, it served its turn. I was out three evenings a week, and though I was learning a lot I wasn’t sitting in any lecture room. That left four evenings, and I was always especially loving to Sam on those four. I don’t know how I found the strength.

  Wayne was a wonderful lover. He was full of surprises—and I don’t just mean what you think I mean either. Even out of bed he always seemed to have something up his sleeve, something that would make every evening I spent with him special. One time he hired the most wonderful little Oriental pair to prepare a Chinese banquet for two. Another time, on a fine midsummer evening, he drove us down to Kent and we had a balloon trip over the Channel. Once, when we were eating on the balcony of a first-rate eatery in Yorkshire somewhere, he had the local colliery brass band along to serenade us. That was since we were married, when we haven’t had to be discreet. It’s been a great liberation for Wayne: it’s as if he wants to tell the whole wide world how much he loves me. Could a girl ask for more?

  Wayne says he grew up on the toughest council estate in East London, and I can believe him. You don’t come from that sort of background and get to where he’s got without making some pretty dodgy acquaintances along the way. When, after three months of ecstatic loving, and when I was quite sure of my man, I broached the subject of Sam, Wayne just said: “You leave that to me. I’ve got mates who’ll take care of him. But it’ll cost you a couple of thou.”

  The cheapness of it took my breath away.

  “I can spend that on a party dress,” I said. “Are you sure you’re getting the best?”

  “The best money can buy. Start thinking about your widow’s weeds.”

  It was beginning to be urgent. I’d realized a day or two before that I was pregnant. Sam would never have imagined it could be anyone’s but his, but I didn’t want his bloody family starting to pry into my affairs, which they might if I produced a six-foot-three baby. I wanted Sam well out of the way before it was born. Wayne and I discussed a hit-and-run, but in the end we decided on an armed robbery that went wrong. For a potbellied runt Sam was remarkably careless about carrying large sums of money. Regularly once a month we would go to the Casino down the road from the head office and he’d carry with him a hefty wad of cash. It was quite unnecessary but I think it excited him. Normally I’d be with him: casinos are my kind of place. That month I pleaded off.

  “I’ve got this nagging headache,” I said. “Do you know, I think I could be pregnant.”

  So Sam died happy as a sandboy. When the police came to tell me I wailed: “If only I’d gone with him. They’d never have attacked him if I’d been with him.” Too bloody right they wouldn’t!

  There I was, then, a merry widow, and the only problem was not letting the merriness show. I behaved admirably at the funeral, and if Sam’s family let themselves down by showing their greed an
d suspicion—well, it reflected only on them, not on me. It was a good ten days after his death before I went in to work and resumed the reins, this time riding solo.

  Not that I intended riding solo for long.

  Quite soon after taking over I decided that the tie-up with Banglawear was so successful that it should be strengthened and extended. That meant a great deal of consultation with their chief accountant. People got used to his being in and out of the office, to our lunching together, even going off together in the evening. I expect Val made a few meaningful remarks, so everyone was prepared for the inevitable.

  We got married very quietly. In fact, it was downright secretive, if you want to know the truth. I intended Sam’s family to be presented with a fait accompli. I wrote the day after to Sam’s sister saying I couldn’t bear the thought of the baby growing up without a father. In the office I varied this slightly. “I want the baby to have a father,” I said. “And quite apart from that, he’s so gorgeous. . . .” Because no one who had seen Wayne would think I married him just as a father for my unborn child.

  “Oh, the baby will have a father all right,” Val said to me in private. “I wouldn’t bother with the ‘step’ bit if I were you.”

  I like Val. She’s sharp like me. I slip her a thousand now and then on top of her wages. Of course, she knows nothing, but I like to have her on my side.

  Wayne was delighted when the baby came. Not that he’s one of those modern fathers who practically claim a fifty percent stake in the pregnancy, hold your hand during labor and spend all their time bathing the baby and changing nappies afterward. He’s old-fashioned. He thinks that’s woman’s work, so we got an au pair, a sparkling little Italian girl called Renata. It means there’s never any problem with our working all day, and we can even get off on weekends alone together. Don’t get the idea I don’t love little Stephen, though, just because I’m not going to let him interfere with my career. I dote on him. If I’m working late at the office I often phone Renata and tell her to bring him in, so I can have a bit of time with him. She brought him in yesterday at the end of a party we threw for the top people of a PR firm we’re starting to use. When I saw him I just threw my arms around him and kissed his little face. It must have made very good PR.

  “This is the man in my life!” I said to the guests.

  “Here—where does that leave me?” Wayne asked humorously.

  I bundled Stephen back to Renata and buried my face in his marvelous chest.

  “All right—he’s the baby in my life. There’s only one man in my life, and that’s you till the day I die!”

  I sensed that Wayne was looking at Renata, probably to put her and the baby in their proper places. He is the only man in my life, and I’m the only woman in his.

  We’re going away this weekend—some secret destination Wayne has worked out. I expect he’s got some tremendous surprise lined up for me as part of it. Val has left a message on my answering machine saying to ring her urgently, but it’ll do when we get back. If she wants more money she’s not going to get it. You can overstep the bounds of friendship. And all she’s got to go on is just a look—and you can’t make evidence out of a look. It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m going to concentrate on wonderful Wayne and the surprise he’ll have waiting for me this weekend.

  HAPPY CHRISTMAS

  “The people I’m sorry for at Christmas are the ones with children,” said Crespin Fawkes, in a voice that penetrated to the farthest corners of The Wagon of Hay. “It must be dreadful for them.”

  He looked around his group of listeners from the corners of his bright little eyes, registering their appreciative chuckles. Then he took another sip of his vodka and tonic.

  “Think of it: the noise, the toy trumpets, the crackers and the computer games! Much more appropriate, one would have thought, as a celebration of the crucifixion!”

  This time the appreciation was more muted. The joke would have been better if he had left it alone. Crespin never had been able to leave a good thing alone.

  But they had all enjoyed the joke, and like all good jokes it went home to them. They all, in their way, faced a future when their Christmases would be alone. The Wagon of Hay was one of those pubs where what are today called the sexual minorities tended to congregate. Several of Crespin’s group were old boyfriends of his, or occasional partners, and most of the ones who weren’t were so because Crespin had very definite ideas about what he fancied and what he didn’t. Then there were Joan and Evelyn, who definitely had a relationship, but who enjoyed male company; and there was Patty, whom nobody could quite pin down.

  Still, the fact was that they were all, except Crespin, young or youngish. Almost all of them would in fact be going home to families for Christmas, however much they might profess boredom, reluctance or irritation. Joan, or Evelyn, would ring home and say: “Can I bring my flatmate?” and Mummy would say: “Of course, dear!” The others would go on their own, probably, bearing sophisticated presents from the metropolis. For three or four days they would be back in the bosoms of their families, cherished and chaste. When you got to Crespin’s age you didn’t have a family with a bosom to go back to, but that was something in the future for the rest of them. Crespin had always preferred to keep company with young people.

  “You’re not going down to your sister, then?” asked Gregory.

  “My dears, no!” said Crespin, with a theatrical shudder. “Not after last time. And to be perfectly frank, she didn’t ask me. She has teenage boys, and the fact is she doesn’t trust me with them, though last time I saw them they promised to be both pudgy and spotty, which is something I can’t abide. But a mother can’t see that her children are positively off-putting. And Priscilla’s house and grounds are positively country gentry, which is not me at all: you expect to see Mummers on Christmas Eve, all madly tugging at their forelocks and talking Thomas Hardy. ‘Thank ’ee koindly, squoire’—all that stuff. Oh dear, no. Not even for a twenty-pound turkey with all the trimmings would I betake myself to Priscilla’s. I much prefer my own company, and la cuisine de chez Marks et Sparks!”

  Once more there was a gratifying laugh. Crespin sat back in his seat, his performance over for a few minutes, as he let the younger ones take over. As their talk about who was going with whom washed over him (Crespin had had a lifetime of who was going with whom, had figured in it as often as not), he let his eye rove around the bar. There were the Chelsea locals—for there was a straight clientele as well—there were the blacks, the lesbians, the kinks and the rough trade—these last all friends of Crespin’s.

  And there, over by the bar, was a boy by himself. Boy? Young man? Somewhere on the border, Crespin judged him. He was eyeing the company speculatively—listening, absorbing. His shirt, dazzling white, looked as if it had been bought that day, but his cardigan, which he had taken off and draped over his arm, was pure home-knit, his jeans were chain-store, and his shoes might have been bought for him by his mother for his last year at school. There was about him an indefinable air of newly-up-from-the-country. As Crespin looked at that face, intently absorbing the ambience of The Wagon of Hay, it suddenly struck him that he’d seen it before, knew it, if only slightly—that somewhere or other he had come across this young man as a child.

  The young man’s eyes, roving around the bar, suddenly met his, and there seemed to Crespin to come into them a flash of recognition. Then he turned to the landlord and ordered a fresh half of lager. Crespin turned back to his friends. This was the last Saturday before Christmas. He wouldn’t see them again for quite a while, and the stimulus of their laughter and admiration would be missed. Crespin did need, more so as he got older, laughter and admiration. As for the young man—well, no doubt an opportunity would present itself. It so often did, Crespin found.

  In the event, it wasn’t so much opportunity that presented itself as the young man himself—“on a plate, as it were,” as Crespin said wonderingly to him. There was a ring on his doorbell on Christmas Eve, and there on t
he doormat he stood—dark-haired, thick-eyebrowed, strong-shouldered—altogether . . . capable. Crespin warmed to him at once, to the mere sight of him, and smiled his very friendliest smile.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me bothering you,” said the young man. “I saw you in the Wagon the other night, you see—”

  “And I saw you,” said Crespin.

  “And I saw you in the street the other day too—you didn’t see me—and I followed you here.”

  “Flattering,” said Crespin. “Almost invariably, nowadays, it’s the other way round.”

  “You see, I think I know you. Met you once or twice, years ago. And your picture’s on your sister’s piano. The boys are always saying: ‘That’s our uncle, who’s in television.’ ”

  “So much more distinguished than ‘who’s on television,’ though whether they appreciate that is another matter. Are you sure that’s all they say?”

  The boy smiled, twisting his mouth.

  “ ‘That’s our uncle, who’s queer and in television.’ ”

  “Exactly. Don’t bother with the censored version. But this leads to the delicious question of who you are.”

  “My father’s the gardener. I always used to help him, in the school holidays. That’s how I met you.”

  By now they were both in the hallway of Crespin’s awfully amusing flat, and quite naturally Crespin had removed the boy’s duffel coat and taken his inadequate scarf. They understood each other so well that no invitation, no pantomime of reluctance, hardly, even, any meaningful looks had been necessary. Quite soon the boy was sitting on the sofa, with Crespin in the armchair close beside him, and they were both clutching drinks and talking about anything but what Crespin really wanted to talk about, and the boy’s eyes were going everywhere. For all that there were slight traces of the bumpkin about him, Crespin decided at once that he was an awfully noticing boy. There was almost nothing in Crespin’s living room that escaped his wandering eye.