by Sarah Waters
As she opened her door he reached for her again. He’d put his hand into a pocket in the dashboard and was bringing something out. It turned out to be two tins of meat: one beef, and one pork.
She was so distracted, she started to take them. She opened her bag to put them away. But then something seemed to give way inside her, and she was suddenly furious. She pushed them back at him. ‘I don’t want them!’ she said. ‘Take them—Give them to your wife!’
The tins fell, and bounced from the seat. ‘Viv!’ said Reggie, astonished, hurt. ‘Don’t be like that! What have I done? What the hell’s the matter? Viv!’
She got out, closed the door, and walked away. He leant across the seat and wound down the window, still calling her name—still saying, in amazement, ‘What’s the matter? What have I done? What—?’ Then his voice began to grow hard—not so much, she thought, with anger, as with simple weariness. ‘What the hell have I done, now?’
She didn’t look back. She turned a corner, and the words faded. After that he must have started the engine again and driven off. She joined a queue at a bus-stop, and waited ten minutes for a bus; and he didn’t come after her.
When she got home, she found the flat full of people. Her sister Pamela had come round, with her husband, Howard, and their three little boys. They’d come to bring Viv’s father some tea. Pamela had warmed it up on the stove, and the narrow kitchen was stuffy and hot. There was washing draped on the laundry rack, hoisted up but dangling almost to the floor; Pamela must have done that, too. The wireless was on full blast. Howard was sitting on the kitchen table. The two eldest boys were charging about, and Viv’s father had the baby in his lap.
‘Nice day?’ asked Pamela. She was drying her hands, working the towel into the creases between her fingers. She looked Viv over. ‘You’ve caught the sun. All right for some.’
Viv went to the sink and peered into her father’s shaving mirror. Her face was pink and white, blotchy. She drew forward her hair. ‘It was hot,’ she said. ‘Hello, Dad.’
‘All right, love? How was your picnic?’
‘It was OK. How’s things, Howard?’
‘All right, Viv. Doing our best, aren’t we? How d’you like this weather? I tell you—’
Howard could never stop talking. The two boys were the same. They had things to show her: noisy little pop-guns; they put in the corks and fired them off. Her father followed the words on everybody’s mouths—nodding, smiling, moving his own lips slightly; for he was awfully deaf. The baby was struggling in his arms, reaching for the pop-guns, wanting to get down. When Viv drew close her father held him out to her, glad to give him up. ‘He wants you, love.’
But she shook her head. ‘He’s too big, that one. He weighs a ton.’
‘Give him here,’ said Pamela. ‘Maurice—Howard, don’t just bloody well sit there!’
The racket was terrible. Viv said she was going to go and take her shoes and stockings off. She went into her bedroom and closed the door.
For a second she just stood, not knowing what to do with herself—thinking that she might start crying, be ill…But she couldn’t start crying with her dad and her sister in the other room. She sat on the bed, then lay down with her hands on her stomach; lying down, however, made her feel worse. She sat up again. She got to her feet. She couldn’t shake off the shock of it, the upset of it.
Hush, Vivien.
She took a step, then tilted her head, hearing a noise above the muffled din of the radio, thinking it might be Pamela or one of the boys, in the hall. But the noise turned out to be nothing. She stood undecided for almost a minute, biting her hand.
Then she went quickly to her wardrobe and drew back its door.
The wardrobe was filled with bits of rubbish. There were some of Duncan’s old school-clothes there, hanging up beside her dresses; there were even two or three ancient frocks of her mother’s, which her father had never wanted to throw away. Above the rail was a shelf, where she kept her sweaters. Behind the sweaters were photograph albums, old autograph books, old diaries, things like that.
She tilted her head, listening again for footsteps in the hall; then she reached into the shadows behind the albums and brought out a little tobacco tin. She brought it out as naturally as if she reached for it every day, when in fact she’d placed it there three years before and hadn’t looked at it since. She’d pressed the lid down very tightly then, and now the joints in her wrists and fingers felt weak. She had to get a coin, and prise away at it with that. And when the lid was loosened she hesitated again—still listening out, anxiously, in case someone should come.
Then she drew the lid off.
Inside the tin was a small parcel of cloth. Inside the parcel of cloth was a ring: a plain gold ring, quite aged, and marked with dents and little scratches. She took it up, held it for a second in the palm of her hand, then slipped it on her finger and covered her eyes.
At ten to six, when the men who ran the candle-making machines turned off the pumps, the sudden silence in the factory made your ears ring. It was like coming out of water. The girls at Duncan’s bench took it as a signal to start getting ready to go home: they got out their lipsticks and their compacts and things like that. The older women started rolling cigarettes. Len took a comb from his trouser pocket and ran it through his hair. He wore his hair a bit spivvily, swept back behind his ears. When he put the comb away he caught Duncan’s eye, and leant forward.
‘Have a guess what I’ll be doing tonight,’ he said, with a glance down the bench. He lowered his voice. ‘I’m taking a girl to Wimbledon Common. She’s stacked like this.’ He gestured with his hands, then rolled his eyes and gave a whistle. ‘Oh, mama! She’s seventeen. She’s got a sister, too. The sister’s a looker, but got less up top. What do you think? You doing anything tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ said Duncan.
‘Want to come along? The sister’s a heart-throb, I’m telling you. What kind do you like? I know loads of girls. Big ones, little ones. I could fix you up, like that!’ Len snapped his fingers.
Duncan didn’t know what to say. He tried to picture a crowd of girls. But each one was like the little figure of wax that Len had made earlier, with curves and juts and waving hair, and a rough blank face. He shook his head, beginning to smile.
Len looked disgusted. ‘You’re missing out, I swear to God. This girl’s a stunner. She’s got a bloke, but he’s in the army. She’s used to doing it regular and she’s feeling the pinch. I tell you, if the sister wasn’t so friendly I’d be after her myself—’
He went on like that until the factory whistle sounded; then, ‘Well, it’s your funeral,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘You think of me, that’s all, at ten o’clock tonight!’ He gave Duncan a wink of his brown gypsy eye, then hurried away—lurching a little from side to side, like a stout old lady; for his left leg was short, and fused at the knee.
The girls and the women went off quickly, too. They called goodbye as they went: ‘Ta ta, Duncan!’ ‘So long, love!’ ‘See you Monday, Duncan!’
Duncan nodded. He couldn’t bear the mood of the factory at this time of the day—the forced, wild jollity, the dash for the exit. Saturday nights were worst of all. Some people actually ran, to be first out through the gates. The men who had cycles made a sort of race of it: the yard, for ten or fifteen minutes, was like a sink with its plug pulled. He always found a reason to linger or dawdle. Tonight he got a broom, and swept up the parings of wax and the cuttings of wick from the floor beneath his stool. Then he walked very slowly to the locker-room and got his jacket; he visited the lavatory and combed his hair. When he went outside he’d taken so long, the yard was almost deserted: he stood for a moment on the step, getting used to the feel of space and the change of temperature. The Candle Room was kept cool because of the wax, but the evening was warm. The sun was sinking in the sky, and he had a vague, unhappy sense that time had passed—real time, proper time, not factory time—and he had missed out on it.
H
e had just put down his head and started to make his way across the yard when he heard his name called: ‘Pearce! Hi, Pearce!’ He looked up—his heart giving a thump inside his chest, because he’d already recognised the voice, but couldn’t believe it. Robert Fraser was there, at the gate. He looked as though he’d just come running up. He was hatless, as Duncan was. His face was pink, and he was smoothing back his hair.
Duncan quickened his pace and went over to him. His heart was still lurching about. He said, ‘What are you doing here? Have you been here all afternoon?’
‘I came back,’ said Fraser breathlessly. ‘I thought I’d missed you! I heard the whistle go when I was still three streets away. You don’t mind? After I’d gone this morning I thought how crazy it was, that you were here and—Well. Do you have an hour? I thought we could go for a drink. I know a pub, right on the river.’
‘A pub?’ said Duncan.
Fraser laughed, seeing his expression. ‘Yes. Why not?’
Duncan hadn’t been to a pub in ages, and the thought of going inside one now, with Fraser—of sitting at a table at Fraser’s side, drinking beer, like a regular chap—was tremendously exciting, but alarming, too. He was thinking, as well, of Mr Mundy, who would be waiting for him at home. He pictured the table set for tea: the knives and forks put neatly out, the salt and pepper, the mustard already mixed in its pot…
Fraser must have seen the look of indecision in his face. He said, as if disappointed, ‘You’ve got other plans. Well, never mind. It was just a chance. Which way are you going? I could walk with you—’
‘No,’ said Duncan quickly. ‘It’s all right. If it’s just for an hour—’
Fraser clapped him on the arm. ‘Good man!’
He led Duncan south, towards Shepherd’s Bush Green: the opposite direction to the one that Duncan would normally have taken. He walked loosely, easily, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders back, and now and then he jerked his head to keep the hair out of his eyes. His hair seemed very fair with the evening sunlight on it; his face was still pink and lightly sweating. When they’d picked their way through the worst of the traffic he got out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck, saying, ‘I need a drink! I need several drinks, in fact. I’ve been out at Ealing since two o’clock, putting together a humorous piece on pig farming. My photographer spent more than an hour trying to coax a whimsical expression out of a sow. I tell you, Pearce, the next time I see a pig it had better be on a plate and have sage and onion coming out of its ears.’
He kept talking as they walked. He told Duncan about some of the other writing jobs he’d recently been sent on: a beautiful-baby competition; a haunted house. Duncan listened just closely enough to be able to nod and laugh when he was meant to. The rest of the time he was looking Fraser over, getting used to the amazing sight of him on a street, in ordinary clothes. But Fraser must have been doing something similar, for after a while he stopped talking and caught Duncan’s eye, looking almost rueful.
‘This is bloody queer, isn’t it? I keep expecting Chase or Garnish to appear and start barking at us. “Keep in!” “Fall back!” “Stand to your doors!” I saw Eric Wainwright last year. You remember him? He saw me, too, I know he did—but cut me dead. He was in Piccadilly, with some awful tart of a girl. I ran into that prig Dennis Watling, too, a couple of months ago, at a political meeting. He was going on about prison at the top of his voice—as if he’d spent twelve years there, instead of twelve months. I think he was sorry to see me turn up. I think he thought I stole his thunder.’
They were passing through Hammersmith now, crossing cheerless residential streets; soon, however, at Fraser’s direction, they made a turn. The feel of the area began to change. The houses were replaced, here and there, by bigger buildings, warehouses and works; the air smelt sourer, dark and vinegary. The dirt surface of the road fell away, exposing cobbles, and the cobbles were slippery, as if with grease. Duncan didn’t know this area at all. Fraser stepped on, in his confident way, and he had to hurry to keep up. He suddenly felt almost nervous. What on earth am I doing here? he thought. He looked at Fraser and saw a stranger. The preposterous idea came to him that Fraser might be mad; that he might have lured Duncan here and be meaning to kill him. He didn’t know why Fraser would want to do such a thing, but his mind ran on with the idea, extravagantly. He pictured his own body, strangled or stabbed. He wondered who might find it. He thought of his father and Viv being visited by policemen; being told that he had been found in this queer place, and never knowing why.
Then all at once they turned again and emerged from shadow, and were at the river. Here was the pub that Fraser had been making for: a wooden, wonderfully quaint-looking building that made Duncan think, at once, of Dickens, of Oliver Twist. He was enchanted with it. He forgot all his anxiety about being stabbed or strangled. He stopped, put his hand on Fraser’s arm, and said, ‘But, it’s lovely!’
‘You think so?’ said Fraser, grinning at him again. ‘I thought you’d like it. The beer’s not bad, either. Come on.’ He led Duncan through the narrow, crooked little doorway.
Inside, the place was not quite so charming as its exterior promised; it had been done up like an ordinary public bar, and there were nonsensical things on the walls, horse-brasses and warming-pans and bellows. It was also, already, at half-past six, rather crowded. Fraser pushed his way to the bar and bought a four-pint jug of beer. He gestured to doors at the back of the room, which opened on a pier, overlooking the river; but the pier was busier, even, than the bar. He and Duncan turned around and made their way back through the crush of people and went out again to the street. There was a set of river-stairs there. Fraser stood at the top and looked over. There was plenty of room, he said, down on the beach. ‘The tide’s right out. It’s perfect. Come on.’
They climbed down the steps, going carefully because of the jug of beer and the glasses. The beach was muddy, but the mud had had the afternoon sun on it and was more or less dry. Fraser found a spot at the base of the wall: he took off his jacket and spread it out, and the two of them sat on it, side by side, their shoulders almost touching. The wall was warm, and tarnished by the Thames: you could see very clearly the line, about six feet up, where the greenish stain of the water gave way to the grey of permanently exposed stone. But the tide, at the moment, was low; the river looked narrow—absurdly narrow, as if you could very easily just nip across, on tiptoe, from this side to the other. Duncan screwed up his eyes, making the view grow blurry; imagining for a moment the water rushing in, swallowing him up. The wall was warm against his back, and he could just feel the nudging of Fraser’s arm against his own, as Fraser undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.
Fraser poured out beer. ‘Here’s yours,’ he said, lifting his glass. He drained it in three or four gulps, then wiped his mouth. ‘Christ! That’s better, isn’t it?’ He poured out more, and drank again.
Then he put his hand into his pocket and drew out a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. As Duncan watched, he began the business of filling the pipe up—teasing out strands of tobacco with his long brown fingers, then thumbing them firmly into the bowl. He caught Duncan’s eye, and smiled. ‘A bit different to the old days, eh? It’s the first thing I bought when I got out.’ He put the stem of the pipe to his mouth, then struck a match and held the flame of it to the bowl; his throat tightened as he sucked, and his cheeks went in and out, in and out—like the sides, Duncan thought, of a hot-water bottle; or, if you wanted to be more romantic about it, like a Spanish wineskin. He watched the bluish smoke rise up from Fraser’s mouth and be snatched away by breezes.
For a while they just sat, drinking their beer—shading their eyes to look at the sun, which seemed fantastically pink and swollen in the late summer sky. The heat of it brought out the stink of the river and the beach, but it was hard to mind that in a place like this; there was too much glamour to the scene. Duncan thought of sailors, smugglers, lightermen, jolly jack tars…Fraser laughed. ‘Look
at those lads,’ he said.
A group of boys had appeared, further along the beach. They had taken off their shirts, their shoes and socks, rolled up their trousers, and were running to the water. They ran in that shrinking, girlish way that even grown-up men must run across pointed stones; and when they reached the river they began to splash and lark about. They were young—much younger than Duncan and Fraser, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Their hands and feet were too big for their bodies, which were all very slender and slight. They looked as though they had too much life in them, that the life was rushing about inside them, giving them awkward angles and tilts.
The people drinking out on the pier at the back of the pub had seen the boys, too, and started to call encouragement. The boys began to splash mud instead of water; one fell right in, and emerged quite black, like a thing of clay—like some sinister sort of mannequin, meant to be paraded about the streets. He waded further out, then plunged head first into the water and came up clean again, shaking the river from his hair.
Fraser laughed and leant forward. He put his hand to his mouth and cheered, like the people on the pier. He seemed as full of life as the boys themselves, his bare lower arms very tanned, his long hair bouncing about his brow.
After a minute he sat back, smiling. He drew on his pipe again, then struck another match and held it to the bowl, cradling the flame. But he looked at Duncan as he did it, from beneath his slightly lowered brows; and as soon as the tobacco was properly relit and the match shaken out, he took the pipe from his lips and said, ‘Wasn’t it odd, my running into you at the factory like that?’
Duncan’s heart sank. He didn’t answer. Fraser went on, ‘I’ve been thinking about it all day. It’s just, not at all the sort of place I’d have expected to find you working.’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Duncan, lifting his glass.
‘Of course it isn’t! Doing work like that, amongst people like that? The place is only one step up from a charity, isn’t it? How can you stand it?’