Collected Stories

by Beryl Bainbridge

  Agnes chose an inexpensive bracelet and stuffed it carelessly into her handbag. She said she was off to buy postcards. He offered to go with her but she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘You hate shopping,’ she said.

  He arranged to wait for her at a café in the square. She didn’t look back, which was a bad sign. He wasn’t at all sure that she hadn’t gone straight off to hire a cab to take her back to the hotel.

  Half an hour passed. He was sitting at a table at the edge of the cricket pitch, smoking his pipe, when a woman in a red dress sat down opposite him and slapped his wrist.

  ‘Good heavens,’ he cried, recognising the gesture if not the face.

  ‘I owe you some money,’ she said. ‘My share of the cab fare’, and though he protested, she insisted. She had also bought him a little present, because she had known she would bump into him sooner or later. She took an envelope from her handbag and gave it to him. Inside was a cardboard bookmark with a picture on it.

  ‘How very kind of you,’ Pinkerton said, and began to tremble.

  ‘It’s St John of Hiding,’ said the woman. ‘The saint of all those who carry a secret burden of hidden sin.’

  Before they parted she asked him how he was getting on with his lady friend. He admitted that it was pretty well all over between them.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ the woman said. ‘I’m sure you’re destined for higher things.’

  Agnes saw the bookmark by mistake. When they got back to the hotel and Pinkerton was looking for money to pay the cab fare, he inadvertently pulled it out of his pocket. ‘Why did you buy that?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a picture of a saint,’ he said. ‘A Greek one.’

  ‘It’s not very well drawn,’ she said. ‘One of the hands has got six fingers.’

  Alone in his room he took off his jacket and laid it on the bed beside the bookmark. Rubbing his arm he went out onto the balcony and watched the scarlet parachute blow across the sky.

  The next morning he told Agnes that he was leaving. He thought she looked relieved. He said that before he went he was determined to have one of those parachute rides.

  ‘Good God,’ she said. ‘I mustn’t miss this.’

  She went to the jetty with him and watched, grinning, while he was strapped into his harness. ‘Wonders will never cease,’ she called out, as he took off his shirt.

  He was instructed to hold on to the bar and break into a run when he felt the tug of the rope. When he was in the air he must hold on to the bar even though the harness would support him. He said he understood.

  The speedboat chugged in a half circle beyond the jetty, waiting for the signal to be given; then, accelerating, it roared out to sea. Pinkerton was jerked forward, and gasping he ran and jumped and was swung upwards, his mouth wide open and his heart thudding fit to burst. Then he was riding through the air, not floating as he had hoped, for he was still tethered to the boat. He felt cheated.

  The sudden and furious gust of wind that seized the rope in its giant fist and tore it, steel hook and all, from the funnel of the boat, was spent in an instant. Then Pinkerton, free as a bird, soared into the blue under the red umbrella of his parachute.

  Everything else that had happened to him, he thought, had a logical explanation; the nuns, the man who had come to his aid on the dark mountain, the woman and her choice of bookmark. Even the creature outside the aeroplane window had been nothing more than a reflection of the sunlight on the fuselage. Everything but that –

  And before he blew away he looked up at that luminous imprint of a six fingered hand which was stamped on the flesh of his arm.

  HELPFUL O’MALLEY

  O’Malley let the girl into the house and showed her the room on the second floor. He had put the card in the tobacconist’s window only that morning and already he had interviewed three people. Two had been career women and the third a young man who had laughed and joked all the way up the stairs. Neither the women nor the laughing boy had been right for the room. Of that O’Malley was sure.

  Mrs Darnley, who owned the property and had returned to Dublin because the taxes were killing her, trusted O’Malley implicitly in the matter of tenants. He had a flair for picking the right people – solvent people who could be relied upon to pay the rent into the bank every month regular as clockwork. People, what is more, who when they moved on left the place as they found it, or, more often than not, in an improved condition. Not that any of them had wanted to move on – at any rate none of those occupying the ground, first or upper floors. They all said that they had been very happy in the house, that they would never forget their time in it. But for getting married, taking a new job in another part of the country, or having an addition to the family, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged them from the place. It wasn’t an especially interesting-looking house: the plumbing needed overhauling, and keeping warm in the winter was always a problem. All the same, tenants grew attached to it, and many came back over the years, just to visit for half an hour or so, and sometimes they would spend the last five minutes standing in the front garden staring up at the windows, smiling at memories. There was still coloured glass in the fanlight above the door.

  The letting of the second floor, however, had always posed a problem. Finding the right person was a constant source of worry to O’Malley. No tenant ever stayed for very long on the second floor; several had moved on in the space of a few weeks, and certainly none of those was ever likely to come back.

  O’Malley had had the room redecorated three times in as many years, hoping to break some sort of pattern. He’d also taken it upon himself to choose a new bed, charging it to Mrs Darnley, and he had wanted to replace the old gas fire with an electric heater. Mrs Darnley had opposed the idea; she thought it would interfere with the character of the house. Besides, it would mean new meters. Perhaps he should lop off a few branches from the tree in the back garden, she had suggested, to make the room a little lighter, less gloomy in winter; but O’Malley had refused adamantly. He had spoken on the telephone to Mrs Darnley and told her he wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘I’m only talking about one branch,’ she had reasoned. ‘Two at the most. Never the whole tree.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he said, and in the circumstances she had let the matter drop. O’Malley wasn’t in Mrs Darnley’s employ. He was a tenant, not a caretaker. He looked after the house and Mrs Darnley’s interests because she no longer lived on the premises and he liked to be of use. He was helpful by nature.

  O’Malley wasn’t altogether sure that the girl was right for the room. Wasn’t she a little too self-possessed, a shade off-hand in the way she eyed the furniture, the new bed, the brand-new rug in front of the hearth? Didn’t that sort often feel the world owed them a living and in the end do a flit with the cutlery and the bed linen stuffed into a haversack? Of course, she could be putting it on. Usually he could tell by their eyes whether they were suitable or not, but this one was wearing dark glasses. He couldn’t tell a thing from her clothes. There were patches on her trousers and her shirt could have done with a wash. One of her shoes had a bit of string for a lace. But then, young Mrs Temple on the first floor wore jumpers with holes in them and she was the daughter of a baronet.

  ‘Will you have it?’ he asked, taking a gamble.

  ‘I might as well,’ the girl said. ‘I suppose you want a month in advance.’

  ‘That I do,’ he said, and she wrote him a cheque, signing it ‘Edith Carp’.

  ‘Why is it so cheap?’ she asked, standing beside the cooker and looking out at the tree. She reached up to pull down the window.

  ‘It’s nailed up,’ he told her. ‘It’s an old house and the frames don’t fit. We’re not out to make a fortune, simply to cover costs. You won’t find it easy to keep warm. There’s a meter in the cupboard under the sink. It fairly gobbles up the money.’

  ‘Is there anything else I should know?’ the girl asked. Her tone of voice sounded insolent, but then he couldn’t be sure, not without seeing her e
yes.

  ‘We shouldn’t like you to bring anyone back,’ he said. ‘Not for longer than the odd night or so. It’s not the morals we’re on about. The bathroom’s shared and it won’t run to a crowd.’

  ‘I won’t be bringing anyone back,’ said the girl. ‘Not even for an hour.’

  Then O’Malley knew that his instinct hadn’t failed him. Edith Carp was perfectly right for the room.

  He left her alone for the first week, as was his policy. People didn’t like being interrupted when they were busy changing the room to fit their personality. The girl before last had pulled down the curtains and hidden the engraving of the Death of Nelson under the bed, but he hadn’t known that until her departure. And the girl before her had tried to put up shelves, bringing down a quantity of plaster; even though he had heard the hammering he hadn’t knocked on her door until the week was out.

  Not that Edith Carp made any noise at all. She evidently didn’t own such a thing as a radio, and he was certain she hadn’t bothered to rent a television set. She couldn’t have brought with her more than two or three books at the most and he was at a loss to think how she spent her time, for though he couldn’t swear to it he didn’t believe she had been out of the house for more than a couple of hours since her arrival. Possibly she was sleeping. He didn’t like to dwell on the possibility that she might be on drugs. That sort of problem was beyond him and he wouldn’t be able to help her. Worse, she wouldn’t need his help.

  Edith Carp was so quiet that on the Thursday young Mrs Temple met O’Malley on the stairs and inquired whether he had managed to let the room.

  ‘That I have,’ he said.

  ‘To whom? What sort of person?’

  ‘A female,’ he replied. ‘Young and unemployed but with a bank balance. Her cheque has gone through.’

  ‘And is she – all right?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, and crossed himself.

  ‘Does she know? Did you tell her?’

  ‘That I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘It would hardly have been an inducement.’

  ‘Keep an eye on her,’ begged Mrs Temple.

  He assured her that he had every intention of doing so, and went on down the stairs to fetch the milk.

  Still, it was easier said than done, seeing that Edith Carp remained so much in her room. She didn’t pop out to borrow tea or sugar or the use of a bottle-opener, and though he waited she didn’t come to him for instruction on how to light the antiquated geyser in the bathroom.

  Twice he stood listening on the landing outside her room in the middle of the night. On neither occasion did he hear anything of significance, nothing that couldn’t be traced to the tapping of the tree against her window.

  Shortly after lunch on the Monday he knocked on her door. She was sitting on the rug in front of the gas fire. The fire was unlit and the room was freezing. She was wearing a coat over her dressing-gown, and had left off her glasses.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure,’ he said, ‘that you have two of everything – cups, plates – the requisite amount of forks.’

  ‘There’s only one of me,’ she said, listlessly.

  The room was untouched. There wasn’t a photograph on the mantelpiece or a poster on the wall. The bed hardly looked as though it had been slept in.

  ‘I’m giving myself a party on Friday,’ he said. ‘The other tenants have accepted. Would you consider coming yourself? Just for the odd ten minutes.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You don’t like the look of me.’ Raising his coat collar about his chin in an attempt to hide the livid birthmark which covered his face like a wrinkled rag, he left the room, closing the door meekly behind him.

  He didn’t doubt she would change her mind. Such a remark usually had an effect on women. First they experienced guilt, then pity; and later they felt resentful, which made them talkative. He couldn’t help them unless he could persuade them to talk. That girl two years ago, the one whose young man had thrown her over after he’d found out she’d had an abortion, had been even more unapproachable than Edith Carp, and yet she had come to his party. It was different with men, of course. If the subject was raised, they generally skipped pity and guilt and jumped immediately into resentment. With men who needed help he never alluded to his disfigurement.

  Edith Carp came to his room the following day. He was surprised at the quickness of her response. She wondered if she could ask him a favour? She wanted to move the wardrobe to the other side of the room and didn’t feel she could manage it on her own. He said he was always more than ready to lend a helping hand.

  Afterwards she insisted on making him a cup of instant coffee. He took his flask from his pocket and asked if she would like a small drop of whisky with her drink. She said she would. Neither of them imbibed all that much.

  She told him that she had rented the room to get away from her mother who was dying of cancer.

  He wasn’t sure it was the truth, but then he’d been wrong before and so kept an open mind.

  It was wrong of her, she said, but she hadn’t been able to stand it. ‘I can’t bear the way she looks any more,’ she complained, and turned red. He said he understood. All his life, when looked at, he had seen revulsion in people’s eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to go on living,’ she said. ‘I want to die now, not wait for something like cancer to catch up with me.’

  He said that was understandable too, though he himself wouldn’t have the courage. He had read only recently, he said, in some magazine or other, that cancer was probably a virus and could be caught as easily as the common cold. If one had been in contact, that is.

  ‘If you did have the courage,’ she asked. ‘How would you do it?’

  ‘It’s not something I’ve put my mind to,’ he told her. ‘Though I remember the time I had a tooth out with gas. It was a wonderful feeling, like falling from one mattress to another and every one of them filled with duck feathers. I didn’t want it to stop. The dentist had to slap my face to bring me back.’

  Edith Carp began to cry. He noticed that her eyes were small and carried the suggestion of a squint.

  Before he went back to his own room he showed her where the key to the gas meter was hidden. ‘It’s always kept under the strip of lino in the cupboard,’ he said. ‘Most people get out their money and use it all over again. I doubt if the box has been more than half full since the thing was put in. You don’t need to suffer from the cold. Mrs Darnley doesn’t need the money. She’s as rich as Croesus.’

  He thought probably she wouldn’t take advantage of the key for several days, possibly weeks. Not until her mother, if she still possessed one, had died and the room grew as cold as the grave. By then the excitement of the party would have been forgotten, the hopes of friendship dashed. All of the tenants lived very full lives and, beyond saying good morning to her as they passed her in the hall, would hardly be aware of her existence. He himself would lie low; he had done what he could.

  Young Mrs Temple smelt the gas on the landing less than a week later. Edith Carp had departed some time during the night. Mrs Temple took it badly.

  ‘We’re all to blame,’ she sobbed. After all, Miss Carp’s was the fifth death on the second floor, not the first. They could all have done so much more, tried that bit harder to put themselves in her place, alone in London without a job, without a friend in the world.

  ‘With the exception of you, Mr O’Malley,’ Mrs Temple amended, drying her eyes. ‘You were always very good to her.’

  ‘I did my best,’ he agreed modestly. ‘I don’t feel I could have helped her much further.’ And going into his room he put on his black tie and went out to order his usual flowers.

  UNCOLLECTED STORIES

  ERIC ON THE AGENDA

  My childhood friend rang at twelve o’clock. She said she was very well and that she had met such a nice man on the train up to Scotland and she had given him my address. She hoped it was all right. I hadn’t seen m
y friend for at least ten years so I couldn’t tell her she was rotten for giving my name to a perfect stranger.

  ‘Of course it’s all right, Anthea,’ I said. ‘And how are all the children?’

  ‘He’s a bit fat,’ said my friend. ‘But you were never superficial.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Eric. He wears a trilby hat … I thought at the time you and he had a lot in common.’

  At two o’clock the taxi arrived with my Mum. She stood on the pavement, nylon wig motionless, fox fur quivering in the sunlight. She laughed shrilly like some animal caught in a trap when I embraced her. I touched her frozen curls and buried my mouth in the soft fur at her neck. How we hugged each other, how we began sentences and never finished them, what a noise she made; how she teetered between the cracks in the flagstones of the tiny garden. She had painted her nails scarlet and she wore her serpent brooch and her pearls and her second-best watch. I carried her two suitcases inside and left them in the hall alongside the hat box in which she kept her Joyce Grenfell wig.

  ‘Don’t leave my cases there, dear,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  She was still laughing on that high prolonged note of joy, waving her plump little hands about, and I dragged her luggage into the front room where she could keep an eye on it. I knew what was in the cases. Three or four cocktail dresses and a ball gown or two. Shoes to match. Also bunches of cloth flowers, roses, and purple pansies with limp stitched leaves, a little gold safety pin at the back, ready to adorn her waist or breast or shoulder strap. The dresses – the midnight blue silk, the green satin with diamante bodice – would hang reproachfully from the picture rail in my living room, until it was time to pack them again. The sight of them filled me with despair, flaring out from the wall whenever I opened the door too quickly; the rustle of taffeta, the whisper of silk. When I switched on the electric light the glory of the bodice blinded me.