by Stan Barstow
'What do your parents do?'
Mummy paints and Daddy writes and keeps pigs.'
'An artistic background.'
'Apart from the pigs. They just make it possible.'
'My father's a miner.'
She smiles. 'Genuine Yorkshire working-class stock. It's money in the bank for an actor these days.'
'Why's that?'
'Haven't you noticed? Regional accents are in. It's what's being written.'
'About time too.'
'I'm not complaining. I'll have a go at "Eeh, by gum" along with the anything else.'
'Yes, you would, wouldn't you?' I say. 'You're like everybody else - you think we all walk about in cloth caps looking bloody gormless. Every house with a euphonium in the wardrobe and a whippet in the scullery.'
When I look at her I see she's laughing, her body shaking and her eyes dancing with amusement. I scowl, feeling embarrassed and wondering if she's taking the mickey.
'I'm sorry,' she says in a minute; 'but that was lovely; it really was.'
I have to smile to myself. 'Aye, all right. But it is time we had a few writers.'
'Do you know one called Wilf Cotton?'
'It rings a bell.'
'It should. He's from your part of the world and he's a miner's son, I believe.'
"That's right. He wrote a novel about the pits. Day after Day. I read it in paperback.'
'What did you think of it?'
'Bang on. That was the real genuine article.'
'We're doing the premiere of a new play of his for our next production.'
'Why is he having it done here?'
'I suppose somebody must have approached him. I believe he lives in the south now.'
I smile. 'There was a bird in a pub when I first came down. She said there'd be nobody left in Bradford before long.'
'Yes ... Have you done any flat- or house-hunting yet?'
'No, not seriously. I have a look in the local rag, see what's going. Prices are up down here.'
'Oh yes, the drift to the south-east is expensive. I wonder sometimes what the attraction is.'
'Well, with me I suppose I'd've stayed at home for the rest of my life; but I had a bit of a setback and when Albert turned up with the offer of this job I thought it'd be a chance for a change.'
'What about your wife?'
'Tell you the truth, Ingrid would stay in her own backyard for ever. But she'll be okay when she gets down here.'
'She isn't a foreign girl?'
'No. Her mother was mad on Ingrid Bergman.'
We share a look and a second's amusement at Ma Rothwell's expense.
'That's really making the grade in the profession,' Donna says.
'Yes, I reckon it is.'
'What about children?'
'No children.'
'That gives you more freedom.'
'Yes ... Anyway, there's no hurry. I'm still feeling my way around.'
'Do you think you will stay? I mean, do you like it down here?'
'Oh, I like it all right. I like it the more I see of it.'
I feel her steady gaze on me. She's not laughing now and her eyes fall away as I lift mine to her face.
'They're putting the towels on,' she says, nodding towards the bar.
'Yes... Time's flown.'
'It has. Thanks for asking me. I've enjoyed it. It's a change from the same old crowd. Even though I seem to have been talking shop most of the time.'
'Blame me for that. My further education.'
'All right.' She begins to gather her things, pulling the thin chiffon scarf close round her neck and buttoning her coat.
'When's the next lesson to be?'
'What?'
'I was thinking we might do it again.'
There's just the slightest hesitation before she says, 'Why not?'
Why not indeed? I'm thinking as we thread our way out. Where's the harm in having a drink with an attractive bird? Freedom, I was thinking about earlier on. At least I've got a bit of it down here. It'd be difficult if not downright impossible at home, with your face familiar to lots of people who might be ready to jump to conclusions and mind somebody else's business. At least here I can explore this thing, have a bit of pleasure without outside interference to throw it all out of joint.
So I think in my happy ignorance. What I don't know just then is that mischief can be made anywhere, if somebody's keen enough to make it.
12
The journey home is getting to be a bit of a bind. Even in daylight it's no feast of scenic splendour. The country in the middle, round Peterborough and Grantham, is pleasant but dull, and the bits at each end, North London and South Yorkshire, are dreary and depressing. But it's better than doing it in the dark as I mostly am now: home Friday night, back Sunday night; once a fortnight, which makes it pricey as well, costing me on average more than fifty bob a week.
But now I'm ready to do it a while longer,,long enough to try and get myself sorted out. Before, it was a question of getting settled in at the job, then bringing Ingrid down. Or was it ever as clear cut as that? No; I realize I was content to let things drift for a time, anyway; to let the change work on me for a while until I was ready to re-establish the status quo. Which I should have done readily enough, and probably before much longer, because I like a tidy, settled life. Now ... well, let it go. Don't think too much about it. Fine, if it wasn't impossible to stop asking yourself questions . .. What do you want with Donna? You're on the edge of falling in love with her. Suppose when you know her better you go right overboard? You've got no reason to think she could feel anything like that about you, have you? In fact, you've every cause to believe you're out of her league, that she can meet blokes more attractive and more interesting than you any day of the week. So there's a lot of useless agony. But if she did come back with something, what then? An affair? How could you get away with that once Ingrid got down here? And you don't approve of affairs at the bottom of you, do you? You think that messing around like that is wasteful and sad; because you believe in marriage. But it wouldn't be that kind of affair, would it? Not just a chance for a bit on the side. Oh, no. It wouldn't be like that because what you see as marriage is a man and a woman who are everything to each other. Voluntary, with no resentment. And yours isn't like that so maybe you could cheat for a better feeling. And maybe, because your marriage was never like that, you've always left an escape clause there in your mind; at the back, not much thought about, but there all the time. You could leave Ingrid. Who's to stop you? Oh, she loves you; but somebody always gets hurt in situations like this. That's life. And another thing, don't forget you've had this feeling before, mate. You had it with Ingrid and found it was just the old randy urge hidden under a lot of romantic moonshine. Only you couldn't leave it alone. How do you know this isn't the same? And how are you going to find out without doing damage? You don't know. You only know you've been married for nearly four years and you're still bloody lonely. That's the top and bottom of it. She's a good kid; she loves you and you're fond of her in a way and you have some good times together. But she bores you. You've got a growing sense of the world and riches you might reach out and touch; and she doesn't even know why you've stretched your arm out.
There's a nice surprise waiting for me when I get home: a letter from Mr Van Huytens' solicitors saying they've wound up his estate and enclosing a cheque for five hundred pounds, his bequest to me under his will.
'Ey, Ingrid, look at this! Five hundred wonderful smackeroos.'
She glances at the cheque in my hand. A big pink cheque that would be just as big and just as pink if it was for thirty-five bob or thirteen and six.
'I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever get it,' she says.
'Oh, I knew it'd turn up eventually. Lawyers take their time over these things. Pity, in a way, they don't send cash. Five hundred new one-pound notes. You could count them and really feel you'd got something . .. Five hundred quid, though. You'd better see it gets into the bank.'
> 'They'll be open tomorrow morning; you could put it in yourself.'
'Yeh, I suppose I could. In fact, I will. "I'd, er, just like to deposit this small cheque." Proper distant bastards, some of these bank clerks. Anybody'd think it was all their own money the way they turn their noses up.'
'Are you going to open a new account?'
'No, why?'
'I thought you might want to. You've never had so much money before.'
'It can go into the joint, along with the three pound ten we've already got in.'
'A hundred and four, actually.'
'Have we got so much?'
'Well, I try to put a bit in regularly.'
'Six hundred and four quid. Very nice. Very nice indeed.'
'I just wondered. I thought you might want to keep it separate. I mean, it's not money we've both earned. It was left to you. It's yours.'
'It belongs to both of us, like everything else. And we shall have to watch we don't start dipping into it. We keep it whole for when we need it.'
'You mean for a house?'
'Yeh. When we're ready.'
She says nothing to this but walks away from me and into the kitchen.
You don't live close to somebody for years without being able to sense their moods, and I'm thinking now that Ingrid has been a bit odd in her manner ever since I came in. I follow her and stand in the kitchen doorway, watching as she puts a pan of milk on the stove and gets cups and saucers and plates out for supper.
'Are you all right, Ingrid?'
'Yes.'
'There's nothing wrong, is there?'
'No.'
It's funny how my feeling for Donna makes me more tender towards Ingrid.
'How's your mother?'
Quite well in herself, really. She's a bit scared about going into hospital, though.'
'She'll be all right.'
'It's not a little operation, y'know. It knocks you up.'
'Yeh, I expect it does. Has she heard any more about it?'
'No. She's expecting to hear any day. She spends her time watching for the post. That's what's getting her down.'
She moves about, talking quite naturally, as she does what she has to do. But she's avoiding looking me in the face. There's something wrong and my conscience isn't clear enough for me to press her to tell me what it is. Maybe I've offended her in some way I don't know about. Women are funny like that. Perhaps she's seen my mother and they've had a difference of opinion about something. That's very possible. I go back into the living-room and sit down with the paper, feeling uneasy.
She gives me no reason to throw off the feeling all through Saturday and into evening. It could be my imagination, I think at one point; she's just feeling quiet. But somehow I'm sure there's something else.
Saturday night we go to the pictures in town and when we come out I suggest going for a drink. She's not enthusiastic.
'Oh, do you really want to?'
'Well, just an odd one,' I say.' Come on, we've just got nice time.'
She lets me take her into a decent pub I know near the cinema. We hardly ever go into pubs together. In fact, I can't remember the last time and I don't even know what she'll want to drink until she hesitates for a second then asks for a lime and lemon.
I try to chivvy her a bit. 'You'll not get going on that.'
'I don't like beer or spirits,' she says.
I get the drinks and she watches me take the top off my pint.
'You were ready for that.'
'Aye. It's a drop of good stuff. Puts hair on your chest and lead in your pencil.'
'You seem to be getting a proper taste for it.'
'Oh, come on, Ingrid. I'm not a soak.'
'But you drink more than you used to, don't you?'
'I suppose I do. There's not much to do down there except go out for a pint.'
Who do you go with?'
'Oh, Albert mostly. He was always partial to his ale.'
'Haven't you made any other friends?'
'I've met a few people through Albert,' I tell her, thinking: careful now, watch it. 'A few of the local rep., the theatre crowd, come into the pub sometimes. They're a nice lively lot.'
Isn't that Ken Rawlinson over there, trying to catch your eye?'
I half turn my head, then hold it. 'You're sure he's seen me?'
'He keeps looking over here. I think it's him. He's got a moustache.'
'I'm not surprised. Who's he with?'
'A girl. I don't know her. Why don't you turn round and look?'
I don't feel like getting involved. I never did care much for him.'
'You can't be rude. He knows I've seen him.'
'Has he acknowledged you?'
'Yes, just now. He nodded and smiled.'
'Ah, well ...'
I twist my head round and see Rawly sitting on the far side of the room, with a smart-looking fair-haired bit. I don't know if she's the bird he once brought to Whittaker's Staff Dance but she's the same type, Rawly's type: blonde, middle-class, snooty-looking. He sees me looking and we exchange little waves and grimaces that pass for smiles, but there's no compulsion on either side to rush over and start swapping notes. Rawly the culture-vulture, given to superior name-dropping about books and music, when he didn't know the difference between a piano concerto and a sonata for one-string fiddle, or his arse from his elbow, if it came right down to it. I haven't seen him in years. He belongs to the days at Dawson Whittaker's, along with Miller and Hassop, Althorpe, Whymper, young Laisterdyke and the rest. The days when I was free, white and not yet twenty-one; when Ingrid was a tempting little bit in the typing-pool who I could see or leave alone as the fancy took me. The town you were brought up in is full of associations like this; with all your past life lying in wait for you in the streets you walk along and the people you run into. , ' I think the moustache suits him,' Ingrid says.
'Do you find him attractive?'
'Well, he's not really my type.'
'I don't see how anybody could really go for him. He's such a bloody phoney I've all on just talking to him.'
'What was it you used to say about him?'
'I've said a few things.'
'Something about him having ten bob each way on himself.'
'Aye. It'll be a quid now, though. The cost of living's gone up.'
We laugh together.
Oh, she's all right, I think. It was just my imagination. If only she'd have a proper drink, that would really relax her.
'What about a sherry or something? That stuff'll chill your insides this weather.'
She shakes her head. 'No, thanks. I'm ready to go when you are. You have another drink, though, if you want one.'
'No. I'm not bothered.'
Going up out of town on the bus I feel this strange gap widen between us again, but I make up my mind not to mention it; to act as though I haven't noticed anything. There's a light on in Chris's and David's window and as we go into the hall I ask Ingrid if she fancies going upstairs to have half an hour with them, but she says no, she'd rather go straight in.
I break the fire up, getting a good blaze going, and take my overcoat off. Then I find the morning paper and look to see what's on television. I'm just going across to the set when Ingrid, who's put her coat over a chair and is standing gazing into the fire, says over her shoulder :
'Don't switch that on just now.'
I stop in my tracks and look at her gone out.
'Why, what's up?'
She says nothing.
'Ingrid .. .' I try a laugh. What the hell is up with her? 'Look, there's a programme I want to see.'
'It can wait.' She reaches out for her handbag. 'There's something I want to show you.'
I watch her as she opens her bag and takes an envelope out.
'Here.'
I take it from her and turn it over. It's addressed to Mrs V. Brown, in typewriting, and there's a London postmark.
'What is it?'
'Look at it and see.'
I take
the single sheet of notepaper out and unfold it.
Typewritten again, and no sender's address. My guts suddenly contract as a name jumps out at me from the page.
'Dear Mrs Brown, You should keep an eye on your husband. Ask him about a woman called Donna Pennyman he knows in Longford. She is an actress. You do not know me but I thought you should know about this. A friend.'
I just look at it, reading it quickly, over and over again, my guts churning and my heart pounding.
Ingrid's turned to face me, a curious almost defiant glitter in her eyes and two spots of colour on her cheekbones.
'Well?'
'Christ! How can anybody? ...'
'What have you got to say about it?'
'The filthy bastard ... or bitch ... Isn't it women who usually write anonymous letters?'
'I'm not bothered about who wrote it just now. I want to know if it's true.'
I don't like her tone - straight, blunt, ready to believe the worst on the strength of this.
'How d'you mean, is it true? If you mean do I know somebody called Donna Pennyman, yes I do.'
'Who is she?'
'She's one of the theatre crowd I was telling you about.'