by Angus Wilson
“The atmosphere isn’t right.” Miss Bulrner reminded Sylvia of that Mrs. Maugham who’d been a medium at Clovelly. “Your mother’s tired. She isn’t finding this fun and that of course is fatal to the answers. You aren’t finding it fun, are you?”
Sylvia could think of no answer but friendly laughter. It came out as a snigger.
“We aren’t doing this just for fun, Mother, you know.”
“Goodbye,” Sally Bulmer’s face came very close, “and remember my careful indiscretions.”
“Goodbye,” Sylvia answered, “but it’s really true, you know, I’m a nobody. I always have been.”
When Miss Buhner had gone, Sylvia found herself alone with Harold.
“She’s a quaint one, isn’t she, dear?”
“Oh Sally’s a bit of a crank. But that shouldn’t be held against her. After all most people think of Beth and me as specimens of the family Crankidae.” Perhaps to wash down the pill, he asked, “What about a last quiet nightcap in my study?”
They sat for some minutes in silence with their whiskies. “My friends gave you a good welcome, Mother.”
“Indeed they did, it was a lovely party. I only hope I was useful.”
Harold said nothing for over a minute, then he spoke in a faraway voice. “Parties aren’t the same without Beth.”
At last the moment had come. Sylvia thrust aside all her tiredness and a slight sense of deflation. “Of course they can’t be, dear. I know how much you must miss her. I’ve wanted to talk to you about it, or rather to let you talk to me.”
Again Harold was silent, then in a low but violent voice, he said. “I ache for her so at night!”
Sylvia sat dazed at the statement. Harold rose. “Well. I shall be off to bed. The old man was a great success. He’s quite a citizen of Carshall now. Goodnight, Mother.”
They’d had their intimate talk and Sylvia felt exhausted. She went up to the bedroom. Arthur was in bed snoring loudly. As she saw the Ilfracombe sketches piled against the wall, Muriel Bartley’s voice screamed, “If only he’d killed the old girl!” But it couldn’t be—her Miss Priest was independent and not old. She felt stifled suddenly and took off her dress. She then stood looking out of the window. The moon above the bare sycamores was at its full. As far away as she could see the country stretched, empty and lifeless. A lorry rattled in the distance. She strained her ears to listen until the friendly sound finally died away. Although she was shivering she could not leave off staring at the black emptiness of the Midland hills, when suddenly Arthur’s snoring seemed to creak and clatter in his chest. She was intent at once. She knew the sound so well. He was in for one of his bad bronchial attacks. She turned almost eagerly back into the room. A period of busy, familiar nursing was ahead of her.
CHAPTER FOUR
New Year New Town New Life
“THEY don’t need to bring the Crazy Gang back, do they? Not with these two,” Renee Cranston whispered to Sylvia. And certainly Arthur and Mr. Tucker had the whole bus shelter in fits. It was the same each morning. The more her father was scored off to the delight of those waiting for the bus, the more Renee Cranston laughed. It made Sylvia turn hot and cold. She said, “I shan’t see you off tomorrow, Arthur. You’re well enough to manage the bus yourself now.”
“That’s right. Leave your old pot and pan to sink or swim.”
“Now that’s not fair, Captain Calvert.” Renee was stern. “After Mrs. Calvert’s been nursing you all these weeks.” She addressed the general crowd. “Pneumonia! Gassed in the first war! He jolly near popped the hooks. If it hadn’t been for her nursing, the doctor says . . . And she’s not well either. It’s the blood pressure with you, isn’t it?” The bystanders clicked their tongues. Something like this happened every morning too. Sylvia, blushing scarlet, decided that cost her what it might, she would give up shopping in Melling and go each day into Town Centre.
“The temperature of the blood is 98.6,” old Mr. Tucker said, “that’s only human, mind. Fish are a very different kettle of fish.” As nobody laughed, Sylvia’s laughter sounded loud and hollow.
“Dad knows everything,” Renee Cranston winked.
“Temperature of the blood!” Arthur joined in. “What’s the use of that sort of knowledge, you miserable old devil? Now if you knew what was going to win the 2.30 at Windsor, there might be some use to you.”
Mr. Tucker looked serious. “That’s not knowledge. That’s prediction, Arthur. Mind you, up to a point you can make a scientific forecast, even in racing. If you know the horses’ previous form, that is.”
“If they knew your form, Stanley, the odds ‘d be about two hundred to one against.”
Everyone laughed; and, as usual, Mr. Tucker laughed obediently after them, which brought about a second peal of laughter all round.
But now the bus had arrived and the two old men were hoisted on to the step.
“They look a couple of proper charlies,” Renee said. And really Sylvia had to smile at the sight of them side by side on the lower deck—two white faces, with red blobs for noses, identical grey wool mufflers and dark overcoats. Mr. Tucker had a greenish cap, and Arthur his sandy one. Perhaps it was Arthur’s ashplant that made him look so much the grander figure of the two. Indeed he had once been an officer and a hotel proprietor; whereas old Tucker’s feet had kept him at home in ‘16 and then he’d been a commissionaire or messenger or somebody who stood about in the City.
“Best foot forward, Mrs. Calvert.” And, true enough, once out of the bus shelter you could tell it was still only February, even though the weather had turned mild. But best foot forward or no, Sylvia saw that Mrs. Cranston had often to slow down her pace for her; after all, what age was Renee Cranston—thirty-five?— and as lively as a cheeky cockney starling. How Sylvia longed to suggest that each should do her own shopping on her own! Mrs. Cranston had so much more shopping to do. She bought almost everything for her family at the Melling self-service store—they seemed to live on tinned stuff and breakfast foods; whereas Sylvia only had a few items to get—eggs, oranges, bacon—all the rest the boys brought back in the evening from the Continental grocers in Town Centre. Then Renee Cranston knew all the customers and shop assistants and liked to have a bit of a natter with them, even at the self-service store, where you’d think the dead-pan faces of the girls serving would have told anyone that they didn’t want to talk.
“Washes whitest of whitest, does it?” she said today, “Well, that’s too posh for us.” And when the smudgy black eyebrows rose a fraction in the chalk-white face and the near white lips parted to express boredom, she still went on, “Oh, I know that stuff, it turns your hands into water lilies. I’d like to see Jack’s face if all I could put round his neck was a couple of water lilies.” The white face was turned away from them and they were presented with the swept-up back of a blonde bouffant. “Miss! If you please, Miss!” Renee was not to be easily defeated. But the girl only half turned and with a long opalescent fingernail indicated one of the wire baskets. “Use the container, please,” she said, as though Renee Cranston was about to be sick on the floor.
It was no different at the greengrocer’s (one of Geoff Hartley’s chain), or rather only a different tune, for here all was jolly exchange with the young chap that sold the fruit. “Tangerine, tangerine,” Renee sang gaily, “tastes delicious and so clean, if it’s”—she opened her arms wide like the little puppet Tangegirl on the tele—”TAN-GE-RINE,” the young man shouted in reply. They both laughed.
“Renee’s my name, you know, so it fits ever so well.”
Sylvia felt herself a dreary wet blanket not joining in the fun. But, after all, everybody knew the commercials if they all started singing in public. . . . Her ankles, too, ached so with all this dawdling; the doctor had particularly warned her against standing. It was all such a disappointment. After years of ordering by telephone, one of the things she’d really looked forward to had been pottering around the shops. What made it so silly was that she felt sure Renee
Cranston, a woman young enough to be her daughter, only accompanied her out of kindness. But there it was, they were friends of Harold and they’d been so good to Arthur.
“Ready for elevenses?” They came out of the greengrocer’s to the dead brown grass and leafless ornamental cherry trees that decorated Melling shopping centre in winter.
It had happened for more than a week now—this daily coffee chat at Renee’s house. Sylvia did not know how she could face any more sessions, trying to find things to talk about, for in her own home Renee became quite passive and silent.
Once again: “You come back to ‘The Sycamores’ this time.” But as usual Renee refused.
“I must be at home to have everything ready when they come back for dinner. I don’t believe in kids getting back to an empty house. That’s why Jack won’t let me go back to the office. Not that we need the money.”
Sylvia, remembering how Harold admired Renee for this, felt ashamed to have tried to lure her away. In desperation, “Why don’t we go to the coffee bar? Harold recommended that when I arrived. He said it would save me going all the way to the Town Centre.”
“The coffee bar?” Renee giggled. “Oh, I don’t think that’d do. It’s all teenagers and ton-ups there, and sometimes even lorry drivers. Look,” she led Sylvia to the lilac-painted doorway. The café was almost empty. Three youngsters in jeans were standing by the juke box and two men were eating egg and chips.
“Dube dube doo. Dube dube doo.” The juke box sang loudly at Sylvia, “Dube doo dube doo doo doo doo, that’s the language of love.”
“Oh! That’s an old number,” Renee hummed it. “Of course it’s only full evenings and Saturdays.” All the way back to her house in Higgleton Road Renee met neighbours as she had at the shopping centre. She always stopped a few minutes and chatted. Only once or twice she dismissed a neighbour more perfunctorily, “Hullo, Liz, how’s your Mum getting on?” “Well, Diana, started work yet?” “Kids,” she said in explanation. But save that Liz and Diana were wearing jeans, Sylvia couldn’t see much difference between them and the other housewives; everybody in Melling was so young.
Settled in Renee’s front room with the February sun coming through the triangle of window left clear by the crossed muslin curtains, Sylvia felt quite warm and happy. Wherever the sun shone in the room there was no speck of dust to be seen—not on the cocktail cabinet, not on the dining-room suite, not on the Austrian dolls that Renee and Jack had brought back from their Vorarlberg honeymoon. Sylvia could relax amid the high polish and the neatness, to the cheerful chattering of the sulphur budgie cock from the kitchen. If only she’d known what to say when Renee, now silent and expectant, sat down before the tray of coffee and biscuits.
“I can’t think what can have made Harold recommend that coffee bar to me.”
Renee disposed of this easily. “Oh, well, everything to do with Melling or Carshall is perfect for him. But of course he doesn’t know much about what goes on, being in school all day. It’s more in the mind, really.”
After a long silence Sylvia asked “Do you think Tom Colman’s serious about Janet Paulton?”
“Who’s she?”
“Mrs. Covell’s niece.”
“Oh, I didn’t know she had one.”
“Oh yes. She came to live with them about a week ago. She’s got a job at Madame Paula’s.”
“Oh. I haven’t followed for over a week now. I’ve been too busy. And then it comes on at the kid’s bedtime in the winter. I don’t like Tom Colman anyway. Conceited lump.”
Sylvia tried to keep it going. “You’re like Mrs. Harker. She doesn’t know what to make of Tom.”
“I don’t know,” Renee could imitate well.
“I really don’t know,” Sylvia added. And they laughed longer than Sylvia felt was quite natural.
“Harry Worth was funny last night.”
“Oh, was he? We don’t watch much now of an evening. It’s all bridge now with Jack. That’s why we were so glad to have Captain Calvert. It’s difficult to get a four round here. Everything’s bingo or whist. Of course it’s natural. But now Jack’s got this new job, they told him he ought to learn bridge. He’ll be more in the bridge set now. I enjoy it. It keeps you on your toes.”
“I used to like bridge. You need a good head for figures. But I’ve got that doing the hotel accounts and so on. But I never play now. I only get on Arthur’s nerves.”
Renee found nothing to say to that, and Sylvia was about to take her leave, when she was given a second cup of coffee. Even drinking it quickly she needed to find some more conversation.
“I’m reading a book about Mary Queen of Scots.”
“Oh, really. I don’t have much time for book reading.”
“Of course they know now she wasn’t altogether innocent. She was plotting all the time against old Queen Bess. But still it was a tragic death. When they lifted the head up, everyone could see she was a haggard old woman for all her rouge and paint.” She shuddered. “And old Queen Bess too lying there on the floor, waiting to die. She’d broken all the mirrors. At Greenwich it was.” Renee wasn’t really listening. She clicked her tongue, “Terrible times”; then looking away from Sylvia, “Don’t tell Harold, but I think we shall move out next year or the one after. Of course we shall wait until Sheila and Mick have finished school. But then I think it’ll be a country cottage for us. Heating’s no problem nowadays. Now Jack’s promoted, we shan’t want to go on renting. We could buy a house here like ‘The Sycamores’, but Jack reckons it’s best to get right out. Only don’t tell Harold, he’ll call us traitors to Carshall.”
“I’m very glad, Mother, that Renee Cranston has taken to you. People like the Cranstons are the basis of Carshall life. Jack came out from London because they couldn’t find a home. And now he’s been made sales manager, which means of course that he’s backwards and forwards from London a good deal. But that’s all right. That’s what the New Towns are for. Villages that are big eno’ugh not to be afraid of the metropolis. Does Renee say anything about their moving?”
Sylvia made a noise and relied on Harold’s loquacity to save her.
“I ask because he must be doing quite well now. It’s typical of them not to put on any airs. All the same I hope they look out for something larger. Like this perhaps, if a little less formidable,” he laughed. “If the older executives are too snooty for the Town they work in, we’ve got to breed our own. Carshall must develop its own mixed society—status wise, I mean, nothing to do with class —or it must die of atrophy.” He talked on, but the dangerous corner had been turned. However, Sylvia felt more than ever resolved to rescue herself from the daily dose of Renee. She had never been driven to subterfuge with her family—of course it had been necessary with the residents and their confidences, but then that was business—and she was not going to start now.
“. . . that, of course, is the fundamental issue that the Good-child’s Meadow business presents us with.”
This sounded to Sylvia the sort of sentence at which intervention was possible. “You know, Harold, although Melling’s so convenient, I think I shall go to Town Centre for the morning shopping. For a bit anyway. I’ve been rather shut in since we’ve been here, with all this bad weather. . . .”
Harold seemed surprised at the interruption. “You’re eager for the busy world. Well, as long as you think you can stand the bus journey, Mother. In that case the boys may as well hand all the shopping over to you. For a while at any rate.”
So the next day found Sylvia on the bus for Town Centre, passing that wide ribbon of pastureland called Goodchild’s Meadow that ran right across Carshall. She looked at it on each side as she passed. At the moment the grass looked dry and there were pools where heavy rain had fallen. Badly drained, she thought, and remembered her father’s fields. Perhaps that was what all the trouble was about. She must ask Harold, after all she would soon be a Carshall citizen, once she’d got her bearings. Shopping in the Town Centre provided something more like, an
d she ambled around, taking her time. Her purchases made, she watched the metal arms of the fountain jerkily dropping their loads of water; it was clever but you couldn’t say that it played. Staring into the basin, she wondered what sort of supervisor they could have that would let it silt up with chocolate wrappers and ice-cream cartons like that. She looked for a while at the twisted bronze called “Watcher” that Beth had so admired. Although it was difficult and modern, you could admire the way the metal had been twisted so cleanly. Then she studied the lilac and pink mural with its emerald background—she didn’t like that so much, because the two girls had such long necks and sheepish faces, and why was the young man with a kind of big brimmed velour hat, standing naked on the bank of flowers, with his head turned away from the girls? It didn’t have the clean lines that you looked for in modern things, and yet it didn’t make any sense either. Someone had chipped the lower mosaics too, which ought to have been attended to. After that she sauntered past the shop windows in the Arcade, and then past those in the gallery above. She was disappointed to see how they had packed goods into the windows; it was not the kind of clean, modern display you could expect nowadays, but more like the little drapers and that in Paignton back in the twenties when they’d lived there. She decided to ask Ray why this was so; he would know. She went to the Public Library, too, and changed Fotheringay Pilgrimage for a new book; she chose a novel this time, something light after the history—A Winter’s Holiday by Martin Home. The library she really could look forward to, she thought. Changing her own books was so much more satisfactory, kind though Mark had been. She didn’t know anyone here, of course, as she had known Miss Dillon at Boot’s in Eastsea before they closed the library section; but you really didn’t need assistance here, everything was so well set out and clean, and so light with all the big glass windows. She particularly liked the bowl of anemones on the table in the reading room; it took away that cold official feeling. All in all, she thoroughly enjoyed the morning in Carshall, although by 11.30 she would have been glad to get her bus back to Melling if she hadn’t agreed to meet Arthur for a sandwich at the Falcon at lunchtime. So she spent the interval sitting with a coffee in the snack bar part of the Ten Pin Hall. Unfortunately, after ten minutes of real peace and quiet, some young chaps came in to bowl, and, as she didn’t understand the game it proved more of an upsetting noise, like bombing, with it’s continuous booms followed by crashes. However the Ten Pin Hall was nice and light and clean.