‘Never mind all the eulogies,’ said Nardy; ‘sit yourselves down. What do you feel like, George? A drink, something hard?…or tea, or coffee, or what have you?’
Before George had time to answer, Gran looked at Nardy and said, ‘Eeh, lad, I’d like a drop!’
‘It’s a drop you’ll have, Gran.’
As Nardy went out of the room, I cried at them, feeling a little embarrassed but nevertheless pleased, ‘Well, sit down, sit down; it’s the same price.’
They sat down, but continued to look about them. Then in a voice that was slightly tinged with awe, George asked, ‘D’you live in here all the time, lass?’
‘Well, where else do you think we live?’
‘Well, what I mean is, this room, is it just for special occasions?’
‘This is our sitting room, George; and we also eat in here most days. We usually have our tea in here and often a bite at night before the fire.’
‘And does that Janet woman keep all this clean?’ Gran was nodding her head from side to side now.
‘Yes, she does, Gran, and has done for years. She has a routine and gets through marvellously. I told you about her; I told you she’s very like yourself.’
‘What! Like me, an’ livin’ in a place like this half her time. Don’t be daft.’
‘The place has nothing to do with her character. She’s as daft as you at times, I mean the way she looks at things. You’ll see her in the morning. She doesn’t usually come in on a Saturday, but she’s…obliging, that’s what she says. “I’ll oblige you, Mrs Leviston, ma’am. I’ll oblige you. Happy to do so, Mrs Leviston, ma’am.”’
They laughed; then George said, ‘Come and sit down aside us.’ He pointed to the space in the middle of the couch, and when I was seated, he went on, ‘How are you really?’
‘I’m fine, fine.’
They looked about the room again and Gran said, ‘Could be the Ritz.’
‘Aye, it could be that,’ said George; then glancing sideways at me, he whispered, ‘She told them in the street we’re being taken to the Ritz for lunch.’
‘She didn’t!’
‘She did.’
‘Well, you’re not.’
‘I know that,’ said Gran now; ‘and I wouldn’t go if I was assed.’
‘Well, you’re not bein’ assed.’
Gran now leant in front of me and looked at George, saying, ‘She’s turned snooty.’
And George, smiling his big grinning smile, said, ‘Oh, I knew what would happen once she come down here among the toffs. I said to you, didn’t I, all southerners are snooty.’
‘Well, there’s a snooty one coming tonight; you can tell him what you think about southerners.’
‘One of your publishers?’
I shook my head at George and said simply, ‘Tommy.’
‘Oh.’ They both laughed. ‘He’s different, Tommy. He’s the exception is Tommy.’
‘He might be; but I’ve got a surprise for you, Gran: you’re going to meet his mother tomorrow.’
‘That stuck-up old bitch that you told me about?’
‘Yes, the stuck-up old bitch that I told you about. Now she will be a match for you.’
‘Well, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’
‘Yes, you will, Gran.’
Later we had a meal in the dining room which brought forth more ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’, but not as many as when Gran saw our bedroom. There, she did an unusual thing, for she sat down in the blue quilted rest chair and she cried. Her hands covering her face, she cried. And I put my arms about her and said, ‘What is it? What is it, my dear? Are you all right? Have you got a pain?’
‘No, no.’ She pushed me roughly, muttering, ‘I’m just overcome. I’ve never been in a place like this; and for the moment I can’t imagine you livin’ in it all the time. I thought your own house, back in Fellburn, was what you call…well, the pinnacle of grandeur like, but this. Eeh, lass!’ She gripped my hands now. ‘I’m happy for you. I am. I am. As I said to Georgie just a little while ago back there in the room, this is a sort of payment for what you’d had to go through for years. By the way, I saw him t’other day. He was openin’ the door of the taxi to let a passenger out. It was near the market. And when she handed him the money he bowed to her. He looked as oily as ever, that’s until he saw me. He had just closed the door when we came abreast and he was about to go round the back of the car when he stopped, and he glared at me. My God! I’m tellin’ you, Maisie, that fella’s full of evil. If he could have struck me down dead he would have done. You know what I thought? I wouldn’t know a minute’s peace if you ever came back there.’
‘Don’t worry, Gran, I’ve no intention of going back there. But you must come more often and see us.’
Little did I know at that moment that it would be she herself who would take me back there …
It was about seven o’clock when Tommy came, and there were more hearty greetings and laughter and drinks, and by half-past nine we were all very merry.
I had discovered it took only two sherries to make me merry. I would talk twenty to the dozen on those two sherries, but strangely, should I take another I would become quiet, or were I unwise enough to take a different drink, all I should want then would be to sleep.
Tommy had caused a great deal of laughter: he had told uproarious tales about his early days when he was trying to court and his mother was determined to stop him. They were uproarious, yet if I hadn’t had my two sherries I would have been looking for a deeper meaning into why he should be recalling them again.
Gran, spluttering with laughter, was saying, ‘And what did your ma do to the second one?’
‘She sniffed at her.’
We were all laughing hilariously now.
‘Sniffed at her, like this?’ Georgie cleared his nostrils at one draught, and Tommy shook his head and, the tears running from his eyes, said, ‘No, no, not like that, Geordie man; she did it with her whole face, like this.’ He now raised his eyebrows, at the same time curling his lip upwards, the action in itself showed utter disdain, then looked down his nose, gave a slight hitch to an imaginary bust and said in a voice that was an exact imitation of his mother’s, ‘You dye your hair?’
We actually fell about. But then quite suddenly, his voice taking on a sad note, he caught hold of Gran’s hand and said, ‘With Christina Rossetti, I said goodbye to my love:
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.’
We laughed no more. He had let go of Gran’s hand, and she was nodding at him now, and, her tone quiet for her, she said, ‘Aye, that was nice, Tommy, that was nice. Not the kind I understand, but it sounded nice.’
He was lying back on the couch, his head turned towards me now, and I took his hand and to my embarrassment and not a little to my amazement, he quoted directly to me,
‘When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnise
The worship of that Love through thee made known?’
He stopped now and stared at me. I withdrew my hand from his grasp, and he, giving a deep laugh and turning to Gran, leaned towards her and cried,
‘Oh love, my love! If I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
<
br /> Nor image of thine eyes in any spring…’
‘Look here, lad!’ Gran’s voice broke in, and it had a flat sound to it now as she said, ‘If I understood half of what you’re spoutin’ I would clap. But now you be yourself an’ talk plain English.’
And at this, Tommy lay back into the corner of the couch and, looking up towards the ceiling, he cried, ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Plain English, she says, plain English.’ Then suddenly bending towards Gran again, he said, ‘Bugger me eyes! If you’re not right, woman.’
During the latter performance I had noted that Nardy didn’t laugh; and now getting to his feet, he looked down on Tommy and said, ‘A cup of black coffee; then it’s home for you.’
‘Can’t I stay here?’
The words sounded like a plea from a small boy. And I saw Nardy glance towards me, then purse his lips and say, ‘You could, but I don’t think the bed has been aired.’
‘That won’t matter. I never catch cold. May I stay?’
‘Of course, of course.’ Nardy’s voice seemed over loud. Then he added, ‘But don’t forget your mother’s coming to tea tomorrow. What will you do about that?’
‘Go along in the morning and fetch her, and hear her say—’ He now struck a pose, pulled himself up straight, joined his hands across his chest, and exclaimed, ‘You’ve been with that woman again. Now if this doesn’t stop, I’ll…yes, I’ll cut you out of my will.’ He dropped the pose and, nodding at us and his face unsmiling now, he said, ‘That’s what she said last week, that she was going to cut me out of her will. I’ve kept that house going for years, and now she’s going to cut me out of her will. Oh, Nardy’—he put his hand up to Nardy and gripped his wrist—‘I nearly hit her, I did. Honest to God, I nearly hit her.’ Then he laughed, and spluttered as he said, ‘Do you remember Babs, in the office, big Babs? Well, we were as close as damn it, weren’t we, about making a go of it. And there was Babs. She had sat through one of those teas; she had listened to Mother’s veiled insults; and when she was about to leave and I went to get her coat and hat, she stood up to say goodbye, and Mother looked at her and said, “Are you a virgin?”…Bella told me this. That’s what she said: “Are you a virgin?” And Babs stared back at her for a moment; then throwing her head up—you remember how she used to do that before she laughed, Nardy? And like Hamilton’—he was now looking at me—‘aye, just like your Hamilton, Maisie, up would go her head. And that night she looked down on Mother and said, “Me a virgin, Mrs Balfour? How could I possibly be after keeping company with your son for the past six months, and him known as the office rape!”’
As if of one mind none of us laughed at this, but we stared at him as he went on, quietly now, ‘In the hall Babs said, “Goodbye, Tommy, and it is goodbye.”’
‘Come on, come on, on your feet, and to bed.’ Nardy had got hold of his arm and now tugged him up. And he went from the room without saying goodnight to any of us. And when the door had closed on them, George looked at me and said, ‘Hell’s bells! It got past being funny that. What d’you say, Maisie?’
‘Yes, it’s got past being funny, George.’
‘D’you know somethin’?’ We both looked at Gran, and she said, ‘The state that fella’s in, he could do for her.’
Something of that kind had passed through my own mind, and not just tonight.
Then George said, ‘Is she really as bad as he makes out?’
‘I should say worse when you’ve got to live with her. Yet, in a way, I suppose’—I stopped for a moment before I expressed my next thought, which I questioned even as I put it into words—‘it’s…it’s likely because she loves him in her own way, she doesn’t want to lose him.’
But did love belittle the object that it loved, as that woman belittled her son? As I had said to myself before, there are all kinds of love. Look how I had mourned after Bill, my dog, as I had never mourned after my mother. Yet I had loved her, or at least: I had wanted to love her.
Gran now said something that was very telling. Getting to her feet and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘At one time I used to envy people with money an’ education an’ think, oh, if only we’d had money I could have had that big lout there educated’—she stabbed her finger towards George—‘because, believe it or not, they said he was quite bright at school. I used to imagine that once you had education an’ money, life would run on roller skates. By lad, you live an’ learn, don’t you?’
‘Aye, Mrs Carter, you live an’ learn.’ And George too, got to his feet and, taking her arm, he said, ‘I never knew you wanted that for me.’ And to this, she answered, ‘There’s lots of things you don’t know, lad, and in this minute, after what I’ve heard the night I’m glad that you don’t. Well, here’s one off to bed. Goodnight, lass.’ She leaned towards me and I kissed her. Then George hugged me, saying as he did so, ‘It’s been a smashing night, Maisie, a smashing night.’
I did not immediately gather up the coffee cups, but I sat down on the couch again, and there was Hamilton sitting with his two front legs resting over the end of it. And he looked at me and he repeated, A smashing night, so why aren’t you laughing now?
I’m a bit worried over Tommy, I said.
Yes, Tommy. He nodded his big head and his expression was odd. I didn’t know whether he was vexed or pleased. And then he said, You’ve got to think seriously about Tommy. He’s making this his second home.
Well, what’s wrong in that? He’s Nardy’s best friend, always has been, and he’s mine now.
There are friends and friends. Nardy didn’t like him spouting that poetry tonight.
Don’t be silly, you’re imagining things.
Huh! Huh! His big lip left his teeth and he said, That’s funny coming from you.
It might be, but I’m not so vain, or mad, as to think that another…I couldn’t go on. And at that moment the door opened and Nardy entered the room, and I looked at him as he made straight for the coffee cups and gathered them up and put them on the tray.
‘Is he all right?’
‘For the moment.’ His answer was brief.
‘I’m…I’m worried about him, Nardy.’
‘You’re not the only one.’
The cups stacked on the trolley, he now came and sat down beside me and, taking my hand in both of his, he looked at me for some seconds before he said quietly, ‘Don’t become too sorry for him, Maisie.’
I looked to the side, and there was Hamilton, his big head nodding slowly, and with him was Begonia, but she was shaking her head from side to side. She wasn’t looking at me but at her mate, and there was a look of indignation in her whole attitude. And there was indignation in my tone as I said, ‘What do you mean, Nardy, don’t get too sorry for him?’
‘Just what I say, don’t get too sorry for him. You must have guessed how he feels about you.’
‘Oh Nardy.’ I went to pull my hand away from his, but he held on to it, saying now, ‘Don’t play about. You must have realised it.’
‘I don’t, I didn’t, I mean…’
‘What do you mean, dear?’
‘Well, I felt a bit embarrassed tonight when he was spouting his love poems, but…but he was tight.’
‘Yes, he was tight tonight, but he’s been solid and sober at other times when he’s spouted his love poems. I’m just putting you on your guard.’
‘But Nardy’—I shook my head—‘How could you imagine, I mean that…Well’—I swallowed deeply—‘I think it’s a miracle that you love me, but that I could…well…’ I searched for a word, and there he was at the bottom of the couch, his big head wagging, giving it to me. And I brought it out on a stammer, ‘A…attract anyone else, me of all people, because…oh Nardy, I love you so much, so very, very much, and right deep in my heart I’m so full of gratitude to you; you have given me a new way of life. And to think you would imagine that I would, or could dare…’
‘I don’t imagine that you would or could dare or do anything in that direction, my dearest. But you know, you
are of a sympathetic nature, you hold out friendship with both hands, because, let’s face it, you were deprived of it for so long, it’s like a new wine to you, and…and Tommy has drunk deeply of it lately. He’s hardly ever away from this house.’
‘But he’s your friend. I welcomed him as your friend. You’ve told me you’ve been close for years, and he’s told me that if it hadn’t been for your friendship he just doesn’t know how he would have got through at times. Nardy, you could be mistaken, you must be mistaken. Oh, I hope you are, because it will mean I’ll have to…well, be stiff with him.’
‘There’s no need to be stiff with him, my dear; I only want you to be on your guard. As Gran would say, keep your weather eye open. I love you, my dear, I love you as I never imagined loving anyone again, and…and I’m jealous.’
I closed my eyes. Was I Maisie Rochester who had known she would never be married, who had recognised her plainness and her overall lack of attraction, even without her deformed arm? Could this still be Maisie Rochester who for thirteen years had been married to a sadist and who had gained the love of a wonderful man and was now being told that he was jealous because another man was in love with her? No, no; it couldn’t happen to her. Come off it.
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t speak.’
‘Yes, you did.’
I gave a small laugh. It was Hamilton. He said, ‘come off it.’
‘Oh’—he looked about him—‘I agree with you, Hamilton; false modesty on her part.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t that, it was just that…that…well, I couldn’t think that these things were happening to me, or could ever happen to me, you in particular, darling.’ I now took his face between my hands and said, ‘Nardy, this I promise you, I shall love you till the day I die and never, never willingly cause you one moment’s worry or regret.’
‘Oh, my dear, my dear.’ He held me gently in his arms. And as I looked over his shoulder, there they were, standing side by side and, strangely, their heads were hanging. That was odd, I thought. What had I said to make them look so sad? I had just made a vow that I would love my beloved until the day I died.
Goodbye Hamilton Page 9