Finer Things

by David Wharton

  He gave her his bedroom, and said he would sleep in the parlour. His father gave him a pair of stale-smelling blankets, still warm from the airing cupboard where they had been stored. Once he was left alone, he sat with a book for an hour, until the fire was nearly dead and, finding himself in the middle of the same paragraph for the eighth time, finally conceded it was time for sleep. The settee was too short to let him stretch out comfortably, so he laid its cushions on the floor in front of the hearth, with one of the blankets rolled into a pad between them. This made a bed that almost matched his outstretched body length, and the remaining blanket seemed to be just about enough to keep him warm.

  For a couple of hours he slipped back and forth between violent dreams and bouts of wakefulness. Then an animal howl startled him out of all possibility of sleep. His watch said it was two in the morning. He lay on his back, fully conscious, listening, trying to determine whether the howl had come from outside the house or inside a dream, and gradually he recognised the sharp cold of the air around him. His own breath, hot in his nostrils and across his lips, told him how far the temperature had dropped. The fire was out completely. Returning to sleep in these conditions would be impossible.

  He decided to fetch his paraffin heater from the shed. He got up, went out into the hallway and switched on the light. His dead mother was sitting on the stairs wearing her pink candlewick dressing gown. Presumably, then, he was still asleep after all, still dreaming.

  ‘I heard something screeching outside the house,’ Mother said. ‘It woke me up.’

  ‘Foxes most likely,’ he said. ‘I heard it too. But I’ve barely slept at all – it’s absolutely frozen in there. I was just going out for my Aladdin.’

  ‘I suppose this must have been your mum’s,’ said his mother – who was, he saw now, Tess.

  He was awake after all. ‘It didn’t half give me a jump seeing you in it,’ he told her, and he went off to the shed to get the heater.

  When he came back, Tess was in the parlour, sitting on the makeshift bed. She had put on a jumper borrowed from one of his bedroom drawers.

  ‘Sorry about the dressing gown,’ she said. ‘I found it on a hook behind the bathroom door. I’ve hung it back up there now.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I just forgot she was dead for a moment. Funny, Dad having kept it there all this time. I never really thought about that until now. I’d just stopped seeing it.’ He set a match to the heater. His skin tingled with pleasure at the immediate blast of warmth.

  Beneath her borrowed jumper, Tess’s nightdress formed a flimsy kind of skirt. Her pale, thin legs stuck out in front of her. She reached forward with both hands to rub her bare feet. Her toes, he noticed, were turning a little blue from the cold. They were long and slender, almost apelike. It occurred to him that he had never seen them before. She looked up at him, top-heavy in the thick, black sweater, and that was when they both knew he could do it after all, the thing she’d wanted from him.

  ‘It’ll only be this once,’ he said.

  ‘I know. That’s all I need.’

  He’d thought things might be difficult afterwards, uncomfortable. But he and Tess lay in each other’s arms and they talked more easily and more honestly than they had in months. She told him about her visit to the Woodrows’ house.

  ‘You kept them secret from me,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all. I just didn’t say much, and you didn’t ask much.’

  ‘I like them.’

  Her hair tickled his shoulder. He brushed it away. ‘Charlie’s difficult, of course, and Val’s sadder about it than she lets on. Most of their old friends seem to stay away too. It’s quite a lonely life for her.’

  ‘She’s worried about you, I think.’

  ‘Maternal, isn’t she, underneath? Even though they never wanted kids of their own. I suppose she’s guessed—’

  ‘About your disposition? Yes.’

  ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘I didn’t. Not until you told me.’

  ‘No.’ It seemed wrong, given what had just happened between them, to say what he thought. But then she said it for him.

  ‘Perhaps I had my own reasons for not noticing, though.’

  They were quiet for a while, until he said, ’Did you mean it? Is once really enough?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Once with you is enough. I don’t know how I’ll feel about anyone else in future. It was just something I needed to do for now.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to have been of use.’

  ‘Sorry. I hope it wasn’t too awful.’

  ‘Not at all. It was—’ There really should be a better word than this, but there wasn’t. ‘It was nice. But I don’t think you’ve cured my— Oh Christ!’ he sat up in alarm what he’d suddenly realised. ‘We didn’t use any protection!’

  She remained where she was, untroubled. He had a sense that she’d been wondering when this would finally occur to him.

  ‘It’s fine, Jimmy.’

  ‘What a bloody idiot I am. I didn’t even think of it.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you don’t, in your world. I did, though. We’ll be fine.’

  He wasn’t entirely naïve about heterosexual practices. There was a pill women could take, he was sure, and other ways they could prepare themselves. It was a relief Tess had done something, even if it now seemed this was less of a spontaneous event for her than she’d led him to believe.

  ‘You’re certain?’ He lay back down again.

  ‘Yes.’

  They slept for a while. Later, disentangling himself from her, he said, ‘You’d better go back upstairs. Wouldn’t want Dad finding us like this in the morning.’

  MARCH – MAY 1963

  17

  Tess stayed two more nights with Jimmy. They did not have sex again. There was no need. It had only been a sort of experiment after all, and they had found out everything they needed from it. On the third day, he walked with her to the station to say goodbye. He’d be back at Moncourt, he said, as soon as he felt ready.

  She arrived in Camden at one o’clock. Putting down her bags in the hallway, she felt a strangeness about the house, as though she had been away for much longer. Objects appeared larger or smaller than she remembered, spaces lighter or darker, and she could smell a shared-house aroma, of which she was normally unaware: tinned stew and steamed fish; undusted surfaces; sinks nobody ever cleaned. Altogether, it pleased her to be here again.

  Someone upstairs was playing a pop record. Or perhaps the sound was coming through the walls from next door. Of the four young women who shared the house, only Penelope owned a record player, given to her by her parents in a vain effort to encourage an interest in classical music. As far as Tess could tell, the sole record Penelope owned was a copy of Janáček’s Sinfonietta, which she would play very loud when Marius was in her room. Ba-ba-ba ba-ba baaa-baaa ba-ba ba-pa-baaa-ba-pa baaa-baaa ba-pa baaaa-baaaa not always disguising the sounds of Marius’s enthusiastic lovemaking.

  Tess was about to climb the stairs when Penelope appeared above her, leaning over the bannister.

  ‘Your friend from Fenfield’s in your room. That’s her music you can hear.’

  It took Tess a moment to realise what that meant. ‘Delia? Why?’

  ‘She turned up the day you left. I thought she was obviously in some kind of trouble, so I told her she could have your bed until you came home. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Thought so. Of course you don’t,’ Penelope said, cheerfully imperious as ever. She retreated from the landing, and from the consequences of her own actions, to vanish back into her room.

  Tess left her bags in the hall and headed upstairs. The music coming through her bedroom door was interesting. She liked the way its melody jerked by turns from maudlin waltz to bombastic common time. For a minute, she stood outside, wondering what she was going to say when she went in, considering whether she ought to knock first. And actually, she thought, she did mind. This was typical of Pe
nelope – to presume on behalf of someone else, when Delia wasn’t even someone she knew all that well.

  She opened the door quietly. Inside she found Delia lying on the bed, eyes closed, apparently unaware that she was no longer alone. There was an open suitcase on the floor, half-full of clothes, and on the desk a blue Dansette record player, the source of the music.

  The singer crooned something about ‘the honey and you’, then the song ended. The Dansette’s needle crackled its way across empty vinyl for a few seconds before a mouth organ and two harmonising voices burst in. This new piece sounded jollier than the previous one, though as usual in pop songs, the chirpiness of the music belied the desolation in the words, which were all about escaping the misery of the real world into the false comforts of memory and imagination.

  Delia opened her eyes, saw that Tess had arrived and sat up. Serenely, as if there were nothing at all unusual going on here, she reached across to stop the record.

  ‘I bought the Dansette yesterday, and the man in the shop threw in a few LPs for free. I like this one best. It’s the Beatles.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them,’ Tess said, noncommittally. She still wasn’t sure how to deal with the reappearance of this woman, whom she had come to consider no more than a slightly dissatisfying episode, just another example of this year’s relentless string of failures and almosts.

  Delia ruffled her own hair in the manner of a person who had just woken up. ‘The record player’s a present for you, to say thanks for the room. I know you didn’t exactly choose to let me stay, but I’m grateful.’ She told Tess the whole story. About Stella and Finlay. About what had happened with Bill Shearsby. How she had arrived in Camden. ‘That Penelope’s nicer than she seems, isn’t she? After she let me in, I just dragged my suitcase upstairs, fell on the bed, and that was me till lunchtime the next day. I don’t think I’ve slept as well as that for years.’

  Tess felt ashamed of her self-absorption, of having again seen everything through the lens of her own petty feelings. Delia had been in serious trouble, had arrived at her door broken and exhausted, and Penelope – selfish, superficial Penelope – had been there to take care of her; had done the decent thing.

  ‘I’m sure we can work something out if you need to stay longer.’

  Delia got up from the bed and knelt down to close the suitcase on the floor. ‘Thanks, but I’m sorted out now. I’ve found myself a bedsit a couple of streets away from here. Unfurnished, so I’ve been shopping in Camden this morning – real shopping, with money, don’t worry – all the hoisting’s over for me now. I’ve got a proper job too. Barmaid in a pub in Chalk Farm – near that big old train shed they’re turning into a theatre.’

  ‘Things can change so quickly,’ Tess said. ‘It’s hard to make sense of it sometimes.’

  ‘You have to find your luck, that’s all. Mine’s been off for a while, but I think I’ve got it back now.’ She snapped down the catches on the suitcase. ‘I’ll need to get going. My new furniture’s arriving at three. I only wanted to wait here until you got home – explain things and say thank you. How did your trip go? Kent, wasn’t it?’

  Briefly, Tess considered telling Delia everything. But she decided there had been enough narrative for one afternoon.

  ‘It was good to see Jimmy,’ she said. ‘He’s had a hard time too. He’s better now. I think he’ll be back quite soon.’

  The next day, on her way home from Moncourt, she stopped by the Woodrows’ house. When she arrived at the gate she found Val struggling to push a battered old rotary mower around the lawn.

  ‘I can’t find anyone to sharpen this thing,’ Val said. ‘There used to be an old man who came by once a year, but I haven’t seen him since fifty-eight. I suppose he must be dead. Don’t forget to shut the gate on your way in, or you’ll have Charlie panicking about his imaginary dog getting out.’

  Uncertain she wanted to accept such an ambiguous invitation, Tess stayed where she was.

  ‘I came because I thought you might like to know I’ve been to see Jimmy.’

  ‘I’ve been making lemonade. It’s sour, but you’re welcome to a glass.’

  In the end, it was more than a month before Jimmy returned. He decided it would be easiest to come back when nearly everyone was away. Tess was staying over Easter to catch up too. Moncourt was still open. They could use the studio to work on their end-of-year projects, due three weeks after the end of the holidays. And so, on the first morning of the break, he boarded the bus three stops after her and came to sit next to her, just as he always had before. He looked thinner, physically flimsier than when she had last seen him in Kent. The bus’s rough suspension was no match for the uneven roads and he held his sketchbook close to his body all the way to Moncourt, as if afraid the juddering might bounce it out of his hands.

  ‘Do your folks mind you not going home for the holidays?’ he asked. It sounded clumsy to her, like he was making prepared conversation. He was unsettled, of course, nervous about returning to Moncourt. She supposed they’d have to get him through that together.

  ‘They’re quite upset. I’ve had some difficult phone calls with them – well, with my mother. Dad doesn’t really talk about it. Mum can’t see why I should want to hang around London when I could be in Dewsbury.’ She caught herself on the verge of an unkind remark then, but held back from it, saying instead, ‘It’s understandable. Mum doesn’t like big cities.’

  An elderly caretaker sat just inside the college entrance, apparently making sure nobody would wander in who wasn’t meant to. As Jimmy and Tess entered the building, he gave them a nod that looked like recognition, though neither of them could recall having ever encountered him before.

  This was the first time Tess had ever been in the college during the holidays. The quietness seemed quite natural to her, like something homeless had been waiting for this opportunity to come inside. A few other students were still around, drawing or painting or sculpting in sparse rooms. They too needed to catch up on losses from term time, she supposed – or perhaps they simply had nowhere else to go. Here and there, members of teaching and administrative staff sought to occupy themselves despite the absence of anyone to teach or much to administer.

  It had occurred to her that Roger Dunbar might not have gone away for the break, given his home circumstances, but to her relief, it seemed he was not here today at least. When they arrived at the first-year studio, they found it empty.

  Jimmy was briskly practical. He collected a couple of easels and set them up next to each other in his usual spot. Onto one he tacked a sheet of heavy cartridge paper, onto the other a set of photographs cut out from magazines and newspapers. He opened his sketchbook and laid it on the floor. Then he fetched himself a chair.

  ‘Do you paint sitting down now?’ Tess said. He had always stood at his easel before, moving his brush with broad, confident strokes from the elbow or the shoulder.

  ‘I’m not painting, I’m drawing. And I’ve given up all that sloppiness I used to go in for. No more splashing around for me. I’ve been practising – you should be impressed.’

  He took an HH pencil and began laying down lines with a meticulousness she had never seen in him before. As he worked, he glanced restlessly between the photographs on the second easel and his sketches on the floor.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing,’ Tess said. She could discern no relationship between his pictures in the sketchbook and the images in the photographs.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you get on with yours?’

  She rifled through the pile of studies she had made during the last month. Since Delia had set up in Camden, they had spent a lot of time together, and Tess had sketched her a great deal. The pictures were fine, she thought. At least none of them were actually bad. This one of Delia pulling pints at the Enterprise had potential. There was life and activity in it, like a Degas sketch. Maybe she could develop the idea into a painting. She set up a canvas and started laying out the main shape
s in charcoal.

  As usual, she lost faith in the picture as soon as she started it, but she kept going anyway. They had been working quietly for over half an hour when Jimmy said, lightly, as if bringing up something entirely inconsequential, ‘Val Woodrow mentioned you’d been around to the house a few times.’

  Tess knew where this would lead. It seemed important to get there by making him ask properly, not just allowing him the ease of implication.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Friends with her now, are you?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes.’

  After a few minutes more he said, ‘I got the idea she might know something about – when you came to Trencham.’

  ‘Really? Did she say something?’

  ‘Nothing direct. But the way she spoke about you seemed – well it’s hard to put my finger on it actually. I just felt like she knew more than she was telling me.’ He became absorbed for a time in outlining a new figure, then he put down his pencil. ‘What I’m asking is, have you told Val about what we did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked at the work they had each produced so far that morning. In bold, black outline, Jimmy had drawn cartoon ducks with machine guns and armoured cars opening fire on a terrified crowd of squirrels. It was the Sharpeville massacre in the style of one of his colouring-book images. ‘That’s really good,’ she said. ‘It’s so horrible and distressing. Mine isn’t going very well, though, and there’s something I need to talk about. Can we take a break?’

  Ginelli’s was half-full when they arrived, and the old woman was running the place alone. They sat at the same table where she had first met Penelope. How long ago that day seemed now, she thought, but had only been nine months previously. While they waited for the old woman to bring their coffee, Tess told Jimmy the thing she had so far only told Val Woodrow.

  He seemed surprisingly calm. ‘It’s probably a stupid question, but if you don’t mind me asking,’ he said, ‘are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure I’m pregnant, yes. Or do you mean, am I sure it’s yours? Yes to that too.’