by David Storey
Several people had collected in the drive; only as he drew nearer did he recognise a man in a dressing-gown and slippers and a woman, also in a dressing-gown, from a house across the road.
‘Perhaps you’d like to help?’ he asked the man.
He led the way down the drive, past the car, and found Sheila, her shoulders hunched, her fists clenched, screaming on the lawn at the back of the house.
‘I’ve called the doctor,’ Attercliffe said, and added, ‘This is a neighbour from across the road.’
Lights had gone on in the surrounding houses.
‘He attacked me,’ Sheila said.
‘The doctor,’ Attercliffe said, ‘can examine your wounds, and decide,’ he went on, ‘if they’re self-inflicted.’
She looked up at the man, and might have collapsed, only, moving forward – recognising her intention – the man took her arm and then her waist: he turned her to the house.
‘If you can take her to yours,’ Attercliffe said. ‘I’m not having her back in mine. Or, conversely,’ he added, ‘you can leave her in the road.’
She was still screaming, some time later, when the doctor’s car drew up: Attercliffe, by that time, had relocked the front door and gone upstairs.
The doorbell rang; when he went down a policeman was standing on the step: from across the road the screaming of Sheila continued.
A moment later it stopped.
‘Come in,’ Attercliffe said and, having secured the door, showed the policeman into the living-room.
‘Your wife reported an assault,’ he said.
‘I haven’t touched her,’ Attercliffe said. ‘For the past two and a half years she’s been living with another man. I found her here when I came home this evening and asked her to leave. She threatened, if I insisted, she would create a scene, the effects of which,’ he indicated the broken glass beneath the curtain, ‘you can see around you. Apart from that,’ he concluded, ‘there are three children asleep upstairs.’
‘Mrs Attercliffe is your wife?’ the policeman asked.
‘We’ve been separated,’ Attercliffe said, ‘for over two years. I don’t want her back.’
‘She’ll have to go somewhere.’ Perhaps not much older than Elise, the policeman glanced around the room: the rim of his helmet was imprinted across his brow, his fair hair ruffled, his blue eyes alert.
‘I’ll give you the address you can take her to,’ Attercliffe said. He went upstairs, tore a sheet out of his notebook, wrote Maurice’s name and address on it, and went back down.
The policeman, having drawn back the curtain, was standing by the window.
‘I called the doctor earlier. Otherwise,’ he gave him the sheet of paper, ‘that’s where she lives.’
He accompanied the policeman back to the door.
‘I’ll leave her cases outside,’ he added.
‘Our policy,’ the policeman said, ‘if it’s a domestic quarrel, is not to intervene.’
‘It’s a public quarrel,’ Attercliffe said and, having opened the door, took out the first of Sheila’s cases.
He was taking out the last when the screaming started again.
‘She says you’ve assaulted her,’ the policeman said.
‘I’m telling you,’ Attercliffe said, ‘I haven’t.’
The ringing of an ambulance bell came from the end of the road.
‘And this is the address?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’ll be back to you in a minute.’
Some time later the doctor came across; grey-haired, moustached, dishevelled, he said, ‘I’ve sent her off to hospital to quieten her down. You haven’t got a sup of ought, then, have you?’
He came into the kitchen, red-cheeked, dark-eyed, took the glass Attercliffe offered him, and returned to the living-room where, drawing back the curtain, he surveyed the damage. ‘Not like the old days,’ he announced. ‘Now nobody knows whether they’re coming or going. I ought to warn you. She’ll kill herse’n if she’s left like this. You’ll have to have her back, tha knows.’
‘No thanks.’
‘She’s not equipped for this liberation.’
‘I think she is,’ Attercliffe said. ‘There’s more in Sheila than you imagine. It’s because she is that I insist she shouldn’t come back. She’s only relapsing into what she was. Out there,’ he added, ‘she stands a better chance.’
‘If you can’t better ’em you’ve to butter ’em,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s t’on’y thing they understand.’
‘I’ll sell the house,’ Attercliffe said, ‘and give her half.’
A door was closed in the road outside; a moment later the doorbell rang. When the policeman came in the doctor said, ‘There’s no question of assault, officer. No signs of marks or bruises,’ and, calling, ‘Good night,’ went out to his car.
A little later, after Attercliffe had outlined, in detail, the events of the evening, footsteps sounded on the stairs and across the hall, and the living-room door was opened. Bryan came in: his eyes half-closed, he gazed from Attercliffe to the policeman and back again.
‘I came for a drink.’
‘I’ll come up,’ Attercliffe said, ‘and tuck you in bed.’
With one more look at the policeman Bryan went: a moment later, coming back in, he said, ‘The window’s broken in the kitchen.’
‘We’ll get it mended on Monday,’ Attercliffe said.
He went back out; the tap was run: a moment later the sound of his feet came from the stairs. His bedroom door was closed.
‘I’ll let you know if we take these inquiries any further,’ the policeman said. ‘It’s largely up to Mrs Attercliffe. We’ll be in touch.’
The sound of his car engine, a short while later, faded in the road.
When Attercliffe went upstairs, Bryan was asleep; only as he resecured his blankets did the boy raise his head, and ask, ‘Have we had a burglar?’
‘An accident.’
‘Mummy came back.’
‘I know.’
Almost instantly, his blankets rearranged, he fell asleep.
‘They’re doing tests,’ Fredericks said. ‘The nurses,’ he went on, ‘are bloody murder.’
He lay back against the pillows, his sheet and blankets and cover rumpled.
His chin was unshaven, his eyes glazed.
‘Now they’ve got me in I’m afeared they won’t let me go again.’
Attercliffe said, ‘They sound pleased with you.’ He indicated the nurse who, having shown him in, was busying herself at a desk in the adjoining alcove of the open-fronted ward.
‘They’re pleased with ought in here,’ Fredericks said. ‘Particularly if you’re deein’.’
‘Sheila’s in here as well,’ he said. ‘She’s in the psychiatric wing.’
Fredericks pulled himself a little higher, revealing, beneath his pyjama jacket, the pale expanse of his paunch. ‘What’s Maurice got to say?’
‘I haven’t got hold of him yet.’
‘What about Gavin?’
‘Nor him either.’
‘What about the children?’
‘I’m bringing them up this evening.’
Fredericks rubbed his head; his cheeks were flushed, his lips dry: intermittently he flicked out his tongue and wet them.
On a cupboard, beside the bed, lay a copy of the paper.
‘I saw thy report.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Venturing out i’to summat else has given you a fresh perspective.’ The half-glazed expression of the eyes was replaced by something brighter: he drew himself upright and, as he leant forward, Attercliffe reset his pillow.
‘What are these tests for?’ he asked.
‘A formality.’ He waved his hand. ‘Suggest I should gi’e o’er smoking, get off the bottle, and walk fifteen mile a day. Damn it all.’ He coughed; phlegm rattled in his throat: he drew his hand across his mouth, looked round, and added, ‘I fell down a flight of steps. Any man my age could do the same.�
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Occupying one corner of the fourth floor of the hospital block, the windows of the ward looked out across the town, or, at least, across that portion of the town that could be glimpsed in a northerly direction: fading in the evening light lay the line of the valley slope.
The brightness in the ward intensified, irradiating the whiteness of the paintwork, the sheets, even the pallor of Fredericks’s face: a book, its spine uppermost, lay open on the bed.
‘What are you reading?’ Attercliffe asked.
‘Nought.’ He tapped it with his hand, ‘Plays. Done anything in that line lately? Don’t gi’e up because I’m no longer theer.’ Aimlessly, he added, ‘Is she likely to be in for long?’
‘She came to the house,’ Attercliffe said. ‘When I asked her to leave she called the police, broke the windows, and made me,’ he concluded, ‘a local pariah.’
Fredericks, after gazing past him to the nurse at the desk, closed his eyes, and said, ‘Thy misjudgment of women is something which, even in my old age, I shall never understand.’
Later, when Attercliffe left, he went up to the psychiatric wing: he didn’t go into the ward, although, from the door, he could see the corner of Sheila’s bed.
‘I shouldn’t advise you to see her,’ the nurse on duty said. ‘Your daughters came this evening and cheered her up no end. She says her two sons are coming shortly. Maybe next week,’ she added, ‘would give her a better chance.’
At home, when he arrived, a group of people whom Attercliffe had never seen before – jeaned, booted, ringleted, beaded – was assembled in the living-room: music vibrated from the open door; on the sideboard stood the twin speakers of Elise’s record-player, taken from her bedroom. The air was full of smoke. For a while, amidst the shouts and the bursts of laughter, his arrival went unnoticed.
‘You have a visitor,’ a figure finally announced, and Catherine, jeaned and sweatered, her hair in pigtails, appeared from behind the door and said, ‘Mum all right?’
‘I haven’t seen her,’ Attercliffe said.
‘We went this evening.’ She indicated Elise, bloused and jeaned, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fire.
‘Where’s Lorna?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘And the boys?’
‘They’re out.’
‘Where?’
‘Dunno.’ Already, turning away, she added, ‘Playing.’
He closed the living-room door; the kitchen was occupied on all its flat surfaces by used utensils.
He went upstairs; Lorna, asleep but dressed, was lying on her bed.
He stroked her head; she woke, looked up, and when Attercliffe said, ‘Shall you get into your night things?’ she stood, raised her arms, and allowed him to undress her.
‘I don’t like all that banging,’ she said.
‘I’ll go down and turn it off,’ he said.
‘I’m hungry,’ she said.
‘I’ll bring you something up.’
‘In bed?’ she said.
‘The two of us together.’
She went to the bathroom, came back, and said, ‘There’s someone there.’
When he went out to the landing a youth, buttoning his flies, emerged from the bathroom; after glancing into Elise’s and Catherine’s bedroom, he clattered down the stairs.
Water was splashed about the bathroom floor; a yellowish liquid occupied the basin.
He wiped the floor, allowed Lorna in, took her back to bed, went back to the bathroom, washed out the basin, went downstairs, opened the living-room door, took the gramophone needle off the record, and said, ‘I want you all to leave.’
‘All of us?’ Catherine said.
‘I’d prefer you and Elise,’ he said, ‘to stay.’
‘If my friends can’t stay,’ Catherine said, ‘neither can I.’
‘They can come back,’ Attercliffe said, ‘another time.’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ his daughter said. ‘I can’t stand this place another minute.’
The figures cascaded across the hall; the front door banged.
Only Elise was left behind.
‘I’d prefer you,’ Attercliffe said, ‘to clear up.’
He went out to the kitchen.
He heard her, a moment later, straightening the chairs; when she came through to the kitchen she said, ‘I thought it was pretty poor.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Catherine will never forgive you.’
‘There are a lot of things she will never forgive me,’ Attercliffe said. ‘This is only one of them.’
‘Turning her out.’
‘This is my home,’ Attercliffe said. ‘My home,’ he went on, ‘as well as hers.’
‘Some home,’ she said.
‘It’s not through want of trying,’ he said. ‘There are five other people living here, apart from Cathy.’
‘I don’t mind them coming,’ she said.
‘So it seems.’
She looked round at the crockery and said, ‘That’s Cathy’s mess. She cooked them a meal.’
‘Is this the stuff they’ve been smoking?’
‘It could be.’
He indicated the residue in one of the saucers.
‘It’s only hash.’
‘This is a home, not a dope den,’ Attercliffe said.
‘Why have alcohol?’ she said.
‘Alcohol,’ he said, ‘is taken in moderation. Nor does it stone people in front of Lorna.’
‘It’s no different,’ she said, ‘from everything else.’
‘If you’d help to clear up the mess,’ Attercliffe said, ‘I’d deem it a very great favour.’
He took the tray upstairs; Lorna, a doll propped beside her, smoothed out the sheet, looked at the food, and said, ‘Only cornflakes?’
‘What else would you like?’ he asked her.
‘I thought you were cooking something,’ she said, yet nevertheless took the spoon and began to eat. ‘Have those people gone?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do I have to go to sleep?’
‘As soon as you’ve eaten,’ he said, ‘you ought to try.’
The large round eyes examined the wall, the back of the door and, finally, the ceiling.
‘Is Mummy better?’
‘A lot,’ he said.
‘Did they say anything about the window?’
‘There’ll be someone coming to mend it tomorrow,’ he said.
She released the spoon and gazed before her; having sat on the bed he took her hand. ‘I don’t like all those people coming.’
‘They won’t be coming again,’ Attercliffe said.
‘Cathy says they will.’
‘They won’t.’
‘Can I see Mummy?’
‘Later,’ Attercliffe said.
‘I don’t like sleeping on my own,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Would you like to sleep with Elise?’ he asked. ‘I’ll move you into Cathy’s bed.’
‘Where will Cathy go?’
‘If she comes back,’ he said, ‘she can sleep in here.’
Her head sank lower, her chin tucked in against her chest: her tiny hands were knotted.
From downstairs came the sound of Elise stacking pots: the back door opened and Bryan’s voice was followed by Keith’s. The stacking of crockery recommenced.
‘I don’t want to sleep with Elise,’ she said.
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘you can sleep with Cathy.’
‘Can’t I sleep in your room?’
‘We’ve been through that before,’ he said.
Her head sank lower; he reached across and disengaged the tray from the bed: cornflakes were scattered across the cover.
Below, the telephone rang: feet scampered out to the hall; a moment later Bryan called, ‘It’s for you, Dad,’ followed by a pause. ‘It’s Maurice.’
He went through to the bedroom, picked up the extension and, afte
r Maurice had inquired, ‘How is she?’ answered, ‘Better than she was.’
‘Give her my regards.’
‘Go in,’ Attercliffe said, ‘and tell her yourself.’
‘I would. Only,’ he said, ‘I’ve learnt my lesson. You know what Sheila says. “Frank is an angel compared to you.” She said the same to Gavin.’
‘To me, too,’ Attercliffe said, ‘in reference to you.’
‘She reads these articles about liberation and it turns out her only idea of freedom is to find the biggest cunt of the opposite sex and measure her liberation by his example.’
‘I thought you wanted her back.’
‘Betty wouldn’t wash it.’
‘Who’s Betty?’
‘Didn’t Sheila tell you?’
Attercliffe shook his head, said, ‘No,’ and added, ‘She didn’t.’
‘She’s an attractive lady, recently widowed, with whom I have a very real and moving relationship at present.’
‘More real than the one you had with Sheila?’
‘That never got off the ground,’ he said.
‘After two and a half years?’
‘People can be very peculiar, Frank. Sheila,’ he went on, ‘is a case in point. She’s clearly much better off with you. Gavin feels the same. He says she’s basically a one-man woman.’
‘I don’t want her back,’ Attercliffe said. ‘It’s why,’ he concluded, ‘she’s where she is at present.’
‘She certainly can’t come back here,’ he said. ‘Not only wouldn’t it do her any good, but I don’t think, legally, I’d allow it.’
‘Why not?’
‘She left,’ he replied, ‘of her own free will.’
The sound of a record came from below: its beat reverberated through the floor, across the wall, and shook the lamp suspended from the ceiling.
‘If there’s anything I can do,’ Maurice added, ‘ask. Short,’ he went on, ‘of what we mentioned.’
‘My bed’s wet,’ Lorna said as he came out on the landing.
‘What with?’ Attercliffe said.
‘Cornflakes.’
‘I’ll find a clean sheet,’ he said. ‘Short of that,’ he added, ‘you can go to sleep in Elise’s room.’
‘I’ll stay in here,’ she said, starting down the stairs.
The beat of the music intensified: her face lit up as she descended. They were dancing together when Attercliffe reached the living-room; they looked up, laughing, as he stepped inside and, to their amazement – holding Lorna at arm’s length – began to dance himself.