The Collected Stories

by William Trevor

  ‘It’s always been there. All our lives, Edward.’ And then, without meaning to say it, Edward said:

  ‘She was harsh in how she looked. Too old to take on new subjects: she was making excuses.’

  ‘What?’ murmured Emily, and Edward sighed a little, eating more of the food she had prepared. Vaguely, he told her not to worry, and as he spoke he imagined them that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the other room stitching the carpet they had always known, not saying much except to comment perhaps upon the labour and upon the carpet. And as they worked together, he knew that he would go on praying, praying in his mind for the day to come: a day when old Mrs Mayben and all the people of Dunfarnham Avenue would see his sister walking lightly in the Kingdom of Heaven. In their presence she would smile as once she had smiled as a child, offering him her forgiveness while saying she was sorry too, and releasing in sumptuous glory all the years of imprisoned truth.

  The Forty-seventh Saturday

  Mavie awoke and remembered at once that it was Saturday. She lay for a while, alone with that thought, considering it and relishing it. Then she thought of details: the ingredients of a lunch, the cleaning of the kitchen floor, the tidying of her bedroom. She rose and reached for her dressing-gown. In the kitchen she found a small pad of paper and wrote in pencil these words: mackerel, parmesan cheese, garlic. Then she drew back the curtains, placed a filled kettle over a gas-jet and shook cornflakes on to a plate.

  Some hours later, about midday, Mr McCarthy stood thoughtfully in a wine shop. He sighed, and then said:

  ‘Vin rosé. The larger size. Is it a litre? I don’t know what it’s called.’

  ‘Jumbo vin rose,’ the assistant murmured, ignoring the demands of the accented word. ‘Fourteen and seven.’

  It was not a wine shop in which Mr McCarthy had ever before made a purchase. He paused, his hand inside his jacket, the tips of his fingers touching the leather of his wallet.

  ‘Fourteen and seven?’

  The assistant, perceiving clearly that Mr McCarthy had arrested the action with which he had planned to draw money from within his clothes, took no notice. He blew on the glass of the bottle because the bottle was dusty. Whistling thickly with tongue and lips, he tore a piece of brown paper and proceeded to wrap with it. He placed the parcel in a carrier bag.

  ‘I thought it was ten shillings that size,’ Mr McCarthy said. ‘I have got it in another place for ten shillings.’

  The assistant stared at him, incredulous.

  ‘I buy a lot of vin rosé,’ Mr McCarthy explained.

  The assistant, a man of thirty-five with a face that was pock-marked, spoke no word but stared on. In his mind he was already retailing the incident to his superior when, an hour or so later, that person should return. He scrutinized Mr McCarthy, so that when the time came he might lend authority to his tale with an accurate description of the man who had demanded vin rosé and then had argued about the charged price. He saw before him a middle-aged man of medium height, with a hat and spectacles and a moustache.

  ‘Well, I haven’t time to argue.’ Mr McCarthy handed the man a pound note and received his change. ‘Threepence short, that is,’ he said; and the assistant explained:

  ‘The carrier bag. It’s necessary nowadays to charge. You understand?’

  But Mr McCarthy lifted the wine out of the bag, saying that the brown paper wrapping was quite sufficient, and the assistant handed him a threepenny piece.

  ‘I take a taxi,’ Mr McCarthy explained. ‘It’s no hardship to carry.’

  In the flat Mavie laid two mackerel on the smoking fat of the frying pan and sniffed the air. A plastic apron covered her navy-blue, well-worn suit. Her fair hair, recently released from curling-pins, quivered splendidly about her head; her bosom heaved as she drew the tasty air into her lungs. She walked from the stove to the kitchen table, seeking a glass of medium dry sherry that a minute or two previously she had poured and placed somewhere.

  ‘Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta,’ tuned Mr McCarthy in his taxi-cab, trying to put from his mind the extra four and sevenpence that he had been obliged to spend on the wine. ‘A basement place,’ he called to the driver. ‘You’ll know it by a motor-cycle and side-car parked outside.’ The driver made no response.

  ‘Motor-bike and side-car,’ repeated Mr McCarthy. ‘Parked by a lamp-post, number twenty-one. D’you understand?’

  ‘Twenty-one, Roeway Road,’ said the driver. ‘We’ll endeavour.’

  Mr McCarthy closed his eyes and stretched his legs stiffly in front of him. He thought of Mavie, as was suitable at that moment. He saw her standing by the edge of the kitchen table, with a cigarette protruding from the left-hand extremity of her mouth, and the thumb and forefinger of her right hand grasping a glass which contained sherry and which bore, painted around it on the outside, two thin lines, one in red, the other in gold. It was the forty-seventh time that Mr McCarthy had made this midday journey, in a taxi-cab with a bottle of wine.

  ‘Doesn’t he want you to dress up?’ the girls had asked when first she had told them. ‘Pith helmets, chukka boots?’ Mavie had found that funny. She had laughed and said: ‘Dress up? Rather the opposite!’ But that was at the very beginning of the affair, before she had fallen so deeply in love with him.

  ‘Hullo.’ Mavie, holding the sherry glass before her, struck a pose in the basement kitchen. She had taken off her plastic apron.

  ‘Hullo, Mavie.’ He held out the bottle, his hat still upon his head, his soft raincoat creased and seeming unclean. ‘I’ve brought some wine. A little wine. I thought it would cheer us up.’ He had let himself in, for the door was always on the latch. He had clicked the Yale catch behind him, as he had long since learned she liked him to do, so that no disturbances might later take place. ‘I don’t care for disturbances,’ Mavie had said on the fifth occasion: an embarrassing time, when a coal-heaver, mistaking the basement for the basement next door, had walked into her bedroom with a sack on his back to find Mr McCarthy and herself playing about on the covers of her bed.

  ‘My, my, you’re looking sweet.’ He removed his hat and overcoat and cast his eye about for a corkscrew. It was his policy on these visits to prime himself beforehand with two measures of brandy and, having made his entry, to take an immediate glass of vin rosé. He did not care for Mavie’s sherry. British sherry was how the label described it; a qualification that put Mr McCarthy off.

  ‘I love that costume.’ He had said this before, referring to Mavie’s navy-blue coat and skirt. In reply she had once or twice pointed out that it had been, originally, the property of her sister Linda.

  Mr McCarthy could smell the fish. He could sense the atmosphere rich with mackerel and the perfumed mist with which Mavie had sprayed the room.

  ‘I’m doing a nice fresh mackerel in a custard sauce,’ Mavie announced, moving towards the stove. She had been closely embraced by Mr McCarthy, who was now a little shaken, caught between the promise of the embrace and the thought of mackerel in a sauce. He imagined he must have heard incorrectly: he could not believe that the sauce was a custard one. ‘Custard!’ he said. ‘Custard?’

  Mavie stirred the contents of a bowl. She remembered the first time: she had made an omelette; the mushrooms with which she had filled it had not cooked properly and Mr McCarthy had remarked upon the fact. She could have wept, watching him move the mushrooms to the side of his plate. ‘Have them on toast,’ she had cried. ‘I’ll cook them a bit more, love, and you can have them on a nice piece of toast.’ But he had shaken his head, and then, to show that all was well, he had taken her into his arms and had at once begun to unzip her skirt.

  ‘Custard?’ said Mr McCarthy again, aware of some revulsion in his bowels.

  ‘A garlic custard sauce. I read it in that column.’

  ‘My dear, I’d as soon have a lightly boiled egg. This wretched old trouble again.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing! But fish is as easy to digest. A small helping. I’d have steamed had I kn
own. You poor soul. Sit down, for heaven’s sake.’

  He was thinking that he would vomit if he had to lift a single forkful of mackerel and garlic custard sauce to his lips. He would feel a retching at the back of his throat and before another second passed there would be an accident.

  ‘Love, I should have told you: I am off fish in any shape or form. The latest thing, I am on a diet of soft-boiled eggs. I’m a terrible trouble to you, Mavie love.’

  She came to where he was sitting, drinking his way through the wine, and kissed him. She said not to worry about anything.

  Mr McCarthy had told Mavie more lies than he had ever told anyone else. He had invented trouble with his stomach so that he could insist upon simple food, even though Mavie, forgetfully or hopefully, always cooked more elaborately. He had invented a Saturday appointment at four o’clock every week so that no dawdling would be required of him after he had exacted what he had come to look upon as his due. He had invented a wife and two children so that Mavie might not get ideas above her station.

  ‘Brush your teeth, Mavie, like a good girl.’ Mr McCarthy was being practical, fearful of the garlic. He spoke with confidence, knowing that Mavie would see it as reasonable that she should brush her teeth before the moments of love.

  While she was in the bathroom he hummed a tune and reflected on his continuing good fortune. He drank more wine and when Mavie returned bade her drink some, too. It could only happen on Saturdays because the girl whom Mavie shared the flat with, Eithne, went away for the weekends.

  ‘Well, this is pleasant,’ said Mr McCarthy, sitting her on his knee, stroking her navy-blue clothes. She sat there, a little heavy for him, swinging her legs until her shoes slipped off.

  This Saturday was Mavie’s birthday. Today she was twenty-seven, while Mr McCarthy remained at fifty-two. She had, the night before and for several other nights and days, considered the fact, wondering whether or not to make anything of it, wondering whether or not to let Mr McCarthy know. She had thought, the Saturday before, that it might seem a little pushing to say that it was her birthday in a week; it might seem that her words contained the suggestion that Mr McCarthy should arm himself with a present or should contrive to transform the day into a special occasion. She thought ecstatically of his arriving at the house with a wrapped box and sitting down and saying: ‘What lovely mackerel!’ and putting it to her then that since this was her twenty-seventh birthday he would arrange to spend the whole afternoon and the night as well. ‘We shall take to the West End later on,’ Mr McCarthy had said in Mavie’s mind, ‘and shall go to a show, that thing at the Palladium. I have the tickets in my wallet.’

  ‘What terrible old weather it is,’ said Mr McCarthy. ‘You wouldn’t know whether you’re coming or going.’

  Mavie made a noise of agreement. She remembered other birthdays: a year she had been given a kite, the time that her cake, its flavour chosen by her, had not succeeded in the oven and had come to the table lumpy and grey, disguised with hundreds and thousands. She had cried, and her mother had picked up a teaspoon and rapped her knuckles. ‘After the show,’ said Mr McCarthy, ‘what about a spot of dinner in a little place I’ve heard of? And then liqueurs before we return in style to your little nest.’ As he spoke Mr McCarthy nuzzled her neck, and Mavie realized that he was, in fact, nuzzling her neck, though he was not speaking.

  ‘Today is a special day,’ said Mavie. ‘It’s a very special November day.’

  Mr McCarthy laughed. ‘Every Saturday is a special day for me. Every Saturday is outlined in red on my heart.’ And he initiated some horseplay, which prevented Mavie from explaining.

  Born beneath the sign of Scorpio, she was meant to be strong, fearless and enterprising. As a child she had often been in trouble, not because of naughtiness but because she had been dreamy about her work. She dreamed now, dominated by an image of Mr McCarthy rushing out for flowers. She saw him returning, blooms everywhere, saying he had telephoned to put off his Saturday appointment and had telephoned his home to say he had been called away on vital business. She felt his hands seeking the outline of her ribs, a thing he liked to do. They lay in silence for a while, and increasingly she felt low and sad.

  ‘How lovely you are,’ murmured Mr McCarthy. ‘Oh, Mavie, Mavie.’

  She squeezed the length of pale flesh that was Mr McCarthy’s arm. She thought suddenly of the day the coal-heaver had arrived and felt her neck going red at the memory. She remembered the first day, rolling down her stockings and seeing her lover watching her, he already naked, standing still and seeming puzzled, near the electric fire. She had not been a virgin that day, but in the meanwhile she had not once been unfaithful to him.

  ‘Tell me you love me,’ Mavie cried, forgetting about her birthday, abruptly caught up in a new emotion. ‘Tell me now; it worries me sometimes.’

  ‘Of course it does. Of course I do. I’m all for you, Mavie, as I’ve said a thousand times.’

  ‘It’s not that I doubt you, honey, only sometimes between one Saturday and another I feel a depression. It’s impossible to say. I mean, it’s hard to put into words. Have you got a fag?’

  Mr McCarthy shook his head on the pillow. She knew he did not smoke: why did she ask? It was like the custard sauce all over again. When he went to the trouble of inventing stomach trouble, you’d think she’d take the trouble to remember it.

  ‘You don’t smoke. I always ask and you always don’t say anything and I always remember then. Am I very irritating to you, honey? Tell me you love me. Tell me I’m not irritating to you.’

  ‘Mavie.’

  ‘You don’t like me today. I feel it. Jesus, I’m sorry about the mackerel. Tell the truth now, you don’t like me today.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do. I love you. I love you.’

  ‘You don’t like me.’ She spoke as though she had not heard his protestations; she spaced the words carefully, giving the same emphasis to each.

  ‘I love you,’ said Mr McCarthy. ‘Indeed I do.’

  She shook her head, and rose and walked to the kitchen, where she found cigarettes and matches.

  ‘My Mavie,’ said Mr McCarthy from the bed, assuring himself that he was not finished yet, that he had not fully exacted his pleasurable due. ‘Mavie, my young heart,’ he murmured, and he began to laugh, thinking that merriment in the atmosphere would cheer matters up. ‘Shall I do a little dance for you?’

  Mavie, cigarette aglow, pulled the sheets around her as Mr McCarthy vacated the bed and stood, his arms outstretched, on the centre of the floor. He began to dance, as on many occasions before he had danced, swaying about without much tempo. When first he had performed in this way for her he had explained that his dance was an expression of his passion, representing, so he said, roses and presents of jewellery and lamé gowns. Once Mr McCarthy had asked Mavie to take the braces off his trousers and strike him with them while he acted out his dance. He was guilty, he said, because in their life together there were neither roses nor jewels, nor restaurant dinners. But Mavie, shocked that he should feel like that, had refused his request, saying there was no cause for punishment. Sulkily, he had maintained otherwise, though he had not ever again suggested chastisement.

  ‘How’s that?’ said Mr McCarthy, ending with a gesture. Mavie said nothing. She, threw back the bed-clothes and Mr McCarthy strode jauntily towards her, a smile shaping beneath his moustache.

  ‘I often wonder about her,’ Mavie said a moment later. ‘It’s only natural. You can’t help that.’

  Mr McCarthy said: ‘My wife’s a hard case. She’s well able to take care of herself. I’m on a leash where the wife is concerned.’

  ‘I don’t even know her name.’

  ‘Oh, Mavie, Mavie. Isn’t Mrs McCarthy enough?’

  ‘I’m jealous. I’m sorry, honey.’

  ‘No bother, Mavie. No bother, love.’

  ‘I see her as a black-haired woman. Tall and sturdy. Would you rather we didn’t speak of her?’

  ‘It would be easier, certa
inly.’

  ‘I’m sorry, honey.’

  ‘No bother.’

  ‘It’s only jealousy. The green-eyed monster.’

  ‘No need to be jealous, Mavie. No need at all. There’s no love lost between Mrs McCarthy and myself. We never go together nowadays.’

  ‘What sign is she under?’

  ‘Sign, love?’

  ‘Sagittarius? Leo? When’s her birthday?’

  Mr McCarthy’s small eyes screwed up.

  He looked through the lashes. He said:

  ‘The 29th of March.’

  ‘You make an occasion of it, do you? In the home, with the children around? You all give her presents, I suppose. Is there a special cake?’

  ‘The wife likes a jam-roll. She buys one at Lyons.’

  ‘And the children get her little gifts? Things from Woolworth’s?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘When I was little I used to buy presents in Woolworth’s. My dad used to take me by the hand. I suppose you did, too. And your wife.’

  ‘Yes, love, I suppose so.’

  ‘I often think of your wife. I can’t help it. I see her in my mind’s eye.’

  ‘She’s a big woman,’ said Mr McCarthy meditatively. ‘Bigger than you, Mavie. A big, dark woman – more than that I won’t say.’

  ‘Oh, honey, I never meant to pry.’

  ‘It’s not prying I mind, Mavie. No, you’re not prying. It’s just that I don’t wish to soil the hour.’

  When Mr McCarthy had said that, he heard the words echoing in his mind as words occasionally do. I don’t wish to soil the hour. Mavie was silent, feeling the words to be beautiful. I don’t wish to soil the hour, she thought. She drew her fingernails along the taut skin of Mr McCarthy’s thigh. ‘Oh God,’ said Mr McCarthy.

  She knew that when he left, at twenty to four, she would sit alone in her dressing-gown and weep. She would wash the dirty dishes from lunch and she would wash his lovingly: she would wash and dry his egg-cup and be aware that it was his. She knew that that was absurd, but she knew that it would happen because it had happened before. She did not think it odd, as Mr McCarthy had often thought, that she, so pretty and still young, should love so passionately a man of fifty-two. She adored every shred of him; she longed for his presence and the touch of his hand. ‘Oh, my honey, my honey,’ cried Mavie, throwing her body on the body of Mr McCarthy and wrapping him up in her plump limbs.