The Thursday Friend

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘How’s your weekend been?’ Things were topsy-turvy, for this was generally his first question on arriving home, and put over with a kindly smile as if he really were interested in how she had spent the weekend; and so now, when she answered, ‘Oh, fine. Fine,’ she had his whole attention.

  ‘It wasn’t as usual, then?’

  ‘Not quite.’ She now stood up; but he did not rise from his chair, only pulled himself to the edge of it and looked towards her, which made her want to say, I had a marvellous time on Saturday and a much better one today; instead she said, ‘Oh, I spent Saturday looking at London, places I’ve never seen, but all day today I’ve been at Janie’s; she’s in bed with a bad back, and so I had quite a busy day.’

  ‘And apparently you enjoyed it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I helped to cook the dinner and see to things, and where there’s children there’s always a lot of laughter. Yes, I enjoyed it.’

  He was on his feet now, standing at arm’s length from her, and what he said caused her whole attitude to change.

  ‘Well, as you’re so happy doing domestic work, why don’t you take over the complete running of the house? I’ve thought for a long time you haven’t got enough to fill your days, and I don’t see the need for Mrs Fenwick.’

  Her voice came loud at him, crying, ‘Oh no, you don’t, Humphrey. And anyway, I’d think twice about it: you might be needing someone to do your housekeeping, because I’m looking for a job, I might as well tell you.’ She hadn’t been, but it was a thought. For a moment, she imagined he looked afraid, but then he gave an odd laugh and said, ‘It was only a suggestion; I . . . I was just thinking about something to fill your days.’

  ‘I have plenty to fill my days, at least my weekdays, Humphrey. The weekends are something different, when I have no-one coming in to lunch or in the evening. I have no-one to speak to at all. Well, that being so, I’m going to make use of my time in future. I’ve been meaning to broach the subject with you for some time, but you’ve not given me the opportunity.’

  With some surprise she saw that he appeared upset and that her suggestion was in some way putting him out, for his hand came out towards her. He didn’t touch her, but nevertheless it was held out towards her as if in supplication as he said, ‘Oh, now, don’t let’s be silly or hasty. You see, I . . . there’s the yearly conference coming up, and I . . . well, it’s only for four days, as you know, but I thought that if we were allowed to take our wives, then you might . . . er . . . well . . . er’ – he swallowed deeply – ‘like to accompany me.’

  She stared at him. This invitation, she realised, was impromptu. He’d never before asked her to accompany him on the foreign conferences. He was saying now, ‘Wainwright; yes, of course he’ll be there. He’s cock-a-hoop since he won over the Burgoynes. They’re the hardware people, you know, shops all over, oddments and bags and things.’

  At this point she had a desire to laugh, so she turned from him and picked up the book and magazine, and as she went to pass him she couldn’t resist saying, ‘Hardware; they’re stooping low, aren’t they? On a level now, I should imagine, with fruit stalls in the market and barrow boys.’ She half turned towards him. ‘Why doesn’t your company have a shot at them; there’s money there. Oh, yes.’

  ‘Hannah!’ She was walking towards the door and his voice came as a command for her to stop; but she didn’t immediately obey it. She had opened the door and was standing in the hall before she turned and looked back at him and said, ‘Yes, Humphrey?’

  She saw his Adam’s apple bump twice up to his chin before he could speak: ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,’ he said, and then got in his own shot by adding, ‘especially if it’s on the barrow-boy level.’

  He listened to her going up the stairs and was troubled: something had happened to her; she’d changed. It was all since last Thursday, when she’d taken her damn book to that publisher, who was known to be so eccentric he’d publish lavatory rolls.

  He shuddered. Dear, dear! And after such a weekend. One shouldn’t have to pay right into middle age for kindness shown in youth, but he knew that should he in any way lessen his weekly payments his whole future would be at stake, not just bleak but black; and he’d worked too long and put up with too much to let that happen.

  When Hannah’s door banged overhead he looked upwards and a strange thought came into his head: His whole future depended upon her.

  Chapter Seven

  David was waiting for her at Tottenham Court Road Station, and when he saw her he hurried towards her but did not speak until they reached the street where, hugging her arm tightly, he asked quietly, ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Part of me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want part of you; and you know something? We have only two hours. This is ridiculous.’

  She pulled her arm slightly from him as she said, ‘Well, don’t spoil it at the beginning.’

  ‘Oh, my dear; look, tell me what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Well, Monday I went across to Janie’s again. Believe it or not, she was up.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’m not really surprised. It does work.’

  ‘Well, it’s worked in her case; and she had Eddie at it again on Monday morning before he went out, looking for pressure points. Anyway, we talked: she passed judgement on you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Don’t be funny. What was the judgement?’

  ‘Oh, she thought you were all right, just.’

  He was hugging her arm again. ‘Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes, Tuesday: well, I went to the British Library.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Looking up styles of writing for children for the past hundred years.’

  He smiled at her, saying, ‘Oh, Gilly’ll be very interested to hear about that. By the way, he’s excited about your book, you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And he’s going to ask Ollie Swinburne if he’ll do the cover. He’s a fine children’s illustrator. You’ll have a lot to discuss with him when you next come to the office.’

  ‘I really can’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. It’s all part of the fairy tale.’

  ‘Yes’ – and in a more sober tone – ‘the fairy tale. That’s what it seems like; not real, a fairy tale.’

  His tone too was sober as he said, ‘It’s no fairy tale, Hannah, not for me. It’s a piece of reality: you are what I’ve been waiting for for a long time. Oh, look!’ – he put out his hand – ‘it’s beginning to rain; let’s run.’ And so, like two children, they ran until they came to the iron staircase where the rain was now pinging from the steps, and he dived towards the door and fumbled for his key.

  When the door was opened Peter greeted them with, ‘My goodness! I thought it was the bums, sir.’

  As Peter now helped her off with her jacket, she asked, on a laugh, ‘What are the bums?’

  ‘Bailiffs, madam. Come to clear us out, poor souls.’

  ‘But it does happen, doesn’t it? The bailiffs and clearing people out.’

  He answered her in the same serious tone, ‘Yes, madam; I’m afraid it does, all too often; and in this age too.’

  ‘Is everything ready?’ put in David.

  ‘Yes, sir; everything’s ready and waiting, piping hot.’

  ‘You’ve made the dinner?’

  ‘Of course, madam. This is a special night.’

  ‘Daft old thing,’ David said. ‘It was his day off, but he insisted on coming back and making dinner. I told him we didn’t want dinner. Do we?’

  ‘Oh, yes; I want dinner. I haven’t had a bite all day; I’ve been saving myself for tonight. It’s true, really’ – she was nodding at David now – ‘I didn�
�t have any breakfast and I had only a poached egg for lunch.’

  ‘Dear, dear! Well, madam, we’re starting with pâté. It’ll be with you in a minute.’

  The pâté was lovely. The rolled sole in sauce was delightful, as was the shoulder of lamb and its accompaniments; and the fruit fool that followed was the best she had ever tasted. In fact, she found the whole meal delicious, and she said so; and Peter showed his pleasure by saying, ‘I’ll cook for you any time, madam, any time.’

  A little later, as they were sitting drinking their coffee, she said, softly, ‘It isn’t a fairy tale – a fairy tale has an end – it’s a dream, and if a dream has an end it’s not always pleasant.’

  ‘This one will be. I’ve made up my mind; I have it all planned out up here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘It will work out, you’ll see. That’s what I want to talk about. But let’s have our coffee first.’

  They had their coffee; then she thanked Peter again before he left to finish his day off.

  As they sat back on the couch and heard the front door close, she said, ‘Where will he go at this time? It’s nearly nine o’clock.’ Then she repeated, ‘Oh, no! It’s nearly nine o’clock. The time has flown by.’

  ‘Yes, it certainly has, so come here.’ He pulled her into a tight embrace and he said, ‘To answer your first question: he goes to his club. Oh, it’s open till all hours. He says it’s for single butlers and batmen, and he always adds, while laughing, for anyone who can swear they’ve never used their boss’ Christian name. And that isn’t such a joke, because it’s “Yes, sir,” all the time. Several times I’ve tried to get him to drop the “sir” – he’s Peter and I’m David, that’s how I think about him – but no. It’s use, I suppose. Still, I’d rather have him as a friend than any other man I know, and I know quite a few, high and low. But there’ – he hugged her – ‘enough of Peter and all his works. Let’s talk about us, eh, Hannah?’

  She was gasping from the tightness of his hold. ‘When . . . I can speak, yes.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, my love; I’m sorry.’ As he slackened his hold on her his face came close to hers and he said, ‘And that’s what you are . . . my love. My love. I can’t believe it. I have no answer to the question that is constantly in my mind: Can it be only a week today since I set eyes on you? But, then, time isn’t relevant to the emotions: you can die from fright in a split second, or you can be brought to life in a split second, as I was when I first saw you. I’ll never be able to explain it, as I’ve already told you, and I don’t want to, but I do want to know what our future is to be.’

  She tried to release herself altogether from his hold, but he again pulled her to him, although more gently now, saying, ‘Hannah, we’ve both found something that’s very rare . . . at least to my knowledge.’

  She was some time in answering, for he was holding her gaze and she could not find words with which to express her feelings of the moment. When she was apart from him she had only his image in her mind and then she knew that she had not only fallen in love with him, but that she really did love him. But hadn’t this happened with Humphrey, too? No; this was different, she loved this man. It was just as he had said to her: she wanted him, needed him; and she always would. It was up to her whether he would be in her future or not. But there was still Humphrey.

  Don’t say it! Don’t say it! Her mind was again barking at her, when she heard his voice overriding it, saying, ‘What is it, darling? What is it? Have I upset you?’

  She closed her eyes now to blot out his presence as she said, ‘You could never hurt me, David, only if you stopped loving me. And yes, I love you, and I don’t know how it happened, either. I only know that I’ve been waiting for it to happen for a long time.’

  ‘Then we must be together, and always.’

  His words brought her eyes wide and, her head shaking, she said, ‘No! No, I can’t. We can’t, David, without hurting other people; but we can be together at times.’

  ‘On the side, you mean: Thursday nights and an odd Saturday, perhaps Sunday, until Humphrey changes his routine.’

  ‘Strangely, yes; I suppose that is what I mean; but listen, listen’ – she put her fingers on his lips – ‘I feel there’s something happening. On Sunday night he came in really angry. He’d had a bad weekend: he’d found his aunt and uncle very testy; he talked about their narrow views and it came to me after some thinking that he wouldn’t mind having a divorce tomorrow. The only snag is that they’d wipe him off their slate. On Sunday night he kept on about the narrowness of their views, and that, as he has more than once said, in their eyes divorce is second only to murder. If you’re married, that’s a life term, nothing less, and separation, I should imagine, is the next on their list.’

  ‘Could it be possible that he’s got a girlfriend on the side?’

  ‘Oh no! no!’ She shook her head and laughed. ‘All his movements are checked. I think the old couple see to that; or, at least, their housekeeper does – their treasure would see that he kept to time. I should imagine that sometimes the old couple are more than fractious, and she feels she wants a break from them, and she asks him if he’s coming for a long weekend or some such. That’s why, except for a fortnight, he breaks up his holidays so that he can tag days on to his weekends with them. But I’ve never known him come back so irritable – almost miserable, I’d say – as I saw him on Sunday night, and it would happen that I myself was feeling on top of the world.’ She put up her hand now and touched his cheek, and he held it tight as, smiling widely, she said, ‘My manner with him was almost flippant, and when he adopted a superior attitude towards a new client, who was in the hardware business, I had the nerve to remind him that that was on a level with a stall in the market or a barrow boy.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes; and that’ll tell you the change you’ve wrought in me, Mr Craventon.’ But then she added with a nod of her head, ‘I keep wondering why I haven’t stood up to him in some way before, but then you can’t go out to hurt someone who is continually kind and thoughtful—’ Then, the smile fading from her face, she added, ‘That is, in some ways.’

  And when he repeated, ‘Yes, in some ways,’ she looked at him intently, but did not take the matter further, because the small voice in her was saying: No, no; Janie would never mention that, surely, nor could she imagine even Eddie bringing up the subject; that would be out of the question. And so she put in quickly now, ‘I did give some thought to the idea of our meeting during the week: perhaps we could have lunch together at Micky’s.’

  ‘Oh, yes; good idea, every day.’

  ‘Oh, no! That’d be noticed! Mrs Fenwick comes in two days a week; but then’ – she pursed her lips – ‘I’ve already told Humphrey I’m going after a job.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. That was another shock he got, poor man. He doesn’t deserve it, you know, because he’s so . . . ’

  ‘If you tell me once more that he’s kind I’ll have hysterics and start to scream. I will; honest I will. If a man is supposedly as kind as your husband is while still being cruel, I feel there must be something odd about him.’

  ‘Look; I don’t want to talk about it, but the fact is he doesn’t . . . we don’t . . . share a bed anymore.’

  ‘I know, my darling. Eddie told me – Oh, don’t be angry with him. It just slipped out. He really didn’t mean to tell me. All I can say is that your Humphrey must be the biggest fool under the sun.’

  Again she was pressed close to him as he said softly, ‘And I want to love you, really love you. You understand? And it needs no talking about; it must just happen – and soon.’

  As she gazed at him she did not repeat ‘and soon’; but her whole body voiced the words for her.

  She arrived home fifteen minutes before Humphrey and she was in bed when he came upstairs and tapped on her door before he called out,
‘Are you all right?’ And to this she said, ‘Yes; but I was very tired so I’m having an early night.’

  ‘Best thing. Best thing. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Humphrey.’

  Chapter Eight

  It was Thursday again and she was sitting in the chair opposite Mr Gillyman, her mouth agape and her eyes wide, and he was saying to her, ‘Two hundred pounds. You don’t think that’s adequate?’

  She had to gulp before she brought her lips together and, her eyes blinking, she said, ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, but I’m amazed. I . . . I didn’t expect anything like that.’

  ‘What did you expect then?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Fifty . . . ?’

  Mr Gillyman, his eyes twinkling, looked towards David, who was standing at the side of the desk, and he laughed as he said, ‘Why couldn’t you tip me the wink that’s all she wanted?’

  ‘We . . . we didn’t discuss it.’

  ‘You’ve never been any good at business, have you?’

  ‘It all depends, sir, on what business we’re discussing.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you!’ Gilly was looking at Hannah again, and he said, ‘Well now; two hundred it is; but you’re not getting it all at once: you’ll get half on acceptance, as now, and half on publication. This is what is called an advance on royalties, and if we don’t sell enough to cover our costs then I’m sure I’ll be able to put you to work in one of my storerooms!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised at that either.’

  Mr Gillyman glanced quickly at David, demanding, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well, I had to do a similar chore, but I wasn’t paid any royalties.’

  Hannah looked from one to the other: they were sparring as only friends could spar; yet two hundred pounds! What would Humphrey say to that? Two hundred pounds for her childish thoughts. Should she tell him? No. No, she wouldn’t. Well, not at present, not until she’d bought herself some new clothes: she’d been feeling shabby lately and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask Humphrey for money. And David’s words about her appearance had struck home.