Her Victory

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘Maybe if they do die there won’t be much left,’ she laughed. ‘You want to be careful!’

  She felt herself trembling to kneel and tie his shoelaces. The physical check on going forward needed all her effort, and she coloured at the thought that he might have noticed. He glanced, then sat on the bed to fasten them himself.

  ‘If I’m to act as your secretary, general factotum, or willing runabout, I suggest we get the boxes you want to save back into the small room, and take the others to the dustbins. Don’t throw anything away that you’ll regret later. You’ve got plenty of storage space.’

  The arrangement, with no definable boundaries, had many uncertainties, but after existing so long under the terms of a too rigid contract, such a state satisfied her. She could be everything to him, or nothing, just as she liked. She would have fled from a firmer liaison. The unknown force of any emotional ties would have to be dealt with sooner or later, but the undeniable fact was that she liked him, whether or not he was also laying down snares for her. As long as everything remained uncertain between them she was not afraid.

  6

  The weather promised dry. They bought picnic food and got on to a bus which took them beyond all buildings and traffic. She hadn’t wanted to be left in the flat while he went to draw cash from his bank, and once in the fresh air he suggested they go on to the Downs and walk.

  He held back so that she could come level. The sea was far off when they turned to look, a midday haze over the town. White gulls swooped the woods to their right as if to pounce on food. He liked the sound. They met ships far from land. The noise of gulls from the English coast had a distinctive sound. Their squawk was shriller, more demanding than in other places. They knew their rights, and would see that they got them. English gulls, sure enough – the epitome of the Australians’ ‘wingeing Pom’. But they flew more gracefully, performed more subtle aerobatics, and if enough food weren’t thrown over the side and sent bobbing around in the wake they shot-up the window of the wheelhouse and made the most unholy mess. That was English gulls for you, he said. They picked up their characters from the land they guarded, and from the air they breathed when reconnoitring Romney Marsh or the Sussex cliffs.

  He talked all sorts of nonsense, she thought, glad because it saved her saying much. She felt happy at being with him in the winter landscape. From Ditchling Beacon they looked at sheep stippling the steep banks, and the village of Westmeston tucked at the foot of the hill, smoke coming straight up from cottage chimneys. There was a car parked nearby whose occupants had gone walking along the ridge. Inside another car were people eating so that, Pam said, they might just as well have stayed at home to watch the scenery on television. The tinny noise of a radio came from their metal tomb. She put an arm around him: ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘For food?’

  ‘It’s too cold for anything else.’

  They ate sandwiches. ‘I haven’t walked so far for a long time.’

  ‘At sea I used to pace the deck, and in empty moments dream of doing twenty miles a day or more with a rucksack, sleeping in inns or farms, going through Switzerland, or trekking from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Probably my feet would pack in after a week, but I liked to think of moving under nobody’s steam but my own. We must do it together.’

  Who could blame him for making such a casual suggestion on a day like this? But life was too uncertain for plans, or even the haziest of expectations. ‘Maybe we shall.’

  He kissed her, yet found it difficult to reconcile the stern set of her face with the passion that gave it such life when they were in bed. Passing other people, he carried the knowledge of their lovemaking, however distant she seemed by his side. ‘We must eat the cakes,’ he said, ‘if only to lighten the load. Then we should go, because the weather looks like closing in. It doesn’t rain up here. It snows.’

  The cold air penetrated to the bone when standing still. The camel-hair coat, as well as scarf, woolly hat, gloves, woollen stockings and lace-up walking shoes seemed flimsy. Occasional beams of sun shone on woods across the narrow road.

  After a mile she was warm. He held her gloved hand as they went along. Few cars passed. The gulls’ cries were muted against air threatening to turn into a mist. She felt they were the only two people alive. The land was dark and ungiving, and there was nothing to do but reach the shelter of buildings.

  She licked icy drizzle from her lips, tasting salt one minute and soot the next. They stood under a tree to finish the cakes. She folded the plastic bag and put it into her pocket. ‘The weather forecast got it wrong.’

  Her heel was sore. When a car passed they stood in the wet grass to avoid getting splashed. By the time the first houses came in sight they were soaked. She inwardly raged because she had succumbed to his suggestion that they come up to this hellish place for a walk. He felt her mood, but couldn’t tell whether her cheeks were wet from tears or raindrops. The misery of one became the wretchedness of the other, but he endured it as he knew she had to. The sky always cleared sooner or later.

  They stood a few minutes till a bus drew in and drove them back to town. By now she had conquered her anger, and reminded him that they still had to buy food to take home. The shop was about to close but he put his foot inside, and the bald, thin-lipped, dark-complexioned owner demanded to know what they wanted, because didn’t they realize that even a shopkeeper had a wife and children to go home to? He didn’t think they would forgive him if he were late, but since they looked like a couple who were starving he might relight the showcase under the counter and let them see what was there.

  He smiled at last. Did they want ham from Poland, pickles from Hungary, pate from Belgium, cheese from France, black bread from Bradford, sausage from Italy, not to mention olives from Greece and honey from Israel? They spent ten pounds and filled two bags, and went down the dark street as if such food would cure the needle-bites of rain deadening their faces.

  Her skirt and shirt were saturated. She shivered, laid their coats over a chair in front of a radiator, and never wanted to go out of doors again. Tom drew the curtains, and gave her a half tumblerful of whisky. She poured most of it back into the bottle, not wanting to be wasteful. ‘Nor do I care to get tipsy.’

  He drank. ‘Long life!’

  She swallowed the remainder as if it were water.

  In the bathroom she turned on the hot tap, and took off her underclothes. Chilblains ached her feet, and gooseflesh showed at the midriff. She found his aunt’s dressing-gown in a cupboard and put it over her damp skin. From the bottles she took a container of bath salts. Steam coated the mirrors and gave a layer of warmth. She carried his dressing-gown from the bedroom. ‘You’ll get your death of cold if you don’t use this.’

  He sat down to resume his reading of yesterday. ‘I will, in a moment.’

  ‘You’ll be no good with pneumonia.’

  The heat was painful, her legs and torso turning pink as she let herself into the water. She soaked, adrift in the heat, then soaped herself, mulling on this strange existence in which every day was as long as a month. Tom seemed weird, not because she had met him so recently, or because he was ten years older, but because he had never been through the defining process of marriage. She didn’t know what exactly to expect from him. She hardly knew what to expect from herself. In many ways he was like a youth of eighteen, but with the worldly experience of his proper age, a discrepancy which put her on her guard when she felt herself succumbing too readily to its attractions. She tried not to let such wariness disturb her, because she similarly felt herself to be a young woman again, backed by the protection of her past marriage and middling age.

  They were fresh territory for each other, perilous only in that they clung without realizing they did so. What his advantages gave to her she was able to hand back to him, and as long as he knew it, and she sensed that he did, she didn’t feel herself lacking in spirit. She felt easy whenever he was physically close, but out of his sight she was assailed by an emb
arrassment which would not leave her until she properly knew him. In his presence it did not matter, but she wanted to feel free of such thoughts when away from him.

  Nothing mattered. Equality had to be continually considered and, if necessary, untiringly fought for. It was like being sixteen again and meeting someone of the same age for the second time. You worried because you were still too young to know any better. She was surprised at herself. But her thoughts were her own, childish as they might be, and she would deny none. She saw him smiling at her through the steam, but was too drowsy to respond. He put a cup of lemon tea on the broad edge. Wash my back, she wanted to say. He took up the soap, and his smooth hands made her feel large as he wielded the sponge around her. ‘Why don’t you take off your dressing-gown and get in?’

  It was a suggestion she had never made before, but she thought there was no point in not occasionally capitulating to whatever came into her mind, and pandering to what the body needed.

  In laying the table and setting out food, he still lived alone, inviting her to share whatever he did for himself. At the moment there was no other way. She was glad, and drank the wine he poured. He had swilled the glass, and not dried it properly. A drop of water hung on the outside like a tear, which she pressed away with her fingertip. Perhaps we will stay this way for ever, each mind our own and never to meet, he with his thoughts, me with mine and wondering what his are. But he spoke, whether she could or not, as if he had been brought up to believe that it was impolite not to fill in the silence with conversation.

  ‘The world doesn’t want us unless we contribute,’ he replied, when she asked if this was so, ‘and I suppose that’s quite right. In company, people like to hear about your work and what you’ve done in your life, or what you intend to do. They’re interested in what you think, and in the places you’ve been to, and any amusing stories attached to them. It all comes out of your work. As long as you have a purpose or an aim in life, you can justify yourself.’

  Perhaps the director of the orphanage, or some passing notable who had given the children a lecture, had instilled examples of how to get on in the wide world. Otherwise how could he have known? ‘My grandfather must have been certain that the place would set certain standards,’ he said.

  They talked, and finished the bottle of wine. ‘I feel deficient at the thought of your adventurous life. I worked in an office before I was married, though I helped my husband with his business affairs afterwards.’

  We’ll go on travels to other places, he wanted to say, but felt it was not the time. She would rightly suspect him of wanting to ensnare her. There’ll be plenty of adventures one day, he would add, though I don’t yet know exactly where. She saw it in his candid and affectionate stare, till she laughed for no reason and turned away.

  Talking was easy. Everything was easy for him because he knew how to make it so. With all the inhibitions that might have been created by his upbringing he was not afraid to say what was in his mind. He suggested that this might be because those who had lived alone never found it difficult to chatter away. Not that he minded releasing his thoughts, for what they were worth. All his life he had, as you might say, been a man of action, albeit with little enough for long stretches, and such an occupation had certainly made space for reflection to enter.

  They were closer together when they talked than when they made love, but after supper it seemed natural that they should go to bed without discussing the matter. When they were so tired that they could no longer stay awake she walked into the bedroom, and heard him switching out the living-room lights behind her. She lay in bed with her arms around him, listening to the sea’s roar between traffic noises.

  7

  She said to herself: yes, I want; and: no, I don’t want. So eventually she wanted, and said yes because she hoped to grow through another zone of understanding. You’ll get nowhere sitting in your own room while your life rots like a dead bulb in a flowerpot. She said yes, and could only marvel, full of curiosity at his gladness when he heard her decision to stay with him.

  He telephoned a garage and hired a car. ‘I have a lot of luggage to bring from town, but we should get everything out in one go.’

  A fat young man with pale woolly hair parked the hire-car on a yellow line and, when giving him the keys, said he had better not delay driving away or a warden would do him with a fine. The blaring radio stopped Tom hearing what was said. The young man hadn’t turned it off because who in this age would want to be deprived of its frantic jingle? When Tom reached in and stopped it the young man looked with half a smile and half a jeer, as if he had expected a tip but now thought he wouldn’t get one.

  Tom signed a paper, and gave him a pound.

  ‘Cheers, Captain!’ Another car waited on the corner to save him walking back to his garage up the road.

  Pam came down. ‘The flat’s locked up.’

  He turned northwards from Worthing, intending to cut into London from the south-west. She had watched him map his route by compass directions instead of road numbers and the names of towns. Land and water on the earth were reversed. All around England was land, which he knew like the back of his hand, while England itself was a sea he could steer a boat across, in spite of it being filled with rocks, wrecks, shoals and reefs – in the guise of islands, towns, villages and woods.

  ‘We’ll be on the road all day,’ he grumbled, six cars nose-to-tail in front. The way was narrow and twisting, part bordered by a brick wall and high hedges, as if they were in the bottom of a drained canal. Then one of the cars forked left, the leader stopped for petrol at the next pump, another turned off, one broke down with smoke coming out of its bonnet by the fistful, a Rover overtook the car in front on a straight bit at last, leaving only a final slowcoach which Tom, slotting down to third, drove immediately beyond into clear road. You were eternally blocked by a convoy, and then all opposition melted away! You were free, and at last could do more than forty, except that it would be incautious due to ice on bends and mist that hung from trees in unexpected places. A BMW came up on the starboard bow and shot by on a bend, splattering his windscreen with muddy water. He hadn’t driven for months. ‘I’d feel much safer in a rough old sea.’

  She felt secure. He was competent. They were going along the road together, which was all that mattered. She had said yes, and there was no way out. A no could always be made a yes, but a yes was more difficult to alter, in this case because she wasn’t entirely sure what she had said yes to. A well-defined yes by clause and contract could not possibly have been as final. What made it so binding was that she was content with her choice.

  Little time had been necessary to agree, and he had made it easy by not mentioning advantages. If there were any, they were unimportant. It was the disadvantages that influenced her. She would no longer have her own room, losing everything she had come to value. She was surrendering, as if that much-desired state had cost her nothing, had gone against all that she had thought best for herself, as if it was her nature to do so.

  People with the best intentions would have said she ought never to have left her husband, and they might have been right. She could have said it was foolish to give up her freedom now, but sometimes you had to go counter to your best interests if you wanted movement in your life. Any explanation for her decision was better than that which said she was doing it because she loved him.

  It was impossible to tell whether day glowed or night shone. Dull cloud came almost to ground level, and what scared him stiff, he said, as much as he had ever been scared in his life, were those little dark cars coloured like the sky or road which, with only the dimmest of side-lights, seemed to appear out of the mist when he was half-way through an overtaking manoeuvre. Their murderous drivers are so stupid, stingy, or just consumed by the killer instinct with their lights so low, that you would think they were saving money on the slot meter they’d installed for economy’s sake in case they should wear out their bulbs or batteries too quickly. It was as if they had been on a cr
iminal job, and were sneaking home hoping not to be seen, lacking the imagination to realize that they weren’t the only people on the road. They were living in that pristine state of unconsciousness which no amount of persuasion could take from them.

  She laughed at his fulminations, but he thanked God for his survival when they crossed Hammersmith Bridge and were threading the last mile of traffic before landfall.

  The façade of the house was uneven. Cement had fallen from cracked places, and Pam wondered how much longer it would stay aloft. A note on the shelf inside the hall said: ‘I have a letter for you – Judy.’ When Tom went upstairs, Pam knocked on the door opposite, and heard a shout for her to come in.

  The fat-smoke of frying sausages thickened the air. Judy shuffled them in the pan with a spatula and stirred a saucepan of beans with a wooden spoon. Hilary and Sam sat at the table. Judy turned: ‘Back from your honeymoon?’

  She smiled. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘I’ll give you some tea if you sit down. Where’s lover-boy? Sam, open that drawer and get Mrs Hargreaves’ letter, will you?’ She scooped stuff onto three plates, and set them on the table.

  ‘Can’t find it,’ Sam said.

  She pulled him away. ‘Incompetent bloody male! Get your tea, then, and let me look.’

  ‘You bollocks,’ Sam said, flinching. ‘You’re always on at me, especially when somebody else is in the room.’

  He wants a father, but Pam daren’t say it aloud. ‘I’ll come down later. It can’t be that vital.’

  Judy began to eat. ‘We had your husband here after you flitted with Tom. He came twice, in fact, then left the letter with me before going back up to Nottingham.’

  ‘He gave me a pound note for sweets,’ Sam shouted. ‘I like him.’

  ‘I’m not surprised you packed him in.’ Judy carved bread. ‘I hope your sailor-bloke’s a bit better. I didn’t like George’s mood when he left.’