The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

by Various

  ‘God Almighty,’ said Charles Henderson.

  When Alec had gone out to attend a union meeting, Mrs Henderson told her husband he needn’t bother to come to the theatre. She wasn’t putting up with him and Alec having a pantomime of their own during the course of the evening and spoiling it for everyone else. She’d ask Mrs Rafferty from the floor above to go in his place.

  ‘By heck,’ shouted Charles Henderson, striking his forehead with the back of his hand, ‘why didn’t I think of that? Perish the thought that our Alec should be the one to be excluded. I’m only the blasted bread-winner.’ He knew his wife was just mouthing words.

  Mrs Rafferty’s answer to such an outlandish invitation was a foregone conclusion. She wouldn’t give it houseroom. Mrs Rafferty hadn’t been out of the building for five years, not since she was bashed over the head coming home from Bingo.

  All the same, Charles Henderson was irritated. His wife’s attitude, and the caustic remarks addressed to him earlier by Alec brought on another attack of indigestion. It was no use going to his bed and lying flat. He knew from experience that it wouldn’t help. In the old days, when they had lived in a proper house, he could have stepped out of the back door and perambulated up and down the yard for a few minutes. Had there been anything so exalted as a back door in this hell-hole, going out of it certainly wouldn’t improve his health. Not without a parachute. He couldn’t even open the window for a breath of air. This high up there was generally a howling gale blowing in from the river – it would suck the Christmas cards clean off the sideboard. It wasn’t normal, he thought, to be perpetually on a par with the clouds. People weren’t meant to look out of windows and see nothing but sky, particularly if they weren’t looking upwards. God knows how Moira’s kiddies managed. They were stuck up in the air over Kirby. When Moira and Alec had been little they’d played in the street – Moira on the front step fiddling with her dolly, Alec on one roller-skate scooting in and out of the lamp-posts. Of course there was no denying that it had been nice at first to own a decent bathroom and have hot water coming out of the tap. After only a few weeks it had become unnecessary to scrub young Alec’s neck with his toothbrush; the dirt just floated off on the towel. But there was surely more to life than a clean neck. Their whole existence, once work was over for the day, was lived as though inside the cabin of an aeroplane. And they weren’t going anywhere – there wasn’t a landing field in sight. Just stars. Thousands of the things, on clear nights, winking away outside the double glazing. It occurred to Charles Henderson that there were too many of them for comfort or for grandeur. It was quality that counted, not quantity.

  At the end of the yard of the terraced house in which he had once lived, there had been an outside toilet. Sitting within the evil-smelling little shed, its door swinging on broken hinges, he had sometimes glimpsed one solitary star hung motionless above the city. It had, he felt, given perspective to his situation, his situation in the wider sense – beyond his temporary perch. He was earthbound, mortal, and a million light-years separated him from that pale diamond burning in the sky. One star was all a man needed.

  On the night of the outing to the theatre, a bit of a rumpus took place in the lift. It was occasioned by Moira’s lad, Wayne, jabbing at all the control buttons and giving his grandmother a turn.

  Alec thumped Wayne across the ear and Charles Henderson flared up. ‘There was no cause to do that,’ he shouted, though indeed there had been. Wayne was a shocking kiddie for fiddling with things.

  ‘Belt up, Charlie,’ ordered Alec.

  Alec drove them to the Empire theatre in his car. It wasn’t a satisfactory arrangement as far as Charles Henderson was concerned but he had no alternative. The buses came and went as they pleased. He was forced to sit next to Alec because he couldn’t stand being parked in the back with the children and neither Moira nor Mrs Henderson felt it was safe in the passenger seat. Not with Alec at the wheel. Every time Alec accelerated going round a corner, Charles Henderson was swung against his son’s shoulder.

  ‘Get over, can’t you?’ cried Alec. ‘Stop leaning on me, Charlie.’

  When they passed the end of the street in which they had lived a decade ago, Mrs Henderson swivelled in her seat and remarked how changed it was, oh how changed. All those houses knocked down, and for what? Alec said that in his opinion it was good riddance to bad rubbish. The whole area had never been anything but a slum.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, son,’ said Mrs Henderson. But she was pandering to him.

  Charles Henderson was unwise enough to mention times gone by. He was talking to his wife. ‘Do you remember all the men playing football in the street after work?’

  ‘I do,’ she said.

  ‘And using the doorway of the Lune Laundry for a goal-post? It was like living in a village, wasn’t it?’

  ‘A village,’ hooted Alec. ‘With a tobacco warehouse and a brewery in the middle of it? Some village.’

  ‘We hunted foxes in the field behind the public house,’ reminisced Charles Henderson. ‘And we went fishing in the canal.’

  ‘You did. You were never at home,’ said Mrs Henderson, without rancour.

  ‘What field?’ scoffed Alec. ‘What canal?’

  ‘There was a time,’ said Charles Henderson, ‘when we snared rabbits every Saturday and had them for Sunday dinner. I tell no lies. You might almost say we lived off the land.’

  ‘Never-Never land, more like,’ sneered Alec, and he drove, viciously, the wrong way down a one way street.

  When they got to the town centre he made them all get out and stand about in the cold while he manoeuvred the Mini backwards and forwards in the underground car park. He cursed and gesticulated.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ shouted Charles Henderson, and he strode in front of the bonnet and made a series of authoritative signals. Alec deliberately drove the car straight at him.

  ‘Did you see what that madman did?’ Charles Henderson asked his wife. ‘He ran over my foot.’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ said Mrs Henderson, but when he looked down he saw quite clearly the tread of the tyre imprinted upon the Cherry Blossom shine of his Sunday left shoe.

  When the curtain went up, he was beginning to feel the first twinges of his indigestion coming on again. It wasn’t to be wondered at all that swopping of seats because Moira had a tall bloke sitting in front of her, and the kiddies tramping back and forth to the toilet, not to mention the carry-on over parking the car. At least he hadn’t got Alec sitting next to him. He found the first act of Peter Pan a bit of a mystery. It was very old-fashioned and cosy. He supposed they couldn’t get a real dog to play the part. Some of the scenery could do with a lick of paint. He didn’t actually laugh out loud when Mr Darling complained that nobody coddled him – oh no, why should they, seeing he was only the bread-winner – but he did grunt sardonically; Mrs Henderson nudged him sharply with her elbow. He couldn’t for the life of him make out who or what Tinkerbell was, beyond being a sort of glow-worm bobbing up and down on the nursery wall, until Wendy had her hair pulled for wanting Peter to kiss her, and then he more or less guessed Tinkerbell was a female. It was a bit suggestive, all that. And at the end of the first scene when they all flew out of the window, something must have gone wrong with the wires because one of the children never got off the ground. They brought the curtain down fast. Wayne was yawning his head off.

  During Acts Two and Three, Charles Henderson dozed. He was aware of loud noises and children screaming in a bloodthirsty fashion. He hoped Wayne wasn’t having one of his tantrums. It was confusing for him. He was dreaming he was fishing in the canal for tiddlers and a damn big crocodile crawled up the bank with a clock ticking inside it. Then he heard a drum beating and a voice cried out ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’ He woke up then with a start. He had a pain in his arm.

  In the interval they retired to the bar, Moira and himself and Alec. Mrs Henderson stayed with the kiddies, to give Moira a break. Alec paid for a round
of drinks. ‘Are you enjoying it then, Charlie?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a bit loud for me,’ said Charles Henderson. ‘But I see what you mean about it being written on different levels.’

  ‘You do surprise me,’ said Alec. ‘I could have sworn you slept through most of it.’

  Moira said little Tracy was terrified of the crocodile but she loved the doggie.

  ‘Some doggie,’ muttered Charles Henderson. ‘I could smell the moth balls.’

  ‘But Wayne thinks it’s lovely,’ said Moira. ‘He’s really engrossed.’

  ‘I could tell,’ Charles Henderson said. ‘They must have heard him yawning in Birkenhead.’

  ‘It’s one of his signs,’ defended Moira. ‘Yawning. He always yawns when he’s engrossed.’ She herself was enjoying it very much, though she hadn’t understood at first what Mr Darling was doing dressed up as Captain Hook.

  ‘It’s traditional,’ Alec told her.

  ‘What are you on about?’ asked Charles Henderson. ‘That pirate chappie was never Mr Darling.’

  ‘Yes it was, Dad,’ said Moira. ‘I didn’t cotton on myself at first, but it was the same man.’

  ‘I suppose it saves on wages,’ Charles Henderson said. Alec explained it was symbolic. The kindly Mr Darling and the brutal Captain Hook were two halves of the same man.

  ‘There wasn’t more than a quarter of Mr Darling,’ cried Charles Henderson, heatedly. ‘That pirate was waving his cutlass about every time I opened my eyes. I can’t see the point of it, can you, Moira?’

  Moira said nothing, but her mouth drooped at the corners. She was probably thinking about her husband who had run off and left her with two kiddies and a gas bill for twenty-seven quid.

  ‘The point,’ said Alec, ‘is obvious. Mr Darling longs to murder his offspring.’ He was shouting quite loudly. ‘Like fathers in real life. They’re always out to destroy their children.’

  ‘What’s up with you?’ asked Mrs Henderson, when her husband had returned to his seat.

  ‘That Alec,’ hissed Charles Henderson. ‘He talks a load of codswallop. I’d like to throttle him.’

  During Act Four Charles Henderson asked his wife for a peppermint. His indigestion was fearsome. Mrs Henderson told him to shush. She too seemed engrossed in the pantomime. Wayne was sitting bolt upright. Charles Henderson tried to concentrate. He heard some words but not others. The lost boys were going back to their Mums, that much he gathered. Somebody called Tiger Lily had come into it. And Indians were beating tom-toms. His heart was beating so loudly that it was a wonder Alec didn’t fly off the handle and order him to keep quiet. Wendy had flown off with the boys, jerkily, and Peter was asleep. It was odd how it was all to do with flying. That Tinkerbell person was flashing about among the cloth trees. He had the curious delusion that if he stood up on his seat, he too might soar up into the gallery. It was a daft notion because when he tried to shift his legs they were as heavy as lead. Mrs Darling would be pleased to see the kiddies again. She must have gone through hell. He remembered the time Alec had come home half an hour late from the Cubs – the length of those minutes, the depth of that fear. It didn’t matter what his feelings had been towards Alec for the last ten years. He didn’t think you were supposed to feel much for grown-up children. He had loved little Alec, now a lost boy, and that was enough.

  Something dramatic was happening on stage. Peter had woken up and was having a disjointed conversation with Tinkerbell, something to do with cough mixture and poison. Tink, you have drunk my medicine… it was poisoned and you drank it to save my life…Tink dear, are you dying?… The tiny star that was Tinkerbell began to flicker. Charles Henderson could hear somebody sobbing. He craned sideways to look down the row and was astonished to see that his grandson was wiping at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. Fancy Wayne, a lad who last year had been caught dangling a hamster on a piece of string from a window on the fourteenth floor of the flats, crying about a light going out. Peter Pan was advancing towards the audience, his arms flung wide. Her voice is so low I can hardly hear what she is saying. She says… she says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies. Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands. Clap your hands and Tinkerbell will live.

  At first the clapping was muted, apologetic. Tinkerbell was reduced to a dying spark quivering on the dusty floorboards of the stage. Charles Henderson’s own hands were clasped to his chest. There was a pain inside him as though somebody had slung a hook through his heart. The clapping increased in volume. The feeble Tinkerbell began to glow. She sailed triumphantly up the trunk of a painted tree. She grew so dazzling that Charles Henderson was blinded. She blazed above him in the skies of Never-Never land.

  ‘Help me,’ he said, using his last breath.

  ‘Shut up, Charlie,’ shouted Mrs Henderson, and she clapped and clapped until the palms of her hands were stinging.

  * * *

  IAN McEWAN

  * * *

  PSYCHOPOLIS

  Mary worked in and part-owned a feminist bookstore in Venice. I met her there lunchtime on my second day in Los Angeles. That same evening we were lovers, and not so long after that, friends. The following Friday I chained her by the foot to my bed for the whole weekend. It was, she explained to me, something she ‘has to go into to come out of’. I remember her extracting (later, in a crowded bar) my solemn promise that I would not listen if she demanded to be set free. Anxious to please my new friend, I bought a fine chain and diminutive padlock. With brass screws I secured a steel ring to the wooden base of the bed and all was set. Within hours she was insisting on her freedom, and though a little confused I got out of bed, showered, dressed, put on my carpet slippers and brought her a large frying-pan to urinate in. She tried on a firm, sensible voice.

  ‘Unlock this,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough.’ I admit she frightened me. I poured myself a drink and hurried out on to the balcony to watch the sun set. I was not at all excited. I thought to myself, if I unlock the chain she will despise me for being so weak. If I keep her there she might hate me, but at least I will have kept my promise. The pale orange sun dipped into the haze, and I heard her shout to me through the closed bedroom door. I closed my eyes and concentrated on being blameless.

  A friend of mine once had analysis with an elderly man, a Freudian with a well-established practice in New York. On one occasion my friend spoke at length about his doubts concerning Freud’s theories, their lack of scientific credibility, their cultural particularity and so on. When he had done the analyst smiled genially and replied, ‘Look around you!’ And indicated with his open palm the comfortable study, the rubber plant and the begonia rex, the book-lined walls and finally, with an inward movement of the wrist which both suggested candour and emphasized the lapels of his tasteful suit, said, ‘Do you really think I would have got to where I am now if Freud was wrong?’

  In the same manner I said to myself as I returned indoors (the sun now set and the bedroom silent), the bare truth of the matter is that I am keeping my promise.

  All the same, I felt bored. I wandered from room to room turning on the lights, leaning in doorways and staring in at objects that already were familiar. I set up the music stand and took out my flute. I taught myself to play years ago and there are many errors, strengthened by habit, which I no longer have the will to correct. I do not press the keys as I should with the very tips of my fingers, and my fingers fly too high off the keys and so make it impossible to play fast passages with any facility. Furthermore my right wrist is not relaxed, and does not fall, as it should, at an easy right angle to the instrument. I do not hold my back straight when I play, instead I slouch over the music. My breathing is not controlled by the muscles of my stomach. I blow carelessly from the top of my throat. My embouchure is ill-formed and I rely too often on a syrupy vibrato. I lack the control to play any dynamics other than soft or loud. I have never bothered to teach myself notes above top G. My musicianship is poor, and slightly unusual
rhythms perplex me. Above all I have no ambition to play any other than the same half-dozen pieces and I make the same mistakes each time.

  Several minutes into my first piece I thought of her listening from the bedroom and the phrase ‘captive audience’ came into my mind. While I played I devised ways in which these words could be inserted casually into a sentence to make a weak, light-hearted pun, the humour of which would somehow cause the situation to be elucidated. I put the flute down and walked towards the bedroom door. But before I had my sentence arranged, my hand, with a kind of insensible automation, had pushed the door open and I was standing in front of Mary. She sat on the edge of the bed brushing her hair, the chain decently obscured by blankets. In England a woman as articulate as Mary might have been regarded as an aggressor, but her manner was gentle. She was short and quite heavily built. Her face gave an impression of reds and blacks, deep red lips, black, black eyes, dusky apple-red cheeks and hair black and sleek like tar. Her grandmother was Indian.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said sharply and without interrupting the motion of her hand.

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Captive audience!’

  ‘What?’ When I did not repeat myself she told me that she wished to be left alone. I sat down on the bed and thought, If she asks me to set her free I’ll do it instantly. But she said nothing. When she had finished with her hair she lay down with her hands clasped behind her head. I sat watching her, waiting. The idea of asking her if she wished to be set free seemed ludicrous, and simply setting her free without her permission was terrifying. I did not even know whether this was an ideological or psycho-sexual matter. I returned to my flute, this time carrying the music stand to the far end of the apartment and closing the intervening doors. I hoped she couldn’t hear me.

  On Sunday night, after more than twenty-four hours of unbroken silence between us, I set Mary free. As the lock sprang open I said, ‘I’ve been in Los Angeles less than a week and already I feel a completely different person.’