by Marie Joseph
‘He gave it to us,’ Amy whispered. ‘To us, not just to you.’
‘It was the first time my father had given me anything.’ Wesley twisted his hands together as if lathering them with soap. ‘Nothing I ever did pleased him. You didn’t know I’d run away from home four times as a child, did you?’ Wesley’s voice throbbed with sincerity. ‘He wanted to set me in his mould, do the things he wanted me to do. Go to university, get a degree, join the tennis club, get a bloody medal and a commission in the war, be a businessman, think of nothing but increasing profits, get on in the world. Your father loved you, Amy, he was proud of you, whereas mine . . .’ He turned his head to stare into the empty grate. ‘My father was ashamed of me.’
‘What has all this got to do with the house, Wesley?’ Amy watched the performance with a totally blank expression. At one time, not all that long ago, the sight of his handsome suffering face, the sound of heartbreak in his voice, would have moved her so much she would have had to stretch out a hand to him, tell him she understood, promise to stand with him against the world. ‘What do you want me to say? That I don’t want it?’ she asked. ‘That I realize your father did this while he was ill? Not in his right mind? That I renounce it in your favour?’
This was so exactly what Wesley did want that he wasn’t quick enough to hide his expression. ‘I knew you’d see it like that. I told Harold Thomson you wouldn’t accept when you realized the unfairness of it.’
‘What did Mr Thomson say?’
Wesley would never tell anyone what his father’s old friend had said.
Harold Thomson hadn’t minced his words. The memory of Edgar Battersby sitting crumpled with pain not all that long ago in the very same room was too recent; it still filled him with sadness. Edgar’s pride had stopped him for enlarging on his reasons for wanting the name on the deeds changed, but his old friend knew all right. The tall young man with his film-star looks had brought his father nothing but trouble. Twice at least Edgar’s money had bailed him out from some tricky situation. Wesley sailed just this side of the wind, always had, even as a young lad. Always been a wrong ’un, and always would be. So there was no way, he told Wesley, no way at all that anything could be changed or altered in the slightest as far as the deeds were concerned.
‘He was astonished, to say the least,’ Wesley lied. ‘He’s known me since I went to kindergarten with his son. I expect he tried to reason with my father, but you know how stubborn the old man could be.’
Amy had a clear picture in her mind of a beaming Mr Thomson waving his newspaper at her from across the street. She hesitated, biting her lip as Wesley got up and went over to the window to stare out at the sloping backyard with its meat safe on the wall, flanked by the zinc hip-bath which had been there before the bathroom was put in.
‘Come here, love . . . Please . . .’ Wesley whispered.
She was acutely aware of the utter dejection of him, the droop of his shoulders, the way his thick black hair grew to an endearing point in the nape of his neck. It was a sight as familiar to her as the palm of her own hand, a sight that had always moved her, made her ache with love for him, especially the times when he had sat at the piano and played for her.
Slowly she pushed her chair back and went over to stand behind him. She had thought she hated him, but she didn’t. You couldn’t live with a man for over twenty years, lie in bed next to him, hold him close, respond to his lovemaking and feel nothing.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry, love. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately. I’ve taken a good hard look at myself and I don’t like what I’ve seen.’ He put up a hand. ‘No, don’t argue. There was an awful lot wrong with our marriage, but not in the way we cared for each other. I’m still very, very fond of you.’ He lifted his head. ‘I can tell you now that every time in the past when I thought of a good reason to leave you, you did or said something that made me want to stay.’
Before Amy could even think of moving, he turned to face her, pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her, opening his mouth over hers, tearing at the buttons on her jacket, cupping her breasts with his hand, squeezing, kneading.
All the blazing anger so carefully subdued up to now was in his kiss; there was nothing of tenderness in it, nothing to attune with the words he’d just spoken. Amy pushed at his chest, jerked herself away from him with such force that he had to feel behind him for the arm of the settee to regain his balance. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before pulling at her blouse to straighten it.
‘I’m saying nothing this time to make you want to stay,’ she said in a clear firm voice. ‘You’re right. There was an awful lot wrong with our marriage, but God help me for not realizing till the moment you walked away through that door.’ She stepped aside. ‘You must go now, Wesley, this isn’t the time to talk about the house. I need to believe it first, ponder it.’ There were sudden tears in her eyes. ‘If it’s true, can’t you see that it’s the most marvellous thing that’s ever happened to me? It’s security handed to me on a plate, Wesley. I wish I could say it more poetically than that, but it’s what I mean. It’s the security your father knew I’d never had with you.’
‘Are you telling me you don’t love me any more?’ His face was the face of a whipped child. The sight of her wiping his kiss from her mouth had filled him first with shock, then with disbelief. His mind was whirling round like a moth caught in the bowl of a light fitting. He knew Amy through and through, and losing his temper now could destroy everything. Let her go ahead and ponder on the house, see it as hers for a while, enjoy the feeling of possession, before coming down to earth and accepting the unfairness of it.
Wesley swallowed hard. God damn it, this was his house, given to him by his father, and Amy would, in her own time, see that. She hadn’t said she no longer loved him. It had been a mistake to kiss her like that, but God help him, he was only human. Yes, this was the way to do it, to go away and leave her to wrestle with her principles. Amy had always set great store on principles, felt strongly about injustices. She would come to accept how wrongly his father had treated him.
But on the way out he had to pass the piano. His piano with its smooth ivory keys, its mellow tone, given to him on his tenth birthday by a doting godmother.
‘The house as it stands, the house and its contents,’ Harold Thomson had said, stabbing with his finger on the pink blotter on his desk. ‘Your father made that very clear.’
Wesley touched the smooth mahogany of the closed lid, trailed a finger along it, then as the tight control slipped away from him lifted the lid and crashed it down, remembering she had destroyed his music. Closing his eyes he saw rage, red as molten lava behind his eyelids. God Almighty, if nothing else was to be his, this was. He had missed it, yearned for it in that awful dreary flat over the shop, would have had it brought there if there had been room.
Flinging himself down on the stool he opened the lid again and began to play, jamming the loud pedal down hard, almost to the floorboards. There was no tune, no attempt at one, just a crashing of unmelodious chords, a thumping of the keys that brought Amy’s hands up to her ears in an attempt to blot out the terrible sound.
Wesley was possessed. His hair flopped over his forehead, his eyes narrowed with an anger that consumed him. He had been thwarted, slighted, rejected, and he couldn’t bear it. He trailed the keyboard from one end to the other – and saw again the shocking sight of Amy wiping his kiss away.
Next door, through walls hardly more than plywood thick, Dora heard the din in disbelief. Amy couldn’t play the piano, not even a simple tune with one finger. Once or twice, to Dora’s knowledge, she had tried until Wesley had laughed her out of it. So what was going on? Dora put down her sewing and sat stone still, listening, trying to make sense. She stood up. That piano was being played by a madman, venting his fury on the keyboard, and if it didn’t stop soon anyone forced to listen would go mad too.
Wesley! The wonderful Wesley . . . Within two seconds Dora was do
wn the lobby, out of the house, on her way next door. To be pushed roughly aside by Wesley as he left, muttering to himself, striding off to his car parked just round the corner.
‘I’ve been left the house,’ Amy said straight out. ‘Wesley just found out today and he doesn’t like it.’
The statement was so calm, so Amy-like in the face of what had just happened that Dora burst out laughing.
‘I didn’t like that tune he was playing,’ she said deadpan.
‘It wasn’t exactly “In a Monastery Garden”, Dora.’
‘Perhaps that was just the verse, Amy. Perhaps the chorus would have had more tune to it.’
They stared at each other, quiet and unmoving for a full minute, Dora’s eyes wary, Amy’s brimming with the unexpected joy bubbling up from somewhere inside her.
‘This house is to be mine!’ she said again. ‘Mine, Dora, mine!’ Suddenly she flung both arms wide. ‘I own a house, every stick and stone. I thought nothing good was ever going to happen to me again, but it has! Whether it’s fair or not, I’m taking it. I’ll work to keep it going, Dora, no matter what I do. Then at night I’ll close the front door and come inside, and no one can ever take it away from me.’
‘Mr Battersby willed it to you? Legal and signed on the dotted line?’
‘Yes, Dora, yes!’
They had been friends for years, yet they had never held hands, never embraced; but when Dora held out her arms Amy went into them and they rocked backwards and forwards together, overwhelmed by their mutual delight.
11
AMY WASN’T GOING to tell a soul, not until everything was out in the open and cleared, but how could she keep quiet when her mother looked so worried?
‘You’re going thin,’ Gladys accused. ‘You’re going to skin and bone. I can see your ribs sticking out through that jumper and your skirt’s dropping off you. If you fell down a grate you wouldn’t even bark your shins.’
She was so worried, so struggling not to show it that Amy told her about the house and the money to cheer her up.
‘Mr Battersby has left this house to me in his Will, Mam.’
Instantly Gladys was all outraged suspicion. ‘Who told you a thing like that?’
‘Wesley.’
‘Who told him?’
‘The solicitor.’
‘What solicitor?’
‘Mr Thomson.’
‘With a brother who used to be the Mayor?’
‘Mam!’ Amy couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. ‘It’s true! Did you ever dream Mr Battersby would do a thing like this? For me?’
‘What does Wesley have to say about it?’
‘He doesn’t like it. He’s livid.’ Amy’s smile wavered. ‘Mam, how can I be so glad about something that’s happened only because a dear old man died?’
‘What does his mother have to say about it?’
‘I don’t know, Mam. I don’t care! Just at this moment all I can think is that I own my own house.’
‘What about the rates?’ Gladys was so affronted she couldn’t contain herself. ‘And the upkeep? Houses eat money.’
‘I can work, Mam! There won’t be the rent to pay, and there’s a bit of money to come as well when things are sorted out. Mam, I own a house! I can do what I like with it. I can take a lodger if I want. I can paint the front door purple, I can sell it if I want to.’
‘How much for?’ Gladys was totally out of her depth. ‘There’s got to be a catch in it somewhere.’ She had gone quite pale.
Amy felt her new-found exhilaration begin to slip away. Her mother was right. There had to be a catch in it somewhere. Houses weren’t handed over like a tram ticket. Wesley had implied that she had wheedled it out of his father when he was too ill to know what he was doing. Maybe he would be able to claim it back?
She looked at her mother, cowed down, unable to believe that sometimes round the corner there could be a stroke of good fortune waiting to happen. Poor Mam had never hoped for the best, always been sure that even when the sun shone there was always the chance that it would rain the next day. Poor Mam had never believed in a silver lining.
Amy remembered as a little girl walking with her mam and dad along a winding country lane, with great feathery masses of bread and cheese growing in the hedgerows. It had rained and they had sheltered beneath the sloping roof of a barn, coming out into a magic world where raindrops had set the greenery to sparkle like diamonds, and where away in the distance a rainbow wavered into beauty, a shimmering arc spanning the grey sky. Amy’s father had pointed it out to her and they had stood entranced, but Mam hadn’t seen it, couldn’t see it at all.
‘There!’ the small Amy had shouted, wanting her mother to see it, trying to make her see it. All in vain.
‘We’ll miss the bus if we don’t look sharp,’ Mam had said, trudging along with her head down, watching carefully where she put her feet because this was the countryside where you never knew what you’d step in next.
Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off Amy when he called that afternoon. He left his hat on as he was only going to stop for a minute and his face, beneath the smallish brim, was illuminated with a shiny glow of admiration for this bonny woman who was coping so well on her own, with never a grumble.
She was wearing a green-flowered print dress with a sweetheart neckline, set off with a floppy white organdie bow. Charlie couldn’t have described it in such terms; all he knew was that the pale green suited her down to the ground, showed off the burnished sheen of her hair, brought out gold flecks in her eyes.
‘I’m very fond of you, Amy,’ he said all at once. ‘More than fond, as a matter of fact.’ He began to walk backwards and forwards, the hat still on his head. ‘You give me ideas every time I look at you.’
‘What sort of ideas?’ Amy was foolish enough to ask.
Charlie stopped his perambulating and took the hat off. ‘I’m a very passionate man, Amy, and I’ve been celibate for far too long. Clara isn’t going to come back this time, not that I’d have her if she did, and Wesley’s not exactly camping on your doorstep, is he?’
Amy looked at him coldly.
‘We could be such a comfort to each other.’ He drew in his lips as if to stop them trembling. ‘We’re not children and some day, when the divorces come through, we’ll be married. Lottie needs a mother and oh, heaven help me, Amy, but I need you.’
By executing the smartest of sidesteps, Amy managed to avoid the short outstretched arms. Putting the width of the table between them, she spoke to him firmly.
‘Charlie. Listen. No, stay where you are and just listen.’
‘I can’t help it, Amy. I think about you all day long and dream about you all night.’
He seemed to be gathering himself together, and for a wild moment Amy wondered if he was going to leap over the table. He was breathing heavily and his face had gone blood red.
‘Stop it, Charlie!’ Amy glanced over her shoulder to the foot of the stairs, wondering if she could make a run for it. Was this one of Charlie’s jokes? Wesley used to tell her that old Charlie was funnier than any comic on the halls when he got going. Was he going to burst out laughing any moment now, slap his hand against his thigh, chuffed with himself for having had her on so successfully?
‘Stop behaving like a clown, Charlie,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re not the right shape for a Romeo.’
He blinked as hard as if he’d been sloshed with a bucket of cold water. Too late Amy realized he’d been in deadly earnest.
‘Charlie . . .’ she said softly, ‘I’m fond of you, too. Very fond.’ She wondered if she dare go to him and touch his arm, or even kiss him on a red-veined cheek, then swiftly decided better not. ‘I admire you very much and if I wanted to have an affair, I can’t think of anyone nicer to have one with. But . . .’ She stared at him, biting her lips. ‘I’m sorry, really sorry.’
He put the hat back on his head, pulling it too low down over his bushy eyebrows. ‘Okay, if that’s the way it is, I guess we’ll forget a
ll about it. Crack on it never happened.’
In his mind he was John Gilbert or Ronald Colman, whispering a brave farewell to the love of his life. But even as he walked out of the house, his step as jaunty as ever, he knew in his heart he was much more of an Oliver Hardy.
‘You’ve been giving me all the wrong signals,’ he felt bound to say in his own defence, salvaging his pride. Just a little.
Wesley was worried about what Clara would say when he told her the news about the house, but her attitude almost knocked him for six.
‘Oh, let her have it, for goodness’ sake. What is it after all but a little terraced house with a lavatory in the backyard? She’ll probably sell it and go and live with her mother.’ Clara raised plucked eyebrows almost to her hairline. ‘What do you reckon it’s worth on today’s prices? Three hundred? Three hundred and fifty?’
Wesley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘It’s my house, for God’s sake! It’s a little gem, everybody who saw it said so. We had a bathroom put in, a bay window at the front and a tiled fireplace in the living room.’
‘I know, I’ve seen it,’ Clara said. ‘With a mantelpiece so narrow there’s nowhere to stand your glass.’
Was she being serious, or was she taking the mickey? For once he could smell something cooking in the oven out on the wide landing, and looking properly at her for the first time since he’d come storming up the stairs saw that she was wearing a little jewelled slide in her hair and had painted her nails a strong fuchsia shade. She was sitting on the floor by the gas fire. She had taken her shoes off and through her silk stockings he could see that her toenails were painted to match. He felt choked.
Couldn’t she understand that he needed some of the money from his house so that he could pay a deposit on one with a garden and an inside toilet? Couldn’t she see he was half out of his mind with worry about money and how he was going to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed? His mouth twisted as he remembered how he had promised her the earth if only she would leave Charlie and move in here with him. He would climb up and get the moon for her, he had said.