The Penguin Book of the British Short Story

by Philip Hensher

  ‘You know it’s not that, Vernon darling.’ Stella, who was small and thin, with a delicate pink and white colouring and prettily weak features, slipped her arm through her husband’s. ‘But it’s so awful to have to ask and ask and ask. And we still owe Mummy that fifty pounds we borrowed last year.’

  ‘If she’d had any generosity, she’d have made it a gift. She’s supposed to be so fond of Mavis, isn’t she? And yet if it comes to helping us over a bad patch, she won’t lift a finger.’ The life of the Thuribles was made up of ‘bad patches’.

  So Vernon continued to nag; but the curious thing was that, as he did so, his voice was never anything but friendly and reasonable, and his intelligent, humorously vivid face never ceased to smile. But for Stella’s look of distress any passer-by would have assumed that they were at that moment on the best of terms.

  The Thuribles were now standing on the platform, and Vernon was saying: ‘Oh, I’m sick of this endless living from hand to mouth. No wonder I can’t write music, when I have to worry about money day after day after day. Little did I guess what a millstone I was putting round my neck that evening I proposed to you.’ When he saw the tears in Stella’s eyes, he gave a good-natured laugh, to show that he was joking: no one could say that Vernon was lacking in a sense of humour. ‘How wonderful it would be to have my freedom again! Do you remember how you used to say that two could live as cheaply as one? You’ve never been much good at addition, have you?’ He swung the cage back and forth, apparently forgetful of the terrified animal that was being rolled from side to side with feebly convulsive claws that scratched on the wicker. ‘Really, one day I think I shall have to get rid of you.’ Stella, head lowered, was blinking away the tears with her long, flaxen eye-lashes. He came up behind her: ‘Just one push’ – his hands were on her shoulders – ‘gently – like this.’ His green eyes were flashing with merriment, and as he spoke he laughed; but Stella (who tended, as Vernon often said, to hysteria) wrenched herself free and shot through the tunnel to the opposite platform from which trains went north, instead of south. There was a train just leaving, and she was able to squeeze herself in before the doors closed on Vernon’s outraged face.

  At the next stop, Stella got out, and caught the bus to Blackheath; and there at the bus stop, waiting as if she had told him how she would come, Vernon was standing, with the mouse’s cage still in his hand. Stella laughed as she climbed off the bus and Vernon laughed too, putting an arm round her shoulder.

  Mavis was delighted with her present, and next day, at her birthday party, she amused her seven little friends by taking the mouse out of its cage and making it run up and down the sofa by prodding it with a pencil. But when a little boy attempted to prod it with his own stubby finger, she gave him a kick. She was devoted to her mouse, and wouldn’t have anyone else tease it. At tea she fed it on cake crumbs and made it say ‘Thank you’ by pinching it between her thumb and her forefinger. She was a child with all her father’s looks and good humour.

  The mothers who were present were charmed by Vernon and decided that any talk of noisy quarrels or even of ‘differences’ must have been malicious gossip. They noticed, in particular, how lovingly Vernon stroked Stella’s ash-blonde hair as he perched on the arm of the sofa beside her, and they agreed that any man who could dress so elegantly and offer them glasses of sherry at six o’clock, could not really be as badly off as their husbands maintained.

  But the day after this successful tea party Vernon felt ill; he always said that the mere thought of money made him feel ill, and perhaps it was indeed this that sent him to his bed with a couple of aspirins. It was, as he pointed out to Stella, particularly unfortunate that he should be indisposed at this moment, as a music publisher had sent him a book for which an index had to be prepared by the end of the week. ‘He’ll never send me anything again.’ Vernon groaned, and added: ‘Oh, do draw those curtains. The light hurts my eyes.’

  ‘Couldn’t I do it for you?’

  ‘The index? You, darling?’ He gripped her small hand in his own large one; one would have thought that with a single squeeze he would be able to crush those fragile fingers. But Vernon was always gentle. ‘How can you? You know you hate that sort of thing.’

  ‘But we do need the money, don’t we?’

  ‘Oh, the money!’ He sighed deeply and covered his face with his hands. ‘Yes, we certainly need that.’

  ‘Then don’t worry. I’ll do what I can with the index.’

  Mavis had come in during this conversation and had thrown herself on the bed; the mouse was inside the sleeve of her cardigan and from time to time she peered down to see if all went well.

  ‘You are angelic, darling. I don’t know what I would do without you.’

  But really, Vernon decided, as Stella came back and back to him with her fatuous, uncomprehending questions about the index, it would have been far simpler to do it oneself. Mavis was playing on the floor of the bedroom, and he liked to lie and watch her, as she urged the mouse up and down a staircase she had made for it out of matchboxes; but how could he be at peace and get well if Stella kept coming in to ask what should be included in the index and what left out? Not that he wanted to hurt her feelings – in fact, when she began to cry because he pointed out to her (in an entirely friendly manner, of course) that he had already explained the same point to her at least three times, he at once pulled her down on to the bed and began to kiss her neck. But, oh, he did so wish that he had married a woman of some intelligence! … However, she did persevere, there was no doubt of that; so that somehow, by staying up late for a week, she managed to complete the work, and cash a cheque for fifteen pounds with which Vernon was able to buy, among other things, the claret which the doctor had recommended so strongly for his health.

  Meanwhile, by the end of that same week, Mavis had taught her mouse to scuttle up and down the matchboxes, for the reward of a piece of cheese rind. ‘He’s really awfully clever,’ she said to her father. ‘I think I could teach him anything.’

  But still they needed money; soon the publisher’s fifteen pounds had been spent on what Vernon would call ‘the bare necessities of life’ and inexplicably none of Stella’s relatives would help them with a loan. Even Stella’s mother, usually so generous, would do no more than treat Stella and Mavis to tea at Harrods and buy Mavis a new cage, of silver wire, for her mouse. Vernon was in despair. How could he write music? he would demand. Oh, he was sick of this life. For four years he had laboured at his symphony and now, for lack of bread, he would never get it finished. He would have to take a job. But of course, he hastened to add kindly, he didn’t blame Stella.

  Fortunately, however, his symphony was saved by the arrival in the flat below of a retired prep-schoolmaster. This man, who had suffered a slight stroke after his wife’s death, needed someone to help with his cooking and cleaning, and Vernon put it to Stella that it would be an act of charity to help the poor old boy in his hour of distress. Stella received, of course, a token payment; for the man was not poor, and as Vernon pointed out, ‘He’d probably much rather keep his independence. One must think of such things.’

  The arrangement was not, however, wholly satisfactory. Often when Vernon needed Stella to copy music for him, to run an errand or to make him a cup of tea, she would be downstairs. He began to feel that the old man imposed on her; and it was no use Stella saying that he was really most kind and paid her extra if she stayed for more than the hour, for Vernon would only answer: ‘You are a sweet-natured little thing. Anyone can get the better of you.’

  Mr Errin (for that was his name) also had a dog, of indeterminate breed and sex, which was so old that it spent its whole day stretched out asleep on one of the flower-beds of the garden which was shared by the two flats; the poor creature appeared to like the warm moisture of the earth. Vernon himself did not work in the garden – it brought on his fibrositis – but Stella did, and it upset him to see the dog crush the flowers which she had planted with so much care. More than once he
had to complain (of course in his usual friendly fashion) to old Mr Errin. Mavis also disliked the dog, being afraid it would eat her mouse; though on the rare occasions when, by accident, the animals came face to face, they appeared to feel nothing but a mild curiosity towards each other.

  ‘Do you really like the old chap?’ Vernon asked Stella.

  ‘Yes, of course I do. He’s awfully sweet and kind … By the way, he said he would lend us that twenty pounds for the rent.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him, did you?’ Vernon said, horrified.

  ‘Well – yes … I did.’

  ‘Have you no pride?’

  ‘But I thought … you said … As we were going to be turned out of the flat if we couldn’t pay.’

  Vernon ran his fingers through Stella’s luxuriant hair: ‘Silly!’ he said. ‘No one minds borrowing off relations. That’s what relations are for. But from someone we hardly know—’

  ‘Oh, Mr Errin’s a real friend,’ Stella protested. She saw the smile fade from her husband’s face, and she added with a note of fearfulness in her voice: ‘Isn’t he?’ Vernon’s fingers tightened in her hair, so that it felt as if an electric current were shooting among the roots.

  A week later Vernon was going to have lunch with a publisher; he was already late, as he had had to talk to Mavis severely about not teasing her mouse (she loved it, of course, and didn’t mean to hurt it; but he couldn’t bear to see her pulling it along by its tail, or pinching it between her fingers until it emitted its shrill, frightened squeaks) and now he found that a button was missing from the suit he wanted to wear. It was a suit barely three months old and he felt angry with the Savile Row tailors who had made it for him, and even more angry with Stella for not having noticed that the button needed sewing, when she put the suit away for him. ‘Stella, old thing!’ he had shouted amiably. But Stella was not in the flat.

  He looked at his watch and saw that it was ten past twelve; Stella was supposed to finish her work for Mr Errin at twelve o’clock precisely. So he went down in his dressing-gown and rang at their neighbour’s bell. ‘Oh, Mr Thurible!’ Mr Errin exclaimed. ‘Do come in, won’t you? Stella – your wife’ – as Mr Errin corrected himself, he blushed like a schoolboy – ‘that is – we are just drinking a cup of coffee together. Won’t you come in and join us?’

  Vernon gave his frank and charming smile. ‘It’s awfully decent of you, but I’m afraid it’ll have to be another time. I’m dashing out to meet my publisher, and the button has come off my one and only suit. I don’t want to hurry Stella, but if she could sew it on for me—’

  ‘But of course, darling!’ Stella had overheard the conversation and now rushed out of the sitting-room, in an overall and with her hair bound up in a scarf. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t have noticed when I put it away.’

  The Thuribles both thanked Mr Errin for his offer of the coffee and apologized for leaving so hurriedly. Vernon put his arm round Stella’s waist and squeezed her as they went upstairs: but (no doubt from the haste with which he had dressed) he was trembling from head to foot.

  ‘You look just like a little charwoman,’ he teased.

  ‘Do I, darling?’

  ‘Which, of course, is what you are now!’ They both laughed together.

  When they had shut the door of their flat, Vernon said, ‘I’m going to be at least half an hour late. I’d better call the whole thing off. It’ll look better than keeping him waiting all that time.’

  ‘Oh, darling!’ Stella looked at him in horror. ‘But I thought you were hoping to persuade him to give you an advance.’

  ‘Well, I shall have to persuade him to do that some other time. It’ll take you at least five minutes to sew on that button. You’re not exactly a needlewoman, are you, poor dear?’ He kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Couldn’t – couldn’t you wear another suit?’ Stella suggested timidly.

  ‘You talk as if I had a dozen to choose from.’

  ‘Well, you have got the grey flannel—’

  ‘Light grey flannel at the Athenaeum!’ He laughed indulgently. ‘And I can’t wear the blue, it needs pressing. You remember I asked you to take it—’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ She remembered, appalled. ‘I’ve been so busy.’

  ‘Yes, I know. That’s why I really think you’d better stop working for Mr Errin. I’ve noticed that you’ve been looking awfully run down and seedy just these last few days, and obviously the whole thing is becoming far too much for you.’

  ‘But I enjoy going,’ Stella protested; and at once, from the tightening of Vernon’s mouth, she noticed her mistake.

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt you do. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you can’t hope to run two households at one and the same time. However much you enjoy it.’ He gave the last two words the faintest and most subtle of emphases. ‘I don’t like to think of Mavis being neglected – and particularly neglected for an old bore like Errin. He’ll have to find himself a daily woman.’

  ‘But I don’t look on him as an employer, he’s a—’ she broke off.

  ‘Yes, my dear?’ She was silent. ‘Well, what is he?’ Stella made no answer; her large blue eyes were filling with tears. Vernon once more put his arm round her: ‘Anyway we can discuss all this later – when we’re a little calmer, eh?’ He gave the smile which the wives of their little circle found so irresistible. ‘The immediate problem is this damned lunch party. Would you ring up the old man and tell him that I’ve got another of my migraines? I expect he’s still at his office – otherwise leave a message at the Athenaeum.’

  ‘Oh, Vernon! Couldn’t you possibly – if you take a taxi—?’

  ‘Look, my sweet, do let me decide what I should, or should not do.’ He picked up the telephone receiver and handed it to her, himself dialling the number. Stella, who had been well rehearsed in such falsehoods, told his lie for him in the tone of worried innocence which she usually adopted on such occasions. Then she put back the receiver and burst into tears.

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’ Vernon asked, surprised.

  Stella sobbed loudly, making strange gulping noises in the back of her throat. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Vernon said rather than shouted. ‘Darling!’ Now he was putting his arm again about her. ‘What on earth is the matter?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so hopeless – so useless –! I know it’s all my fault.’

  ‘It’s just your kindness,’ Vernon said. ‘That’s all it is, darling – that excessive kindness of yours. I know it’s simply that you feel sorry for Mr Errin, and that of course there’s nothing else – on your side, at least. Oh, darling – please!’ Stella was now howling. ‘Darling! For God’s sake, be quiet! You know that I hate scenes.’

  At last he picked up the latest number of the Connoisseur from his bureau and decided to go to the garden; one’s nerves could stand just so much, and then no more. ‘Darling!’ he remonstrated once again as he passed out of the door. But Stella either did not, or would not, hear him. Really, she was so emotional, he told himself, as he took the stairs in twos. And a scene like this quite ruined one’s appetite for lunch – apart from making it impossible for one to work.

  But in the garden there was no peace either. Mavis was sobbing hysterically and battering some object, again and again, with a stone from the rock garden. Vernon went across: ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  Mavis continued to beat the stone wildly on the earth while the old dog, his mangy head raised, blinked glassy eyes at her from the neighbouring flower-bed.

  ‘My God! It’s – it’s your mouse,’ Vernon said.

  ‘I told it – and told it – and told it,’ Mavis cried between each stroke. ‘I said it was not to go near the dog.’ Her hair was falling about her face, and there was blood on her pinafore. Then suddenly she looked up at Vernon with a glance so cold and so penetrating that he found that he could not hold it.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ she asked.

  WILLIAM SANSOM

  A Contest of Ladies

 
Fred Morley might easily have been mistaken for something of an eccentric. He was a ‘bachelor’, he was ‘wealthy’, he was ‘retired from the stage’. It was not held unusual for such a man to be somewhat out of line with the rest of the world.

  Nor, because he was a bachelor, was it unusual that a certain July evening found him in his bedroom wandering from door to window, from bed to fireplace, wondering what to do. Many evenings found him so – with the warm nights and in the dangerous flush of middle-age.

  He looked at the metal plaque of bells by his bed. ‘Chambermaid’. ‘Waiter’. But he knew that if he rang, neither would come. His eye dropped to the telephone beneath – there were buttons which led to ‘Reception’ and ‘Restaurant’ and ‘Toilet Saloon’: again he knew there would be no response. He wondered – as he had done so very often in the past – whether he really would have liked a response, had this been possible. But he quickly put that old idea from his mind, he was much happier as things were.

  Up on the pink satin wall-paper, in a discreet position, was inset a white celluloid notice: a scramble of black lettering begged visitors to do this or not to do that. Morley’s empty mind passed to all the other empty rooms around and above him, all with the same small notice bowing and begging – for the wording of these notices was polite and obsequious, a cut above the terse commercial command – by each closed door.