The Second Penguin Book of English Short Stories

by Christopher Dolley (ed)

  There was a carpet hanging on the wall, which I think was there to hide a damp spot. She had a good TV set, I will say that. But some of the walls were bare brick, and the facilities were outside, through the garden. The furniture was far from new.

  One Saturday afternoon, as I happened to go to the Darbys, they were just going off to a film and they took me too. It was the Curzon, and afterwards we went to a flat in Curzon Street. It was a very clean block, I will say that, and there were good carpets at the entrance. The couple there had contemporary furniture, and they also spoke about music. It was a nice place, but there was no Welfare Centre to the flats, where people could go for social intercourse, advice, and guidance. But they were well-spoken, and I met Willy Morley, who was an artist. Willy sat beside me, and we had a drink. He was young, dark, with a dark shirt, so one could not see right away if he was clean. Soon after this, Jim said to me, ‘Willy wants to paint you, Lorna. But you’d better ask your Mum.’ Mum said it was all right if he was a friend of the Darbys.

  I can honestly say that Willy’s place was the most unhygienic place I have seen in my life. He said I had an unusual type of beauty, which he must capture. This was when we came back to his place from the restaurant. The light was very dim, but I could see the bed had not been made, and the sheets were far from clean. He said he must paint me, but I told Mavis I did not like to go back there. ‘Don’t you like Willy?’ she asked. I could not deny that I liked Willy, in a way. There was something about him, I will say that. Mavis said, ‘I hope he hasn’t been making a pass at you, Lorna.’ I said he had not done so, which was almost true, because he did not attempt to go to the full extent. It was always unhygienic when I went to Willy’s place, and I told him so once, but he said, ‘Lorna, you are a joy.’ He had a nice way, and he took me out in his car, which was a good one, but dirty inside, like his place. Jim said one day, ‘He has pots of money, Lorna,’ and Mavis said, ‘You might make a man of him, as he is keen on you.’ They always said Willy came from a good family.

  But I saw that one could not do anything with him. He would not change his shirt very often, or get clothes, but he went round like a tramp, lending people money, as I have seen with my own eyes. His place was in a terrible mess, with the empty bottles, and laundry in the corner. He gave me several gifts over the period, which I took as he would have only given them away, but he never tried to go to the full extent. He never painted my portrait, as he was painting fruit on a table all that time, and they said his pictures were marvellous, and thought Willy and I were getting married.

  One night, when I went home, I was upset as usual, after Willy’s place. Mum and Dad had gone to bed, and I looked round our kitchen which is done in primrose and white. Then I went into the living room, where Dad has done one wall in a patterned paper, deep rose and white, and the other walls pale rose, with white woodwork. The suite is new, and Mum keeps everything beautiful. So it came to me, all of a sudden, what a fool I was, going with Willy. I agree to equality, but as to me marrying Willy, as I said to Mavis, when I recall his place, and the good carpet gone greasy, not to mention the paint oozing out of the tubes, I think it would break my heart to sink so low.

  Kingsley Amis

  INTERESTING THINGS

  GLORIA DAVIES crossed the road towards the Odeon on legs that weaved a little, as if she was tipsy or rickety. She wasn’t either really; it was just the high-heeled shoes, worn for the first time specially for today. The new hoop ear-rings swayed from her lobes, hitting her rhythmically on the jaws as she walked. No. They were wrong. They had looked fine in her bedroom mirror, but they were wrong, somehow. She whipped them off and stuffed them into her handbag. Perhaps there’d be a chance to try them again later, when it was the evening. They might easily make all the difference then.

  She stopped thinking about the ear-rings when she found she couldn’t see Mr Huws-Evans anywhere in the crowd of people waiting for their friends on the steps of the Odeon. She knew at once then that he hadn’t really meant it. After all, what could an Inspector of Taxes (Assessment Section) see in an eighteen-year-old comptometer operator? How stuck-up she’d been, congratulating herself on being the first girl in the office Mr Huws-Evans had ever asked out. Just then a tall man who’d been standing close by took off his beige mackintosh hat with a drill-like movement, keeping his elbow close to his chest. It was Mr Huws-Evans.

  ‘Hallo, Gloria,’ he said. He watched her for a bit, a smile showing round the curly stem of the pipe he was biting. Then he added: ‘Didn’t you recognize me, Gloria?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Huws-Evans, I sort of just didn’t see you.’ The hat and the pipe had put her off completely, and she was further confused by being called Gloria twice already.

  He nodded, accepting her apology and explanation. He put his hat on again with a ducking gesture, then removed his pipe. ‘Shall we go in? Don’t want to miss the News.’

  While Mr Huws-Evans bought two two-and-fourpennies Gloria noticed he was carrying a string bag full of packets of potato crisps. She wondered why he was doing that.

  It was very dark inside the cinema itself, and Mr Huws-Evans had to click his fingers for a long time, and tremendously loudly, before an usherette came. The Odeon was often full on a Saturday when the football team was playing away, and Gloria and Mr Huws-Evans couldn’t help pushing past a lot of people to get to their seats. A good deal of loud sighing, crackling of sweet-packets and uncoiling of embraces marked their progress. At last they were settled in full view of the screen, on which the Duke of Edinburgh was playing polo. Mr Huws-Evans asked Gloria loudly whether she could see all right, and when she whispered that she could he offered her a chocolate. ‘They’re rather good,’ he said.

  Almost nothing happened while the films were shown. The main feature was on first. As soon as Gloria could tell that it was old-fashioned she was afraid she wouldn’t enjoy it. Nobody did anything in it, they just talked. Some of the talking made Mr Huws-Evans laugh for a long time at a time, and once or twice he nudged Gloria. When he did this she laughed too, because it was up to her to be polite and not spoil his pleasure. The film ended with a lot of fuss about a Gladstone bag and people falling into each other’s arms in a daft, put-on way.

  Gloria kept wondering if Mr Huws-Evans was going to put his arm round her. She’d never yet gone to the pictures in male company without at least this happening, and usually quite a lot more being tried on, but somehow Mr Huws-Evans didn’t seem the man for any of that. He was older than her usual escorts, to start with, and to go on with there was something about that mackintosh hat and that string bag which made it hard to think of him putting his arm round anyone, except perhaps his mother. Once she caught sight of his hand dangling over the arm of the seat towards her, and she moved her own hand carefully so that he could take hold of it easily if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He leaned rather closer to her to light her cigarettes than he strictly needed to, and that was all.

  After a pair of tin gates had been shown opening in a slow and dignified way, there was about half an hour of advertisements while everybody whistled the tunes that were playing. The cereals and the detergents came up, then a fairly long and thorough episode about razor-blades. During it Mr Huws-Evans suddenly said: ‘It’s a damned scandal, that business.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Well, all this business about the modern shave. All these damned gadgets and things. It’s just a way of trying to get you to use a new blade every day, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, I get you. You mean because the – ’

  ‘Mind you, with the kind of blade some of these firms turn out you’ve got to use a new blade. I grant them that.’ He laughed briefly. ‘If you don’t want to skin yourself getting the beard off, that is. And of course they don’t give a damn how much they spend on publicity. It’s all off tax. Doesn’t really cost them a bean.’

  Gloria was going to say ‘How’s that, then?’ but Mr Huws-Evans’s mann
er, that of one with a comprehensive explanation on instant call, warned her not to. She said instead: ‘No, of course it doesn’t.’

  He looked at her with mingled scepticism and wistfulness, and ended the conversation by saying violently: ‘Some of these firms.’

  While the lights went down again, Gloria thought about this brief exchange. It was just the kind of talk older men went in for, the sort of thing her father discussed with his buddies when they called to take him down to the pub, things to do with the Government and pensions and jobs and the Russians, things that fellows who went dancing never mentioned. She saw, on the other hand, that that kind of talk wasn’t only tied up in some way with getting old, it also had to do with money and a car, with speaking properly and with being important. So a girl would show herself up for a lump with no conversation and bad manners if she gave away to an older man the fact that uninteresting things didn’t interest her. Next time Mr Huws-Evans got on to them she must do better.

  The second film promised to be full of interesting things. There were some lovely dresses, the star looked just like another star Gloria had often wished she looked like, and there was a scene in a kind of flash night-club with dim lights, men in tail coats and a modern band. The star was wearing a terrific evening dress with sequins and had a white fur round her shoulders. A man with a smashing profile sitting at the bar turned and saw her. Her eyes met his for a long moment. Gloria swallowed and leant forward in her seat.

  Mr Huws-Evans nudged Gloria and said: ‘Don’t think much of this, do you? What about some tea?’

  ‘Oh, we haven’t got to go yet, have we?’

  ‘Well, we don’t want to sit through this, do we?’

  Gloria recollected herself. ‘No, right you are, then.’

  They moved effortfully back along the row, taking longer this time because some of the embraces were slower in uncoiling. In the foyer, Gloria said: ‘Well, thank you very much, Mr Huws-Evans, I enjoyed the film ever so much,’ but he wasn’t listening; he was looking wildly about as if he’d just found himself in a ladies’ cloakroom, and beginning to say: ‘The crisps. I’ve left them inside.’

  ‘Never mind, don’t you worry, it won’t take a minute fetching them. I don’t mind waiting at all.’

  He stared out at her from under the mackintosh hat, which he’d pulled down for some reason so that it hid his eyebrows. ‘I shan’t be able to remember the seat. You come too, Gloria. Please.’

  After a lot more finger-clicking inside they found the row. In the beam of the usherette’s torch Gloria saw that their seats were already occupied. Even more slowly than before, Mr Huws-Evans began shuffling sidelong away from her; there was some disturbance. Gloria, waiting in the aisle, turned and looked at the screen. The man with the profile was dancing with the star now and all the other people had gone back to their tables and were watching them. Gloria watched them too, and had forgotten where she was when a moderate uproar slowly broke out and slowly moved towards her. It was Mr Huws-Evans with the crisps, which were rustling and crunching like mad. Men’s voices were denouncing him, some of them loudly and one of the loud ones using words Gloria didn’t like, in fact one word was the word she called ‘that word’. Her cheeks went hot. Mr Huws-Evans was saying things like ‘Very sorry, old boy’ and ‘Hurts me as much as it hurts you,’ and every so often he laughed cheerily. Everywhere people were calling ‘Ssshh.’ Gloria couldn’t think of anything to do to help.

  A long time later they were outside again. It was clear at once that the rain had stopped holding off hours ago. Mr Huws-Evans took her arm and said they’d better run for it, and that was what they did. They ran a long way for it, and fast too, so that the high heels were doing some terrible slipping and skidding. Opposite Woolworth’s Gloria nearly did the splits, but Mr Huws-Evans prevented that, and was just as effective when she started a kind of sliding football tackle towards a lady in bifocal glasses carrying a little boy. That was just outside Bevan & Bevan’s, and Gloria didn’t mind it much because she’d guessed by now that they were going to Dalessio’s, a fairly flash Italian restaurant frequented by the car-owning classes – unless, of course, they were making for Cwmbwrla or Portardulais on foot.

  There was a queue in Dalessio’s and Gloria panted out the news that she was going to the cloakroom, where there was another, but shorter, queue. While she waited her turn she felt her hair, which must have been looking dreadful, and wondered about her face, to which she’d applied some of the new liquid make-up everyone was talking about. She was glad to find, in due time, that she hadn’t been looking too bad. Touching up with the liquid stuff didn’t quite provide the amazing matt finish the advertisements described, in fact she wondered if she didn’t look a bit like one of the waxworks she’d seen that time in Cardiff, but there was no time to re-do it and it must surely wear off a little after a bit. She gazed longingly at the ear-rings in her bag, and at the new mascara kit, but these must certainly wait. Taking a last peep at herself, she reflected gratefully, as her father had often exhorted her to do, that she was very lucky to be quite pretty and have all that naturally curly naturally blonde hair.

  Mr Huws-Evans had a table for two when she joined him. He took the bag of crisps off her chair and laid them reverently at his side. Gloria thought he seemed very attached to them. What did he want them for, and so many of them too? It was a puzzle. Perhaps he guessed her curiosity, because he said: ‘They’re for the party. They said I was to get them.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Who’ll be there? At the party? You did tell me when you asked me, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Not many people you’ll know, I’m afraid. There’ll be Mr Pugh, of course, from Allowances, and his wife, and Miss Harry from Repayments, and my brother – you’ve met him, haven’t you? – and my dentist and his, er, and his friend, and two or three of my brother’s friends. About a dozen altogether.’

  ‘It sounds lovely,’ Gloria said. A little tremor of excitement ran through her; then she remembered about poise. She arranged herself at the table like one of the models who showed off jewellery on TV, and purposely took a long while deciding what to have when the waitress came, though she’d known ever since passing Bevan & Bevan’s that she was going to have mixed grill, with French fried potatoes. She was soon so lost in thoughts of the party and in enjoying eating that it was like a voice in a dream when Mr Huws-Evans said:

  ‘Of course, the real difficulties come when we have to decide whether something’s income or capital.’

  Gloria looked up, trying not to seem startled. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘For instance,’ Mr Huws-Evans went on, drawing a long fishbone from his mouth, ‘take the case of a man who buys a house, lives in it for a bit and then sells it. Any profit he might make wouldn’t be assessable. It’s capital, not income.’

  ‘So he wouldn’t have to pay tax on it, is that right?’

  ‘Now for goodness’ sake don’t go and get that mixed up with the tax on the property itself, the Schedule A tax.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of that. There were some figures I – ’

  ‘That still has to be paid.’ He leaned forward in an emphatic way. ‘Unless the man is exempt of course.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Now it’d be much easier, as you can imagine, to catch him on the sale of several houses. But even then we’d need to show that there was a trade. If the chap buys them as investments, just to get the rents, well then you couldn’t catch him if he sold out later at a profit. There’d be no trade, you see.’

  ‘No.’ Gloria swallowed a mushroom-stalk whole. ‘No trade.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded and seemed pleased, then changed his tone to nonchalant indulgence. ‘Mind you, even the profit on an isolated transaction could be an income profit. There was the case of three chaps who bought some South African brandy, had it shipped over here and blended with French brandy, and sold it at a profit. But the Court still said the
re was a trade. They’d set up a selling organization.’

  ‘Ah, I get it.’

  ‘You’ll be perfectly all right just so long as you remember that income tax is a tax on income.’

  Gloria felt a little dashed when Mr Huws-Evans found nothing to add to his last maxim. She hadn’t spoken up enough and shown she was taking an interest. He couldn’t just go on talking, with nobody helping to make it a proper conversation. And yet – what could she have said? It was so hard to think of things.

  Mr Huws-Evans launched off again soon and she cheered up. He questioned her about herself and her parents and friends and what she did in the evenings. He watched her with his big brown eyes and tended to raise his eyebrows slowly when she got near the end of each bit she said. Then, before asking his next question, he’d let his eyes go vacant, and drop his jaw without opening his mouth at all, and nod slightly, as if each reply of hers was tying up, rather disturbingly, with some fantastic theory about her he’d originally made up for fun: that she was a Communist spy, say, or a goblin in human form. During all this he dismantled, cleaned, reassembled, filled and lit his pipe, finally tamping down the tobacco with his thumb and burning himself slightly.

  At last it was time to go. In the street Gloria said: ‘Well, thank you very much, Mr Huws-Evans, I enjoyed the food ever so much,’ but he wasn’t listening; he was rubbing his chin hard with some of his fingers, and beginning to say: ‘Shave. Got to have a shave before the party. That blade this morning.’

  They boarded a bus and went a long way on it. Mr Huws-Evans explained, quoting figures, that a taxi wasn’t worthwhile and that he personally was damned if he was going to lay out all that cash on a car simply to make a splash and impress a few snobs. He paid the conductor with coins from a leather purse that did up with two poppers. This purse, Gloria thought, was somehow rather like the mackintosh hat and the string bag with the crisps. After doing up the purse and putting it safely away Mr Huws-Evans said that his digs, where the shave was going to happen, were quite near Mr Pugh’s house, which was where the party was going to happen. He added that this would give them just nice time.