The Second Penguin Book of English Short Stories
Page 34
They got off the bus and walked for a few minutes. The rain had stopped and the sun was out. Gloria cheered up again, and didn’t notice at first when Mr Huws-Evans suddenly stopped in the middle of the pavement. He was looking about in rather the same way as he’d done in the foyer of the Odeon. He said: ‘Funny. I could have sworn.’
‘What’s the matter, then?’
‘Can’t seem to remember the right house. Ridiculous of me, isn’t it? Just can’t seem to remember at all.’
‘Not your digs it isn’t, where you can’t remember, is it?’
‘Well yes, my digs. This is it. No, there’s no T.V. aerial.’
‘Never mind, what’s the number?’
‘That’s the silly part. I don’t know the number.’
‘Oh, but you must. How ever do you manage with letters and things? Come on, you must know. Try and think, now.’
‘No good. I’ve never known it.’
‘What?’
‘Well, you see, the landlady’s got one of those stamp things to stamp the address at the top of the notepaper and I always use that. And then when I get a letter I just see it’s for me and that’s all I bother about, see?’ He said most of this over his shoulder in the intervals of trying to see through some lace curtains. Then he shook his head and walked on, only to bend forward slightly with hands on knees, like a swimmer waiting for the starting-pistol, and stare at a photograph of a terrier which someone had arranged, thoughtfully turned outward, on a windowsill. ‘The number’s got a three in it, I do know that,’ he said then. ‘At least I think so.’
‘How do you manage as a rule?’
‘I know the house, you see.’
Mr Huws-Evans now entered a front garden and put his eye to a gap in the curtains. Quite soon a man in shirtsleeves holding a newspaper twitched the curtain aside and stood looking at him. He was a big man with hair growing up round the base of his neck, and you could guess that he worked at some job where strength was important. Mr Huws-Evans came out of the garden, latching its gate behind him. ‘I don’t think that’s the one,’ he said.
‘Come on, why not just knock somewhere and ask?’
‘Can’t do that. They’d think I was barmy.’
Eventually Mr Huws-Evans recognized his house by its bright red door. ‘Eighty-seven,’ he murmured, studying the number as he went in. ‘I must remember that.’
Gloria sat in the sitting-room, which had more books in it than she’d ever seen in a private house before, and looked at the book Mr Huws-Evans had dropped into her lap before going up to have his shave. It was called Income Taxes in the Commonwealth, and he’d said it would probably interest her.
She found it didn’t do that and had gone to see if there were any interesting books in the bookcase when the door opened and an old lady looked in. She and Gloria stared at each other for about half a minute, and Gloria’s cheeks felt hot again. The old lady’s top lip had vertical furrows and there was something distrustful about her. She gave a few grunts with a puff of breath at the beginning of each one, and went out. Gloria didn’t like to touch the bookcase now and told herself that the party would make everything worthwhile.
When Mr Huws-Evans came back he had a big red patch on his neck. ‘These razor-blade firms,’ he said bitterly, but made no objection when Gloria asked if she could go and wash her hands. He even came to the foot of the stairs to show her the right door.
The liquid make-up looked fine, the mascara went on like distemper on a wall and the ear-rings were just right now. She only hoped her white blouse and rust cocktail-length skirt, the only clothes she had that were at all evening, were evening enough. When she came out the old lady was there, about thirty inches away. This time she gave more puffing grunts than before and started giving them sooner. She was still giving them when Gloria went downstairs. But then Mr Huws-Evans, as soon as he saw her, jumped up and said: ‘You look absolutely stunning, Gloria,’ so that part was worthwhile.
After they’d left, what Gloria had been half-expecting all along happened, though not in the way she’d half-expected. It now appeared that they were much too early, and Mr Huws-Evans took her into a park for a sit-down. Before long he said: ‘You know, Gloria, it means a lot to me, you coming out with me today.’
This was hard to answer, so she just nodded.
‘I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever been out with.’
‘Well, thank you very much, Mr Huws-Evans.’
‘Won’t you call me Waldo? I wish you would.’
‘Oh no, I don’t think I could, really.’
‘Why not?’
‘I … I don’t think I know you well enough.’
He stared at her with the large brown eyes she’d often admired in the office, but which she now thought looked soft. Sadly, he said: ‘If only you knew what I feel about you, Gloria, and how much you mean to me. Funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t have guessed what you were going to do to me, make me feel, I mean, when I first saw you.’ He lurched suddenly towards her, but drew back at the last minute. ‘If only you could feel for me just a tiny bit of what I feel for you, you’ve no idea what it would mean to me.’
An approach of this kind was new to Gloria and it flustered her. If, instead of all this daft talk, Mr Huws-Evans had tried to kiss her, she’d probably have let him, even in this park place; she could have handled that. But all he’d done was make her feel foolish and awkward. Abruptly, she stood up. ‘I think we ought to be going.’
‘Oh, not yet. Please. Please don’t be offended.’
‘I’m not offended, honest.’
He got up too and stood in front of her. ‘I’d give anything in the world to think that you didn’t think too hardly of me. I feel such a worm.’
‘Now you’re not to talk so silly.’
When it was much too late, Mr Huws-Evans did try to kiss her, saying as he did so: ‘Oh, my darling.’
Gloria side-stepped him. ‘I’m not your darling,’ she said decisively.
After that neither spoke until they arrived at the house where the party was. Mr Huws-Evans’s daft talk, Gloria thought, was to be expected from the owner of that mackintosh hat – which he still wore.
When Mr Huws-Evans’s brother caught sight of her their eyes met for a long moment. It was because of him – she’d seen him once or twice when he called in at the office – that she’d accepted Mr Huws-Evans’s invitation. Originally she’d intended just to look at him across the room while she let Mr Huws-Evans talk to her, but after what had happened she left Mr Huws-Evans to unpack his crisps and put them in bowls while the brother (it was funny to think that he was Mr Huws-Evans too, in a way) took her across the room, sat her on a sofa and started talking about interesting things.
Acknowledgements
FOR permission to reprint the stories specified we are indebted to:
Francis Powys Esq. and Chatto & Windus Ltd for T. F. Powys’ ‘The Bucket and the Rope’ from God’s Eyes a’ Twinkle;
the Society of Authors on behalf of the Trustees of the Estate of E. M. Forster for ‘The Road from Colonus’ from E. M. Forster’s Collected Short Stories;
the Executors of the James Joyce Estate and Jonathan Cape Ltd for James Joyce’s ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ from Dubliners;
the Literary Estate of Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press Ltd for Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’ from A Haunted House;
the Joyce Cary Estate for Joyce Cary’s ‘Government Baby’ from Spring Song and Other Stories;
Robert Graves Esq. for his ‘The Lost Chinese’ from The Collected Short Stories of Robert Graves;
A. D. Peters & Co. and Chatto & Windus Ltd for V. S. Pritchett’s ‘Handsome Is As Handsome Does’ from The Saint and Other Stories;
Graham Greene Esq. and William Heinemann Ltd for Graham Greene’s ‘The Destructors’ from Twenty-one Stories;
Angus Wilson Esq. and Mar
tin Secker & Warburg Ltd for Angus Wilson’s ‘After The Show’ from A Bit off the Map;
Mrs Muriel Spark, Macmillan & Co. Ltd and J. B. Lippincott Company for Muriel Spark’s ‘You Should have Seen the Mess’ from The Go-away Bird and Other Stories. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. Copyright © Muriel Spark, 1958;
A. D. Peters & Co. and Victor Gollancz Ltd for Kingsley Amis’ ‘Interesting Things’ from My Enemy’s Enemy.
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First published in Penguin Books 1972
Reissued in this edition 2011
This selection copyright © Penguin Books, 1972
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ISBN: 978-0-241-95739-4