Alfie

by Bill Naughton

  I could smell old Annie’s cooking along the landing before I came to the door. She came out of the kitchen as I went in. ‘Is that you, Alfie?’ she said.

  What a question to ask, I thought, I’m only standing in front of her. ‘Yeh, it’s me. I’m only about five hours late, ain’t I. Start rucking me.’ I half wished in my mind that she’d have had that rotten song on the record-player about the geezer who’s supposed to want the bird when she no longer wants him. I’d have smashed the thing up if she had, but she hadn’t.

  ‘Your dinner’s ready,’ she said. She didn’t look the least put out. In a way I wish she had. She looked surprised that I should expect her to be peeved. They’ve got you every way. She went to the top of the oven and brought out something in a pie-dish with a crust on the top. I looked at it. ‘You ain’t made another bleedin’ hot-pot!’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s a steak-and-kidney pie.’

  ‘It’s the same thing, ain’t it,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘There’s all the difference in the world between a hot-pot and a steak-and-kidney pie.’

  ‘Well, don’t bother to tell me,’ I said.

  She picked up a knife and she cut a slice out of this thick brown crust on the top, and all this juicy meaty smell came out as the steam came off it. It’s the sort of thing that smells good if you’re hungry, but don’t mean a thing if you ain’t. I pointed my finger into the pie, where I could see all these pieces of meat in this brown juicy gravy. ‘It’s the same as all them North Country dishes,’ I said. ‘It’s a bleedin’ blower-out.’

  I could see she didn’t know which way to turn. She had no definite pointer about whether she should start serving it or put it away. I expect she thought that given a bit of time she could ride it. ‘Why can’t we have something out of a can for a change?’ I said. ‘I used to get some lovely meals out of cans. Spam, Libby’s corned beef, baked beans and pork, John West’s salmon, sardines – handsome grub all that was. I mean you don’t taste those meals until you begin to eat them, but these hot dishes you can already taste coming along the landing. You feel you’ve had enough when you sit down. They overface a bloke.’

  ‘But you always said you like my steak-and-kidney pie, Alfie,’ she said.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, to her, ‘if I get that lot on top of a skinful of ale I’ll hardly be able to draw my breath. I’ll get a horrible feeling of being full up, blown out – poncified.’ And to suit my words a great long burping rift of wind cane out of me that would have blown up a set of bagpipes.

  She looked at me, and she looked at the pie on the table, and she shook out the little kitchen cloth she’s brought it in with her, and she turns her head on one side and she says, ‘You used to say once that you loved that feeling of being really full up. You said you’d never had it in all your life until you met me.’ They’re always quick to remind you of what you didn’t have before you met them. It never seems to strike them that in the long run what a bloke didn’t have might suit him far better than what he did have.

  ‘What I loved once,’ I said, ‘and what I love now are two different things.’

  ‘Have you been out with that man Sharpey?’ she said.

  ‘What about it if I have?’ I said.

  ‘He’s no friend of yours,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll decide who’re my friends and who ain’t,’ I said, and began to strip off my clothes. ‘Where’s my American shirt?’

  ‘Are you going out again, Alfie?’ she said.

  ‘I asked you where my American shirt was,’ I said.

  ‘The blue one?’ she said. ‘It’s in the drawer.’

  ‘Nah, not the blue, the pink.’

  ‘Oh I washed it whilst you were out,’ she said. ‘It’ll soon be dry. I could iron it then.’

  ‘What did you have to wash it for?’ I said, ‘I only wore it a couple of hours.’

  ‘I thought it would feel fresher for you,’ she said.

  The idea behind my mind was that she might have thought that any shirt needed washing after I’d worn it for a couple of hours. I didn’t say it because I had a feeling it might be true. I don’t just mean that she might think it needed washing – but that it did need washing. I mean you let any sensitive bloke smell his own dried-out sweaty shirt and he’s in for a shock.

  ‘Know what, Annie,’ I said, ‘I do believe you only wash to fill in your bleedin’ time.’

  ‘Why should I?’ she said.

  ‘So that you won’t have a spare empty minute on your hands,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to keep yourself on the go.’ Her face came over guilty – I spotted it.

  ‘Why should I keep on the go?’ she said.

  ‘To get him out of your mind,’ I said.

  ‘To get who out of my mind?’ she said. She looked upset. She’s very pale all of a sudden. I could feel this little man egging me on. Of course I’m not making excuses for myself. You’ve got to do what you have to do. I went up to her: ‘That bloody Tony, or whatever you call him,’ I said, ‘what you’ve been writing about in your little diary.’

  ‘Have you been reading my diary?’ she said.

  ‘You say you can’t get him out of your mind,’ I said, ‘no matter how much you try. “Tony was on my mind all day long”.’

  ‘Alfie,’ she said, ‘have you been in my bag and read my diary?’ She’s only trying to make out it’s a crime. I mean the first thing you do with any bird is go through its handbag – if you get the chance. I mean that can tell you a lot more than a face can. It’s an eye-opener sometimes.

  ‘And why shouldn’t I?’ I said.

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Those are my secret thoughts.’

  ‘You’re not entitled to any secret thoughts,’ I said, ‘if you’re living with me.’ I knew I was wrong when I said it. Not that that’s ever stopped me from saying a thing. I mean if you ain’t entitled to your thoughts, and all thoughts are a secret in some way, then you’re entitled to nothing. On the other hand, you don’t want a bird around that keeps harbouring thoughts, if you see what I mean.

  ‘You can’t help having thoughts,’ she said.

  ‘No, but you can help writing the bleedin’ things down and lettin’ me see ’em,’ I said.

  She seemed to see the logic of that.

  ‘I only wrote them down,’ she said, ‘to get them out of me.’

  What does she want to think about a bloke called Tony for when I’m around? It’s like there’s three people living in the one room, sharing the one bed, come to that, and one of ’em you can’t see and you can’t get hold of. I mean nobody has any right to inflict somebody they happen to love on somebody else they happen to be living with. I mean if I’m in bed with one bird, and I’m thinking of another, it means in fact I’m having neither of ’em, if you see what I mean. Of course I could be wrong. Though it’s not often I am.

  Well there’s Annie standing so innocent beside the table, rabbiting away about her secret thoughts, and there’s me and I can’t do a thing about them. Don’t think I was jealous – I wasn’t. I’ve trained myself too well – I never think about things I can’t do anything about. Well, very seldom. So on the impulse of the moment I grab hold of her steak-and-kidney pie from where it’s standing on the table – and nearly burnt my hands into the bargain, though I didn’t notice it at the time – and I said to her:

  ‘Well I’ll just show you what I think about you – your secret thoughts and your effin’ steak-and-kidney pie!’ And with that I flung that dish as hard as I could against the wall.

  To be quite frank, I shocked myself when I saw what I’d let myself do. I don’t mean when I threw it, I mean when it hit the wall. It was a clean shot – it could hardly be anything else at that range – and the crust and the rim of the dish made a solid hit. It wasn’t as loud as you might expect, but it made a horrible thud. Then it let out a loud, ugly sucking noise, and some of the dish dropped in pieces, and the gravy splashed a bit, but mainly it all began to c
rawl in a thick brown stream down the wall.

  Annie looked at it quite calmly. I’d given her one shock, so that might have put her beyond reach of another. She looked at me then. Know what – there was no hate in it. It was just a look, if you see what I mean. I’ll tell you what I felt like. I felt like it served her bleeding right. Just as easy, I suppose, I could have felt like leaning against her breast and saying how sorry I was and what a rotten horrible mean thing it was, and what a shit I was, and would she forgive me.

  I said nothing and did nothing, but just stood there. She moved first. She walked very quietly across to the bed, and bent down and felt underneath, and brought out her little suitcase. Then she went to the drawer that I’d allowed her in the chest of drawers and began to take out her bits of things. It didn’t take her long, not more than a minute or two to collect all her belongings.

  ‘Don’t take nothing that don’t belong to you,’ I said, when I saw what she was about. She didn’t say anything to that – she just got her little raincoat off of the nail behind the door and put it over her arm and picked up her suitcase. She did it all so quiet like, as if in the end she had expected nothing better. Or it may have been the explosion of the pie-dish that made it all sound so quiet after. Just then, as she was going out of the door, she turned and said to me in this funny flat North Country voice she’s got: ‘Don’t let your custard spoil – it’s in the oven.’ Then she closed the door very gently behind her and went off.

  For a second or two I stood there a bit dazed. I hadn’t expected she’d go off. What a stroke to come out with though: Don’t let your custard spoil. I went and opened the oven door.

  Sure enough there was something inside. I’ve put my hands in to take it out, see, but the dish is hot, so I pick up a cloth and I take it out with that. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the handsomest custard you ever saw. It was a lovely golden egg brown, with a nice little nutmeggy smell. For a second I felt choked, I did straight. I thought: whilst you’ve been thinking bad of her, Alfie, she’s been thinking good of you. It gives you a shock, see, when you’ve been putting the poison in for somebody in your mind, and you find out they’ve been putting the honey in for you.

  I walked to the table with the custard, whispering to myself, Annie, Annie, Annie. It suddenly seemed like it was a lovely name. Looking down on that custard it seemed as if I could see in it all the kind and thoughtful little things she’d done for me. All the shirts, socks and other things she’d washed for me, all the little buttons she’s sewed on my clothes without me having to tell her, all the times when I’d come home and found she’d cleaned all my shoes for me, and the marvellous way she had of ironing my hankies, and the way she’d once undressed me and put me to bed and cleaned up all my clobber when I’d come home drunk one time. All these little thoughts got together and flooded my mind. I never go after anybody, but I ran to the door, and raced down the stairs after her, calling out ‘Annie!’

  It’s funny how soon somebody you know can disappear in a street. You go to the corner and look and there seems about half a dozen ways they could have gone. And there’s buses and that going by, and you think how they might easily be on one of them. And you begin to stare at people, thinking some old woman might be the one you’re looking for.

  There wasn’t a sight of little Annie anywhere.

  Know what? – I was that choked when I went back and saw her custard on the table that it was a good ten minutes before I could get down to scoffing it!

  BOOK THREE

  If you haven’t got peace of mind you’ve got nothing

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It’s turned eleven one Sunday morning and I can hear the old church bells ringing, and there I am, bringing up an extra shine to my black shoes with the corner of a blanket hanging off of the bed. I look round my little gaff and I’ve got to admit it looks a right dump since little Annie went. But I do feel at home in it, and I don’t care what anybody says, that’s the main thing. I mean all I ask of the pad I live in is that I know where everything is; that there’s room round the walls to hang up my suits and that it don’t have too many funny smells. Even though my place now looks so untidy, I know where things are, but when Annie was here I had to keep asking her where everything was. She kept moving things round and taking my clothes off of chairs and putting them in drawers.

  Know what, I think sausages taste best if you eat ’em straight out the frying-pan. You seem to lose the flavour once you keep moving food from one thing to another. Besides that, I like eating as I’m cooking – it’s more healthy. And it gives you a chance to chew your food longer – standing up.

  Mind you, I will admit I could have missed her around the place for the first few days, especially when I came home of an evening and opened the door, and instead of a nice warm shining room with the smell of cooking there would be this cold stale room with lots of dirty dishes on the table. But same as I used to tell myself – in twenty minutes, mate, you won’t know the difference. Nor did I. The fact is, I’m not really cut out for that sort of life with a woman. The next thing they expect you to start passing the salt or sugar or something, instead of reaching out for it themselves. I hate anything like that. When I’m down to my grub I like to keep my eye on my own plate and forget everybody else.

  On top of this, they start asking you questions: ‘What would you like for your evening meal?’ Now who wants to think about what he’ll want to eat in a few hours’ time? Then they say: ‘Will you have your eggs boiled or fried?’ All things like that, making a simple life complicated, where you have to think. She was even asking, ‘What time will you be back?’ Now that is one thing that do get on my wick.

  Leave all that stuff out. I’ll tell you the real trouble. I’ve had time to think it over these weeks: Annie was turning my little gaff into a home. I mean a home for herself as well as for me. Now a home’s a very funny set-up. A very funny set-up indeed. It’s really a place for people who’ve got some kind of a private need for each other, if you follow me. I ain’t got a need for anybody. My home is outside four walls – not inside. So in fact Annie was infringing on my liberty, if you see what I mean.

  So there you are. She can be the best little bint in the world but if she infringes on your liberty, I mean of mind as well as of body, it just ain’t worth it. Leastways that’s how I look at it, because once a bird has taken your liberty away, she’s taken you away. You might as well be a bloody performing dog because you’re doing what she wants and not what you want, and I’d sooner be what I am, a mongrel roaming around the streets, if you see what I mean.

  Know what, I was chatting Perce one day, telling him how I’d slung little Annie out, but not giving him the real details – I mean, he wouldn’t cotton on to the real thing no matter what I told him – when he came across with a stroke that shook me. ‘Here, I’ll tell you something,’ said Perce, ‘did you know that Sharpey kept trying to pull Annie when you were out?’ I said it wouldn’t surprise me. ‘Them Sundays you went out,’ he said, ‘he used to call round on some pretext or other and try to lap it up, but it seems Annie wouldn’t wear him. He kept making out to her what a dead villain you was. But she just didn’t want to know. She even kept the door locked against him.’ Then it struck me that must have been why he put the poison in for her in the pub. Mind you, I never mentioned it to Sharpey. What good could it do? Forgive and forget. And after all, thinking it over, I didn’t want her back.

  I mean she was too good for me, little Annie, toiling away like she did made me feel uncomfortable at times. So that in the end it was a relief to get rid of her. I mean, when you get down to it, the average man must know in his own heart what a rotten bleeder he is, he don’t want someone good around to keep reminding him of it. That’s why a good bloke will always prefer to marry a real bitch. It means he’s doing his purgatory on earth. Every time she does the dirty on him he’s got another reason for looking up to heaven.

  I’ve started tidying up the place because I’m expec
ting a visitor. But you’d never guess who it’s going to be. At least I don’t think you would. There’s a quiet little knock on the door and I go and open it. She’s standing there in her blue C & A coat, with her handbag, a little BOAC bag and her basket.

  ‘Come in, Lily,’ I said to her. She walked into the room very shyly, trying not to look round. You can see she’s never been in a gaff like this in her life. ‘You’re a bit early, gal,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t want to be late,’ she said, ‘I caught an early train. Is he coming?’

  Lily love – you look nothing, but you know what – I could bleeding cry for you and your sort. Talk about warriors – talk about soldiers, give me a little Mum with three kids and living respectable if a bit in debt and she’ll put them all to shame for bleeding guts. I find I’ve got to watch myself lately, I get these funny strokes of feeling coming over me.

  ‘He said he’d be here about twelve o’clock,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you take your coat off. Make yourself at home.’

  I helped her off with her coat. Her hands felt very cold. ‘Are you worried?’ I said to her.

  ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘But it’ll be all right.’

  Here, talking about some wives and their husbands and families – there’s a bloke I know called Tim Townsend, a transport boss, married and has a family of five, all growing up, when his wife has to go in hospital with a cancer. Of course she’s left it too late. She ain’t been thinking of herself. Now it’s the day before she dies, see, and he’s driven round about two o’clock to have a chat with her. ‘Tim,’ she says, ‘you haven’t had your lunch, have you, I can tell it by your cheekbones. Now you see you get some or you’ll worry me.’ He told me she had a long rabbit about him and his lunch as though she had nothing else on her mind, and that the day before she kicked the bucket. Now do you see what I mean?