A Quiet Life

by Beryl Bainbridge

  Mother and Father looked uncomfortable – they took everything personally. There were no other children in the world but their own. Above their heads, Madge started to cough again.

  ‘It’s the weather,’ said Mother, stirring her tea.

  ‘You weren’t frightened, were you, son?’ asked Father defensively.

  ‘No,’ he said. He hadn’t been. He’d enjoyed the interrupted lessons, the Spitfire on show in the park, the daily convoy of tanks lurching along the road to the shore.

  When the visitors had departed, Mother and Father discussed Mr Harrison’s eccentric clothes, the Captain’s manly build.

  ‘Fancy calling like that,’ said Mother wonderingly. ‘Without a by-your-leave.’

  ‘A fine-looking fellow,’ Father said. ‘Worth a few bob by the cut of him.’

  ‘You could have shaken his hand,’ reproved Mother, looking at Alan. ‘I don’t know why you have to slouch there as if the cat had got your tongue.’ But she wasn’t really bitter. After a moment she asked: ‘What does he see in that old fool Harrison?’

  ‘He’s no fool, Connie. He may look like the Wreck of the Hesperus, but he’s no fool.’

  She started to laugh then. ‘When he couldn’t sit down because of his gathering—’

  ‘Get away,’ choked Father, slapping his knee in delight.

  ‘I nearly asked him where it was—’

  ‘I should have offered him one of my poultices,’ cried Father, the tears running out of his eyes.

  4

  Alan took the morning off school, to go into town to be measured for his new suit. It meant clean underpants and a vest. He was defiant about the expense involved and the expression on his mother’s face when the teachers told her, new suit or not, he was unlikely to pass his examinations. He huddled against the station fence, watching the men in the yard shovelling coal into stiff sacks. The slack glittered under a layer of frost. At this hour there were only a few business men on the platform – Father had dawdled over his telephone calls before leaving the house, and it was gone ten o’clock. In the spring the station was circled by alder bushes and pussy willow; the buds thrust fat and creamy through the palings of the fence. Now the trees leaned inland, ripped by the wind blowing across the bleak uncultivated fields. The rose trees by the Gentlemen’s toilet were pruned, black and mutilated, a foot above the frozen ground. It might have been Siberia, he thought, save for the council offices and the red brick houses built in a half-moon beyond the coal yards.

  Father was in conversation with the butcher from Tuns Lane – he was retelling the story of the farmer who had raised a pig for him during the war.

  ‘I don’t mind admitting,’ he said, ‘the laugh was on me. I don’t blame the fellow. I paid him a fair price. Connie saved all the scraps in a special bin … you might say we paid for its keep.’

  ‘There’s a lot of expense to pigs,’ said the butcher.

  ‘All my eye and Peggy Martin,’ cried Father. ‘Nothing but a bit of mash and a bucket of peelings. This pig of mine got fatter and fatter. You’ve never seen such a pig. Then, bless my soul’ – he clutched the butcher’s arm confidentially, he looked up and down the line as if careless talk cost lives – ‘It turned out to be a sow … It did … Would you believe it?’ He stepped back to see how his words were received. Abruptly he walked away, then swung, eyes loopy under his homburg hat, to face the butcher – ‘It’s as true as I’m standing here.’

  His breath drifted upon the air and dissolved above the railway track. He was embarrassing to watch. When the train came in, he raised his hat in farewell and jogtrotted along the platform to the middle coach.

  ‘Terrible fellow that,’ he told Alan. ‘Breath smells of dripping.’

  He settled himself into a corner seat; his lips were purple from the cold.

  ‘Sit up,’ he said.

  Alan did, but he felt it made little difference. He was at an age when his body sprawled and it was an effort to square his shoulders. In repose, his father’s face was melancholy – he looked like an undertaker in his sombre black coat. He jerked his polished shoe up and down and hummed a little tune. He didn’t get enough attention at home, thought Alan.

  ‘Funny about that pig,’ he said – anything to stop Father bursting into song.

  ‘I paid a moderate sum for it,’ said Father. ‘And when the chappie offered to buy it back, on account of it being a sow, I let him have it for the same price. I didn’t quibble. You have to be scrupulous in business, otherwise you come a cropper.’

  Please, thought Alan, don’t bring up Bob Ward. Let him rest in peace.

  ‘You see, son, there’s such a thing as self-respect. And generosity. Now take your grandfather, he hasn’t a generous bone in his body.’ He leant forward, spreading his fingers as though to number Mr Drummond’s selfish vertebrae. He brooded a moment. ‘Well, it’s no use trying to score over anyone. Your Mam and I were only talking about it last night.’ He smiled; he was tickled pink at the reflection that he and Mother were at last on speaking terms. He looked about the compartment with a gratified expression on his face – as if he’d pulled off a business deal. Outside the carriage windows, the golf course swooped up and down; idle men in check caps and fluttering raincoats stalked the short grass, buffeted by the wind and rain. ‘Dodgers,’ said Father, taking exception to the sight. ‘Swindlers and scoundrels.’ Mr Drummond was a golfer.

  He sat for a while frowning. Then he said: ‘Your mam asked me to have a word with you. It appears money’s gone from her drawer. Small sums.’

  Alan saw that his father’s eyes had become grave; he was staring steadily at the white sky trailing like a ribbon beside the train.

  Alan heard a long drawn-out sigh and realised it was his own. He felt sick at his stomach. ‘What money, Joe?’ he asked. He was ashamed for the banality of his answer. His father was trying to be fair – he had called him ‘son’. His heart raced at the injustice of the accusation.

  ‘I said I’d talk it over reasonably. No harsh words. All you have to do is confess and tell your mother how sorry you are. It won’t be referred to again.’

  ‘I never touched any money.’

  ‘All my life,’ said his father, ‘I’ve had it rough. Humble beginnings, no education to speak of, a battle to keep me head above water. But I learnt early never to take a farthing that wasn’t honestly come by. I didn’t borrow and I didn’t owe and I never ran up a debt. Abide by that and you can look anybody in the eye.’ But he failed to meet his son’s.

  There were explanations in Alan’s head – words, denials – but he didn’t utter them. What was the use? He hadn’t stolen anything because there wasn’t anything he wanted. He sat there, heavy with mortification, slumped against the window. He was acutely aware that he was pulling faces. Were he and Father so alike? He tensed his jaw to prevent his teeth chattering.

  ‘Give your mam her due, she thinks we may be partly at fault. You don’t ask for pocket money … you’re kept a bit short. I don’t say it’s any excuse, but it may have a bearing.’

  ‘I didn’t touch any money,’ he repeated stubbornly.

  ‘You went upstairs last night when the visitors called. And a few weeks back when Mr D. came, you were snooping about the bedroom. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘I fetched that book,’ he said helplessly. ‘You sent me.’

  He stared at Father’s righteous face turned to the window, the hooded eyes intent on the flying gardens of the suburbs.

  ‘I’d prefer it,’ Father said, ‘if you kept that under your hat.’

  It was, Alan thought, a matter of preferences – of one sort or another. He preferred Father, who preferred Mother, who preferred Madge, who – who did Madge prefer, he wondered?

  ‘All right then?’ said Father, patting him on the knee. ‘Everything sorted out? You have my word, it won’t be mentioned again.’ And he lay back in his seat, a little pinched about the mouth, and dozed until the train entered Exchange station.

  Mr So
rsky, the tailor, was a Jew who had walked across Russia dragging at his sister’s skirts. Barefooted into the bargain. Madge said it was astonishing he hadn’t become a shoemaker. He’d gone to school with Father. His workshop was at the back of a building in St James Street, overlooking the river. He’d been bombed out twice during the war. In the passageway were drawings, charred by fire at the corners, of men in trilby hats and natty suits. At the rear of the premises was a window with a view of a warehouse. Father said the sky looked a mess, full of gulls falling like a blizzard, waiting for the grain to be unloaded.

  Mr Sorsky spilled out bales of cloth, tape measure dangling from his neck. Father weighed the different materials in his hand. Something warm but not too heavy, smart but not flashy.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mr Sorsky.

  Nobody asked Alan for his opinion. A dark grey suiting was chosen, with a pale thin stripe. ‘Double-breasted of course,’ said Father.

  Alan said: ‘Ronnie Baines has got a jacket with a flap at the back.’

  ‘For ventilation, I suppose,’ quipped Father, and he and the tailor chuckled together as they spun out the clerical cloth and draped it like a toga over Alan’s shoulder.

  In the long mirror he appeared stocky and bowlegged. His ears stuck out. Was it imagination or did he begin to have a look of Mr Drummond? The width across his cheeks, the fleshiness of his nose, took him by surprise. Madge too was broad in the face and full-lipped – Mother was dominant.

  When the measuring was done – he had, it appeared, immensely long arms and rather short legs – Father and Mr Sorsky took an emotional farewell. They stood like women, gazing into each other’s eyes, holding one another by the shoulders. Perhaps, now they were old, they feared each meeting might be the last. Father blew his nose and the tailor hung his head sorrowfully. They both wore foolish smiles.

  Father had one or two business calls to make before midday. They visited a paint firm and he asked to see the managing director. The chit of a girl in the office said he was too busy. Father looked startled at the affront; he threw his visiting card on the desk. In the lift he slammed the wrought-iron gates viciously, descending with shoulders hunched, smarting under the rebuff. At the metal box manufacturer’s, Mr Wilkinson the manager came into the corridor and stood drumming his fingers against the wall. From time to time he took out his watch from his waistcoat pocket and studied it. Father rubbed his hands together unctuously and spoke of his contacts in South Wales. Of mutual advantage to both of them, he implied. The manager nodded his head and continued to tap the tiled wall with restless fingertips. When the talk petered out, he clapped Father on the shoulder, relieved to see the back of him.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said, voice over-warm, as if he was praising a child.

  Father looked diminished and frail in his bulky overcoat, saying his goodbyes, lifting his hat in the air and backing away down the corridor.

  As a treat – though he’d been branded a thief – Alan was taken to the Wedgwood café for his dinner. It was down a flight of steps, next door to the station. The restaurant was painted blue and white, the mouldings of the ceiling picked out in gilt. On the pavement, beyond the swing doors, the women stood draped in black shawls, selling winter flowers.

  There was a man with a violin tucked beneath his chin standing beside the buffet table. With closed eyes he played ‘Only a Rose’. The diners kept their heads down and pretended not to hear. Father ordered a mixed grill for himself and a pot of tea. He began heartily but he couldn’t finish. He pushed his plate away and leaned back, rubbing at his chest.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Alan.

  ‘Indigestion,’ said Father. ‘The black pudding’s not fresh.’

  Alan watched his father irritably, sitting there with eyelids fluttering and belly pushed against the white cloth. His mouth was open – even a stomach-ache made him play to the gallery – he was sure everyone was looking at them. He said angrily: ‘Thanks for the suit, Dad.’

  ‘You need one,’ said Father, struggling upright and pouring himself a cup of tea. ‘That fellow Wilkinson … When I think of what he was before the war—’

  ‘I won’t get a good report this term.’

  ‘Do you know, when I was a big shot in cotton, that Wilkinson was no more than an office boy. That’s all he was.’

  ‘I’ve fallen back in Latin,’ Alan said.

  ‘He lived in a one-up-and-one-down at the back of Huskinson Street. Now look at him … a house on the Wirral—’

  ‘And maths—’

  ‘He hadn’t even the common courtesy to invite me into his office.’

  ‘He seemed friendly, Dad,’ Alan said. He felt sorry that it wasn’t before the war, the big-shot time, doors opening and secretaries bobbing up and down with respect. Father was a good man, hasty-tempered but just. He had never owed a farthing. It couldn’t have been easy, telling Mother he had lost all his money; having to leave his big house and the fruit trees in the garden for someone else to enjoy. All Alan could remember of that time was a toy car with silver headlamps, big enough for him to sit in, that he’d pedalled across a path. Did he really remember it or was it only a photograph in an album?

  ‘Friendly,’ said Father, striking the table in disgust. ‘The damned Gauleiter.’

  ‘Shall I pay the bill?’ Alan asked, beg-pardon smile by habit on his face. He put his knife and fork together neatly and waited while Father struggled to reach the wallet in his breast pocket.

  ‘Here,’ said Father, stuffing a pound note into his hand. ‘And mind I get all the change. Don’t play any of your light-fingered games with me.’

  On Sunday Alan wore the Scottish tie Madge had given him for Christmas. The boys made jokes about it as he changed into his cassock. ‘Where’s your kilt?’ they cried, butting him in the stomach until he fell over, and the verger told him to behave himself.

  The vicar had them all lined up on the cinder path for ten minutes before Morning Service began, gowns billowing like a flock of blackbirds in the bitter wind. He said it would make more of an impact for them to file down the aisle from the front, instead of walking in from the vestry. The girls had trouble with their three-cornered hats. Janet Leyland’s curls unwound across her cheeks. She ran squealing towards the bicycle shed and hopped about trying to keep warm.

  When the organist struck up the opening notes of the processional hymn, the choir entered the church two by two, the little boys in front, the girls following. The congregation rose to their feet and broke into an epidemic of coughing. Alan and Ronnie walked a pace ahead of the vicar, eyes lowered, hands clasped in prayer. He had joined the choir when he was nine and was now head boy. As the vicar remarked, his voice was nothing to write home about, but he could be relied upon to attend punctually every Sunday of the year. Madge asked him frequently what he saw in all that hymn-singing and bobbing up and down at the altar steps. He refused to discuss it. Had he done so he would have said it was a place to go, somewhere he belonged – that was all. There were occasions though – on his knees in the candle-lit church – when he shivered with dread as the minister spread out his arms like wings and cried beneath the stained-glass window ‘Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us.’ Listening to that powerful voice raised in supplication, he thought someone must hear. When younger, it had been his task to work the bellows for the organist. The rhythmical rising and falling of the leather bladder was like the functioning of his own lungs. He pumped desperately, imagining that should he pause and the music stop, then he too would cease to breathe. How could he tell Madge something like that? He did tell her about the treats – the annual outing to Blackpool, summer camp, the mulled wine at Christmas. ‘Catch me going out with a gang like that,’ she said scornfully. He never mentioned the weddings and funerals and baptisms, for which he was paid half-a-crown, nor the separate kinds of crying endured in the all-embracing church – babies caterwauling under white lace, bride’s mother sniffling into her bouquet of ca
rnations, the hiccoughing grief of the veiled mourners. Sometimes he read the lesson; he had a good voice, loud and unhurried. His mother came once, in her largest hat, to hear him. She talked about it for weeks afterwards. Father rarely attended, which was just as well, with his weakness for bursting into tears. Madge wasn’t aware how known he was in the village – a respected member of the community. None of his family realised in what regard he was held.

  Halfway through the service, when the choir faced the congregation for the Lord’s Prayer, he noticed the German prisoners of war occupying the front pews. Wearing green greatcoats, they stood shoulder to shoulder. In the middle of reciting ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ he saw that a man in the second row wore a white shirt and a plaid tie. He couldn’t believe it; the tie was identical to his own. He made eyes at Janet Leyland, who tossed her head. He sat and knelt and stood again, as if in a dream. He jabbed his finger repeatedly in the direction of the prisoners and Janet Leyland wrinkled her brow and looked at him without understanding. The vicar sang ‘O God make clean our hearts within us,’ and the choir responded ‘And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.’ How could a Jerry get hold of a tie like that? He fingered the neck of his black cassock; Hilda Fennel frowned.

  In the vestry Janet asked him if he had a sore throat.

  ‘My tie,’ he said. ‘One of those blighters had one like mine.’

  ‘Is it unique, then?’ she said tartly.

  ‘Didn’t you notice? The fellow in the front row. The one with fair hair.’

  ‘They were all fair,’ she said.

  When he went home for his dinner he passed the soldiers marching down Brows Lane. He twisted round on the crossbar of his bike to look at them. Janet was right: they all appeared the same, arms swinging, coats buttoned up to their chins.

  There was pie and cabbage for Sunday lunch. Cutting into the swollen crust, Mother unearthed the upturned cup smeared with gravy. The watery sunshine spilled through the curtains and made patterns on the tablecloth.

  He said: ‘We had those Jerries in church this morning.’