by Stan Barstow
‘Oh, have you now? You’ve told her a lot about me, have you?’
‘Well, I, er…’ Holroyd says.
‘Oh, yes, he’s often spoken of you. And always with the most gentlemanly respect.’
‘Well, that’s nice to know.’ Mrs Holroyd gives a sidelong glance at Holroyd, who avoids her eyes.
‘Yes, I said to him once, I said, “Now see here, William, you must tell me about your wife. What sort of woman is she? I want to know all about her.”’
‘Oh, did you now?’
Holroyd clears his throat noisily.
‘Of course, I never thought I’d meet you.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you did.’
‘No. Not all wives would understand a relationship like mine and William’s.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘No, you see—’
‘Er, let’s go into t’other room, shall we?’ Holroyd says. ‘Out of Alice’s way.’
‘Aye, you go on,’ Mrs Holroyd says. ‘I really can’t do with you standing on top of me when I’m trying to make the tea.’
They go through into the living-room and Mrs Holroyd gets on with preparing the tea while their conversation mumbles through to her. Miss Fairchild seems to be doing most of the talking.
‘Asked him all about me, did she?’ Mrs Holroyd thinks. ‘Wouldn’t understand their relationship. Mmm. Well, well!’
Twenty minutes later Mrs Holroyd is asking their visitor how she takes her tea when the front door opens without ceremony and Gladys walks in.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
‘Come in, come in,’ her mother says. ‘This your father’s lady friend, Miss Fairchild... My elder daughter, Gladys.’
Miss Fairchild says she is pleased to see Gladys and blushes. ‘I’m sure I didn’t think I was going to meet all the family.’
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ Gladys says. ‘I’m allus popping in like this. I live just up the street, y’see.’
‘I do think it’s nice when families don’t split up and drift apart,’ Miss Fairchild says.
‘Oh, we’re big family people round here, y’know,’ Gladys says. ‘We stick together. Have you got no family, then?’
Miss Fairchild says with momentarily downcast eyes that she is all alone in the world, which is why she values friendship so much.
‘Aye, well,’ Gladys says with a laugh, ‘you know what they say: you can pick your friends but you’re stuck with your family. Happen you’re luckier than you think.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Miss Fairchild says. ‘But life has its compensations.’ This with a quick fluttering glance at Holroyd, who is gazing rigidly at his plate and does not respond.
‘Have a cup o’ tea love?’ Mrs Holroyd asks.
Gladys says she ought to be going and making Jim’s tea, but she won’t refuse. She takes off her coat and settles into a chair by the fire.
‘You’re quiet, Dad,’ she says then, and Holroyd starts and says, ‘Oh, aye, well...’
‘Too many women about the place for you, is that it? Me dad was glad when me an’ our Marjorie got married, y’know, Miss Fairchild. Can’t stand a crowd o’ women jabberin’ round him.’
‘Oh, I know he’s a man’s man,’ Miss Fairchild says, casting another glance at Holroyd, who hunches a little farther down into his collar, as though to hide his head.
‘You think so, do you? We’ve allus thought of him as a ladies’ man, haven’t we, mother?’
‘Nay, look here…’ Holroyd begins.
‘Now you can’t deny you had all the lasses on a string when you were a young feller,’ Gladys says. ‘I’ve heard ’em talk about it.’
‘But that’s thirty year ago.’
‘There’s no need to deny it for my benefit, William,’ Miss Fairchild says, and Gladys suppresses a giggle into something that sounds like a sneeze.
‘Have you caught a cold, Gladys?’ her mother enquires.
‘No, just a bit o’ dust up me nose.’
‘Nay, there’s no dust in here. I had a right good clean down when I knew your father’s friend was coming.’
‘You know,’ Miss Fairchild says, ‘you shouldn’t have gone to all that–’
‘Oh, I have me pride, Miss Fairchild, even if I have been married thirty years come next Easter. I like things to be clean and tidy. Particularly on special occasions like this.’
‘Eeh, you know, I wish our Marjorie ’ud pop in,’ Gladys says, ‘She’ll be wild if she knows she’s missed you. She doesn’t get out all that much, y’know, with five bairns to see to. Did you know me dad was a grand-father seven times over, Miss Fairchild?’
‘So many,’ Miss Fairchild murmurs. ‘And I dare say he’s proud of them all.’
‘Oh, aye, aye. My eldest is a bit too big to bounce on his knee now, but he’s proud of ’em. An’ they’re proud of him. There isn’t one of ’em ’at doesn’t come running the minute they see him.’
The fire is burning low and Mrs Holroyd piles more coal onto it. Then, tea finished, they move away from the table and sit round the hearth while Gladys keeps up a cheerful monologue punctuated by remarks that she really will have to go, she only called in for a minute, and isn’t it a pity that Marjorie hasn’t popped in to see her father’s friend. She is just saying that she’ll call on her way home and tell Marjorie to come round when her sister comes into the house through the back door.
Like Gladys, Marjorie expresses surprise at the presence of ‘company’ and says she is only staying a minute. Like Gladys also she takes a cup of tea from the replenished pot and joins the group round the fire. Gladys changes her mind about leaving and she and Marjorie carry on a conversation occasionally added to by Mrs Holroyd, while Miss Fairchild sits with a bemused little smile on her face and looks now and again at Holroyd who is keeping quiet and still, like a man who has walked into a patch of attractive forest and suddenly wonders about the presence of wild animals.
He has not spoken for half an hour, nor even drawn attention to himself by lighting a cigarette, when Marjorie says suddenly, ‘What a lovely frock you’ve got on, Miss Fairchild. I’ve been admiring it ever since I came in.’
Miss Fairchild’s soft mouth purses with pleasure. ‘Oh, do you really like it?’
‘It shows off your figure lovely,’ Gladys says. ‘I reckon he’ll like it for that, eh?’
Miss Fairchild turns a delicate pink. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she says, ‘he chose it.’
‘O-hoh!’ Gladys says, while Holroyd gives a startled glance from his eye corners. ‘And paid for it, I’ll bet!’
‘Well’ – Miss Fairchild stifles a little giggle – ‘he’s very generous, you know.’
‘Oh, aye, he always was free with his money,’ Mrs Holroyd says, adding as though in casual afterthought, ‘outside the house.’
Again Holroyd seems to shrink in his chair, as though wishing to hide inside his clothes. Still he says nothing.
‘Course, I couldn’t wear a frock like that,’ Marjorie says frankly. I’m too fat. But I bet our Gladys ’ud look well in it.’
‘D’you think so?’ Gladys says.
‘Aye, I do.’
‘I wonder, Miss Fairchild,’ Gladys says eagerly, ‘would you let me try it on? Such a lovely frock.’
‘Well, I...’
‘We can pop into the bedroom. It’ll only take a minute.’
Miss Fairchild looks at Holroyd as though for guidance, but he is gazing fixedly into the fire and will not meet her glance. She stands up, her hands fluttering uncertainly at the waist of the frock, and Gladys and Marjorie take her out of the room and up the stairs. Now Holroyd lights a cigarette and draws on it deeply. Mrs Holroyd pours herself another cup of tea. They sit without looking a
t each other.
Upstairs in the front bedroom Gladys is pulling the dress down over her head and shoulders while Miss Fairchild shivers in her slip.
‘Mmm,’ Gladys says, turning one way then the other in front of the wardrobe mirror and smoothing the frock over her hips. ‘Not bad.’
‘A bit on the long side, though, isn’t it?’ Marjorie says, standing back and examining her sister.
‘Ye-es. It’d need a couple of inches off the hem for me.’
‘Well, that’s easy.’ Marjorie opens a drawer of the dressing-table and takes out a pair of scissors. Before the horrified eyes of its owner she bends and sticks the blades through the hem of the dress.
‘Stop it!’ Miss Fairchild shrieks.
She starts towards them but is abruptly stopped short when Marjorie turns and straightens up, giving her in the same movement a slap that sends her backwards on to the bed.
Marjorie sprawls across her with her full weight, turning a corner of the eiderdown over Miss Fairchild’s head to muffle her cries.
‘All right. I can hold her.’
Gladys takes off the dress, slips into her own jumper and skirt, and picks up the scissors.
Holroyd turns his eyes to the ceiling. ‘What’s going on up there?’
‘They’re havin’ a woman to woman talk,’ his wife says. She reaches for the poker and balances it in her hand as though deciding whether or not to stir the fire.
It is the sight of Miss Fairchild as she bursts into the room uttering little shrieks of near-hysterical anger, the remnants of her dress clutched in her hands, that brings Holroyd to his feet, his mouth agape.
‘What’s up?’ Mrs Holroyd says. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never seen her in her underwear afore.’
‘My dress,’ Miss Fairchild cries. ‘Oh, look what they’ve done to my lovely dress!’
‘What you done?’ Holroyd demands as his daughters come into the room. ‘What you been up to?’
Miss Fairchild is sobbing noisily now as she looks at the frock. ‘It’s ruined,’ she says, ‘completely ruined.’ She turns a distorted face on Holroyd. ‘This would never have happened if you hadn’t brought me here.’
‘Get him to buy you another,’ Gladys says, ‘if he’s gormless enough.’ She has Miss Fairchild’s coat now and she thrusts it into the woman’s arms. ‘Now hoppit!’
She and Marjorie push her through the kitchen, open the door and propel her into the darkness of the yard, and at the same time Mrs Holroyd places her hand squarely in the middle of her husband’s chest and pushes him back into his chair. The girls return to the room and Holroyd cowers away as he sees the expression in the three pairs of eyes levelled at him.
‘Now for you,’ Marjorie says.
Five minutes later, kicked, scratched and bruised, he is on his hands and knees in the backyard. The door slams behind him and the bolt shoots home.
There is no sign of Miss Fairchild. Holroyd himself does not come home for three days. But Mrs Holroyd does not mind. She spends a very interesting time discussing with her daughters new ways of making his life miserable when he does return.
A Casual Acquaintance
I was twenty that autumn. It was quite simple the way it happened. I noticed her for the first time on the bus on the journey home from the office one Friday afternoon and fell in love with her on the spot. I pointed her out with studied casualness to my friends Larry and Peter, but neither of them knew her.
I thought about her all weekend and looked out for her every afternoon of the following week. But it wasn’t until Friday that I saw her again; for although this was the only afternoon my office closed at five, she evidently travelled at the same time every day. So I watched for her on the one day only and a Friday without my seeing her left me downcast for days, my spirits rising only when the weekend was well behind and another Friday approaching fast.
For weeks I was content just to look at her: to get onto the bus, my heart racing with excitement at the possibility of seeing her and, if it was a lucky Friday, taking a seat from which I could observe without being noticed and gazing at her all the way into town. In the bus station, where we both alighted, I’d stand and watch her cross to her connection, small, straightbacked, with a poise that singled her out from her contemporaries, and a slight haughtiness in the set of her head and the cool glance of brown eyes in a heart-shaped face that chilled in me any notion of a brash approach, a high-handed sweeping aside of the formalities that stood between us.
One Friday afternoon she was talking to another girl as I boarded the bus and brushed past her. I heard her addressed as Joyce. It excited me to have a name by which to think of her. It identified her and made me determined to find out still more about her.
That same afternoon I followed her across the bus station and got onto the same bus. It took us out to the other side of town. An acute fear of appearing conspicuous stopped me from following her to her door, but I watched where she alighted, and at the next stop I jumped off myself and caught a bus back into town. Now I knew her first name and roughly where she lived, and as I rode home I thought that with this increase in my knowledge of her the time was surely approaching when we should meet and really know each other. As it was now, I thought with sudden gloom, she was probably not even aware of my existence, let alone my feeling for her.
As the weeks passed by with no progress made I began, on the evenings when I could leave my studies, to take long walks into the district where she lived. I’d get off the bus and stroll up the road which wound away over the hill and into the next valley. On the brow of the hill I’d stop for a while, leaning on the wall and looking out over the dark forest of chimneys at the lights of the town.
Away in the distance, on my left, I could see the lighted windows of a huge mill working the night shift. It seemed to me like a great ship floating on a sea of night; full of souls, hundreds of people, whom I would never see and never know. I thought then of the wonderful chance that had singled Joyce out for me; and it seemed to me in some way preordained that that same chance would eventually bring us together. I was sure of it.
From the top of the hill I wandered back through side-streets and looked at the curtained windows of strange houses and wondered if she was inside, living her life. On all these rambles through the lamplit streets, which though strange at first soon became familiar to me, I cherished vague dreams of suddenly coming face to face with her and having the right words to say. But I didn’t see her once. I went on, living in a kind of suspense, loving her from a distance, waiting for the miracle that would bring us together. Until Christmas was only a fortnight away. And then it happened.
On that Saturday, two weeks before Christmas, I was in town, pressing through the throngs of shoppers to choose presents for my family. I was looking at socks in a department store when she turned her head and showed me her dear face, three counters away. I forgot my own errands at once and made my way towards her. I had no idea of accosting her but as she moved on, absorbed in her own shopping, I followed behind. She was by herself.
I kept her in sight all round the store until, at last, with her shopping bag and basket both filled, she made for the door. Alarmed then at the thought of losing her on the busy street, I pushed forward until I was immediately behind her.
I was so close I could have reached out and touched her at the moment the handle of her bag broke and half the contents spilled out on to the floor. She gave an exclamation of annoyance, and before I realised it I was down on my hands and knees picking up packages and putting them back in the bag.
‘There.’ We looked at each other as I straightened up, and I was chilled by the lack of recognition in her eyes and in a curious way astounded that she couldn’t tell simply by looking at me that I’d been yearning for her all those months.
She thanked me and held out her hand for the bag, which I w
as holding under my arm.
‘Please let me carry it for you.’ I motioned to her basket. ‘You can’t manage them both; this handle’s useless now.’
‘It’s very kind of you.’ Her voice was doubtful, and I said, ‘I can see you don’t know me. But I know you. I’ve seen you nearly every Friday on the bus into town.’
Was it politeness or a genuine glimmer of recognition in her eyes now, as she said. ‘I thought there was something familiar about your face.’
It was enough for me for the moment. We moved by common consent out of the store and onto the teeming pavement. There I looked at her. ‘Which way?’ I asked, and she smiled at my persistence.
‘I’ve finished my shopping, so if you wouldn’t mind walking to the bus station...’
‘I was going that way myself,’ I lied.
‘I’m not taking you out of your way, then.’ She gave me another of those smiles which seemed to turn my heart right over. ‘But it really is very good of you.’
We walked along in comparative silence. I had the reputation among my friends of being something of a wit; but now I was almost tongue-tied and could think of only the most commonplace remarks. And soon we’d be in the bus station and it would all be over.
‘This is really lucky for me,’ I said all at once.
She glanced up at me. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen you quite a lot these past few months and I’ve wanted an excuse to speak to you.’
‘Oh?’ she said again.
‘I couldn’t simply walk up to you and start talking, could I? You know with some girls you could, but not you.’
We had stopped on a corner now and she was gazing at me with hazel eyes full of bland sophistication that made me feel fourteen years old. I felt that I was on the verge of a blush; but I was determined to see it through. I might never have another chance. She glanced at her watch and I blurted out, ‘Well, you see, the idea was that I should ask you to come out with me some evening.’