The Likes of Us

by Stan Barstow

  But the doorbell rang.

  Nancy’s mother, on her feet, went to answer it, coming back a few moments later to stand, curiously tongue-tied, inside the living-room doorway.

  ‘Who is it?’ Nancy’s father asked.

  ‘It’s a chap, to see our Nancy.’

  Nancy’s father began to get up from the table. ‘She can’t see anybody now. Can’t they leave her in peace? Some folk...’

  ‘No, Cliff, wait a minute. It’s the feller at...’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s come to see our Nancy.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘They call him Daymer. If you don’t want to see him, just say so.’

  ‘No. If he’s come we can’t turn him away.’

  ‘Look, Nancy,’ her father said, ‘there’s no law says you’ve got to see him.’

  And she didn’t want to, but he’d come and she must.

  Her mother showed him in. ‘This is a sorry house you’ve come to.’ That tongue. It could spare nobody.

  In the one direct look she could manage, Nancy saw that he was nicely dressed, still young. She wondered if his eyes always looked so hurt, or if it was only because of what had happened. Of what, she suddenly realised, had happened to him.

  ‘Mrs Harper... I’m sorry to intrude on you at a time like this, but I felt I had to come. There’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t be hopelessly inadequate. You do understand that I hadn’t a chance of avoiding your little girl? It was over in a flash.’

  ‘Nobody’s blaming you,’ Nancy said. ‘It was an accident. They do happen.’

  ‘It was an accident that took her husband,’ her mother told him. ‘In the pit.’

  His voice was shocked. ‘Oh, I’m... It sounds worse than useless, Mrs Harper, but if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.’

  ‘You can’t bring her back, can you?’

  No mercy there. Her mother was, in fact, a good-hearted woman. But that tongue...

  ‘Have you any family, Mr Daymer?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘A boy, Peter. He’s away at school.’

  ‘I expect he’ll be well looked after there.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘It wouldn’t be easy for you to come. I thank you for it.’

  ‘If there’s any way I can help, any way at all, please let me know. I’ll give you a card and put my private address on the back.’

  Her mother took the card. ‘Oh, you work at Ross’s, do you? I used to know Mr Finch’s wife, before she died. We did charity work together.’

  ‘He’s my father-in-law. I married his daughter, Elizabeth.’

  ‘A lovely woman, she was, Mrs Finch.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And now I must go. Goodnight, Mr Frost, Mrs Harper.’

  ‘Is he in his car?’ her father asked when her mother came back from showing Mr Daymer out.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t think I could drive a car again, if anything like that happened to me.’

  But, Nancy thought, you’d got to keep going. There were times when you thought you couldn’t. But you’d got to.

  They sold cigarettes and tobacco and cigars, sweets, and newspapers and magazines in the shop. Some of the magazines Nancy was not keen on selling. They had pictures in them of women with their legs open, showing all they’d got. Sometimes the women had their hands down there, as if they were touching themselves up. Not that she was prudish herself, but it embarrassed her when men were embarrassed by buying them. Some of them were. Some were really brazen about it, eyeing her up and down as they threw the book on to the counter, as though she chose them all herself and guessed exactly what they would like. Still, they were dear and the owner said they made a good profit. Marjorie, the other girl, younger than Nancy and not married, thought they were a giggle, and when things were quiet she would pick one out and read the letters, which were all about sexual experiences. ‘They must make them up, Nancy. Don’t you think so? Honest. It’s dreamland. Hey, listen to this one!’ Well, they knew what men were like, didn’t they? Marjorie would say. Jim himself had not been averse to a look and a laugh, though when it came to the thing itself he’d been easily enough satisfied so long as he got what he called his ‘night-cap’ regular. He was always pretty tired and it didn’t last long. It was all right. She’d loved him and couldn’t complain, though just every now and then she’d find herself wishing for a bit of finesse, that they might linger, enjoy it for itself, not just for the end of it. And it had been a long time now... Marjorie had a boyfriend, a cocky lad called Jeff, who sometimes called in to buy a packet of fags and make arrangements with Marjorie. When Marjorie couldn’t resist telling Nancy what a smashing lover Jeff was, she nearly always stopped at some place, cutting off the subject in a way which told Nancy she was sorry that she hadn’t got anybody now. And Nancy wished she wouldn’t, because she didn’t want that kind of pity. It had been a long time... But she still missed Jim and could not bring herself to think of anyone taking his place.

  Marjorie’s big blue eyes brimmed with tears the morning Nancy returned to the shop. Nancy had to steel herself to accept this kind of sympathy. It was natural, but it threatened the defences she was building along the slow path to days in which there would be moments when her mind was not obsessed with what had happened. The nights were the worst, before she managed to sleep; then the mornings when she woke ready for a routine – the kisses, cuddles and chuckles, the dressing of a child’s warm plump body – that was no longer there. It was why she was still with her parents: her own house had an atmosphere of expectancy, as though waiting for someone to come back from holiday, or a spell in hospital, and resume life as it had known it.

  Sometimes Nancy took sandwiches to the shop – there was an electric kettle in the back room where they could make tea or coffee – but it was nice to get out for a while around midday, and she went for a snack then to the Bluebird Café, a clean place run by a Cypriot family, a couple of streets away. This particular day she had gone in perhaps a few minutes later than usual to find it full, and she was standing looking for somewhere to sit when a man she hadn’t so far noticed spoke to her.

  ‘Mrs Harper...’

  It was Mr Daymer, at a table for two, with one of the few empty seats in the place opposite him. She said, ‘Oh, hello,’ and he asked how she was.

  ‘I was just going to order,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d...’ There was a newspaper on the other seat and

  one of those slim zip-up cases for papers, as though

  he’d been keeping the place for somebody. He reached over and moved them. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘There’s not much choice, anyway.’

  She thanked him and sat down. As he said, there wasn’t much choice, and she couldn’t be rude.

  ‘I haven’t seen you in here before.’

  ‘No. Do you come in much?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I’m a regular.’ But he knew that. She somehow knew that he’d known. So what did he want with her that he had to pretend things and cap his pretence with a downright lie – she was sure he was lying – when he said, ‘I had an appointment in town and just happened to spot this place.’ He tried to smile, but it was a poor attempt. He wasn’t

  easy. But how could he be? In his place she would have run a mile before meeting her face to face. So why was she so certain he’d been waiting for her, expecting her to come?

  He handed her the menu. ‘What do you usually have?’

  ‘Oh, just a snack. Poached egg on toast. Something like that.’

  ‘They’ve got what they claim is home-made steak and kidney pie, I see. What about joining me in that?’

  She told him no, she wouldn’t; that her mother would have a cooked meal waiting that evening. She didn’t even want the snack now, just coffee, her stomach was all knotted, him sitting the
re bringing it all back so sharp and clear. But his eyes looked so hurt again she couldn’t bring herself to get up and leave him.

  ‘Are you living with your parents now?’

  ‘For a bit. My mother thinks I’ll stay for good now. She was always on about it before. I’ve got a nice home, though. I don’t want to let it go.’

  ‘I imagined you as an independent person.’

  What did he know about her? He wasn’t her class, though his voice was more careful than naturally posh. He was the head of a department coming down onto the shop floor in his nice suit and shirt and expensive tie, as at the firm she’d worked for before she married Jim. His fairish hair was just long enough, touching his collar, for fashion, but neatly cut. Like his fingernails. Neat hands: no oil, pit-dirt ingrained, work scars. A gold signet ring, heavy gold watch and strap. A Rolex. She’d seen them in shops, had once looked at some with Jim before he’d laughed and settled for something reliable at thirty quid with a face she’d thought rather smart. She had it in a drawer at home now. It was easy enough to look at his hands because it was too hard to look each other in the face.

  He wouldn’t have the steak and kidney pie when the waitress came for the order. No, he said, when Nancy said not to mind her, he wasn’t really hungry and, like her, he would have a cooked meal this evening and he only ate a substantial lunch when he was entertaining firm’s guests. And then, Nancy thought, he wouldn’t bring them to the Bluebird, but somewhere like the Regent or the new motel. And when he had his meal tonight it would probably be nearer eight then half-past six, with sherry or gin before it and a bottle of table wine to go with the food. Mr Daymer had married the boss’s daughter, Nancy’s mother had told her. Nancy’s mother had looked up to the late Mrs Finch. Mr Finch apparently still lived in a big house on the other side of the park. She didn’t know whether Mr Daymer was clever or not, but it probably didn’t matter. He would be looked after in the firm because of who he’d married. He’d landed on his feet. He’d ‘got it made’, as Jim might have said. So what did he want with her? Oh, he’d done a terrible thing, but nobody was blaming him. Witnesses had said he hadn’t a chance. June had been killed because silly young lasses had got her onto the wrong side of the road and then let her start to cross back on her own. They’d been taking care, had promised to take care, but their minds were too young to make them take care all the time. They knew, and they were sorry: everybody was sorry, but it was done. Mr Daymer was sorry, but, as her mother said, he couldn’t bring June back.

  Because they had just coffee there was an excuse not to linger. Besides, Nancy thought the management didn’t like people taking up tables for coffee when there were others wanting seats for lunch. Mr Daymer asked her one or two questions about her job; did she like it, and did her employer look after her. Then he collected his belongings and went out with her.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Nancy said. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t forget. If there’s anything I can do. Anything at all.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she told him, and then again, ‘Goodbye.’

  She had an idea that he watched her to the corner, but she didn’t like to look back to make sure.

  He telephoned her at the shop a week later. As it happened, she was on her own in the back room and answered herself.

  ‘Could I speak to Mrs Harper, please.’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Mrs Harper, this is Walter Daymer.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, pretty fair.’

  ‘Is Wednesday your half-day?’

  ‘Wednesday, yes.’

  ‘Will you be doing anything then?’

  A few weeks ago she could have answered him without hesitation: she would be doing the wash while her mother put the polish on a clean house around her.

  ‘I don’t know, really.’

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to go for a drive with me.’

  ‘Oh, well... I don’t know.’

  ‘We could run out into the country. It’d be a change for you.’

  ‘I suppose it would. But you don’t have to. There’s no need for it.’

  ‘I’d like to. We could have lunch on the way.’

  She said, ‘Just a minute,’ and laid the receiver down, stepping away from the telephone, to think. She was standing like that when Marjorie came in from the shop.

  ‘Are you still on the phone, Nancy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you all right? There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’

  The shop bell rang. Marjorie left her. Nancy heard Mr Daymer’s voice, small in the receiver. She took a deep breath and picked the receiver up.

  They had said they would meet in the market car-park, where Mr Daymer would be first and watch for her. Nancy hadn’t wanted him to call for her at the shop; Marjorie might linger and, in any case, the proprietor always came in at the end of a working day. They were behaving, Nancy thought, like people with something to hide. But it was something better not talked about with others until it was over. Someone had told Nancy’s mother that Nancy had sat with a man in the Bluebird. Nancy’s mother had seemed pleased, probing for hints of a more than casual acquaintance, until Nancy told her it had been Mr Daymer.

  Apart from anything else, Nancy’s mother had said then, Mr Daymer was a married man. Nancy asked her if she thought his buying her a cup of coffee constituted grounds for divorce. No, said her mother, but it wasn’t a big town and people liked to talk. Nancy had told her mother she might fancy the pictures this afternoon and her mother had said that might do her good, help to take her out of herself. Marjorie had seen the film in question and talked about it in some detail.

  Mr Daymer took her into a white pub on a hillside on the way. He wanted to buy her a good lunch, but all she would have was a ham and salad sandwich and a glass of lager. When she asked him how he had managed to take the afternoon off, he told her that he would be driving up to Newcastle when he left her. They were building a factory there. She supposed he was important enough not to have to account for every hour of the day. He said he would also take the opportunity of calling to see his son,

  who was at a boarding school in North Yorkshire. Peter had been writing home about bullying in the school. Mr Daymer’s wife, who had experience of boarding school, thought the lad was exaggerating; but Mr Daymer, who had not been away from home until university, felt that the boy was genuinely unhappy and wanted to get him transferred to a day school near home. He believed anyway, he said, that children should spend their formative years with their parents. Then he seemed to become embarrassed by talking about the boy, and changed the subject.

  They drove on, arriving eventually at a hilltop from where, Mr Daymer told her, you could look into three counties. Or you could, he said, before local government reorganisation had changed so many county boundaries. He wasn’t sure where they were now officially. It was very beautiful, though, and they were lucky with the weather.

  ‘I remember,’ Mr Daymer said, ‘when I was a boy and I got my first bike. A secondhand “sit up and beg” it was. I attached myself to a local cycling club and they came up here one Sunday. It was a matter of pride with me to stay the course. Thirty miles here and thirty back. I slept for twenty-four hours solid after it. My parents thought I’d gone into a coma.’ It sounded to Nancy as though Mr Daymer’s parents had been no better off than her own. He was a poor boy who had married a rich girl, and there were things they didn’t agree about. She wondered who most often had the last word. But now she had to get matters straight.

  ‘Will you tell me something, Mr Daymer?’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘But look, I wish you’d call me Walter. Mr Daymer sounds so stiff and formal.’

  She couldn’t bring
herself to do that, so she just said, ‘Will you tell me why you wanted to see me again? Why you asked me to come out for a drive with you?’

  ‘It’s not an easy question to answer.’

  ‘You must have a reason and I’d like to know what it is. It seems to me I ought to be somebody you’d be best off forgetting.’

  ‘It can’t do you much good seeing me, if it comes to that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just,’ he said after a minute, ‘that I feel so... so inadequate. And sorry for you.’

  ‘I don’t need your pity.’

  ‘It’s not pity. Not in the ordinary way. Anyway, why did you come? You could have refused easily enough.’

  She thought about that before she answered. ‘Perhaps I’m sorry for you. You can’t stop thinking about it, can you?’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ he said. ‘I want to help you and I can’t. There’s nothing I can do. You know, even a simple thing like a holiday. If you wanted to, I could arrange it.’

  ‘I don’t want your money. And there’s nowhere I want to go.’

  ‘No. Forgive me. It was a foolish idea.’

  ‘What does your wife think about it? You’ve told her you’ve seen me, I suppose?’

  ‘She knows about the other time. I told her what I’ve told you – that I feel helpless. I thought that first time that you seeing me as a person might help you to get some kind of perspective on it. That it might help you to forget the stranger – the instrument almost – who knocked down your little girl.’

  She found herself looking at the interior of the car she was sitting in as a thought turned her suddenly cold. Was it the same colour? ‘This isn’t the...?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I got rid of it.’

  She let her breath go. ‘But you made it in your way to see me that other time, didn’t you?’