The Likes of Us

by Stan Barstow

  ‘I’ll see to it myself.’

  ‘There are eggs and bacon and sausages in the fridge.’

  ‘Naw. Mebbe I’ll have them at lunchtime.’

  As his head emerged, she noted again that he badly needed a shave. But she did not put that down to his present lethargy: an incipient beard seemed to be a mark of his age group.

  ‘What will you do today?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘You could start by cleaning this place up. It’s like a tip.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’

  Yes, Oh Mum. Afraid now of nagging, Jean mostly let things slide, thereby abetting him in his apathy. During the last depression, in the thirties, proud men had polished their worn shoes, snipped threads from fraying cuffs and collars and gone out each morning to haunt labour exchanges and factory gates, then shop-window gaze or linger in the reading-rooms of public libraries until it was time to go home and pretend for another day that they were still employed. Until what savings they had ran out and they had to face their families and own up.

  Jean’s mother had told her things like that. The bad times for her had had bad luck thrown in for good measure. Widowed when Jean and her brother were still young, she had turned her hand to any mortal thing that was legal and decent to bring them up and put them through grammar school. Jean’s standards of fortitude had been set by her mother’s example. You held on, never let go, worked till you could hardly stand, asked for nothing that was not your due and fought tooth and nail for everything that was. ‘You know all about poverty,’ Jean could hear her saying, ‘but I’ll see you’re never familiar with squalor’. But that extra two years at grammar school – four earning years between her and Jack – had been the limit of what could be managed. No college or university for them. Jack might have become a civil servant, instead of settling for local government; she herself would surely have become a teacher; probably out of the house again and doing something interesting once the children had stopped needing constant care and attention. But that had become her role, the purpose of her life: to look after Fred and the kids, make a good home for them, see that they had everything she could provide.

  Had she done it well? She could only measure that against the failure she saw every day: surly, disaffected children; husbands and wives with hardly a good word for each other; others leading their own, separate lives, drifted apart, some of them split up. She had been lucky: the two who were away kept in touch, came home; all three confided. There had been that terrible time, quite early on, when Fred had become infatuated with that unmarried teacher from the school in Calderford. ‘I can have a friendship, can’t I?’ he had pleaded, when even she had seen what couldn’t be hidden any longer. And for months she had sweated through nights when he didn’t touch her and others when he clung wordlessly to her, making love in a silent frenzy, as if to drive the demon of infidelity out of himself.

  And they were still together. It was never spoken of, never brought up, thrown out. Yes, she had done it well and she had been lucky. All the same, there were times when... But never mind.

  Stephen had not come down by the time she had drunk another cup of tea herself and washed up her and Fred’s breakfast pots. She put on her coat, took her shopping bags and called from the foot of the stairs: ‘I’m taking my key in case you want to go out. Make sure you lock the door and I’ll see you for lunch.’ She waited. ‘Do you hear?’

  She backed the car carefully into the street. She had the use of it during the day now that Fred, with a doleful recognition of his thickening waist, had taken to cycling the two miles to school. This was one of those mornings when she was glad not to have to wait for a bus: blustery, whipping the poplars of the garden opposite, with rain in the wind. Straightening the vehicle, she fastened her seatbelt, managed that stiff initial push into bottom gear and drove off to her first call.

  ‘Was that your car making all that noise?’ Millie Tyler asked, handing Jean her cup of coffee.

  ‘I’m afraid the exhaust’s gone. I heard it rasping a bit the other day but I quite forgot to ask Fred or Stephen to look underneath. It’s nearly four years old. Stephen gets on to Fred regularly about part-exchanging it while he can still get a decent price. But Fred’s having one of his periodic economy drives.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I don’t mean he’s penny-pinching. But I know he’d like us to see Venice this year and he does feel the burden of Caroline’s fees and having to subsidise Stephen. I mean, he’s got to let the lad keep most of his dole if he’s to have any life at all.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you’ve got to give them their chance.’

  ‘Well, Caroline, anyway. All Stephen can hope for at present is that things will pick up before all the stuffing’s knocked out of him.’

  Mollie’s two daughters were living away, married to men with good prospects. Mollie herself, widowed twelve months ago, was only just recovering from having a breast removed.

  ‘But how are you feeling?’ Jean asked.

  ‘Oh, pretty fair. I think they’re just about ready to give me a clean bill of health.’

  ‘Oh, that is good news, Mollie.’

  ‘Yes, it could all have been a lot worse.’

  ‘Is that a new dress?’

  ‘Yes. I thought I’d treat myself.’ Standing, Mollie drew herself up in the closely-fitting tweed frock. ‘You couldn’t tell, could you?’

  ‘You’d have no idea. You look as good as ever.’

  ‘Yes, I look all there,’ Mollie said wryly, ‘even if I know I’m not.’

  Jean had always admired Mollie’s figure and envied her ability to keep it trim yet shapely without the fussy regimen that so many women had to adopt. In her late forties, she was a woman with looks enough to choose her way into a good second marriage, if ever she wanted one. But what now? Jean wondered. At what stage did you tell a man that what he saw and liked was not all it seemed? And what were the chances of being doubly lucky and picking a man you really wanted who would also swallow his disappointment and accept it as part of the bargain?

  ‘I’ve got a bit of shopping to do. I wondered if there was anything you wanted.’

  ‘I’m all right, Jean. I can manage all that.’

  ‘Well, you look fit enough just now, but you didn’t sound it on the phone the other day.’

  ‘Oh, that was just this bug that’s going around. You’re sick and on the run for twenty-four hours and then it leaves you. Have you managed to keep clear of it?’

  ‘Well, so far, yes. There’s been a bit of it among the staff at Fred’s school.’

  ‘He’s all right, is he, Fred?’

  ‘Yes, he’s fine.’

  ‘And how’s Caroline? Still enjoying herself.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She’s settled to it nicely.’

  ‘When are we going to talk about that coffee morning?’

  ‘There’s the flag day before then.’

  ‘Yes, well, we ought to give people plenty of time, so’s they’ve no excuses. Otherwise it’ll be the same old story: leave it to Jean; she’ll see that it’s all right.’

  ‘They usually rally round, when it comes to it.’

  ‘Some do, some don’t.’

  ‘Don’t make me out to be a martyr, Mollie.’

  ‘That’s your word, not mine. Whenever have I heard you moan?’

  ‘What have I got to moan about?’

  ‘There’s not one of us who hasn’t got something, at some time or other.’ She looked up as Jean sighed. ‘That came from deep down. Was it for something special?’

  ‘I was just thinking that you shame me, Mollie. With all that’s happened to you, what right have I to grumble?’

  ‘If you’ve got something to grumble about, grumble.’

  ‘That’s just the point. I haven’t.’

  All t
he same...

  The woman came back into the greengrocer’s as Jean was transferring her purchases from the counter to her shopping bag.

  ‘I’m just wondering if you’ve given me the right change...’

  Jean only half heard as she lingered, thinking there was something else she needed. The customer went again. ‘Sorry, my mistake.’

  The woman behind the counter took coins from the still open till and handed them to Jean. ‘There’s your change, dear. Thirty-seven pence.’

  Jean was outside before it clicked in her mind. Opening her purse, she checked the coins in there, then took those the woman had given her from her pocket. She went back in and to the head of the queue.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Yes, love.’ The woman glanced up from her rapid serving.

  ‘My change.’

  ‘It must be catching today,’ the woman said. ‘I did give it to you, you know, love. What was it, now? Thirty-seven pence.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve given it to me twice. I know by the coins in my purse. I hadn’t that much loose change when I came in.’ She handed the money back.

  ‘Well, thank you.’ The woman smiled. ‘I must have been dreaming.’

  ‘Both of us, come to that,’ Jean said.

  ‘Aye, well, I don’t know about you, love,’ the woman said, ‘but it’s not dinnertime yet, and I could lose a small fortune by half-past five.’ She put her head back, her fleshy throat above the neck of a shocking-pink jumper pumping uninhibited laughter out of her broad chest.

  Mrs Rawdon stopped Jean as she reached the pavement on the other side of the street. Preoccupied, Jean would have walked past her.

  ‘Mrs Nesbit.’ She was a small deferential body in a worn tweed coat.

  ‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t seen you.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve more to think about than me.’

  Jean looked into the pale crumpled face and wondered, as she had before, how anyone without an ailment could nowadays age so much before her time.

  ‘How is your husband, Mrs Rawdon?’

  ‘That’s why I stopped you.’ The woman shook her head. ‘I’m afraid…’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘We cremated him the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Had he been in hospital?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They had to take him back in the end. I’m glad I’ve seen you, though. I thought you ought to know, you having been so kind to us.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Jean said. ‘I happened to know about the Trust, that’s all.’

  ‘It made all the difference, though, having that holiday. We both enjoyed it. It seemed... well, it seemed to bring us together again.’

  ‘I’m glad. Are you all right now?’

  ‘Oh, I shall manage, don’t you fear.’

  ‘Good.’

  Jean had pleaded the woman’s need for a break, more than her husband’s. Should she, she had asked, be penalised for her loyalty to a man who had spent all on drink and gambling? They did like nice comfortable cases of hardship, these guardians of ancient funds, where all concerned were equally deserving.

  ‘Are you all right yourself, Mrs Nesbit, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Mrs Rawdon was peering solicitously into her face. ‘Why?’ she found herself adding.

  ‘Just my feeling. I saw you as you crossed over the road, and wondered.’

  ‘I was miles away.’

  ‘Yes. I expect you can always find plenty to think about.’

  ‘It seems to find me, Mrs Rawdon.’

  Surprising Jean considerably, Mrs Rawdon said, ‘In an empty mind there’s room for nothing. But you can always cram a bit more into a full one. But excuse me. I’ve delayed you long enough.’

  It was on the tip of Jean’s tongue to say, ‘Let me know if I can be of any help,’ but she held it back and let the woman go, not knowing whether she might be asked later for something she could not give. One had to be practical about these things.

  Was she all right? Of course she was all right.

  It was as she was scoffing at Mrs Rawdon’s curious fancy that the feeling came upon her. She could not have told anyone what it actually felt like. There was no sense of faintness or physical fatigue, but quite suddenly she realised that she could not make up her mind what to do next. Aware that she had not moved from where Mrs Rawdon had left

  her, she looked in through the big windows of the supermarket, saw the queues at the checkouts and knew that she could not go in. It was silly. The crush was unusual and would soon clear. There were things she needed, things she had left the house to buy. But she did not want to enter the place. The thought of doing so aroused in her something like panic.

  She felt sweat break out on her neck and forehead. Well, at her age, she knew what her doctor or her friends would make of that. And yet, there was something more. What the devil was it all about? What was it all for? If she bought groceries now they would get eaten and she would have to come back for more. As when she cleaned the house or weeded the garden. The house got dirty again; more weeds grew. So it went on. Nothing was ever settled. You ate to live, to eat to live, to eat... Brought up a new generation to do the same. And what was ever accomplished?

  Forcing her legs to work, she turned and went slowly along the parade of shops: jewellery and watches, shoes, meat, an optician’s, magazines and newspapers... There was another supermarket, recently opened, round the corner. People she knew had shopped there. She had told herself she would try it some time and compare its range of goods and prices. She quickened her pace slightly, turning her head once as, after several seconds’ delay, she fancied someone had given her a greeting.

  The premises of the new store were not a conversion but entirely new, of raw red brick, built on the site of a demolished building. Jean entered, took a wire basket from a pile and went through the barrier. The layout of the shelves was strange. She looked at the hanging notices which offered general guidance and consulted the slip of paper on which she had made her list.

  Special offers, new lines, loss leaders. So many pence off this and that, but be careful because now you were in here with everything to hand you could lose that advantage by paying over the odds for something else. She wandered, her mind still drifting, refusing to focus, while she picked things up, looked, put some things back, put others into the basket. She was buying more than she had come for. It was hard not to do that in a new place, with fresh brands, different labels. All set out to hand, so that you didn’t have to ask. All set out to tempt you to second and third thoughts. Help yourself. Take what you want and pay for it. Or don’t pay. Defray the rising cost of living by stealing a proportion of your weekly shopping list. They did it – some did, she didn’t know who they were – and got away with it. Some did. They must, or there would not be those occasional reports of the percentages these big concerns wrote off. And it must be easy, so easy, to drop one thing into the store’s basket and another into the open mouth of your own bag. To think that there must be people who came out every shopping day with that intention. Or was it more casual than that, more haphazard, tempted suddenly and taking a chance?

  Jean was through the checkout and on the pavement outside before she felt the hand on her elbow and heard the voice that froze her to the spot.

  ‘Excuse me, madam, but haven’t you got something in your bag that you haven’t paid for?’

  Turning her head, forcing herself to look into the woman’s expressionless face.

  ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘If I have, perhaps we can sort it out in private, inside.’

  The hand tightened its grip slightly. Jean wondered what would happen if she refused, shook herself free, made off. People were looking. The beat of her heart was sickening. Was this how it always went? she wond
ered. Why couldn’t the woman see that this was special, different?

  The manager’s office, a tiny room with a yellow wood desk, a filing cabinet and two chairs, was at the back of the store. The woman let Jean walk to it in front of her. The manager was a young man with sandy hair and an absurd little moustache. It was perhaps his first important appointment. He asked Jean’s name. She told him. He wrote it down.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘Thirty-three Willow Grove.’

  ‘Is that nearby?’

  ‘Three or four minutes by car.’

  ‘Have you shopped here before?’

  ‘I usually go to Dunstan’s.’

  ‘But you thought we’d be easier to steal from?’

  ‘This is all a mistake.’

  ‘Mrs Nesbit, we have TV surveillance here, with instant playback. Right? Would you like us to show you what we saw?’

  Jean said nothing. No, she would not like that.

  They emptied the contents of her bags onto the desk top, separated the goods she had bought elsewhere and checked the rest against her till-slip. The manager sighed then lifted the telephone and dialled a number.

  ‘Will you send somebody round as soon as possible.’ He listened. ‘Yes. Yes.’

  ‘If I’ve got something I didn’t pay for it’s because I didn’t know I had it,’ Jean said.

  ‘Whether you took it deliberately or not will be for the court to decide. Right?’

  ‘You mean you actually intend to prosecute?’

  ‘It’s company policy. Out of my hands. We always prosecute. We’re new here. One or two convictions to start with might stop it getting a hold. Right?’

  ‘But over a little thing like that.’

  ‘Little or big makes no difference.’

  ‘Do you seriously think I’d risk my reputation for such a trivial thing?’

  ‘I don’t know about your reputation. For all I know, you might make a habit of it.’

  ‘I’ve never done such a thing in my life before,’ Jean said, adding quickly. ‘I haven’t done anything now.’