Holiday

by Stanley Middleton

  ‘Could you give me a light, please?’

  Clear this time or clearer. A non-smoker, Fisher carried a lighter in his pocket because Meg had occasionally needed a cigarette but never had matches with her. He fiddled, handed it over.

  ‘Don’t know if it works. Might be dry.’

  The young man flicked, shook, flicked so that the Red Indian strips along his arm and the hem of his coat bounced, then inhaled satisfactorily.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Fisher pocketed it, waited for the boy to budge but he did not do so.

  ‘I’ve seen you before.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You gave a lecture at our place.’ He named a technical college. ‘Education and Prejudice.’ He seemed pleased to recall the title.

  ‘Are you a teacher in training, then?’

  ‘No. I’m a lab technician. Went with a mate.’

  The young man spoke barely moving his lips so that Fisher was reminded of film gangsters. This image was totally belied by the quietness of the voice, the mildness of the lad’s appearance, the spinelessness, perhaps. It looked as if he might collapse, clothes and all, any minute, crumple to the ground.

  ‘You made it quite interesting,’ the boy said, stroking his pale cheek with the back of the hand in which he held his fag.

  Fisher nodded, began polite questioning about holidays. The three young men had a tent over on the dunes, from where they bathed twice a day and slept when they came back from the discos. All this the boy delivered in driblets, not hurrying himself, giving the impression that he tried to make the recital as dull as he could. Fisher, half amused, looked for the language of the youth cult, the words he’d learnt from the Sunday papers, ‘chick’, ‘pad’, ‘joint’, ‘turn on’, even the daft ‘psychedelic’, but found nothing. If these were already out of date the speaker had not replaced them with immediately recognisable neologisms, but used the flat language of the factory floor, the supermarket, the soccer pitch. They were, a leer, on the lookout for girls, the birds, and had been moderately successful because there were some right scrubbers about here, he could tell you. They’d just do the week and hitch back if they could. If they couldn’t? Have to be the bus, wouldn’t it?

  Fisher wanted to know why they didn’t venture further, abroad, say.

  ‘You need time for abroad. We want to be idle, and our own bosses for a week. And we might stay another if the weather keeps up. We’re here, and we do as we like. We’ve got money, but we don’t want to spend it in clubs, downing ale.’

  ‘Do you not drink?’

  ‘Sometimes. But eight or nine pints a night like some of ’em is stupid.’

  Although Fisher guessed they were shorter of money than they let on, this jerky, undemonstrative account of a seaside idyll attracted him. Immediately he checked himself because he could pinpoint the boring fish-suppers, the interminable talk of women, the sitting about in unattractive dumps like this waiting for something to happen, and the wary drag on when it didn’t. They were unlike him, making a little go a long way, because they’d neither the resources nor the energy to do anything more enterprising.

  The lad took in a last lungful, dropped the cigarette to the gravel, didn’t heel it in, made some sort of noise and left. When he sat down again, exchanged for a few moments a word or two with his companions, Fisher could not be sure that they were discussing him. Embarrassed, he strolled away, raising a hand to the group.

  All three acknowledged, surprisingly. Two nods and a finger. Gave them something to do in a half-hearted way.

  Middle-aged people ate silently at a whelk-stall; youngsters tore wrappers from ice-cream, dropped them to the sand. In the distance a young couple silhouetted with all the banality of a television ad. ran hand in hand so that they seemed immediately conspicuous by their directed energy, their aim. The rest tottered or splashed in a few yards of shallow sea; these two swooped, on their way, due to arrive.

  Fisher bought a cup of abominable, strong tea, burnt his tongue as he sipped and exchanged words with the stallkeeper, in the slack of the afternoon. There he learnt that they still rolled mint-rock on the front, set out to find the booth, which was deserted, though its placards proclaimed, recently repainted, that the ‘old firm’ had won diplomas of merit in 1934/5, 1936/7, 1939. Had they lost their touch in the last thirty-odd years, or had kill-joy dentists won the day so that diplomas of skill and purity were no longer awarded?

  Young men climbed the high diving board in the inland seawater pool. He could see the top of the structure, which had not changed since his day, though he had neither lounged nor leapt up there, confining himself to breast or a few breathless strokes of crawl. In that place he had first seen a grown woman’s nipple in a flash so that he hardly believed what he saw, when her shoulder strap slipped and he had blushed, tingled with desperate pleasurable embarrassment while others noticed nothing, got on with their own rowdy devices. The observer, the man on the side, the peeping-Tom.

  A bus on the promenade disgorded its complement of old-age pensioners who creaked off the step to stand bemused on the pavement. One old man, face brown as a brick, hair-remnants ruffled, turned round on the pavement in his braces, mouth agape, looking for something.

  ‘Won’t you want your coat, Mr Wardle?’ Female bossiness. The old chap mouthed sounds, turned obediently towards the bus. ‘Don’t you bother. I’ll get it for you. It can be quite cool here.’

  The leaders, middle-aged women in flowered dresses and cardigans, ushered their charges into a semblance of order, and one, hectoring, shouted.

  ‘We shall walk down to a very nice little garden where we can sit. The flowers are beautiful. There are toilets there if you want to use them. It’s not far to the sands from there, but I don’t want you to go if you think you’ll tire yourselves. You’ll be able to see the sea, and it will be sunny and sheltered in the gardens. Now if you follow, Mrs Payne will show you the way down.’

  Fisher watched the sand shuffle as they set off. The dictatorial woman took the arms of two bone-thin old ladies who were clearly delighted to be thus signalled out for honour.

  ‘They’ve got some rum ’uns there,’ the bus-driver said to Fisher. ‘Some of ’em have no more sense than babies. One old fellow was going to have a pee in the middle of the bus. Had it out in front of all these women. But most of them are as lively as you and me.’ The driver wiped his hands on his trousers back-side. ‘The old fellow was weak in the head. Been inside a ’sylum, they said. Queer, isn’t it, how old-age takes you? Gi’ me a nice, quick heart-attack any time. Over and done, then. Shock for them as is left, but I wouldn’t like to be like some of these.’

  ‘They won’t want to die,’ Fisher said.

  ‘No more shall I when my time comes,’ the driver answered. ‘Well, I’d better lock this bus up or they’ll have their handbags pinched. God bless ’em.’ He paused, added, keys appearing in his hand as if by conjuring, ‘The way some of these women get on to ’em. Worse than th’army. Stand up, sit down, polish your boots, wipe your arse. But I suppose if they weren’t like that they’d never organize these trips, and these clubs, and these poor old souls’d never get a niff o’ sea air. What a life.’ He flourished his keys. ‘Lovely, some o’ these old dears. “Has the driver had a cup o’ tea? Make sure the driver gets his dinner.” Can’t help liking ’em. I tell ’em, “Don’t you worry your ‘ead, my love.” I say. “If they’ve flung every tea-leaf in the place into the North Sea, I’ll get some’at to drink.” And they look at you wi’ round eyes, and cackle, and say, “Beer” like naughty school kids. “That’s it,” I tell ’em. “Pig’s ear an’ pickled onions. What us drivers lives on.” And then some o’d biddy says, “I think the driver’s drunk,” and, by God, they’re off. Ah, well.’

  This time he went, locked up, slapped the back on his tour of inspection and made for the gardens after the procession, calling over his shoulder,

  ‘Make the most of it, while you’re young enough.’

  ‘W
here?’

  The man spread his arms, flapped them comically as he retreated, kicking his heels up.

  ‘Here. Here.’

  Fisher walked faster up the promenade, less sure of himself, but gayer. A stout young woman, brown as a fisherman, slapped along with her children. One jumped, stumbled into Fisher who was passing, was jerked peremptorily upright.

  ‘Look where you’re going,’ the mother called. ‘Sorry.’ She wore a short frock, rucked high up her legs from sitting.

  ‘Quite all right,’ Fisher said. ‘Wish I’d that amount of energy.’

  The mother locked her lips, but said nothing, plunging on again, the two lively at the end of her arms, like shifting seaweed on an anchor.

  Now the place seemed crowded, as perhaps the beaches emptied, and cars swished along the road, catching, flinging sunlight on their windscreens. But the life was tired, like the leaping flame as an old man put a match to his pipe in one of the sea-front shelters, a wild atom in surrounding enervation.

  ‘They’ll sleep tonight,’ some grandma shouted, pointing at children upside down on the prom-rails.

  ‘I know I shall,’ their mother answered.

  Meg had been a poor sleeper, prowling in the night, sipping glasses of water. If she took a sleeping-tablet she’d manage only two or three hours, and then wake to toss.

  ‘Why don’t you read?’ he’d asked.

  ‘And wake you?’

  ‘I’d soon drop off again.’

  He wondered if she woke like this to win time for herself. Even when she dropped with fatigue, so that she nodded off over a meal, when Donald needed night-feeds, she still became alert in the small hours.

  ‘Are you worrying? Is there anything on your mind?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Just a bad habit.’

  And she’d shrug him off, rationally, in what seemed to him a desperate appeal. He ought to settle her nerves, soothe or dominate her into sleep. Such fantasy nagged him. On holiday, at St. Tropez or Tunis, when they were drugged with sun, satiated with sex so that every muscle of his body relaxed into a perfection of comfort, she’d be awake at two, creaking the wicker chair in the bedroom, staring out into the light darkness, towards the small trees, the pool of night-sounds.

  ‘It’s my nature’ she said. ‘I’m a nocturnal animal.’

  Yet she loved the sunlight, hated the white strips of flesh round her breasts, buttocks, low belly.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ she drew his attention with her finger, unnecessarily. ‘Look at that.’

  And dizzy with the sun he’d tried with his fingers the change from sun brown to white until he lay exhausted inside her as she laughed and complimented him and tried without trying to reach for the bedside table a cigarette that was the symbol that she for once was sufficiently satisfied to demand a second gratification that was no concern of his, that did not spring from him.

  7

  On the morning he was to lunch with the Vernons, Fisher sat on a towel on the beach.

  The sky stretched hazier; the wind had dropped so that the day promised real heat. Children scuttled about as if to prepare themselves for pleasure, digging trenches and fortifications, jumping and shouting, delighted because their parents had, for once, got the weather they wanted. The elderly sat to respectful attention in deck-chairs biroing postcards, ready for the brightness, they remembered, every day of summer showed when they were young.

  Fisher idly watched two young women who had settled near him.

  Their preparations were priest-like; Pope approached truth in the ‘Rape of the Lock.’ First they laid the huge beach-towel, weighted its corners with their baskets and bags. This took time, circumambulation, calculation of the sun’s position later in the day; both chattered with a kind of intensity, like a commentator into a handmicrophone, as if to ensure that their inanities arrived at the listener. He had been amused for a quarter of an hour before he realised that he was the target, he was the morning’s eligible young man, mark one. They did not look at him much, but made certain that they had his attention, by constant movement, barbs of conversation.

  Curiously, as he examined himself, he felt flattered.

  They were pretty, stocky girls, blue-eyes with blond, fluffy, well brushed hair. Now they had whisked their frocks off, and in bikinis sat to oil themselves. At first this seemed haphazard, a dab at the ankle or shin, but he found that they rubbed and smoothed with thorough care. He was, and he and they noticed, shamelessly staring at them. Their legs, strong-thighed, thick-ankled, were already tanned as their palms caressed, sliding over the youthful surface. One wore an engagement ring. After the arms, upper breasts, shoulders, belly had been leisurely treated, one lay flat for the other to deal with her back.

  ‘Oh, I could do with this all day,’ the patient said. There was something sexual in the whole performance as if they were inviting Fisher to join the ritual, the initiation. When the first girl sat up, she smiled at him, showing good teeth, patting her hair. After the second lubrication, one girl made a dart for the other who sat touching herself, to tickle; it seemed out of place, clownish compared with the hieratic slow ease so far, childish, a lout’s trick. The second girl squeaked, thrashed over fast to dodge the assult, kneeing a zipped shopping carrier and a complement of sand onto Fisher’s towel.

  ‘Stop it, Tricia,’ she squealed. ‘You are daft.’ She looked at Fisher. ‘Oh, I am sorry.’ She picked up the bag, began to brush sand ineffectually.

  ‘That will do no harm.’ he said.

  She was deep-breasted, pretty, utterly humdrum.

  ‘It gets into your food, it’s so fine.’

  ‘I shall go back for lunch,’ he answered. ‘I’m meeting somebody.’

  ‘A lady.’

  ‘Two. And a gentleman.’ They were all laughing.

  ‘In a restaurant?’ the first girl, Tricia, asked.

  ‘A hotel. Yes.’

  ‘Do you think we could guess which?’ she persisted.

  ‘You could try.’

  They preened themselves, brushing sand from their knees, for the game.

  ‘The Frankland Towers,’ the second girl said, eyebrows sarcastic.

  ‘Yes.’

  A small silence.

  ‘Did she guess right first time?’ Tricia asked.

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Good guessers never marry,’ the first answered, fingering her engagement ring.

  ‘I wonder what Philip would think about that.’

  More laughter, while Fisher placed Philip as the girls fiancé.

  Soon they began to talk, not easily, and in their case with a modesty which he found old-fashioned. This suited them, as did their rather ample bikinis, in red and blue with polka dots; they wanted to chat to him because he looked sensible, dressed respectably, but now he’d proclaimed himself a patron of the Frankland, they were faintly suspicious, wondering what he was about, sitting alone on the beach. They were sisters, he learnt, and Carol, the elder, the engaged one, was a primary teacher. Patricia was secretary to a manager in a textile factory in Nelson.

  He liked them, immediately, with their big healthy limbs, their common sense, their careful vocabulary delivered with a slightly northern voice. They were interested when he told them he used to be a teacher, questioned him about his schools, but did not press to know his present occupation, when he said nothing. They always took holidays together, were here this time because a fortnight’s motoring in Ireland had fallen through at the last minute. In simplicity, he found them amusing talkers, sharp but charitable; both clearly had more intelligence than their superiors at work, but neither resented this, saw it pehaps as an order of nature. One evening a week they ran a uniformed group for small boys, and on another they attended together a class on oil painting.

  ‘Do you bring your paints with you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Carol replied. ‘We’re both copiers.’

  ‘We drive the teacher barmy, because we�
�ve no initiative.’

  ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘It’s true enough,’ Carol answered. ‘We go. We pick up tips. We turn out things our mother thinks are marvellous, but they’re nothing to Aubrey.’

  ‘Can he paint?’ Fisher asked. They considered.

  ‘I suppose so. He had plenty of daubs in the local exhibitions.’

  ‘You sound guarded.’ Fisher was enjoying himself.

  ‘He’s an excellent teacher. But very conservative, I should think, wouldn’t you Tricia?’

  ‘And trying to encourage us to splash out in the way he won’t himself.’

  ‘That’s acute. I’m glad I don’t teach you.’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ Carol said, pleased with the comment.

  The pair bend to pouring and oiling.

  When later he went to fetch a pot of tea for the three of them, Tricia slipped on a short bath-robe to accompany him. They stepped over legs, round castles, laughing. She stood with him in the queue, chose the biscuits, chaffed the stall-keeper with the result that Fisher found the trip a source of pleasure. About these girls, he thought, there was an innocence, a goodness. If he had been asked to specify what this quality consisted of, he’d have been forced to mere picture-making. He could, for example, though they had no mention of religion, imagine these two as members of a Harvest Festival choir, bearing a strong contralto, ‘The Sceptre of Thy Kingdom is a Right Sceptre’ maestoso by Sir A. Sullivan.

  This pleased him, though he recognised it as fantasy. No such simplicities existed in real life. When these girls married, and they were the sort to become excellent housewives, their husbands would be plagued with their moods, and fears, and boredom, because this was universal; nobody was exempt. But at present he felt no qualms.

  When he had first met Meg, that evening at the theatre, he remembered an element of guilt, of treachery. She’d called him over to spite her fiancé who was running at her pleasure. Fisher, attracted, had sensed danger, uncertainty. Meg’s love was never more than half given, grudgingly displayed. These girls would open their fingers, clasp a man’s hand in theirs, and mean it, whatever scarred or spoilt the future. Meg’s whole self seemed devious.