All the Way Home and All the Night Through (14 page)

Silence.

“I don't suppose you'd consider not having Randolph as a boy-friend?”

“Why should I?”

“Because I'm asking you not to.”

Silence.

“I don't know.”

Silence.

“That's it then,” I said.

“How do you mean?”

“That's it. It's no good. Janet, I don't think we ought to see each other again.”

“Why not?”

“Because, well, the truth is, I like you more than I expected, and the fact of your going with Randolph and with me doesn't make me feel too good.”

“I don't see why. You go with other girls, don't you?”

“No. Not now.”

“You
don't
?”

“No.”

“I don't believe you.”

“I don't expect you to.”

Silence.

“Why don't you like the arrangement?”

“Because I like you. I keep telling you. More than I expected. I know you don't want me to. So therefore I can't carry on. It's not good this way. For me, that is.”

“Can't you accept it the way it is?”

“No.”

Silence.

“I don't see him very often,” she said.

“That's not the point. You said you like him very much.”

“And you don't want to keep seeing me if I keep seeing Ran-dolph?”

“That's about it. I don't want to, but I've no choice.”

Silence.

“I wish you wouldn't complicate things,” she said.

“Natural talent.”

She looked worried, apprehensive. I was mentally on the edge of the bench. Come on. Come on, I thought.

“Really, you know, it's just that I know him very well.”

“You like him very much.”

“I know, but—”

“You either like him or you don't.”

“You really mean it.”

“Him or me.”

“I thought I said I didn't want to consider you as a boyfriend?”

“That's what you said.”

“If I did—”

“If you did, you'd have to consider me as a boyfriend.”

Old Hard-as-nails Graves, I thought.

Give ‘em hell.

She became silent. I sweated. After a time she said:

“I like seeing you, in spite of what people say. I just don't want anything serious to happen.”

“It won't. I like you just enough to feel bad about you seeing someone else.”

She thought some more.

“I still want to keep on seeing you, I suppose. I don't see him very often anyway.”

“The choice is yours.”

“I'd have to see him sometime.”

“Only not as a boyfriend.”

Silence.

“All right,” she said. “You don't leave me a lot of choice.”

I had left her all the choice in the world. I felt as big as five pints on a Friday night. I was in, sort of.

The next day Janet said to me:

“There's something I have to ask you.”

“I can only answer with a lie.”

“I'm serious. I don't expect you'll like it very much.”

“Ask me.”

“Well, it's my mother. She's, well, she's rather particular about who I go out with.”

“And?”

“Well, she likes to see who I'm going out with. Scrutinize them.” She pulled a face. “You'll have to be met. She'd like you to come to dinner on Saturday. Do you mind terribly?”

“So that's awful. You must think I'm some kind of wild hairy man. Of course, I don't mind. I'll look forward to it very much.”

Her faced showed a mixture of understated surprise and relief.

“Then you don't mind?”

“Of course not.”

“It's just that my mother, well, she likes to know what kind of people I go out with.”

“Of course, she does.” I said, righteously benevolent. “It's only right for a parent to take an interest. God, most couldn't care less.”

“Well...”

“What time shall I come?”

I had never known the true meaning of the word nervous. I had never known the true meaning of the word awkward. I had never known the true meaning of the word terrified.

I got off the bus. She was sitting on the wall of a small bridge which spanned a narrow dyke. Private woods formed a backdrop behind her. The streetlight outlined her brilliantly against the dark foliage.

She slid off the wall. She walked toward me, smiling proudly.

“My, you do look smart,” she said.

“Do I?” I said distractedly. “I don't feel it.”

“Oh, but you are.”

“Good.”

We turned into the road where her house was.

“I hope your mother likes me.”

“Why shouldn't she?”

“She knows all about me, doesn't she?”

“Yes, but she wouldn't hold that against you. She thinks most of the boys I know are pretty spineless. As I do.”

“Yes, I know, but it might be different now she knows I'm going out with you.”

“It won't be, I'm sure.”

We reached the gate. I saw the house. If I had been nervous before, there was no word to describe my feelings now.

The house stood back about a hundred feet from the road. My immediate reaction was to think: This is where Frank Sinatra lives. But it was her house. It was the longest house I had ever seen. There was no top floor, but it didn't need one. The house looked as though it had been put there overnight. Picture windows were all over the place, and the outer wall of the reception hall was completely of glass. Through it I saw Janet's mother. A glass door in the glass wall opened and a white poodle came yipping toward us.

Janet sat at one end of the table and I sat at the other. Her mother and stepfather sat at either side.

“I always feel, though, Victor, that to declare everything, every single thing that you earn to the Income Tax People is absolutely the wisest thing to do. After what, as I say, happened to me during the war.”

There's a lot of bloody difference, I thought, between the tax on £4,000 in an off-white business deal and the few quid a week I can earn playing in the band, which was what Janet's stepfather had been on about. How did we get on to that, anyway? The point was, he was serious. He really thought I ought to declare it.

“Yes,” I said. “You're right. It's certainly worth thinking about. I must go into it.”

“Oh, I wouldn't bother about it, Victor,” said Mrs Walker. “I'm sure Alan's exaggerating the situation. He's always so serious where money's concerned. Aren't you, darling?”

He smiled, almost, not looking up from his food.

“This household thrives well because of it,” he said.

“Yes, Daddy,” said Janet, leaning across the table and putting her hand on his arm. She patted him. Her mother smiled.

“You see, Alan, how we appreciate you,” said his wife.

“Well,” he said, “I must go into my study and continue the process of making some more. Excuse me, Victor. I'll see you later, before you go.”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

He got up and left the room.

“However, Victor,” said Mrs Walker, “can I get anything else for you?”

“No, no thanks, Mrs Walker. It was terrific. I've really had plenty. Thanks.”

“In that case, if you care to go through into the living area, Janet and I can do the dishes, can't we Janet?”

“I suppose so,” said Janet.

I went through the arch into the big living area. I sat down on the edge of a low chair. I wondered if I ought to light a cigarette. On a table even lower than the present position of my backside was an open box containing about a hundred fat cigs, but I decided to have one of my Park Drives instead. I didn't like to take one from the box just like that.

I looked up at a large part of the night which I could see through the picture window. Stars were out. I reflected: how I hate eating food with people I don't know. It's such a strain. However good the food is, I never enjoy it because of the strain.

Janet and her mother came in from what I surmised must have been called the dishes area. Janet sat down in a big armchair near me, but not too near, and her mother took a cigarette from the box on the table. I stood up, taking out my matches to light it for her, but before I had got half-way up out of my seat, Mrs Walker had lit her cigarette with a Ronson table lighter, so I had to begin sitting down almost as soon as I had started getting up, and I didn't look very elegant doing that, so I blushed and grinned emptily. Janet looked down at her knees. Mrs Walker sat down. She relaxed completely.

“That's better,” she said.

The poodle came in and walked over to Janet. It looked at her then at me.

“Come on then. Come on then, love. Who's a beautiful thing, then?” said Janet.

The animal jumped onto Janet's lap and blinked round the room in its whiny poodle way.

“Do your parents keep a dog, Victor?” asked Mrs Walker.

“No, we don't have a dog, Mrs Walker. We're cat people at home.”

“I can't stand cats, and I don't like dogs very much more, but she's such a funny little bitch I suppose I don't really mind her. She's spoiled, and she's more trouble than she's worth, but Janet likes her.”

“Oh, Mummy, you know you love her.”

“Rubbish. I say that just to keep you happy. You know what you are.”

“Oh, Mummy.”

Oh, bloody hell.

The evening went on. I was glad when it was time to go. Not because of the banal conversation because I find I'm very good at it and quite enjoy it but because I was glad to be getting away from being scrutinized, whatever the verdict.

We stood in the glassy hall. The night was behind me, through the reflecting transparent wall.

“Well, Victor, it's been very nice meeting you,” said Mrs Walker.

“It was good of you to invite me,” I said.

“I hope you can come again sometime,” she said.

“I hope so,” I said.

I stepped back and found my head in the middle of the long tendrils of some un-nameable plant which flopped sloppily over the side of a hanging bowl. I moved out of the way of them but not before Janet had giggled, making my exit lost forever.

“How did I go on?” I asked Janet on Monday.

“Wonderfully. My mother really liked you. I've never seen her so nice to anyone. You can imagine what she could be like if she wanted.”

I swelled with pride.

“Yes, I can imagine,” I said.” I should think she'd be very cutting if she wanted to be. I liked her very much. She was really intelligent.”

“She'll like that.”

“What did she say?”

“I ought not to tell you. It will give you a swelled head.”

“I've got one already. Come on, tell me.”

“Well. She thought you were good looking.”

“Did she really?”

“She thought you seemed very intelligent. She told me she thought you were extremely polite and charming.”

“Good old Mrs Walker. You see, you can't afford not to go out with me.”

“As I say, I've never known her so complimentary.”

“I bet you thought I'd never be like that, polite, etc.”

“It was certainly a little surprising.”

“I bet it was.”

“Actually, I felt quite proud of you.”

She beamed in a parody of pride.

“So you should. I'm too fabulous for words.”

We laughed. For the first time since I'd known her, I felt less than uneasy.

“Janet.”

Her face turned slightly more toward me. The screen's reflections lit her face softly. Her expression was still, yet I felt her uncertainty flicker quietly beneath the composed exterior.

“Janet... I.”

I turned away and breathed in deeply.

“What is it?” she asked in a quiet voice. Her expression didn't change, but I could have sworn I felt a faint movement in her being which was ever so unsurely moving in my direction.

“Oh, it's nothing. Doesn't matter.”

I kissed her. She moved gently closer. Hesitant fingertips found the nape of my neck.

Even so, a declaration was too difficult. There was so much to lose.

Shortly afterward the time came when I asked her to my home. I had known her for two-and-a-half months.

We arrived at the pier on Saturday morning in time to catch the twelve ten ferry. The day was scattered with light sun. Cold wafer-thin air illuminated and released the hidden blue in every object. A subtle constant breeze ineffectually tried to stir still materials.

We walked down the gangway onto the pontoon. We crossed that and then descended the gangplank onto the car deck of the ferry. The boat was fairly crowded, mainly with people who had travelled across to the city for a morning's shopping and who were now homeward bound for dinner and the weekend.

Janet was wearing a white single-breasted raincoat, belted at the waist, plain and feminine. Her hair was done in its customary pony tail fashion. But somehow her poise, her unaffected elegance belied the fact of her seventeen years and seemed to give her more maturity and presence than other, older women.

We went to the buffet. We stood at the bar and I ordered two cups of tea.

“Well,” I said, “here we are.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder what you'll think of it.”

“I don't know. I'm looking forward to it.”

“It's a lovely day, all right. Couldn't have been better for it.”

“It makes me feel alive. I like days like this. I like the hold they have on you.”

I took a sip of my tea.

“I'm quite nervous, you know,” I said.

“Really? Why?”

“Well, it's rather like when I went to your place. I want everything to turn out all right, you know, for you to like it and for you to have a good time.”

“Perhaps your parents won't like me.”

“They're bound to. No two ways.”