Cut and Come Again (12 page)

‘Cross! Take care. Be safe than sorry.'

They crossed the street. The wind cut them crossways and the boy thrust his hands into his pockets and held himself rigid against the force of it and then remembered and took his hands out of his pockets in fear. He was carrying a yellow straw fish-basket; the wind flapped it harshly against his bare pink legs. And his father walked fast, with nipping jaunty steps, a little pompous, and the boy was always trotting behind, the bag flapping.

And finally at the fishmonger's he hung behind even further, standing on the threshold of the shop while his father went in. The open-fronted shop was an ice-house, the white fish cut out of gleaming snow. And his hands crept back into his pockets while his father catechised and snapped in the shop.

‘Well, what have you got, what've you got? Anything any good? Eh?'

‘Nice hake, sir.'

‘Hake. Hake? What are the sprats? How much?'

Sprats were cheap and Osborn spoke as though he were saying: ‘Well, the square root of forty-nine, how much, what is it, how much? Quickly, quickly. Can't wait all day!'

And as the fishmonger weighed the sprats Osborn watched him, critically, with professional superciliousness, as though he were doing an arithmetical exercise. He stood ready to pounce on the slightest mistake. The fishmonger weighed and wrapped the little fish in silence, subdued, his expression frozen up.

‘Boy! Eric! Quickly, quickly. Quick-ly!'

The boy came forward with the bag, trying to open it as he came, blundering, his fingers frozen.

‘Blunderbuss!'

Osborn seized the bag, snapped it sharply open like
his own lips, and the fishmonger dumped in the little silvery fish. The boy stood with the bag at his side, meekly, his thick glasses reflecting the white shop and the frozen fish so that his eyes looked sightless. Then Osborn paid the bill and the boy followed him out of the shop into the street.

‘Not cold?'

‘A bit.'

‘No business. Move. Circulation. Keep up with me.'

The boy, not speaking, tried to keep up with his father, but immediately his father seemed to walk faster, purposely. And as the boy hurried the fish bumped against his legs, bump, bump, like a lump of ice.

And suddenly his teeth chattered, involuntarily, against his will. He could not help it. And his father heard it. It seemed to startle him out of himself for a moment, into an accidental moment of humanity.

‘Better get something to drink.'

Osborn stopped, looking up and down the street.

‘Cross.'

They crossed, Osborn in front, the boy trotting.

And in a moment they were in the restaurant. The boy liked it. It was warm and steamy, there was a smell of tea. He sat with his elbows on the table, rubbing his hands.

‘Elbows!'

The waitress arrived; and Osborn regarded her as the boy had seen him regard the infants' mistresses, as though she were a snail or something to be trodden on.

‘Cocoa! For two. And hurry.'

And for a while after the waitress had gone and they sat waiting for her to return the boy kept his
hands in his lap and rubbed them softly and furtively together. Then he became conscious of a steam condensing on his glasses, and he took them off and began to polish them slowly with his handkerchief. His eyes were very weak and the glasses had made sore lines of red on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. And without his glasses the world, the restaurant, was strangely restricted and softened: a warm steamy world, vague and soothing.

He was still cleaning his glasses, holding them up to the light, squinting, when the waitress arrived with the cocoa. She set down the cups and Osborn watched her in silence until she went away.

Then all of a sudden he called her back. ‘Miss!' She came, the full length of the restaurant.

‘What's this, what's this?' The girl stood still, flushing. ‘Well, what is it? I'm asking you.'

‘It's some cocoa hasn't melted, sir.'

‘Take it back.'

‘It'll be all right, sir. It'll melt all right. It'll——'

‘Take it back! Change it!'

Osborn's voice was raised in command, as though he had momentarily forgotten himself and thought the restaurant were the classroom. He half-rose from his seat and shouted. The whole restaurant listened and watched in surprise, the waitress alone moving as she walked away with the spilling cocoa. And the boy, suspended too in the act of cleaning his glasses, sat in a state of meek embarrassment. He was embarrassed for his father, and yet afraid, and he could hardly look at him. Osborn sat blinking through his pince-nez in anger, in aggressive outrage, as though he owned the restaurant. Then the boy dropped his handkerchief under the table; and stooping to pick it up, he could smell the sprats in the straw bag. In the
warm restaurant the smell was faintly unpleasant. Then when he had picked up his handkerchief he put on his glasses again, blinking constantly. Osborn was trembling with impatience and outrage. His face was set in harsh domination. And the boy more than ever was afraid to speak or move. For five years he had seen his father behaving like that, glaring, snapping, terrifying everyone in spasms of half-theatrical anger of which he never questioned the justice, of which no one in fact ever questioned the justice. His father was always right. No one had ever dared to say his father was not right. He himself said so, and what his father said was axiom and proof in one.

And then as they sat there, and before the waitress had returned, the boy saw a change come over the face of his father. The anger in his face began to evaporate. It was gradually replaced by restlessness. He kept blinking across the restaurant through his pince-nez with little furtive glances of apprehension.

‘Eric. Hold yourself up. Straight. And look straight across the restaurant. Do you see the man in the big grey overcoat? The big man in the corner?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's Mr. Wyndham. Chairman of the county education committee. Don't stare.'

The boy looked down at the table.

‘He's a big man in the educational world. Sit up. Round shouldered. Round shouldered. He may come over and speak. It's very probable he may come over.'

The waitress brought back the cocoa. But Osborn scarcely noticed her and he began to stir the cocoa mechanically, not looking at it. He was looking instead across the restaurant, on the chance of catching the eye of the man in the big overcoat. The chairman
of education was drinking tea and reading the morning paper, engrossed. The little schoolmaster watched all his movements. What was he in town for? What was in the wind? Little fears kept crossing his mind and in turn expressed themselves in his face. Ah! But what if he should come over? That would be a great honour. A great moment. Every time the big man turned over his newspaper Osborn coughed or spoke more loudly to his son. But the big man never noticed. And Osborn would go on staring and stirring his cocoa and wondering. What if he should recognise him? What if he should notice, condescend to come over?

And the boy, silently drinking his cocoa and watching his father through his polished glasses, could not help seeing the change in his father. The anger had vanished completely from his face, together with all the old domineering, perky, pompous air. His father seemed to have gone like a piece of cold toast, soft and flabby. His face was filled with an increasing and almost pathetic desire to be noticed, to attract the attention of the big man in the corner.

But time passed, and nothing happened. And gradually the boy and his father emptied their cups and it was time to go.

‘Now then, cap straight. And hold yourself up. And be ready to raise your cap when we go out. Bound to notice us. Be ready to raise your cap.'

Osborn paid the waitress and the boy stood ready with the fish-bag.

‘Hold the bag unobtrusively. Put it in your left hand. Left, left! And be ready to raise your cap with your right.'

Together they began to walk through the restaurant towards the door, Osborn sharply watching the big man in the corner, the boy trotting behind, and
watching too. As they reached the door the big man suddenly turned over his newspaper with a great rustling, and in a moment Osborn raised his bowler hat and the boy snatched off his cap.

Unnoticed by the big man, they passed out in obsequious silence. Outside the wind whipped up little ice storms. And suddenly in a spasm of anger and disappointment Osborn began to walk very fast down the street, bobbing and jerking like a marionette, snapping at intervals for the boy to keep up with him as though he were a little dog in disgrace.

And the boy trotted along in habitual fear and obedience. His glasses were quite clear now. And every now and then he would look up at his father and blink rather sharply, in wonder, as though through the new clarity of the glasses he could see something about his father he had never seen before.

For thirty seconds after the lorry had halted between the shack and the petrol pumps the summer night was absolutely silent. There was no wind; the leaves and the grass stalks were held in motionless suspense in the sultry air. And after the headlights had gone out the summer darkness was complete too. The pumps were dead white globes, like idols of porcelain; there was no light at all in the station. Then, as the driver and his mate alighted, slamming the cabin doors and grinding their feet on the gravel, the light in the station came suddenly on: a fierce electric flicker from the naked globe in the shack, the light golden in one wedge-shaped shaft across the gravel pull-in. And seeing it the men stopped. They stood for a moment with the identical suspense of the grass and the trees.

The driver spoke first. He was a big fellow, quite young, with breezy blue eyes and stiff untrained hair and a comic mouth. His lips were elastic: thin bands of pink india-rubber that were for ever twisting themselves into grimaces of irony and burlesque, his eyes having that expression of comic and pained astonishment seen on the painted faces of Aunt Sallies in shooting galleries.

His lips twisted to the shape of a buttonhole, so that he whispered out of one corner. ‘See her? She heard us come. What'd I tell you?'

The mate nodded. He too was young, but beside the driver he was boyish, his cheeks pink and smooth and shiny as white cherries, his hair yellow and light and constantly ruffled up like the fur of a fox-cub.
And unlike the driver's, his lips and eyes were quite still; so that he had a look of intense immobility.

He could see the woman in the shack. Short white casement curtains of transparent lace on brass rods cut across the window, but above and through them he could see the woman clearly. She was big-shouldered and dark, with short black hair, and her face was corn-coloured under the light. She seemed about thirty; and that astonished him.

‘I thought you said she was young,' he said.

‘So she is.' The driver's eyes flashed white. ‘Wait'll you git close. How old d'ye think she is?'

‘Thirty. More.'

‘Thirty? She's been here four year. And was a kid when she was married, not nineteen. How's that up you?'

‘She
looks
thirty.'

‘So would you if you'd kept this bloody shack open every night for four year. Come on, let's git in.'

They began to walk across the gravel, but the driver stopped.

‘And don't forgit what I said. She's bin somebody. She's had education. Mind your ups and downs.'

And when they opened the door of the shack and shuffled in, the driver first, the mate closing the door carefully behind him, the woman stood behind the rough-carpentered counter with her arms folded softly across her chest, in an attitude of unsurprised expectancy. The counter was covered with blue-squared oilcloth, tacked down. By the blue alarm clock on the lowest of the shelves behind it, the time was four minutes past midnight. At the other end of the shelf a flat shallow kettle was boiling on an oil-stove. The room was like an oven. The woman's eyes seemed curiously drowsy, as though clouded over with the steam and the warm oil-fumes. And for
half a minute nothing happened. She did not move. The men stood awkward. Then the driver spoke. His india-rubber mouth puckered comically to one side, and his eye flicked in a wink that was merely friendly and habitual.

‘Well, here we are again.'

She nodded; the drowsiness of her eyes cleared a little. All the same there was something reserved about her, almost sulky.

‘What would you like?' she said.

‘Give me two on a raft and coffee,' the driver said.

‘Two on a raft and coffee,' the woman said. She spoke beautifully, without effort, and rather softly. ‘What's your friend going to have?'

The mate hesitated. His eyes were fixed on the woman, half-consciously, in admiration. And the driver had to nudge him, smiling his india-rubber smile of comic irony, before he became aware of all that was going on.

‘Peck up,' the driver said.

‘That'll do me,' the mate said.

‘Two on a raft twice and coffee,' the woman said. ‘Is that it?'

Though the mate did not know it for a moment, she was addressing him. He stood in slight bewilderment, as though he were listening to a language he did not understand. Then as he became aware of her looking at him and waiting for an answer the bewilderment became embarrassment and his fair cherry-smooth cheeks flushed very red, the skin under the short golden hairs and his neck flaming. He stood dumb. He did not know what to do with himself.

‘I'm afraid I don't know your friend's name or his tastes yet,' the woman said. ‘Shall I make it two poached twice and coffee?'

‘Just like me. Forgot to introduce you,' the driver said. His mouth was a wrinkle of india-rubber mocking. ‘Albie, this is Mrs. Harvey. This is Albert Armstrong. Now mate on Number 4, otherwise Albie.'

The woman smiled, and in complete subjection and fascination the boy smiled too.