England's Lane (18 page)

Even Stan couldn't resist a stifled sort of a laugh at that: he hoped it hadn't emerged as smirking.

“Not well, no. I think it would be fair to say that she hasn't been at all well, Janey, for quite some time now. But it's … well it's all very hard to talk about, Milly, you want me to be frank. Never mentioned it to anyone. You're the first one who's even so much as … but it's not like … it isn't as though she's got an illness—disease, sort of style—anything you can put your finger on, if you know what I'm driving at. A lot of it's in her mind, seems to me. But I'm no expert. Not by a long chalk. Don't know what she's thinking, half the time … haven't a clue. Christ Alive though, ay? What a business. Life.”

“Well … what does she say, Stan? What does she say to you is wrong?”

“Yes well that's it, isn't it? She doesn't say anything. Doesn't talk. Not really. Oh look, Milly—I don't want to go on to you about all my little troubles. Let's just enjoy our tea, ay? What about yourself? You all right, are you? And Jim? And Paul?”

“No—never mind about us, Stan. We're all fine. Let's talk a bit more about this problem of yours. I'd like to—honestly. Maybe I can—I don't know … help a bit. Look—I don't want to butt in where I'm not wanted, all right? I'm not prying or anything, I do
hope you know that, Stan. But I mean—would you like me to … I don't know—come round and see her, maybe? Drop in for a chat, sort of thing.”

Stan looked up to the ceiling, his eyes now midway to closing, as a wistful little smile crept across his mouth.

“Can't honestly think it would help, if I'm honest, Milly. I mean—it's ever so kind of you to offer, and everything … but I wouldn't want to inflict it on you. And anyway—if she doesn't talk to me, I don't really think she's going to …”

“Ah but that's just the point, Stan. People do, you see. Often, people will talk to a comparative stranger. Say things they wouldn't dream of to someone who is close to them. Why don't you let me try? At least I could try. Nothing to lose, is there? Hm? When you think about it. If she doesn't speak, well then she doesn't speak. No worse off, are you?”

Stan sat in silence, simply gazing at her. He said it before he knew he was going to:

“You're a wonderful woman, Milly …” And then in an effort to recover himself, he quickly tacked on: “Sorry. Sorry, Milly—I didn't mean …”

“Not wonderful, Stan, believe me. Very far from it, I do assure you. Capable, is all I am. I can do things. Simple things. So let me try. Yes? I mean—who knows? It might make your life just so much easier if at least you could learn what the problem is. And then later on, maybe I could persuade her to see someone, you know—professional, as it were.”

Stan was nodding slowly.

“It could well be … yeh, I must admit it's crossed my mind that it could well be that what she's wanting. Well … I wouldn't know where to go. How to, you know—set about it. What I was really asking for. And it's not a thing you like to—well, talk to anyone
about, is it? Strangers. Not really. And then again, Milly—look at all the guff I'm always getting from Anthony's doctors. All that stuff they give me. All I told you about. Lost track of the number of doctors who've seen him. It doesn't change anything, does it? Nothing changes. Shall I tell you the only thing that's changed? Shall I? Well Anthony—he's growing, isn't he? Yes he is—and I'm grateful for that, I thank God for that, because they don't, you know—not always. And last time they had him in—Hampstead General, that's where I take him—the doctor, he says to me, these calipers, Mr. Miller, he says: these calipers—we're going to remove them. And little Anthony—he looks at me, see. He looks at me, and those big eyes of his—they're that bright, I'm telling you. And I'm going well yes, doctor—that would be marvelous, doctor. Three bags full, doctor. Because I can't really believe my ears. Yes and then he says to me: Mr. Miller, I don't think you quite understand. No well I didn't, did I? And nor did the boy. Damned doctor, he said to me they're going to take away the perishing things, so what else am I supposed to think? What would you think? Hey? Turns out what he's meaning, all he meant was, they're getting a bit tight on him. Well we know that, don't we? Anthony, he's been saying for ages they're pinching something terrible. Told them that the last time. So anyway, they measure him up and blow me if they don't just bung the poor little blighter into bigger ones. Same blessed thing, only bigger. So that's all that's changed—now he's got bigger ones. And Anthony—still just looking at me, he is. Doesn't say anything, though. And then he does. He's smiling. I'm telling you the God's honest truth, Milly. He's smiling, and then he says to me ‘It's all right, Dad.' That's what he says. Can you credit it? Believe that? Boy of his age? Trying to make me feel better, see? Christ Alive. I don't know. Fair breaks your bloody heart … excuse language.”

Milly's eyes were creased into sympathy. She reached out a hand to him.

“Oh Stan … I'm so, so sorry.”

“Well. Way it is. But all I'm saying is, Milly—we go to a doctor about Janey, some other sort of quack, and … well, same old story, isn't it? One person sees her and says one thing, someone else sees her, and he says another thing. You don't know where you stand. Pills is all they'll give her. That's all you'll get. Already got thousands of them, hasn't she? Pills. Prescriptions … that GP we've got, Fellows Road, completely hopeless, he doesn't come and see her any more. Says there's no point. So the prescriptions, he just pops them in the post. Spend half my time in Allchin's, getting them filled. And what'll they do to her? New pills, different pills that she gets from somebody else? You don't know, do you? And they don't know either. It's all hit and miss. They haven't a clue. And if she goes and gets worse, which is highly likely—do you know what they'll do then? Do you?”

“Stan. Try not to upset yourself. Please, Stan …”

“You'd be upset, Milly. If it were your Paul, your Jim—you'd be upset, I can tell you. Look. All I'm saying is—they'd just go and give her some other pills. Wouldn't they? Hey? What they do. Another color. Different shape. It's the same thing, though. It's just the same old thing.”

“Stan …”

He shrugged. Looked at the floor, and then sharply back at her. His face then began to relax as he slowly released the grip he had taken on her hand.

“Forget it, Milly. Forget I even spoke. Don't know what came over me—going on like that. Forgive me, please. Here—let me get you another cup of tea, hey? How about that? We could do with another cup after all of that malarkey, yeh?”

Milly smiled, very fondly.

“That would be quite lovely, Stan—but I shall get it. No no—I insist. You paid for the last one. Indeed, you seem to have paid for tea for everyone in the whole of the cafeteria …!”

And he laughed, thank heavens. Oh thank heavens, Milly was thinking: he laughed, he laughed. And now he was up on his feet.

“Don't be silly, Milly dear. I'm halfway there, aren't I? Just tea, is it? All right for biscuits, are you? Sure? Only I might go another slice of this fruitcake. It's really very tasty. Always had a soft spot for it. Dundee, that's my favorite.”

Stan was sliding another tray the length of the sleek chrome ridges of the narrow counter, his wide eyes now at last and at least averted from Milly—now they may finally be freed from the terrible constraint of such enforced and mendacious neutrality: able to express just a very small part of all this so unaccustomed and really quite agitated energy, the spike of animation now alive in his mind. He'd never spoken, not before. About anything at all, really. Not Anthony. And certainly not Janey. Good grief—was I really? Talking like that? About all those things I bottle up? Did I just come out with it all? And to Milly. To Milly, of all people. Milly, who, in the past—in the shop, in the street—I never really dared speak to before, not properly. Not even think about—not in any, you know … proper, sort of a way. Yes—and I'm not too comfy about it. Airing it all. Makes it real, makes it much too real. And I mean—she's right, of course. I can't go on like this. Stands to reason. Amazing I've put up with it all as long as I have. Janey. Not natural, is it? Way she goes on. She can't be right in the head. Got to be faced. Yes, Milly's right—she has to talk to someone. We've got to get to the bottom of it. Can't go on burying our heads in the … and it's for my sake as well—oh yes, I'm very aware of that. Else I'll be the next one in line for the asylum. And Milly, yes—she might not be
a bad place to start. Really. She could maybe, I don't know … well, like she said—what was it she said …? Kind of feel her way, sort of style. See how the land lies. That's more or less the gist of what she was on about. Can't do any harm. And she said that too, didn't she? Can't do any harm, can it? What's to lose? She's right: what's to lose? And she seems to mean it. She's a very sincere sort of a woman, Milly is, if I'm any judge at all. As well as, ooh—a whole lot else, I'd say. Oh but look: just seeing her standing there … just looking at her, wearing that nightdress thing. Christ Alive. A picture, she was—proper picture. Never forget it. I won't. Not as long as I live: never forget it, no not that. What a woman, hey? Nicely turned out. Talks sense. Trim little figure. Not like Janey at all. Why I decided not to buy the blessed thing. Not once I'd seen it on Milly. How could I look at it again? On Janey, all hunched up in a corner, not drinking her soup, not watching the telly, not saying to me a single bloody word …

Why is it? Hey? How does it come about? That I get Janey. Because I'm not a bad sort of a bloke. I mean to say—I'm nothing much to look at, granted. I'm no matinee idol, God knows. No great brain either. But I work hard—love my kid. Honest everyday Englishman, really. Was a time when there wasn't much seen to be wrong with that. And then there's Jim … Well I'm not saying he isn't all of that too. I'm not saying that. But how is it that he gets to have Milly? As his wife. I mean—look at him. And look at her. See what I mean? Why is it? Hey? How does it come about? And now I'm stuck with it, aren't I? That picture of Milly, forever in my mind, standing in the middle of John Barnes in her walking shoes, that brown plaid skirt of hers and a greenish sort of cardigan, and then this pink sort of nightgown over the top of it all. Won't ever forget. Don't want to, of course: don't ever want to—but I couldn't, even if I did. That, and the touch of her hand. I held it—
I held it, yes … and she never pulled away. Soft, it was. Soft, and ever so small. Christ Alive. If only I had a woman like that … well … I wouldn't be the man I am. Beaten down. Exhausted. Just going through the motions for the sake of my boy. I had Milly, I wouldn't ever again be dreading tomorrow. She'd look after me, she would. Smile. Do the house. See to my supper. And loyal—she'd be loyal to me, that one: written all over her. Oh dear God … my mind, it's just all over the place. Haven't ever known it. Oh dear me. Anyway … what I've got to do now is really very simple. Just mustn't mess it up, that's all. I've got to stop my face looking like I've gone a bit mental—because that's how it feels to me: as if it's gone all a funny shape. So make it normal. Make it like Stan: all normal again. Then I'll turn around with my tray, walk across to that table, put down the two cups of tea … and try not to make that thing I get in my stomach whenever I even so much as look at her, try not to let it show. Christ Alive and the devil's thunder …! I'd battle my way through the very fires of hell if a woman like that was waiting there at the end of it for me.

Milly quite eagerly grasped her teacup, and smiled at him.

“Lovely …” she said.

Stan nodded briefly as he sat down in front of her.

“They'd run out of fruitcake,” is all he had to say.

“What's going on, then? Ay? What you getting the boy all dolled up for?”

Milly had been beaming at Paul, his eyes ablaze with the excitement of all that was to come, the bright light of it reflected in her own.

“Nothing that need concern you, Jim. Paul is going off for a very special treat—aren't you, Paul? Hm?”

Paul simply couldn't stop grinning.

“Just can't
wait
 …!” he sizzled.

“Where you off to then, Pauly? Sunday, ain't it? Nothing doing on a Sunday.”

“Zoo …!” blurted out Paul. “Going to the Zoo with Anthony and Amanda.”

Milly smiled—kissed his flushed and shiny cheek.

“Stan, Anthony's father—Mr. Miller is taking them. So terribly kind of him, don't you think so?”

Jim was thoughtfully lighting up a cigarette.

“Zoo, ay …? Well—I could've done that. I could've done that.”

“Yes but you don't ever, do you Jim? Take anyone anywhere. When was the last time you offered to take any of us out? I honestly
can't remember. Can you? Because I can't. Sunday is the only day of the week you're not down in the shop, and all you ever want to do is just lie there on the sofa and snore in front of the fire.”

“Yeh but … Zoo, that's a different kettle of wossname, ain't it? Like the Zoo. I do. Always did. Animals. Only animal I ever get to clap eyes on is little Cyril.”

“Cyril is a bird,” said Paul, quite primly.

“Still an animal though, ain't it?” snapped Jim. “Mister Cleverclogs. Budgie—not a human, is it? Ay? Not a vegetable or a watchamacallit, is it? Ay? Mineral. No it ain't. So it's a animal. See? Bertrand Russell … Yeh. So anyhow, tell you what—I'll take them. Yeh. Why not? Ain't been to the Zoo since I don't know when. Be good to get out a bit. Stretch my legs. And what you mean ‘snore'? Ay? I don't never snore …”