England's Lane (24 page)

And in Bona, there he was as usual—Mr. Bona we all call him—in his clean white coat and his hair of the very same shade. Looks more like an eminent surgeon than a seller of exotic specialties. I was buying a long blue packet of spaghetti. I like it so much—and he also has these tins of real Italian tomatoes, actually from Italy, which, I have discovered, if you stir into them a quarter of Jonathan's mince, makes for a very rich and highly satisfying sauce—a few flakes of Cheddar and a spot of pepper. I make it just for myself—Jim won't touch it, and I don't actually want him to. I said to Mr. Bona—and gosh, you know, I've wanted to so many times, but I've never found the moment—I said to him: it isn't, is it? Bona? Your name? He smiled, quite fondly—he has a very kind face, quite pink and unlined, although I suppose he must be getting on now. No no, he said.
Bona
—it's Latin (which I should have known, really). Good things, was the general idea. Well, I said to him—it makes you quite unique in the Lane, then: everyone else has their name above the door. And then he became quite reflective. When he bought the shop in 1943 … and I remember that, you know, I remember when he came here: it had been a laundry up till then. Anyway, he said, when he bought the shop, that had been precisely his intention: to paint their name on the fascia. He and his wife had fled from the Nazis—I had no idea, though I might I suppose have surmised it. Austrian, it turns out they are—from Vienna. I used to think Swiss—although either way you'd never take them to be Jewish: bright-blue eyes, really quite Aryan. My father by then had died, he said, and my mother was taking care of our son. They were to follow as soon as something had been established in England. But they never did. They were, he said, “caught up” in the Nazi advance, their whereabouts and fate not ever discovered. My name, Mrs.
Stammer, is Schmidt. The solicitor who contracted the sale of this shop, he said to me: Mr. Schmidt—think of this as a piece of free and friendly advice. Put your name on the shop, and within hours your window will be smashed to smithereens. Since the Blitz, feelings are running very high. The distinction between Austrian and German will not be appreciated. Your business will be boycotted: worse, your very lives could be in danger. And anything you can do, Mr. Schmidt, Mrs. Schmidt, to moderate your accent would all be to the good. So sad, Mrs. Stammer: so sad. The breaking of glass, the destruction of legitimate trade, the need to conceal our origins, the threat to our continued existence … it is everything from which we had been so terribly desperate to escape. And our son, our dearest son, he never did. Mrs. Schmidt: she thinks of these things: sixteen years have passed, and every day I must comfort her.

Yes. Well that was just this morning … so I'm still rather spinning. I am also quite suddenly rather fellingly tired, and my mind, well … it's just too full. But now I must speak to Stan on the subject of his own very singular marriage. Just look at his face, though: he seems so very far beyond what I would say to be emotion, true feeling, that I could weep for him, I honestly could. I think by now he has shied away from sensation of any description. But the Jane I watched and listened to yesterday, the Jane who shocked me so very profoundly, this is evidently not the Jane he imagines he knows. It is difficult to say quite what she is doing, but whatever it is, she knows it: she knows it well. So what, I wonder, do I say to him …? And how much do I not …?

“Yes I'm all right, Stan, thank you. Oh my goodness—what was that noise? There was a bang—is it upstairs, Stan? Should you go and look?”

“Just behind the screen there, Milly. Window. Sally from Lindy's. She's doing my Christmas window. Christ Alive.”

“Window? Really? Are you sure? Sounded like a bomb …”

“Yes well she's a little bit … here, Milly—never mind that. Come behind the counter, won't you? Just let me shift this box out the road and I'll lift the flap up, look. Have a little word in the stockroom, will we?”

“But what if someone comes in, Stan? A customer.”

“Daresay they'll call out, or something. It's a slack day. Think we'll be fine.”

“Oh my
God
, Stan …! Did you hear that? Sounded as if the whole wall was coming down …”

“I know. I know. She gets there in the end. But it's always a bit of a worry. Listen, Milly—come on through, won't you? I'll keep an eye out for anyone coming in.”

“Well all right then, Stan. Don't suppose we'll get another opportunity, will we? Oh my word … look at this! A true Aladdin's cave if ever there was! I've never been back here before. Has Paul ever come in here, Stan? He'd adore it. Absolute heaven for a child. All these boxes and jars …! Anthony—he must think he's in dreamland. And you—do you feel like Santa Claus, Stan? Oh heavens … I do wish I hadn't said that. It's reminded me how terribly close we are. I don't know where all the time goes. It's muggins here who's in charge of the party this year—did you know? Yes—my turn, worse luck. And I'm not sure I can face it. Stan … was that something breaking …? Glass? I'm sure I heard something breaking …”

“Never mind all of that, Milly. You'll get used to it. Just tell me. You came, then? You did come? See what I'm up against, don't you? Doesn't say a blessed word. Beyond help, far as I can see. Wits' end …”

“Well, Stan … she did talk, actually. Speak to me. She did.”

“She did? She did? Janey? She
spoke
to you …? What did she say?”

“Well, um … not, you know—much, or anything. She was in the front room at the time. Sitting at the table. Are you, er … quite all right, Stan …? You do look rather … do you want to sit down, or something?”

“Eh? No … no … I'm all right, thanks for asking Milly. In the front room, you say …? Are you sure? Yes? So she, what … moved, then. Must have got up and moved. Christ Alive. I've never seen it. Not in years. What was it she was up to in there, then?”

“Writing a diary, actually. Journal sort of a thing. She does it every day, apparently. It's quite likely she's in there right now, if you want to go and … no, maybe better not, actually Stan. Something you might possibly have to lead up to, I think. Stan—don't you think you should maybe go and see to Sally, though …? These noises, they're becoming really quite frightening. That last one—sounded like, I don't know … a pearl necklace or something just exploding …”

“That'll be the aniseed balls. They're a devil to round up, they are. Death trap, if you're not ever so careful. But Milly, listen, just listen … I've got to be sure I've got this straight in my mind. A diary, you say …? Writing a
diary
? Well strike me down. But what did she say, though? What did she say to you?”

“She said … well she said she eats chocolate. Is what she said. Stan … you don't look at all well, you know …”

“Chocolate …? What—you mean, chocolate as in …?”

“Mm. She takes it from this very room, I gather. At night, largely. And she's rather surprised you've never noticed. Fry's Peppermint Cream, I recall, she said she was rather partial to.”

“Fry's Peppermint Cream …?”

“Yes, Stan. And Toffee something, I think.”

“Cup. That'd be the Mackintosh's Toffee Cup. Nice line. Quite a good seller. But Milly—why hasn't she … I mean, why did she never …?”

“Yes well quite, Stan. But that's rather for you to find out, isn't it really? Don't you think? You really are going to have to make her talk to you, you know. It's the only way.”

“Right. Right. Yes I suppose so. It's a worry. It's all a real worry. Because I've never noticed any of the Fry's Peppermint Cream going missing. And yes but … what about that other thing, Milly? That we talked about. You know—seeing someone. Someone professional, sort of style …?”

“Well yes, Stan … yes. I really do think that that is quite essential.”

“Yes. Right. I see. But I don't know what to … I mean, all this sort of thing, well … I wouldn't know where to turn, Milly. Over my head.”

“Well the first thing, Stan, is just to talk to her. Yes? You just have to talk to her. Try to get her to explain things to you. Got to be a man about it. Show some gumption.”

“You're right, Milly. You're right. Well course you're right—you're right about everything, far as I can see. Explain things to me, yes—that's what she's got to do. Like those Toffee Cups for starters—never noticed them going either.”

“That's not quite the point though, is it Stan …?”

“No no—course not. I do know that, Milly. Just saying, that's all …”

“All right, Stan. Well look—I really do have to be off now. Million things, as per usual. Oh and Stan, I meant to say—thank you so very much for all your generosity yesterday. Really too much. Paul told me you wouldn't take his money for the tickets and the ice creams and so on and that was really very naughty of you. Look—must go. Oh my golly, Stan … what was
that
now? Do you think she's fallen over? Off the ladder, or something …?”

“Quite likely. She's done it before on more than one occasion. After she's gone, I'll get in there and tidy things up a bit. Sweep
out the worst of it. Call an ambulance, if needs be. But really, Milly—I mean what I say. You're a wonderful woman—no no, hear me out. I will be heard. Because I'm thankful. I really am. You're a truly, very wonderful woman, Milly …”

Milly had been knotting the scarf around her neck, tucking it into the collar of her coat, and now she glanced across to Stan and beamed to him a farewell. She did think afterward that she must actually have gasped, let out a sort of a gasp, just as she saw his head, his whole white face quite suddenly looming toward her: that gasp of quite total amazement must then have been smothered by the wet and fleshy softness of the kiss from a mouth that was shocking on her lips. She pulled away as if from the threat of an approaching blade and she was sure for an instant that the light of pure astonishment in both his wide and fearful eyes was briefly refracted in her own. She turned around without another word and was only very peripherally aware of the whining and leisurely spin of the circular lid from a large tin of Quality Street as it rolled its way elliptically from the window and wheeled across the floor of the shop, until it was clatteringly halted by just the outstretched toe of Mrs. Goodrich's brogue. Milly was aware only then of the demonstrative raising of that woman's left eyebrow as Milly heard herself calling out laughingly some or other platitudinous nonsense as she edged her way slowly, hurriedly, and then really quite rudely around the unmoving mass of the woman. Back out into the chill of the Lane, she would have paused for just a moment in order to collect herself, but felt then immediately that she had now to be away from there, and so she walked quite quickly the opposite way to the very place that she had been intending to go, because always she quite unfailingly completed her daily round of shopping in a strictly clockwise direction, and so in a state of agitation and some confusion she was startled to now be discerning quite some way ahead of her the
unmistakable outline of Jonathan Barton, striding quite purposefully onward—and she called out to him on impulse, a thing she never would even have dreamed of doing in any sort of a normal circumstance—and maybe then she sensed or imagined a momentary check in his step before his pace appeared to quicken, and within a blink he was lost around a corner. Milly stopped abruptly, surprised to find herself just outside Levy's the greengrocer's—and there he was, old Mr. Levy, wearing as ever just his sleeveless and battered leather jerkin, and never mind the bitter coldness of the day. He gave out a bark of his harsh and phlegmy cough and then he said to her quite trillingly Well
morning
Milly, how are
you
today? Got some lovely Kent red apples, you're interested at all. And Milly was smiling at him now, a good and familiar face, and he was not to know, was he, Mr. Levy, that when she would have completed her shopping expedition and approached him from quite the other direction, it was apples she had been intending to buy. And then she noticed that her shopping basket was not on the crook of her arm: she had left it on the floor of the stockroom in the sweetshop, and inside that basket was a long blue packet of spaghetti and a tin of real Italian tomatoes, actually from Italy, along with three good-sized trout wrapped up in yesterday's
News of the World
 … and she just didn't know … what to do about that, now.

I feel sure that if I concentrate upon maintaining the briskness of my unbreakable pace for just a little while longer, then it will be perfectly safe to assume that she will not be able to—cannot, dear Milly—catch up to me. And it was exceedingly unlike her, you know—to call out in the street in so very brazen a fashion. In the manner of a raggedy hoyden, or else some low sort of costermonger. I did of course, though, discern the reverberation—the edge, shall we call it, which immediately made that voice of hers so very brittle
at its rim while still it was hanging in the air, and rather shockingly. It was, of course, a uniquely female edge, and therefore to be avoided. I have heard it before. Within the just barely controlled and staccato stab of it, there loiters the palpable undertone of crazing—it is overwrought, it is insistent, it is less than rational and it verges upon the shrill. Worse, it augurs an agenda which I have not the slightest inclination to even so much as acknowledge, and certainly not in any way to indulge. And naturally I am aware of precisely its trigger: that single jagged and racing glimpse that she had of me just yesterday afternoon, snug in my den and enjoying a series of cheering libations with my enchanting wife, shortly prior to that good lady attending to one of my more unpredictable needs, which she alone has the instinct to understand. So despite the gnawing jaws of the green-eyed monster that no doubt Milly still winces away from, she is not to know that her arbitrary timing rescued her by merely minutes from a spectacle that would have left her emotions quite thoroughly eviscerated—ripped into bloody ribbons.