England's Lane (40 page)

Brighton. Isn't it funny? That's where I met her, my Janey. Never even been there before. Never since, now I come to think of it. It wasn't that long after VE Day. Lovely afternoon, it was: only ever seen the sea at Southend before then. Whole country was still full of it, of course, our whopping of Hitler. And I wouldn't have minded playing a part in all of that—well I was young, wasn't I? When the war kicked off I was—well, sort of young anyway. All I was doing up till then was helping my old dad out in the shop, so the thought of joining up, making something of myself, seeing a bit of the world—didn't strike me as a bad thing. My dad, he understood, bless him—would've waved me away quite bravely. He'd been through the first lot. Tommy. Mustard gas got him—pale, he always was. Eyes not too good. Little cough, all the time. Nothing hacking—wasn't bronchitic. Just a little cough, but he had it all the time. Well they wouldn't have me, the army. Right, I said—I'll go in the RAF. I wouldn't bother trying, is what they said to me. It's your lungs—you'll never pass a physical, son: sorry—that's the way it is. My lungs? My lungs? There's nothing wrong with my lungs …! Smoke, do you …? That's what they said to me then. Well everybody smokes, don't they? Pipe, I said—I smoke a pipe, but I don't even inhale. Well you might as well do mate, is what the orderly was saying to me next—laughing, having a right old time he was—you could inhale a bloody factory chimney, son, and it couldn't make those lungs of yours any worse than what they are now. Wouldn't even give me a desk job. Said I was a liability—more or less told me I wouldn't last the duration. So I went back to England's Lane What else could I do? Went on helping my dad in the shop. Hard
times. Couldn't get the chocolate, nor most of the sweets, not in wartime. Then it was tobacco that was scarce: had to ask everyone to bring in their old packets so's the manufacturers could paste all these labels on, and sell them again. Air raids every night. Mr. Lawrence—he copped it: bombed out, and just across the road. You wouldn't even know now, to look at it: it wasn't long after the war they rebuilt it all in keeping with the rest of the Lane. Funny. Didn't even know Milly back then. It's only when Anthony and her Paul started going to school together—that's when I got to know her. Made a vow to Janey that I'd get him a really good education, Anthony, and that's what I'm struggling to do. It's not easy, no of course it's not—but look: what is? You tell me that.

So my dad, out of the blue he comes up and he says to me—tell you what, Stan: you and me, we've been stuck in our little confectioner's shop for the whole of the war. So how do you fancy a good day out? Hey? Reckon we deserve it, don't you? A day in the country. Few ales, slap-up meal—how does that sound to you, Stan? Yes—I remember now: a day in the country, that's what it was going to be—he'd even found out all about the charabancs. So I don't really know how suddenly we decided to go to the seaside—how it was we came to go to Brighton. But of course if we hadn't—if we'd gone somewhere else, Kent or Oxfordshire or something—then I never would've met my Janey. Because she lived there, you see. Hove. Her people were quite well-to-do. She's had ever such a good education. Me—one day I was at school doing my twelve times table, the next I was working in the sweetshop. Clever woman, Janey, and lovely to look at in those days. Tight little curls in her hair—that dimple I really always liked. Yeh—pretty thing, she was.

We were on the pier, my dad and me. And he was missing my mum, I could tell. Always went quiet, times like that. She would've liked this, he said to me, after a little bit. The air, the sea, all the
view—oh yes, this she would've liked. TB is what took her—she didn't have much of a life. Short, you know. Anyway, there I was on the rifle range—we'd just both had cornets for twice the price we were selling them in the shop, but we didn't mind, not today, because we were on holiday, weren't we? And my dad, he was wanting to go on the dodgems and I said yeh okay Dad, but just let me have a go on the rifles, eh? So I was banging away there, and there was this little lot of girls, three or four of them, five maybe, just standing about and giggling. Anyway—I was quite good at it, the shooting. Won a big sort of a teddy bear thing, I did. Think it was a teddy bear. Oh yes—what am I saying? It was a teddy bear, course it was—still in Anthony's room, isn't it? And so I turned to them, these girls, and I said Well girls—which one of you would like a nice big cuddly teddy to take home with them then, eh? And one of them, she comes forward—little sailor hat she's got on her—and she says I would, me: I'd like a teddy bear. And I looked at her and I thought, well she seems nice. And so I said well look, I'll tell you what—you come and have a cup of tea with me, and then we'll see about giving you the teddy. And all the other girls were laughing away and nudging her and everything and she says to me well yes all right then: that seems fair. Yeh. So we went and had a cup of tea. And I gave her the teddy. And that was my Janey.

We wrote letters after that. She had beautiful handwriting—you should see my scrawl: it's diabolical. And less than a year later, my old dad, he gives up the ghost. So I wrote to tell her that, and she said she'd come to London to see me, come on the train to Victoria to see me, and I said oh no, you don't have to do that, not for me, I'll be all right—and she said no Stan, I want to: I want to come to see you—I'm doing it for me. And a couple of months after that, we were married. Couldn't tell you what she saw in me. She was quite a cut above. Could've had a … I don't know—Oxford don, say. Or
a solicitor. Doctor—anything she wanted. Well maybe so, she said—but it's you, Stan: it's you I want. We were really so in love. I thought about her night and day. She lit up my life, my Janey—and oh, how she did love me back. Nothing she wouldn't have done for me. She'd be helping out in the shop, and still she'd have my tea all ready for me of an evening. Hard to credit it now, but that's the way it was. We had a really good laugh, Janey and me. And oh did she love her chocolate and her sweets! I used to say to her—I've twigged to it now, Janey: you only married me so's you could get your hands on all of the chocolate and the sweets …! And she'd kiss me in that way she did, and tug on one of my ears: you're right Stan, she'd say: you're dead right about that. I said to her, you're mad you are—marrying a man whose lungs could give out at any moment. You know what she said? Do you know what she said to me? Tell you: she said … don't you worry about any of that, Stan—me, I can do your breathing for you. Yeh. That's what she said. Anyway—here I am. Still breathing: still just about able to do it for myself.

And what do they call it …? Lingerie, yes, that's it—that was a thing she loved. Always so well turned out in the bedroom, she was. Silk stockings and lovely nighties—and she did like a nice negligee. I was very happy to get them for her. Anything she wanted, really. And very good to me, she was. I didn't know a thing about what to do—you know, in the bedroom department. Wanted it, but I didn't know how to go about it, sort of style. And she was a virgin, of course—well of course—but she had a … what is it? Instinct. That right? Think so. A sort of instinct, this sense of what to do. Yes—very good to me, she was. That all changed, though—you know: after the incident. But in no time at all, little Freddie came along, little mite. Frederick Miller, yes—but we started calling him Freddie straight away. You just should've seen her face when she looked at him—when she was feeding him, bathing him, all of
that. Yes. And then he was gone. Six months, bit under, and then he was gone. One morning, she looks in the cot … and that was it. He was gone. Snuffed out. No explanation. The doctors, the bloody doctors—they said to us yes well: these things do sometimes happen. Best try for another, that's the thing to do. But Janey … she wasn't my Janey any more, not after little Freddie went. We did, though—we did try for another, and every time we were doing it, every time we were in the bed and I was lying on the top of her, she was crying her bloody eyes out. I couldn't hardly stand it. Would break your bloody heart. And then after a bit, my Anthony was born. She was happy for a while—better, anyway … well we both were. But it was when she saw—when she saw him for the first time, after I'd just brought him back from the hospital with those calipers strapped on to his little legs … well … she just more or less went away, then. Gradually. Wasn't sudden. But more and more, she just left us to it. And then she went silent altogether. Just like she's been for the whole of another evening … and me just sitting here next to her, smoking my pipe and sipping a Scotch.

And then suddenly I'm hearing something—brought me right back down to earth, this has: must've been miles away. Something out on the landing, is it …? Not young Anthony stumping about, I very much hope—if it is, then I'll have to get him back to bed pronto. Oh wait …! Of course! How could I have forgotten that? It's Milly, isn't it? It's Milly—course it is. Christ Alive—it's only her I've been waiting for …!

“Stan … you are behaving most awfully mysteriously, you know …”

“No no. It's just that … well, come on in Milly. Come in.”

“Are you quite sure, Stan? Jane … she won't mind, will she …?”

“I shouldn't have said so, no. Come in, Milly. That's it. You come in.”

I can smell the whisky on him from where I'm standing. I know it only too well from Jim, but I honestly never did consider our Stan to be a drinker. But there, it just goes to show, doesn't it? One of life's lessons that always and stubbornly one refuses to learn: the simple truth that never do you really know any single thing about anyone on earth. Do you? No you don't. Mmm … and wafts of other little odors too now, which just are tantalizing—while with an awful reluctance and considerable amazement at my just even being here, I now find myself crossing the threshold of this deeply unwelcoming room, tainted as it is by the clogging of some unwholesome condition which, though maybe not diseased, still is in need of a disinfectant. That fustiness that I remember from the first time. That, yes … together with something else quite stale, but still somehow intensely and curiously sweetish. Impacted bedding, conceivably—and cold cream, I think it might be … some other sort of unction, and then an astringent mingling of unspecified medicine. And it is only now that openly I am wondering exactly what it is that I am hesitant to know. Extraordinary in itself, this—and so I can only think that I have successfully stifled within me even the smallest squeak of anticipation. I am left with the simple hope that she will not be shrill with me, nor accusatory. I am doing my best to bolster my resolve, though in the state in which I find myself, I know I could not bear anything in the way of a tirade.

The light from the bedside lamp is striking her oddly: all of her features seem to be so very hard and stark, their motionless shadows still jagged, and eerily looming. I think though that I do not detect any malice in her eyes. The counterpane is stretched tight and so very neatly, her arms quite rigid on the top of it. Everything seems so terribly still. I hear, and acutely, a silent alarm … and just something chill now is gripping my heart …

“
Stan
 …! …”

I must be wild-eyed as agitatedly I am rushing across to him and clutching at his arm. His hand is softly patting mine: he's staring down at the ground, and very slowly shaking his head.

“It's sad, isn't it Milly? Yes it is. It's really very sad …”

“Oh Jesus, Stan … what has … what has happened here …?”

“Well you see, Milly—oh, would you care to sit down at all? No? Well you see, Milly … and I never asked, did I? Rude of me. If I could get you a little something? Some sort of refreshment? Nice cup of tea, maybe? And you've already eaten, I expect, have you?”

“Stan. Are you
mad
 …? I asked you what has
happened
 …!”

“Yes. Well I was getting to that. What has happened, Milly, is that sadly, Janey—my wife, yes? She has passed away. Yes. Janey, she's dead, you see.”

I consciously close my mouth. I do not want to go over to her, but that is exactly now what I find myself doing. The touch of her hand is cold beyond cold.

“When did this happen …? Oh my
God
, Stan …!”

“Last evening. Last night. It's hard to put a time to it.”

“Last
night
 …! But Stan—have you called someone? Is anyone coming? Why isn't anyone here?”

“Well I called you, Milly. Didn't I? You're here. You would've been here sooner if you could've made it. I know that. But look—you're here now, aren't you? And that's the main thing.”

“No but I mean—
called
someone. Ambulance. Police, or something …!”

“Well I did think of it, yes, but you see—well, I really wouldn't know how to go about any of that sort of palaver. I'm not used to it. I rather hoped that you might, you know—do it for me. See to it all, sort of style. Awful to ask, I know …”

“Well I will—of course I will. I really ought to do it right now, hadn't I …? But Stan—God's sake tell me! How did she …?”

“Yes well. It's really quite a tale. Last evening, you see, I came in here to have it all out with her. Once and for all. Just like you told me to, Milly. Fancy you might have been proud of me. I was going to be a man about it. Remember? That's what you told me to do. Remember? It was you who told me to do it.”

“I told you …?”

“Mm, you did. But anyway—much to my surprise, I found her to be quite chatty. I was bowled over, I don't mind telling you. Because like I say, Milly—can't really recall the last time she even so much as opened her mouth to me. Oh yes and by the way—it turns out she didn't eat all of those chocolate bars, you know. Fry's Peppermint Cream, Mackintosh's Toffee Cup—no no, never did it. Nor keep a diary. She was kidding you. Having you on. Her little joke, I suppose, though I can't for the life of me really see that it's funny, or anything. Someone's been bringing her food every day, is what she was telling me. Can't remember who—some young girl. And doing her hair. Look at her hair, Milly. Looks nice, doesn't it? Never noticed it before. So that was all of that … but then … well then she starts to … well: taunt me, I suppose is the word.”