Getting It Right (38 page)

He was amazed at how he became used to being in the house without his parents. The first morning had felt a bit odd; Mrs Lamb had washed up their breakfasts – eaten at
God-knew-what hour – and left him a final note about locking up carefully – even if he just went out to buy a paper. He had felt guilty at not being up to see them off, however it had
not occurred to him that they could possibly be going earlier than himself. But his mother got extremely nervous about trains – not trusting them in the least not to leave twenty minutes
earlier than they had promised to, and she was determined not to give any train the chance of doing that to her. So, to catch say a ten o’clock from Paddington, she would probably have left
the house at seven. He had washed up his own breakfast, and then left in a hurry because he hadn’t allowed time in his morning schedule for even such a small addition. He had arrived in time
for Mr Adrian to notice that he was late: to look at his watch, click his teeth and say that there was something he wanted a few words about whenever Gavin could spare the time. Gavin succeeded in
not sparing it all the morning, which was a busy one.

Jenny had stumped up to him wearing her cork wedge sandals and said:

‘Have you done the list?’

‘What list? Oh – no – no, I haven’t. I’ve been thinking about it though,’ he added, partly because it was true, but chiefly because she had looked so
transparently disappointed. They had worked hard together all the morning, which included Mrs Wagstaffe and her dog, Mrs Courcel, and an elderly lady who wanted her long, dank grown-out perm cut
off. At one point, he had nipped out to the back for a quick cup of coffee and was shortly joined by Peter.

Gavin said: ‘Thanks very much for Friday evening. Hope Hazel’s okay.’

‘She came round in the end. I did all the washing-up – I think that made a difference to her. Women are quite tricky when you’re married to them,’ he explained.

‘I suppose they would be.’

‘What we never got around to asking you was, what did you think about the dinner?’

‘Oh – fine.’

‘I expect you to be perfectly frank.’

‘I enjoyed it.’

‘You didn’t think the main course was just a touch way out?’

‘Um – no. How do you mean exactly?’

‘For Hazel’s parents, I mean. They live in West Byfleet.’

‘I suppose it depends if you like aubergine.’

‘But it didn’t taste of
them
! I quite agree if it had
tasted
of them, they might find it a bit much. But with all that miso and bean curd I don’t think the
average person would guess.’

Gavin tried to finish his coffee, but it was too hot.

‘Still, I asked you, and if that’s what you think, we must take it into account . . .’

‘Mr Gavin! Client’s ready.’

‘Thank you, Jenny. I enjoyed it,’ he lied again and saw Peter’s stern missionary face relax a little. On his way through to the salon, he remembered that he hadn’t rung
Marge. In the end, he had had to leave that until his lunch hour (which was very late). He couldn’t risk using the salon’s telephone unless Mr Adrian went out, which he
didn’t.

Marge hadn’t answered, so he hadn’t got hold of her until after work.

‘Poor Mum,’ she said. ‘She’s very close to Sylvia. And the little boy! Oh dear! How long is she going to stay in Swansea? Well, if you ever feel lonely, pop over to us,
but I expect it’s a chance for you to whoop it up a bit there all on your own. Don’t worry, I’ll ring Mum at Uncle Phil’s.’

That first evening, he had gone home, realized he’d forgotten to take in the milk and walked into the empty house. It did not smell of washing as usual – just rather fusty. He had
opened some windows, got one of the pies out of the freezer and put it in the oven. Then he had looked in the paper to see if there was anything he wanted to watch on television, but there
wasn’t. He had looked round the room; it was spotlessly neat with absolutely nothing in it that was not functional, and it had seemed smaller without his parents there.

It wasn’t really the kind of room he liked, at all. He had decided then that he did not want to spend the evening in it. So he had made himself a supper tray, turned the oven to low and
had had a bath – longer even than the ones his mother countenanced on a Sunday morning: only now he was able to have it with the doors wide open to his room as well as the bathroom, and his
gramophone as loud as he liked. Also, when he had eventually finished his bath, he had realized that there was absolutely no need to put all his clothes on again. That first evening he had spent in
his pyjamas and dressing gown, but he had felt vaguely uncomfortable in them – a bit like a convalescent. People who went about in their dressing gowns probably had special ones made . . .
After that, he settled for jeans and a shirt too old to wear with a tie. He ate his pie and played the B-flat posthumous sonata – one of his favourite works of Schubert and absolutely his
favourite piano sonata. Then he had looked at a book on Greek islands that was overdue back at the library because he’d never got down to it. For some reason that he wasn’t at all clear
about, he couldn’t summon the enthusiasm for his holiday that he usually had. Did he really want to go to Greece entirely by himself? And how did one – come to that – go on a
holiday partly with someone? Even if he found somebody who said that that was what they wanted, how could he know whether their partly was the same as his? He shut up the book. His holiday
wasn’t until September, so he had plenty of time to think about it. That first evening, he had decided that he wouldn’t wash up his supper; he’d leave the tray and do it when he
had more to wash up. He’d watered his plants and cleaned his shoes and listened to more music. Minnie, and what was becoming of her, had crossed his mind: surprisingly, she hadn’t
bombarded him with telephone calls. The family situation in Swansea had recurred, several times, but his mother hadn’t rung him. Somehow it all seemed rather distant. He had ended by going to
bed earlier than usual with a novel by Paul Scott that had won some literary prize and also seemed to him to be a very good read.

The next day it had suddenly struck him at work that he didn’t particularly want to go home, get out another pie and do generally what he had done the previous evening. He rang Harry, but
Harry was going to a party with Noel and Winthrop. He was invited, but declined . . . It was a bad day at work: everything seemed to go – not wrong, exactly – but not quite right. Jenny
seemed uncharacteristically absent-minded, and apathetic when he reminded her. In the end – when she had let him run completely out of papers during a tricky perm – he snapped at her.
She looked at him for a moment with her eyes filling with tears and then she simply ran out of the salon – to the back . . . She returned in time to wash the client – very pale and
refusing to meet his eye. He managed to catch her during the lunch hour – outside on the stairs.

‘Hey – what’s the matter, Jenny?’

‘Nothing.’ She continued walking down the stairs below him.

‘Look. Something is. I’ve never known you wash hair leaving conditioner in,
or
forget things all the time. Something must be wrong. Is it Andrew?’

‘He’s all right.’

This only made it clear that something else wasn’t. He suddenly wondered whether she was sulking about the list that he still hadn’t made for her.

‘I’ve started the list for you.’

She said nothing for a bit, and then – and he could hardly hear her – thanked him. ‘But it doesn’t matter, really,’ she said.

‘Like a sandwich?’

She shook her head.

They had reached the passage on the ground floor. She said: ‘I’m going for a walk, and I’ll pull myself together.’ She said it as though he had told her she must. She
walked quickly away from him out into the street.

In the sandwich bar he met Iris drinking espresso. He had a coffee with her and told her that he was worried about Jenny.

‘I expect she’s just a bit out of sorts today,’ Iris said with a delicate emphasis.

‘It’s not like her.’

She looked at him kindly: ‘We can’t always be like ourselves all the time. She’s nearing the end of her apprenticeship, isn’t she? I expect she went for a job and
didn’t get it . . .’

It seemed a reasonable and likely answer . . .

In the afternoon he was caught by Mr Adrian who gave him a long and reasoned discourse on the results of everybody getting to work later and later which culminated in he, Mr Adrian, being clean
out of business. Just as he reached this interesting – and to Gavin quite delightful – conclusion, Daphne phoned through from reception to ask Gavin to come and look at the book with a
view to fitting someone in. When he got there, Daphne looked at him with a wealth of no expression and said: ‘I’m afraid they’ve rung off now.’ The most uniting thing about
the salon, he thought, was the way in which everybody hated Mr Adrian.

His afternoon consisted of a succession of routine washes and sets; Jenny had returned punctually and he felt her making an effort to do what was required of her. They both behaved as if nothing
had happened until, about half an hour before they closed, she said: ‘I’m sorry I was so scatty this morning.’ He realized that she found saying that an effort, since she started
to blush, and with no thought at all he heard himself suggesting that she should come over to his place to hear some records, and even while he was wondering why the
hell
he’d said
that, he heard her saying that she would like to . . .

‘Do you mean this evening?’

‘No – no, I don’t. I didn’t mention any particular evening, actually.’

‘Well, that’s good, because I couldn’t have come tonight; my mother’s going out.’ There was a pause, and then she said: ‘But I could tomorrow.’

Then she said: ‘And if you could find me a book – a good one, I mean, but one I could get into, I’d be able to read it on the train, you see.’

‘Yes. Okay, I’ll find you one.’ He turned to go, but she said:

‘Look. I don’t know where you live. Your address.’

‘I live in Barnet, New Barnet, to be exact.’

‘Oh. How do I get there?’

He thought rapidly. If she came back with him, he’d have no time to get anything ready. On the other hand, it was a hell of a journey from Kilburn. ‘I’ll fetch you on the
bike,’ he said.

‘Right. Thanks.’

So here he was, on evening number two, having eaten pie number two (fish this time) in the kitchen, because he’d done some shopping on his way home and had to arrange the food in the
fridge and see that he hadn’t forgotten anything. He was no cook. After much thought, and resisting asking Harry’s expert advice, he had gone to the best grocer in Barnet and bought a
tin of expensive lobster soup, a small carton of single cream, and half a pound of ham cut from the bone. Then he’d had to go to another shop to buy a lettuce and tomatoes and a pineapple.
He’d have to buy the bread tomorrow. He washed up yesterday’s and that evening’s pie suppers and laid a tray for himself and Jenny. Then he went up to tackle his room. During
these activities he was conscious of feeling excited at the prospect of entertaining someone, and apprehensive about entertaining Jenny (though there were, of course, a good many girls or women
about whom he’d have felt a good deal worse). After all, he’d known her – in a way – for a long time. He was – in a way – doing her a favour. The prospect of
actually imparting knowledge to someone else made him feel responsible but it was also rather exciting. He looked carefully round his room trying to imagine how it would seem to someone coming into
it for the first time. The first thing that he supposed they would notice was that it was indubitably a bedroom. There was his rather large bed. Supposing she thought he’d asked her –
especially when his parents were away – to come over and spend the evening in his
bedroom
and merely pretended about the records? After all, there was the whole house they could be
in. But the gramophone was in his room; parts of it were delicate and some parts were rather on their last legs – it was out of the question to move it. Could he move the bed? Of course he
couldn’t. It had had to be dismantled to get it up the narrow stairs – a task that would be quite beyond him. Perhaps he could make it look less like a bed? Make it seem it was a sort
of sitting room he sometimes slept in? He tried putting the cushions from his red velvet chaise-longue on to the bed, but this made it look wantonly voluptuous as though it was
asking
for
people to sprawl on it. He tried surrounding the open side of it with his larger potted plants: but this made it look like a secret den in a jungle, him Gavin her Jenny stuff, and drew attention to
it more than ever. In the end, he settled for laying out an unnecessarily large quantity of records all over it in neat rows as though for inspection. That certainly made the room look as though it
was one in which one played records rather than . . . anything else. At this point the telephone rang, and he went down to the hall to answer it.

‘Gavin?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘She’s come round, but she’s still very weak. She’s going to pull through, they say; but they don’t want her told about Timmie till she’s recovered more from
the shock. I’ll be staying a while longer, because Phil needs help with the girls. Are you all right, Gavin?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Is the house all right?’

‘Yes. How’s Dad?’

‘Nothing’s the matter with
him.
He’s in the garden all day: just comes in for his meals.’ She said this in the tone of voice that made him sound like a cat.
‘Gavin!’ she added.

‘Yes, Mum?’

‘When you’ve got through the pies you’d better go to Sainsbury’s and buy yourself a nice pork pie. That should last you a day or two. But whatever you do, don’t you
go eating food out of tins. Mind you don’t do that.’

‘No, Mum.’

‘I can’t be in two places at once. All right, Gavin. I’d better be ringing off, we’re not millionaires.’

‘No. I see that. Good-bye then, Mum.’