Her Victory (59 page)

He got his overcoat, scarf and hat. Why not? Get the kids off their hands. And took up his binoculars. ‘I'll do my best not to get them drowned, or run over, hauled off to the clink, or otherwise missing presumed glutted on ice-cream.'

‘Not as easy as you might hope,' their mother called.

A wind blew, cold and sharp, and Hilary played at being thrown back inside the door, till Tom and Sam were half-way down the square, and then she followed. Sam went in front, sliding himself by parked cars, using the handle of each door to draw himself along, but putting on a pressure to find out whether or not the doors were locked. He would not, Tom felt, go inside and take anything at the moment. It seemed more like a practice run for when he was on his own. He called: ‘Come here!'

Sam turned, pale and scared. ‘You mean me?'

‘And quickly. Run!'

He walked towards him, upright but as if expecting to dodge a punch.

‘Listen to me,' Tom said. ‘And stand still! While you're out with me, I don't want to see you trying to open car doors. Do you understand? If I catch you at it again I'll knock your head off, and then hand you over to the police station. And what's more, I don't want you to do it even when you're not with me, because sure as hell somebody else will haul you off. Do you hear?'

‘Yes.'

‘Never, at any time. Not only will you be for it, but your mother will get it in the neck as well. And you don't really want to hurt her, do you?' Damn, the poor kid was about to cry. But he had to put the fear of God into him. It's not his fault, because he sees his irresponsible mother getting up to stunts that can only land them in trouble. When they go back tonight I'll put them on the train with tickets, to show it must be done. He held his arm, and spoke quietly. ‘We're going to look at a ship, and if it's ten miles away these binoculars will bring it down to a mile. Do you want to try?'

He nodded.

‘We'll have a good time. But don't forget what I told you.'

‘All right,' he said.

‘I take that as a promise. Do you understand?'

‘Yes. OK.'

He tapped his binocular case. ‘Carry them for me.'

Hilary held his hand.

‘You can take turns looking at ships or birds,' Tom said, ‘and I'll tell you about 'em.'

‘I want first go,' Hilary said.

‘We'll cross the road before getting them out, then spin heads-and-tails for it.'

‘She can have them,' Sam said.

‘The coin decides,' said Tom.

They waited for cars to pass, then he let them go, over the grass to the railing. There was a blue hole in the clouds, with towering cumulus close out on the Channel. Ships were outlined: tankers, ocean freighters with enormous white superstructures so that Sam wanted to know what those buildings were, and a few coasters which seemed almost to disappear in the swell. Tom looped the binocular strap around Hilary's neck, and told her to look. Visibility was good, but rain would soon hit the seafront.

14

Pam sat on the edge of the bed. Clothes were spread over the floor, draped on chairbacks and stacked on the dressing-table. Judy laid aside the last twenties-style suit: ‘I'll start a new fashion in West Eleven if I get this lot on the barrows. Wouldn't mind wearing a few myself.'

Pam hoped she would try some of them on. She'd be sure to look marvellous in such clothes. There were shoes and handbags to complete the picture of a new woman.

Judy took out silk blouses with pearl buttons, elaborate garments with lace cuffs and collars attached. ‘I wish the rich hadn't loved mothballs so much, though.'

She pulled off her sweater, and unbuttoned her shirt. ‘They'll fit you, as well. You're nearly as tall as I am.' Her breasts were oval-shaped, well-fleshed and only slightly hanging, nipples facing upwards rather than out. She smiled at Pam looking at her without knowing she was staring so intently. ‘I had a bath last night so it's all right, as long as you can stand the carbolic smell of a woman who doesn't bother with men!'

Dark hair showed at the crotch of her flimsy red knickers. She took them off, and rummaged in a drawer for underwear, holding up camisoles and stockings. ‘What delights! Come on, you change as well.'

Pam wished she had taken her clothes off earlier, because Judy had already put drawers on and a slip, a blouse and a long skirt. ‘Don't worry, love, it's just that I like seeing another woman. You do too, don't you? But how do you keep that slim figure? The trouble with me is I eat whatever I can. I feel like the character in that N. F. Simpson play who calls at houses to finish off leftovers because it's her job. Whenever I'm offered anything on my charring round I never say no. I eat when the kids come home from school. Then again when they're in bed, and at breakfast with them in the morning. I never stop.' She opened a cupboard and inspected more drawers. ‘Here you are, get this lovely underwear. It makes me feel sexy. See what it does for you. I feel like a schoolgirl just wondering how to … I suppose not having kids around helps.'

Pam saw her mistake, if such it was, which had led her into becoming trapped at a game she didn't want to play; but it had been her own idea and there was no getting out of it, so she took off the rest of her clothes and searched among the underwear. Embarrassment was stupid. There was nothing to lose with someone as friendly and easygoing as Judy.

‘There are even hairpins in the bowl.' Judy untied her ponytail and sat at the dressing-table to put up her hair. ‘It's a treasure-house. I feel as if I'm stealing things.' She stood to finish buttoning the cuffs of her blouse. She was tall and straight-backed, and would become stout if she didn't take care. Pam couldn't stop herself saying: ‘You look beautiful.'

Her figure was verging on full. She had been going to say: elegant, handsome, even dashing in an old-fashioned way. Strange what clothes could do, though she suspected they did little enough for her. She looked in the mirror, and found it amazing how they both resembled women of the period.

‘I'm not bad for nearly forty, am I? You look quite fine yourself, though.' She lit a cigarette, and passed it to Pam, who hesitated, then told herself not to be so rigid, smiled her thanks, and tasted the damp end when she put it between her lips.

‘Come here,' Judy said, ‘and I'll finish fastening your buttons for you.'

She smoked, then gave it back. ‘It's nice to play at dressingup.'

‘We'll give the others a surprise.'

Pam held out her arms. ‘I wish I had hair as long as yours, that's the only thing.'

Judy laughed. ‘You can have it, if you give me your figure.'

‘Your figure's …' She was going to say ‘lovely'.

‘Don't go on.' She grimaced, and Pam didn't know what she had expected. ‘Do you love him?'

‘Who?'

‘Your ex-sailor man,' Judy said.

‘Can't you call him Tom?'

‘Tom, then.'

She was going to say: it's nobody's business. But: ‘I think I do. Yes.' There was no one else she loved, and if this wasn't love she thought she would never know what was – but wouldn't speak of it, hardly aware as to why, except that she felt such a declaration would sadden Judy, or – and the words flashed at her without warning – as if they would imply some kind of disloyalty towards her, a form of gloating, perhaps. She was hot with an embarrassment she couldn't explain, hoping it would go away before Judy noticed. She was sure she already had. Judy noticed everything.

‘Don't blame you. He is pretty good – for a man. I hope you're sure, though, because he's the sort you'll have to follow. He's got lots of firm ideas behind that brow of his.'

Pam was surprised at this opinion. She wouldn't follow anybody. Or would she? She would if she cared to. If she did it would be out of her free will, and nobody's business but her own. ‘How do you know?'

‘He's the type, isn't he? Does things, rather than thinks them out. Forceful and secretive, I suppose you'd call it. My husband was the opposite. Nothing but talk. Never did anything till I pushed him into the street. His parents wouldn't have him back, but he soon found someone to iron his shirts and make his bed. Men always do, even these days. But Tom's different, I can see that. I once went upstairs for something or other, and through the open door I saw him ironing a shirt. I'd never seen such a thing. A man ironing a shirt! I'd always thought it was impossible. I just stood and looked, till he stopped what he was doing and shut the door in my face. Well, I suppose you've got to admire a man who looks after himself in that way. Though I don't know why. I don't think it strange when a woman irons her things. You're certain to be better off with a man like that than with most others.'

Pam was amazed at how coolly she had analysed him, and how much she admired him. It was unmistakable. A tremor of surprise went through her. ‘Did you ever have an affair with him, then?'

She could tell lies to a man, though she'd never found it easy, but not to a woman, which she considered to be one of her weaknesses – while having the strength to know that it was one worth cherishing. ‘I wouldn't call it that. I once kept him company for a night or two between voyages, a couple of years ago. Nothing since, absolutely. I didn't want to. Nor did he. We stayed good neighbours.'

Pam knew she could never be a free woman in that way, but was pleased to feel no sense of jealousy. Its effect was rather to make her more affectionate, though a faint diffidence kept her from saying anything at the moment.

‘Maybe I shouldn't have told you,' Judy said. ‘But there was really nothing in it.'

‘Don't make it worse! I'm glad it happened to you both. Why shouldn't we be fond of each other?' Pam stopped herself going too far, though it would never have occurred to her to say much, being so close to Tom, for it would seem like betraying him. She expressed this to Judy, who said: ‘You'll have to stop thinking like that. I suppose he wonders the same about you. It's only natural. No man is a cabbage. Nor any woman, either.'

They finished the cigarette. ‘How's your life?' Pam asked.

‘Personal, you mean?'

She nodded.

‘Smashed. My prissy little civil servant girl-friend took umbrage when she saw me with a woman I used to know, and imagined the worst. Or the best, except that there wasn't any best about it, and the worst didn't happen, not with her, anyway. But I'm too busy looking after Sam and Hilary to go in for much philandering. We'd better change back into our everyday rags.'

‘Oh no, keep yours on. You really do look marvellous.'

‘It's nice to be praised.' She went to the mirror. ‘I'll play the drag queen today – but what a let-down when I get home. Do you fall in love easily?'

Pam sat on the edge of the bed, and felt obliged to say: ‘I sometimes see a man in the street I think I could go for. But I'm attached to Tom, and that's love, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't have affairs when I was married, so I feel a bit lost regarding experience, though I don't really feel a lack of it.'

Judy sat at her feet. ‘I've had quite a bit, but I'm not sure it's done me much good. I suppose it's better than not having had any. It's impossible to have just enough to equip you emotionally for getting the best out of life, but not sufficient to ruin your feelings.'

In her new dress Pam saw Judy as if she were younger, calm, without children, and able to talk properly instead of swear like a villain, almost as if they had met in some hotel far from their normal lives. It was restful to talk to someone in this inconsequential way, and she wondered if it could happen with any person other than Judy. The distance between them narrowed. She felt far closer to her than when she had been with ‘normally married' women in the past. With them she would turn stand-offish, especially if the acquaintance threatened to go in the direction of a heart-to-heart talk, as if there was something shameful in their similarly closed lives, much like two prisoners talking in jail and forgetting that a free life existed.

The narrowing gap generated more intimacy than she seemed to want. A resonance in Judy's voice was pleasant yet disturbing, at times irresistibly caressing. She looked down on elegantly piled hair, at the flushed face pressed against her thighs. ‘My feelings weren't finally spoiled,' Pam said. ‘As soon as I left my old life they began coming back, though it was so painful that I thought once or twice I wouldn't be able to make it.'

Judy looked at her. ‘I know. It's like a diver coming up for air from a long way down, after the air-pipe's not been working properly. You get the bends. But gradually the agony goes, so I understand.'

Who but another woman would acknowledge that she had been right to abandon a man? To her, such understanding could only be termed affection, and she laid a hand against the side of Judy's warm face.

Judy looked up in pleased surprise. Her larger hand took Pam's, and she kissed the opening palm, her tongue warming across. They stayed silent for some minutes, then Judy's long fingers went slowly under her skirt, and though Pam's face burned like fire she could not turn them back.

15

After Tom had put five .22 bullets into the black circle, Hilary wanted a go. The man in charge of the rifle range said that children had to be fourteen, though he would stretch a point if she could get on tiptoes and stand high enough to lean on the counter at least. Tom opened the breech and drew back the bolt so that she could slide the round in. He pulled the butt tightly into her shoulder. ‘Now, squeeze the trigger, here – but gently.'

The sharp noise of firing startled her. Then she blinked, and pushed her hair back. ‘Did I get the bull's-eye?'

He pulled the bolt open, and the empty case came out. ‘Fire the other four, and we'll see how you did.'