Injury Time (4 page)

Binny could be so cold when standing up and facing him, or shouting at him down the telephone, and so warm when lying in his arms. When he thought of those snatched perspiring moments on the sofa, the bathroom floor, the divan bed in Binny’s back room, he felt he could forgive her anything and dreamed of devoting the rest of his life to making her happy.

He paid for the drinks and returned to the table. He looked down at Simpson’s balding crown and said firmly, ‘Look here, old man. What’s the form tonight? You are coming, I take it?’

‘Good Lord, yes,’ said Simpson. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’

‘What about the wife?’

‘We’re both coming,’ Simpson said. ‘Depend on it. I just wanted to warn you it might be a bit sticky at first. Muriel might be a shade off-hand. But she’ll thaw.’ He patted Edward’s knee encouragingly.

‘You may find it a little bohemian tonight,’ said Edward. ‘Just a bit.’

‘Christ,’ cried Simpson. ‘I feared as much. Muriel won’t stand for it, you know.’

‘I meant domestically,’ Edward said. ‘Spacewise, facilities . . . knives and forks. See what I mean?’

‘Oh,’ said Simpson. ‘Rough and ready, is that it?’

‘A little,’ Edward said, feeling disloyal. ‘Binny’s not one for appearances.’

‘Say no more.’ Simpson nodded sympathetically. ‘Are you going home to change?’

‘No,’ said Edward. ‘It’s a shade awkward getting out again. I thought I might go back to the office and sign a little post.’

Simpson suggested Edward should come home with him for a wash-and-brush-up. Then they could all arrive together.

Edward accepted. ‘Have you mentioned to your wife,’ he said, ‘that we’re supposed to have met? Her and me. Binny particularly stressed that I should invite close mutual friends.’

‘Don’t push it, old boy,’ advised Simpson with some irritation. ‘It’s been difficult enough to persuade her to sit down with you, let alone pretend you’ve been friendly for years. And you’d better watch the hanky panky.’

‘Hanky panky?’

‘Touching . . . fooling about . . . any outward show. Muriel won’t like it.’

‘I have to be home by eleven,’ said Edward. ‘I don’t think there’ll be time for hanky panky.’

No further mention was made of his going back with Simpson for a wash. After a quarter of an hour Simpson got up to go and said he’d see him in the trenches at twenty hundred hours. He nudged Edward in the ribs. ‘Synchronise watches . . . we’ll go over the top together.’ Laughing heartily and thinking what a bloody ass the man was, Edward said goodbye. He bought a packet of cashew nuts to tide himself over until dinner, and on an unfortunate impulse telephoned Binny.

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘Nothing really. I’ve just been chatting to old Simpson. He was a bit foolish, I thought.’

‘How surprising!’

‘I meant he spoke rather childishly. He’s not as broad-minded as one thinks.’

‘What’s all that noise?’ Binny said. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the office,’ he lied. ‘Simpson said what would I think if Helen asked him and his wife round for a meal.’

‘What are you on about? I thought they’d had dozens of meals at your house?’

‘I’m not explaining myself very clearly,’ he said. ‘I get the feeling he doesn’t approve of . . . well, you know . . .’

‘I don’t know,’ she snapped. ‘Spit it out.’

‘Us,’ he said lamely. ‘Carrying on.’

She fell silent. Edward ground the receiver so tightly against his ear, to drown the pub sounds all around him, that his eyes began to water.

‘You told me he’d been to a V.D. clinic,’ said Binny finally.

Oh God, he thought, had he really confided that? She’d probably bring it up at dinner if things went badly. ‘Well, yes,’ he said.’ But there was never anything actually wrong.’

‘Who the hell does he think he is? He’s in no position to object to anybody carrying on.’

‘I think,’ said Edward, ‘that it’s his wife more than him.’

‘I’ll bet it is,’ Binny crowed. ‘She probably feels that if you’re doing it, then her old Simpson’s at it too.’

‘You are clever,’ he said tenderly. ‘I do love you, you know.’

‘Like bloody hell,’ she said, and told him she must get on.

She was a mystery to him; she had no small talk at all.

He returned to the office. Here he began to compose a fairly resentful letter to Simpson, indicating that he thought it inadvisable to claim such and such an amount for the cleaning of his business premises ‘. . . It would seem to me, in the circumstances, an unrealistic and preposterous sum, more in keeping with maintaining the hygienic standards of a research laboratory than a spare parts factory, and one which the Inspector of Taxes would undoubtedly and deservedly view with suspicion, etc., etc . . .’

B
inny laid the dining-room table, still wearing her headscarf and outdoor coat. Underneath she had changed into her best black dress. The table was situated in the front half of the ground-floor room. The back half contained the kitchen. In it was a stove, a fridge and a very small draining-board. So great was Binny’s abhorrence of cooking that she’d torn down the shelving and plastic work surfaces installed by a previous owner and stacked everything – food, crockery, pans – into an article of furniture she called a wall cupboard. It was, in reality, a gentleman’s wardrobe, still fragrant with the smell of Havana cigars, complete with little compartments for starched and detachable collars in which Binny kept the knives and forks. From the back window there was a view of a yard, a brick wall, and a rabbit hutch that Edward had given her.

Moving about the table, cheerful and organised, Binny was interrupted by her daughter Lucy, who was eighteen and dressed as though ready for work on a building site.

‘Screw me,’ cried Lucy, smiling for once, eyeing the cut flowers and the folded napkins. ‘Having a knees-up, are we?’ She had known for days that Binny was expecting guests, but she liked to tease. She seized her mother by the shoulders and shook her. Binny’s headscarf slithered over her eyes. ‘Who’s a posh girl, then?’

‘Don’t, darling,’ said Binny.

Lucy flung herself sideways on to the sofa, crushing the newly plumped cushions. She began to roll a cigarette. She said critically, ‘I should wear something more suitable, if I were you. They’ll think you’re not stopping.’

Binny noticed that her daughter’s army boots, heavily studded, were scuffing a carpet already flecked with pieces of cotton thread and bits of fluff. It had started to rain when she’d returned from the bank and she hadn’t felt like going down into the yard to retrieve the hoover. The inside might have got wet and she didn’t want to risk being electrocuted. Perhaps no one would notice the carpet once the drink started going down.

‘I think, darling,’ said Binny, ‘you’d better be off. If that’s all right with you. Just pop the baby into the Evans’s, there’s a good girl.’

The baby, who was almost eleven years old, was quite capable of climbing the fence and going up the steps to the house next door, but Binny worried.

‘Where’s big-dick?’ asked Lucy.

‘Behave,’ pleaded Binny. She counted inwardly to ten and busied herself with titivating the table. Her son Gregory, bribed with a pound note, was, she hoped, halfway across London on the underground, bound for the house of his friend Adam.

Lucy appeared to have fallen asleep. Cigarette papers and grains of tobacco littered her chest. ‘Will you get up?’ said Binny. ‘At once. Please, dear.’

There was very little left for her to do. She’d peeled the potatoes, washed the lettuce, sprinkled herb things on the meat. Still, she wanted her daughters out of the way. Being constantly with the children was like wearing a pair of shoes that were expensive and too small. She couldn’t bear to throw them out, but they gave her blisters. It would be nice having Edward in the house with other people present. Adults. She could talk about things without having to explain herself, without endlessly repeating what she’d said in the first place. No one would interrupt her with requests for jam, or money for the bus. Nobody would tell her to shut up. She liked Edward when he’d had a lot to drink. His eyes, bloodshot and sleepy, gazed at her with passion. She would be able to lean against him and give him the biggest lamb chop. When he went into the bathroom he would notice how clean the bowl was and the basin. She knew it was important to him that the house should look like a good investment.

‘Lucy,’ she said loudly. ‘It’s almost seven o’clock.’

‘Rubbish,’ Lucy said. ‘It can’t be. We’d have heard Mrs Papastavrou.’ Across the street was a post-war block of flats, lit at night like a ship on its maiden voyage and totally deserted by day. The rent collector and the man from the Providential were seen to walk along the concrete balconies, but the inmates remained hidden. The exception was Mrs Papastavrou, an elderly Greek now living on the top floor, who had originally occupied a flat on the ground floor and been carried aloft, out of harm’s way, after knifing the lady who brought the meals-on-wheels. Mrs Papastavrou had grown frail and thin before the wounding. Her tray was collected with the food untouched on her plate. In an effort to stimulate her appetite the Council provided her with stuffed vine leaves and cartons of taramasalata. Thinking she was being victimised, Mrs Papastavrou had struck back. Every evening since her removal upstairs, she appeared on the balcony on the dot of half past six and moaned loudly until seven o’clock. Sometimes, when the weather was particularly warm, she gave a matinee performance. Often, well-meaning passers-by called ambulances, but she was returned almost immediately.

Binny looked out of the window to make certain the old woman remained indoors, and was appalled at the amount of refuse lying about the path. There were even eggshells caught in the branches of the privet hedge. ‘Ought I to sweep it up?’ she asked aloud.

A tub, placed on bricks, stood in front of the row of dust bins. In it was planted some sort of bush that never did anything. It had been meant to act as a screen. The bin lids had been stolen long ago. A fat dog from up the street kept waddling in and tipping out the garbage.

‘Sweep what?’ said Lucy.

‘The front path. It’s a sight.’

‘Why not?’ said Lucy. ‘You could dust the weeds while you’re at it.’ She rolled off the sofa and lay face downwards, drumming on the floor with her toe-caps.

Even though it would be dark when the Simpsons arrived, the headlamps of their car would light up the square of garden laid with crazy paving. Mrs Simpson would see the rubbish clearly illuminated.

Below the window was a strip of earth dangerously littered with strands of barbed wire, intended to discourage cats from doing their business on the stunted daffodils. Wrought-iron railings ran from the side of the front door, along the flower border, and ended at the steps to the basement flat. The basement was owned by a young couple, though Edward, in Binny’s presence, had once told a colleague that it was hers and she rented it out. Anxious to boast of her assets, he referred to the young couple as her tenants.

Several betting slips, flung down by disappointed racing men, whirled upward from the path and, catching on the barbed wire, fluttered like sandwich flags among the daffodils.

I can do no more, thought Binny, rubbing at the window pane with a duster. She could hardly be blamed for the untidy habits of dogs and gamblers. And even supposing Mrs Simpson noticed the mess, it wasn’t likely she’d rush in muttering her complaints before she’d had a chance to be introduced.

Pushing the matter from her mind, Binny moved from the window and, tripping over her daughter’s body, ran headlong into the kitchen.

Lucy rose and went upstairs to fetch Alison. Binny knelt on hands and knees and picked up tobacco grains from the floor.

A low keening began outside in the street. Hands clutching the rail, clouds scudding above her bowed head, Mrs Papastavrou swayed backwards and forwards.

It was as well, thought Binny, that the Simpsons weren’t coming until eight o’clock. Edward pretended that he didn’t mind about Mrs Papastavrou, that he’d grown used to her. But he hadn’t. He stood well back from the window, both saddened and embarrassed, while the children snickered with laughter and the old lady, marooned on her balcony, wailed like a banshee.

‘Alison won’t,’ said Lucy, coming back into the room.

‘Well, make her,’ shouted Binny, stamping her foot. She was beginning to breathe quite heavily. ‘I would be grateful if you would get your own things together as well. Have you got your nightdress?’

‘Don’t be bloody wet,’ said Lucy. She went to the table and tore at a french loaf with her teeth.

‘I don’t want to remind you of the shirt I bought you,’ Binny said. ‘Or the pair of shoes costing twenty-four pounds that you said you couldn’t live without and promptly gave to your friend Soggy. When I was your age I was grateful if my mother gave me a smile.’

‘I lent them, you fool,’ corrected Lucy.

Binny’s voice became shrill. ‘I’ve long since given up expecting gratitude or common courtesy, but I do expect you to get Alison and yourself out of the house. It’s little enough to ask, God knows.’

‘Keep your lid on,’ said Lucy. She began to comb her hair at the mirror. Strands of hair and crumbs of bread fell to the hearth. Binny could feel a pulse beating in her throat. She burned with fury. No wonder she never put on an ounce of weight. The daily aggravation the children caused her was probably comparable to a five-mile run or an hour with the skipping rope. Clutching the region of her heart and fighting for self-control, she said insincerely, ‘Darling, you can be very sensitive and persuasive. Just tell her Sybil’s waiting and that there’s ice cream and things.’

Lucy strolled into the hall and called loudly, ‘Come down, Alison, or I’ll bash your teeth in.’

After several minutes a sound of barking was heard on the first-floor landing.