New and Collected Stories (11 page)

I smiled. ‘Fancy you remembering that.' But she didn't look as though she had much of a life. Her eyes lacked that spark of humour that often soared up into the bonfire of a laugh. The lines around them now served only as an indication of age and passing time. ‘I'm glad to hear you're taking care of yourself.'

She met my eyes for the first time. ‘You was never very excitable, was you, Harry?'

‘No,' I replied truthfully, ‘not all that much.'

‘You should have been,' she said, though in an empty sort of way, ‘then we might have hit it off a bit better.'

‘Too late now,' I put in, getting the full blow-through of my words. ‘I was never one for rows and trouble, you know that. Peace is more my line.'

She made a joke at which we both laughed. ‘Like that bloke Chamberlain!' – then moved a plate to the middle of the table and laid her elbows on the cloth. ‘I've been looking after myself for the last three years.'

It may be one of my faults, but I get a bit curious sometimes. ‘What's happened to that housepainter of yours then?' I asked this question quite naturally though, because I didn't feel I had anything to reproach her with. She'd gone away, and that was that. She hadn't left me in the lurch with a mountain of debts or any such thing. I'd always let her do what she liked.

‘I see you've got a lot of books,' she remarked, noticing one propped against the sauce bottle, and two more on the sideboard.

‘They pass the time on,' I replied, striking a match because my pipe had gone out. ‘I like reading.'

She didn't say anything for a while. Three minutes I remember, because I was looking across at the clock on the dresser. The news would have been on the wireless, and I'd missed the best part of it. It was getting interesting because of the coming war. I didn't have anything else to do but think this while I was waiting for her to speak. ‘He died of lead-poisoning,' she told me. ‘He did suffer a lot, and he was only forty-two. They took him away to the hospital a week before he died.'

I couldn't say I was sorry, though it was impossible to hold much against him. I just didn't know the chap. ‘I don't think I've got a fag in the place to offer you,' I said, looking on the mantelpiece in case I might find one, though knowing I wouldn't. She moved when I passed her on my search, scraping her chair along the floor. ‘No, don't bother to shift. I can get by.'

‘It's all right,' she said. ‘I've got some here' – feeling in her pocket and bringing out a crumpled five-packet. ‘Have one, Harry?'

‘No thanks. I haven't smoked a fag in twenty years. You know that. Don't you remember how I started smoking a pipe? When we were courting. You gave me one for my birthday and told me to start smoking it because it would make me look more distinguished! So I've smoked one ever since. I got used to it quick enough, and I like it now. I'd never be without it in fact.'

As if it were yesterday! But maybe I was talking too much, for she seemed a bit nervous while lighting her fag. I don't know why it was, because she didn't need to be in my house. ‘You know, Harry,' she began, looking at the fishing-boat picture, nodding her head towards it, ‘I'd like to have that' – as though she'd never wanted anything so much in her life.

‘Not a bad picture, is it?' I remember saying. ‘It's nice to have pictures on the wall, not to look at especially, but they're company. Even when you're not looking at them you know they're there. But you can take it if you like.'

‘Do you mean that?' she asked, in such a tone that I felt sorry for her for the first time.

‘Of course. Take it. I've got no use for it. In any case I can get another picture if I want one, or put a war map up.' It was the only picture on that wall, except for the wedding photo on the sideboard below. But I didn't want to remind her of the wedding picture for fear it would bring back memories she didn't like. I hadn't kept it there for sentimental reasons, so perhaps I should have dished it. ‘Did you have any kids?'

‘No,' she said, as if not interested. ‘But I don't like taking your picture, and I'd rather not if you think all that much of it.' We sat looking over each other's shoulder for a long time. I wondered what had happened during these ten years to make her talk so sadly about the picture. It was getting dark outside. Why didn't she shut up about it, just take the bloody thing? So I offered it to her again, and to settle the issue unhooked it, dusted the back with a cloth, wrapped it up in brown paper, and tied the parcel with the best post-office string. ‘There you are,' I said, brushing the pots aside, laying it on the table at her elbows.

‘You're very good to me, Harry.'

‘Good! I like that. What does a picture more or less in the house matter? And what does it mean to me, anyway?' I can see now that we were giving each other hard knocks in a way we'd never learned to do when living together. I switched on the electric light. As she seemed uneasy when it showed everything up clearly in the room, I offered to switch it off again.

‘No, don't bother' – standing to pick up her parcel. ‘I think I'll be going now. Happen I'll see you some other time.'

‘Drop in whenever you feel like it.' Why not? We weren't enemies. She undid two buttons of her coat, as though having them loose would make her look more at ease and happy in her clothes, then waved to me. ‘So long.'

‘Good night, Kathy.' It struck me that she hadn't smiled or laughed once the whole time she'd been there, so I smiled to her as she turned for the door, and what came back wasn't the bare-faced cheeky grin I once knew, but a wry parting of the lips moving more for exercise than humour. She must have been through it, I thought, and she's above forty now.

So she went. But it didn't take me long to get back to my book.

A few mornings later I was walking up St Ann's Well Road delivering letters. My round was taking me a long time, for I had to stop at almost every shop. It was raining, a fair drizzle, and water rolled off my cape, soaking my trousers below the knees so that I was looking forward to a mug of tea back in the canteen and hoping they'd kept the stove going. If I hadn't been so late on my round I'd have dropped into a café for a cup.

I'd just taken a pack of letters into a grocer's and, coming out, saw the fishing-boat picture in the next-door pawnshop window, the one I'd given Kathy a few days ago. There was no mistaking it, leaning back against ancient spirit-levels, bladeless planes, rusty hammers, trowels, and a violin case with the strap broken. I recognized a chip in the gold-painted woodwork near the bottom left corner of its frame.

For half a minute I couldn't believe it, was unable to make out how it had got there, then saw the first day of my married life and a sideboard loaded with presents, prominent among them this surviving triplet of a picture looking at me from the wreckage of other lives. And here it is, I thought, come down to a bloody nothing. She must have sold it that night before going home, pawnshops always keeping open late on a Friday so that women could get their husbands' suits out of pop for the week-end. Or maybe she'd sold it this morning, and I was only half an hour behind her on my round. Must have been really hard up. Poor Kathy, I thought. Why hadn't she asked me to let her have a bob or two?

I didn't think much about what I was going to do next. I never do, but went inside and stood at the shop counter waiting for a grey-haired doddering skinflint to sort out the popped bundles of two thin-faced women hovering to make sure he knew they were pawning the best stuff. I was impatient. The place stank of old clothes and mildewed junk after coming out of the fresh rain, and besides I was later than ever now on my round. The canteen would be closed before I got back, and I'd miss my morning tea.

The old man shuffled over at last, his hand out. ‘Got any letters?'

‘Nowt like that, feyther. I'd just like to have a look at that picture you've got in your window, the one with a ship on it.' The women went out counting what few shillings he'd given them, stuffing pawn-tickets in their purses, and the old man came back carrying the picture as if it was worth five quid.

Shock told me she'd sold it right enough, but belief lagged a long way behind, so I looked at it well to make sure it really was the one. A price marked on the back wasn't plain enough to read. ‘How much do you want for it?'

‘You can have it for four bob.'

Generosity itself. But I'm not one for bargaining. I could have got it for less, but I'd rather pay an extra bob than go through five minutes of chinning. So I handed the money over, and said I'd call back for the picture later.

Four measly bob, I said to myself as I sloshed on through the rain. The robbing bastard. He must have given poor Kathy about one and six for it. Three pints of beer for the fishing-boat picture.

I don't know why, but I was expecting her to call again the following, week. She came on Thursday, at the same time, and was dressed in the usual way: summer frock showing through her brown winter coat whose buttons she couldn't leave alone, telling me how nervous she was. She'd had a drink or two on her way, and before coming into the house stopped off at the lavatory outside. I'd been late for work, and hadn't quite finished my tea, asked her if she could do with a cup. ‘I don't feel like it,' came the answer. ‘I had one not long ago.'

I emptied the coal scuttle on the fire. ‘Sit down nearer the warmth. It's a bit nippy tonight.'

She agreed that it was, then looked up at the fishing-boat picture on the wall. I'd been waiting for this, wondered what she'd say when she did, but there was no surprise at seeing it back in the old place, which made me feel a bit disappointed. ‘I won't be staying long tonight,' was all she said. ‘I've got to see somebody at eight.'

Not a word about the picture. ‘That's all right. How's your work going?'

‘Putrid,' she answered nonchalantly, as though my question had been out of place. ‘I got the sack, for telling the forewoman where to get off.'

‘Oh,' I said, getting always to say ‘Oh' when I wanted to hide my feelings, though it was a safe bet that whenever I did say ‘Oh' there wasn't much else to come out with.

I had an idea she might want to live in my house again seeing she'd lost her job. If she wanted to she could. And she wouldn't be afraid to ask, even now. But I wasn't going to mention it first. Maybe that was my mistake, though I'll never know. ‘A pity you got the sack,' I put in.

Her eyes were on the picture again, until she asked: ‘Can you lend me half-a-crown?'

‘Of course I can' – emptied my trouser pocket, sorted out half-a-crown, and passed it across to her. Five pints. She couldn't think of anything to say, shuffled her feet to some soundless tune in her mind. ‘Thanks very much.'

‘Don't mention it,' I said with a smile. I remembered buying a packet of fags in case she'd want one, which shows how much I'd expected her back. ‘Have a smoke?' – and she took one, struck a match on the sole of her shoe before I could get her a light myself.

‘I'll give you the half-crown next week, when I get paid.' That's funny, I thought. ‘I got a job as soon as I lost the other one,' she added, reading my mind before I had time to speak. ‘It didn't take long. There's plenty of war work now. Better money as well.'

‘I suppose all the firms'll be changing over soon.' It occurred to me that she could claim some sort of allowance from me – for we were still legally married – instead of coming to borrow half-a-crown. It was her right, and I didn't need to remind her; I wouldn't be all that much put out if she took me up on it. I'd been single – as you might say – for so many years that I hadn't been able to stop myself from putting a few quid by. ‘I'll be going now,' she said, standing up to fasten her coat.

‘Sure you won't have a cup of tea?'

‘No thanks. Want to catch the trolley back to Sneinton.' I said I'd show her to the door. ‘Don't bother. I'll be all right.' She stood waiting for me, looking at the picture on the wall above the sideboard. ‘It's a nice picture you've got up there. I always liked it a lot.'

I made the old joke: ‘Yes, but it's the last of the fleet.'

‘That's why I like it.' Not a word about having sold it for eighteen pence.

I showed her out, mystified.

She came to see me every week, all through the war, always on Thursday night at about the same time. We talked a bit, about the weather, the war, her job and my job, never anything important. Often we'd sit for a long time looking into the fire from our different stations in the room, me by the hearth and Kathy a bit further away at the table as if she'd just finished a meal, both of us silent yet not uneasy in it. Sometimes I made a cup of tea, sometimes not. I suppose now that I think of it I could have got a pint of beer in for when she came, but it never occurred to me. Not that I think she felt the lack of it, for it wasn't the sort of thing she expected to see in my house anyway.

She never missed coming once, even though she often had a cold in the winter and would have been better off in bed. The blackout and shrapnel didn't stop her either. In a quiet off-handed sort of way we got to enjoy ourselves and looked forward to seeing each other again, and maybe they were the best times we ever had together in our lives. They certainly helped us through the long monotonous dead evenings of the war.

She was always dressed in the same brown coat, growing shabbier and shabbier. And she wouldn't leave without borrowing a few shillings. Stood up: ‘Er … lend's half-a-dollar, Harry.' Given, sometimes with a joke: ‘Don't get too drunk on it, will you?' – never responded to, as if it were bad manners to joke about a thing like that. I didn't get anything back of course, but then, I didn't miss such a dole either. So I wouldn't say no when she asked me, and as the price of beer went up she increased the amount to three bob then to three-and-six and, finally, just before she died, to four bob. It was a pleasure to be able to help her. Besides, I told myself, she has no one else. I never asked questions as to where she was living, though she did mention a time or two that it was still up Sneinton way. Neither did I at any time see her outside at a pub or picture house; Nottingham is a big town in many ways.