Pure as the Lily (24 page)

It was ten years since she had last seen him in the shop. She had seen him once or twice during that time in the street with a girl, a pretty girl. She didn’t know whether she was the one who had become his wife because she had only caught a glimpse of her that day at the funeral.

He waited until the rest of the customers were served before he came to the counter. He did not ask for anything straightaway but looked at her and said, “How are you faring?”

“Oh, not too bad, Mr. Amesden. And how are you yourself?” He jerked his head.

“Putting up with it “ How is your wife? “

“Oh, she’s taken it pretty badly. She ... we thought the world of her, Christine, you know.” As she put in, “Yes, yes, I know,” she wanted to add, “But there’s one solution for you and your wife, you can have others.” But she didn’t, because she knew that would be no solace at the moment.

They stared at each other over the counter, then she said, “It’s getting dark,” and moved from behind the counter to the window where she pulled the middle black-out blinds down, drew the grey blanket curtain across the door, then switched on the light. All the while he watched her, until she lifted the hatch and went behind the counter again. Then, looking steadily at her, he said quietly, “I was very sorry to hear about your husband and son. I... I didn’t know him but I’d heard of him, he was highly respected.”

“Yes, yes, he was.”

“And... and I’ve popped in the day because ... well, I’ve just heard you lost your grandmother and grandfather at the same time. That was a terrible blow.”

“Thank you, it was kind of you. Yes, it was a terrible blow.” He smiled faintly at her.

“I remember the old people. You used to go round there a lot. I used to see you when we walked round there, Paul Connelly and I. You may remember him?”

“Oh yes; Paul Connelly.”

“He went down with his ship last year No!”

Tes. “

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“He was an only son an’ all. It... it seems years since those days, doesn’t it, the times when we used to meet on the streets?”

She stared at him, her eyes widening slightly. The times they’d met on the streets, he said, yet he’d never opened his mouth to her;

only once in all those years had he said “Hello’. She remembered the card from a silent admirer. She had it upstairs somewhere now. Jimmy had brought it when he had sneaked her few possessions out of the house.

She wondered if it were he who had sent it. But no, no; it would have been Paul, Paul Connelly.

The shop bell rang and two children entered.

He said now, “Well, I just wanted to say how sorry I was.”

“Thank you, Mr. Amesden.”

He still continued to look at her and when she glanced back from the children to him he said quietly, I never thought I’d want to get back into the thick of it again. I was discharged last year. “ He tapped his chest.

“A bit of shrapnel did its best to stop me breath.” He smiled weakly.

“But now, every hour of the day I crave to be back.”

She nodded at him as she said, “I know how you feel, it’s had the same effect on me, but, but in a different way.”

“Well’—he moved a step from the counter “ I’ll say goodbye. “

“Bye-bye, Mr. Amesden.”

When he had gone she stared at the door for a moment before saying to the children, “Yes, what can I get you, hinny?”

And as she served them she thought that he hadn’t come to buy anything, he had come just to pay his respects. That was nice of him.

And he had remembered ten years ago, ten years ago when they had been young,
Chapter Seven

life for Jimmy on the surface looked as if it had slipped back into the normal. The weeks passed and ran into months; spring came and went; the war would soon be over, victory was in sight; D-Day had taken place in June, everyone in the world who had access to the wireless and the B. B. G. knew all about the beach-head at Arromanches. People still talked of Monte Casino that had been taken in May, and it was prophesied that the war would be over by Christmas, that is Hitler’s war there was, of course, still the Japs. Things were going marvellously Jerry was on the run men were still dying in their hundreds but things were going marvellously.

Jimmy taught as well as ever; at least he thought he did. His temper was apt to flare up a little more often, but that was the only difference he noticed in himself, in his relationship with his pupils, and the fact that he didn’t joke with them now, except on rare occasions.

Then something happened that altered the view he had of his whole future and brought a glow to him; the glow was dim and distant, but it was there nevertheless.

Albert Briggs died, he was killed. He was working on the deck of a ship when the chain slipped from a loading crane. It wrapped round his body like a snake and he was dead when they picked him up.

He commiserated with Mrs. Briggs but did not go to the funeral, although he could have, since it took place on a Saturday morning.

Mrs. Briggs became the talk of the street, and of his own home, because she had gone to her husband’s funeral in her ordinary clothes, without even a black band around the arm of her grey coat.

Indecent! Betty said. It was thoroughly indecent. But then she was bats. She had certainly earned her name of Doo-lally-tap, if anybody had. Everybody knew clothes were hard to come by, but she could have worn a black band, couldn’t she?

“Perhaps,” Jimmy put in quietly, “she’s not a hypocrite.”

“Of course you would stick up for her.” Betty came back at him, and he looked at her and replied quietly, “Of course.”

He had seen Lally only three or four times since the night of the dustbin episode until Briggs’s death.

The first time he had met her he had thanked her for coming to the court and she had said, “Well, it was as little as I could do, Mr.

Walton. “ Twice he had walked home with her in the blackout. But on each occasion he had been sober and so had not read poetry, or tried to explain its mysteries, to her.

But following Briggs’s death he made a point of going to a certain public house near High Street where he had seen her the last time they had met. On Tuesday and Friday nights, when he would stroll casually in, there, seated in the corner of the saloon, would be Mrs. Briggs, and he would say, “Oh, hello there, Mrs. Briggs,” as if he was surprised to see her. And she would reply, “Oh, hello, Mr. Walton. How are you?” Then he would say, “Do you mind if I sit down?” and she would answer, “No, of course not, Mr. Walton. Not at all.”

The polite addressing of each other became laughable, until last Tuesday night he had said to her, ‘you know it’s daft, this Mr. Walton and Mrs. Briggs. I’m going to call you Lally. “

“Oh!” She blushed like a girl as she replied, “That’s nice of you, Mister Wal—’ And then they had laughed together.

“What’s your real name?”

“Jessie. I used to be Jessie MacAnulty; it was Albert who gave me the nickname of Lally. I didn’t like it at first because Doo-lally-tap means ... you know.” She tapped her temple with her finger.

“I’m not very bright, but on the other hand I’m bright enough to know that I’m not what it means, ami?” He looked at her sadly for a moment, and he hated Briggs as he conjured him up in his mind. Yet the man might only have said it in a joke when she had done something silly:

“Aw! you’re Doo-lally-tap.” But he had kept it up, and others had picked it up, and it had stuck.

“Not that I mind really,” she said.

“I’ll call you Jessie,” he said.

“No, no, call me Lally. I like Lally, it’s soft soundin’.” She flapped her hand out to him.

“The things I say. I condemn me self don’t I?

That’s what they say, the prisoner condemned himself out of his own mouth. “ He didn’t answer but he gas’ed at her, into her blue eyes, her kind blue eyes. Her big blonde face looked washed out, pale.

“How old are you, Lally?” he asked.

Twenty-five, going on twenty-six, but . but I know I look older. “ She smiled pathetically.

“I’ve just got to look in the glass an’ I know I look older.... It’s the misses you see, miscarriages,” she explained to him in a whisper, and he nodded at her as he thought. And Briggs’s fist to help things along.

Tunny about names, you know. I bet you don’t believe me’—she was leaning across the little table towards him Taut I don’t know yours, honest, honest I don’t.

You don’t? “

“No. No, not your first name. Sometimes I’ve listened to try and catch it, well you know when, when your wife’s’.... She lowered her head and shook it from side to side, then she raised it and, looking at him, finished quietly, “ We all go on at times, but I could never catch it. “ His own face was soft now as he gazed back at her. She had listened trying to catch his name while Betty was going for him. But if she had read the court report she would have known.

“It’s Jimmy.”

“Jim-my! jimmy! No.”

Yes. What’s wrong with Jimmy! “ He drew himself up in mock indignation.

Well! “ Her full bust wobbled as she tossed herself from side to side.

“Jimmy! Aw now’—she put out her hand, her face serious—” no offence meant, but Jimmy! anybody could be called Jimmy. Jimmy. well, it’s ordinary. “

“I’m ordinary.”

“No, no, Mr....” She laughed again, then went on softly, “No, you’re not ordinary.” They were gazing at each other silently when the barman came in and asked for their order.

After a while he said, “What are you going to do now?”

“Oh, just carry on. I’m goin’ back to me job. The doctor says I shouldn’t for a few weeks, I’ve got debility, but I get

fed up in the house. The days are long, and you can’t keep cleanin’ all the time, can you? “ Don’t mind me asking,” he said, ‘but how are you off?”

“Oh, I’m all right.” She looked at him without speaking for a moment “It’s nice of you to ask. But shortly I’ll be better off than ever I’ve been in me life, they’re going to give me com pen for Albert. And then’—her chin flopped on to her chest and her body shook with silent laughter before she raised her head slowly and looked at him from under her eyelids “ I can go daft again. I go daft when I have money you know. I just want to go out and buy and buy. Not that you can buy much now; but it’s like a craze I just want to spend. I don’t want to buy things for myself so much, you know, but I like buyin’ presents, givin’ things. “

She was one big present Just being herself she was one big present. He wanted to stretch out his aims and pull her into him, feel the bigness, the softness, the warm ness of her.

As they had walked home through the black-out he had kept a distance from her, not letting his arm touch hers.

When they entered the lobby Betty was at the door and at the sight of him she turned her back and marched into the house, and as he followed her he said, “I met her at the corner of the street.” You’re a damned liar! “

“All right, I’m a damned liar.”

Do you know what you are? “

What am I? “ He began taking his clothes off.

“You’re a bloody fool. People are talking, they’re laughing. Mam says they’re laughing about the school teacher being seen with a woman like her, Doo-lally-tap! But if you want my opinion there’s not much to choose between you. There’s a couple of you, both doo-lally-taps. But let me tell you, you’re not going to show me up. I’m wa ming you now, if you don’t stop seeing her I’ll....”

“Yes, Betty?” His voice was quiet, ordinary.

“Oh!” She gripped the rolling pin that was lying to the side of the draining board, and he said, still quietly, “I’ve warned

you, Betty, never to throw anything; the repercussions might be surprising. “ That was last Thursday, over a week ago, and every night since she had been at him, and he had seen neither hilt nor hair of Lally. She hadn’t been in the pub this Thursday, so he guessed she couldn’t be well. He had nobody of whom he could inquire and so had been tempted to knock on the door and find out what was wrong with her. But on six of the seven nights he had arrived home from school he had found his mother already in the house. The bone of her contention and her main topic now, as it had been for months, was the fact that Alee and Mary were together.

“Shame to waste two houses on them!” she said in one breath, and in another, “That bitch has just taken him in to spite me further.”

His mind became like a battlefield, his principal enemies being Betty and his mother, but their reinforcements were many and came in the shape of the Headmaster who sent for him at least once a week about some petty misdemeanour, some members of the Common Room, and on the fringe of them, arrayed in all their young armour, the boys, nerveracking, bloody, although he told himself he shouldn’t hold anything against the kids. Except one or two like Crock—ford. And Crockford, that young swine!

had better look out, he was getting under his skin.

It was Friday afternoon again. The exercise for this after noon had been an essay, the subject to be chosen from past School Certificate papers, or alternatively, a poem.

As he said, “Well, Youlden; let’s hear it, your epic,” he thought to himself. Five past three, just another hour.

Today, more than ever, each individual nerve in his body had a frayed end, each seemed to be rubbing against the skin causing him to twitch.

Twice when his neck jerked upwards out of his collar he had drawn the eyes of some of the boys towards him. Little Felton had looked at him with some concern, and Burrows had stared at him so long that he had indicated with a pointing finger that he continue with his work.

His head was muzzy, he felt tired. He had been fire-watching till late, and then, when he had got to bed, he hadn’t closed his eyes until five o’clock this morning. When the alarm went he couldn’t believe he had to get up. He hated getting up in the morning, for the torment would start again.

He wished he could unburden himself, really unburden himself to Mary, tell her about Lally and how he felt, but he knew that he was afraid of the look he would see on her face because, at one time, he had laughed about Lally; like everybody else he had made game of her. And anyway, Mary had her hands full at present. She seemed changed since Ben had gone. Naturally, she would be; but she was making life harder for herself. Cousin Annie had played up since Mary’s rethinking on the ration business. And then there was his da, gliding like a lost soul about the house, wanting to be helpful, yet only succeeding in being ineffectual in whatever he did.