The Green Flash (10 page)

Yet there was this terrific charm that worked part of the time even for his son. When I was nine he bought a marvellous new 3-litre drop-head Alvis in dove grey. It was a great car, very hard sprung – like a bed of nails – and if you tried to do more than ninety-five in it it would begin to smell of oil. But it was about the fastest thing up to ninety that I've ever known. Or it seemed so; you slipped up to eighty without knowing you were moving. My mother would usually be beside him and I would be in the back seat, my nose pushed forward almost touching their shoulders as we beat it up. Those were good days.

But gradually the old bottle tipping grew more frequent. Once a month became once a week, then oftener. In the early days I used to be scared out of my wits, not only at being locked in the dark but knowing what came next, waiting for the sound of the footstep. But later I toughened up to it. I used to put on a deadpan look that would infuriate him; and I'd not open my mouth for anything; after all, I'd get the same lamming anyhow. He used to try to beat me harder, I suppose to see if I'd blub; but fortunately he was usually so far gassed by then that his strength was half spent when he began.

Half the time my mother was hypnotized by him, as I was, totally under his influence, under his thumb. If he said the sun shone, it shone; if he said not, not. Yet other times she really let go about him. When he wasn't there, when he was away for the night, she would whistle, and I'd slide out of my bed, cross the landing, and crawl in beside her. Then she'd say frightful things about him in the dark, whispering as if he might hear, though we both knew he was miles away. She'd stroke my face and arms, and I'd push against her nightdress, feeling the softness of her and the warmth. And we'd spend all night together in rich, comfortable sleep.

After he died it all changed. There was a sort of resentment even before she remarried – as if I'd done her an injury by being so loving to her. A lot changed after my father died.

Then we all went to live in Quemby and her belly swelled, and soon there were these two daughters, Edna and Marjorie; and when I went home from school I used to find four strangers waiting for me and living a life I was no part of.

As I say, this night that Derek came I had the old familiar dream, but somehow, as happened nowadays, it was all mixed up with the time I spent in jug and the slamming of the cell door. Anyway I woke up eventually in a muck sweat and sat up and groped around as usual looking for reassurance; the table top, the telephone, the bedside light. When this came on I felt certain at last that this wasn't the cupboard, this wasn't the cell, this was the new bedroom in the new flat in Red Place; and the curtains were shabby and didn't match the furniture, and there were a couple of magazines on the floor where I'd dropped them last night, and a glass of water I'd nearly tipped over in my fumblings, and the clock said half past six.

I lay back breathing the muck out of my lungs. Somehow sleep still seemed vaguely threatening, so I opted for a cigarette.

I chewed over to myself the significance of these nightmares. I tried to decide how much of it had actually happened to me.
Certainly
the cell; certainly the cupboard door. Of
course
it was all true! But how much of it did the nightmare exaggerate? Had it all happened exactly like that to me in the past, or had I partly been dreaming about a dream?

I

The day after Derek left – with no encouragement from me for any of his nefarious schemes – I took an hour off from work and went to Harrods to see about new curtain material. The present stuff was like old sackcloth; what I wanted was a good clear yellow, something lively. The new flat was light, but London gets its overload of dark days. I found some figured silk at a sky-high price per yard, but it looked just the job, so having fingered the material and held it to the light and made a swift guess at the hole it was going to make in my overdraft, I looked around for an assistant. In the distance was a dark trim young gent deep in conversation with a fat woman about some cushions. Nearer, a female assistant was on the telephone. Five or six other people milled about variously concerned with looking after themselves. I waited. I looked at my watch. Choosing this particular stuff, plus a hold-up finding a parking place, had taken longet than expected. There was a brush I had to have with Shona when she got back – to do with marketing Faunus – and she was due at three thirty. It was now three fifteen.

Of course there was no great hurry. She would be there until four thirty.

I walked into the next department and said to a personage: ‘Pardon me, can you help me over some curtain material I want to buy.'

The personage looked at me. ‘I'm afraid that isn't my department, sir. I'm sure someone will be free in a few moments.'

‘I've been more than a few moments,' I said.

‘Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I'll try to find someone to attend to you.'

I wandered back to the curtain material. The lady assistant was still on the telephone. The other one had changed his tack with the fat woman and seemed to be trying to interest her in a bedspread. I fingered the material and let it fall back. It was about a quarter roll, a bit more than I should want. I looked at my watch. Three twenty-five. The assistant on the telephone had stopped bleeping but was holding the receiver to her ear, a hard-worked, patient expression on her face. With her free hand she tapped her order book.

It was three twenty-seven. I picked up the roll of material, put it under my arm and walked out of the department. It was long and quite heavy, and you certainly couldn't hide it. Two women were arguing about a linen ruffle but didn't raise their heads. I sidestepped them and walked past them, through the television department to the lift. No one took any notice. There were stairs just round the corner, but I waited for the lift. Presently it came. It was half full of shoppers but they were all concerned with their own affairs. One small boy did stare at me with a fair amount of interest but he made no comment.

The lift reached the ground floor and belched out its passengers. I walked through the various departments to the side door and went out. My car was just round the corner. I threw the curtain material into the passenger seat and drove off.

II

As it happened I was in for a bigger brush with Shona than I expected. It began on the Faunus thing, of course, but halfway through she told me she was of the opinion that I was intent on cheapening the reputation of the firm.

Then it all came out. It was the talcum powder I'd ordered last week. I'd made it grade five instead of grade one, and only accidentally it had come to her notice. Certainly John Carreros could never have told the difference. But now that it had come to light, they were both furious.

I said: ‘You know as well as I do how many grades there are. Let's not deceive ourselves. If we'd changed from deep-mined talc to the open-cast, sterilized stuff you could say I wasn't playing fair by the customer; but first to fifth is really a distinction without a difference. And it saves us money. I am trying to save
you
money, not make money for myself. In bulk buying –'

‘I know very well what it saves in bulk buying; but I will not have it. Please understand that. You know that some talc carries the spores of tetanus. Would you want –'

‘Shona, don't wave that bogey in my face. Fifth grade is as safe as first. You want the best of both worlds – expansion, bigger sales, bigger profits, fine! – but you still expect to run the place as if it were a – corner shop selling home-made toffee!'

She tapped her foot, but the thick-pile carpet soaked up the annoyance. ‘You argue like a crook, David. I told you from the beginning that if bulk manufacture meant lowered quality then, whatever the sales, you would have failed! So you want to fail, is that it? You can't do what you said you could do, not because it is impossible but because it is not in your character to do it!'

I knew I was in the wrong, but that doesn't make you any more reasonable at the time. The row made me forget altogether about the roll of stuff in my flat, and it was not until I got home late that evening that I saw it and stared at it with critical memory.

The following morning I put the material against the present curtains and up to the light. It was very grand. Too grand for a top-floor flat. It would have looked fine in Shona's lush drawing-room. Derek would have loved it. I ate my breakfast and went off to Bond Street, where I was to spend most of the day, but at eleven returned to the flat. I picked up the roll and put it in my car and drove to Harrods.

Parking was even more difficult than yesterday, and I had to walk quite a way through the streets with the roll under my arm. Fortunately it wasn't raining.

Through the enormous food halls, find the lift, and up to the second floor. The state of play seemed very much the same as yesterday, except that the second assistant wasn't on the telephone; she was leafing in a depressed way through a pile of papers at the pay desk. I went across and put the roll of material back on the pile where I'd found it yesterday. It didn't seem the time to consider another choice, so I turned away.

‘Excuse me, sir,' said a voice. ‘ Can I help you?'

It was the assistant who yesterday had been in spirited conversation with the fat old girl.

I said: ‘This material; afraid it isn't right. The colour's too strong. I've just had it to the daylight to make sure.'

He hesitated, his face a notable study.

‘I thought … You brought it from the lift, sir?'

‘Yes. I wanted to make quite certain. But I'm afraid it isn't right. Too bright for my flat.'

‘Ah.' We both stood there a few seconds. I made no move to leave. ‘Can I interest you in something else, then?'

‘Not this morning; I haven't the time. I shall come earlier tomorrow. If you'll give me your card I'll ask for you.'

‘Thank you, sir.' A card was reluctantly offered. He was still flatulent with suspicion. It could be that someone had noticed the disappearance of the roll. But there was nothing he could do. No one can be accused of
returning
a bolt of material.

I nodded and left him.

The next morning I was there at nine thirty and bought something less high-society. I don't trunk he had ever expected to see me again, and it gave me a special pleasure to turn up.

All the same I was aware that I had been playing the juvenile delinquent again.

III

Somewhere along the line people began to speak of Shona and David. It began that year but it was more common the next. We were a couple working together in harness, building and expanding as we went. John got left behind.

He was a hard man to read, but most of the time he played along. Now and then I caught him looking at me over the top of his Robin Day spectacles and I wondered if he was biding his time. I was helping to lead his firm in a direction he didn't really want it to go, and if I put a foot wrong he might kick the other from under me. Particularly if I started making it with his wife. Late in the day I heard tales of two other young men who had been in the firm in the early years and had left. No one knew what had happened to them so I couldn't ask them for details. There was also a report that Shona had had an affair with some young marquess, but that had been over for a while.

An American called Barton was appointed as our potential representative in the States, and I went across a couple of times to see how he was getting on. Shona would not come with me, said she would fly over only when the project was fully ready to be launched. Once or twice I brought her back presents: terribly discreet things like a desk set in red morocco with ‘Shona' on it in gold leaf.

The con man with a dirk in his stocking had deteriorated into a sleek executive type expanding a business and initiating an export drive, flying to New York first-class in his pinstripe.

I saw a bit of Caroline Rowton, who'd had a disastrous love affair and wanted someone's shoulder to weep on. And once or twice I had mild, brief affairs of my own. In so far as I like any company I like the company of attractive women; I enjoy taking them out, giving them a good time, just talking to them and listening to them. But unfortunately there usually comes a point at a quiet dinner where a girl lets out a spark. If it doesn't ignite in you she isn't really happy to go on enjoying the dinner and leaving it platonic. She thinks there's been something disappointing in her, disappointing to you, that is. And it worries her. Or else she thinks there's something wrong with you. More than once in those years I've found myself sleeping with a girl more out of politeness than passion. I'd as soon have gone to bed with a good book.

For holidays I started popping off to Barbados. I hit on an excellent hotel first time and stuck to it. Good beach, just tolerable company, good sunshine, good food and no temptation to gamble my salary away, as sometimes happened in London.

Shona and I talked and argued much more on a personal level now – and on a more or less equal basis that could register a disagreement without ill will. Although committed to the expansion she was still influenced by John, still kept turning her head to look over her shoulder at the old ways, the aristocratic advantages of scarcity, the principle of restricted supply and restricted outlets, the fact that when a woman opened her handbag and took out a Shona lipstick knowledgeable people would be aware that she could only have bought it at one of a few exclusive shops.

When we had disagreements they were hardly ever aired at the monthly get-togethers which took place in the new assembly room at the Stevenage factory; they'd brew up before or after in the semi-privacy of her own office. But because of the none-too-thick walls, these set-tos were conducted in the lowered voices of terrorists about to plant a bomb, and this made it all the more difficult to work up a temper over them. Once she hissed at me: ‘Go to hell, you stupid little man!' and then seeing how comic it was she burst out laughing.