The Red Door (12 page)

The case looked very cheap and cracked and was stuffed to the brim. It amazed her to see how much they could cram into their cases and how neat and tidy they were.

‘Fine day, missus,’ he said, looking up and flashing his white teeth.

‘Would you like a glass of milk?’ she asked.

‘Thank you very much, missus.’ He pronounced his consonants in a very strange manner: of course, they didn’t know English well, goodness knew where they came from. She handed
him a tall cold tumbler of milk and watched as he took it delicately in his dark hand, the blackness contrasting very strongly with the white of the milk. He drank it very quickly and handed it
back to her, then began to put stuff on the floor.

‘Silk scarf. Blue,’ he said. ‘Very nice.’ He held it up against the light in which the silk looked cold.

‘It is very nice,’ she said in her precise English.

He stopped.

‘You no from here?’ – as if he had heard some tone of strangeness in her voice.

‘No. No from here,’ she half-imitated him.

‘I am from Pakistan,’ he said, bending down again so that she could only see the bluish turban. ‘I am a student,’ he added.

She could hardly make out what he was saying, he spoke in such a guttural way.

‘Are you a student?’ she said at last.

‘Student in law,’ he said as if that made everything plain. He took out a yellow pullover and left it on the floor for her to look at. She shook her head: it was very nice wool, she
thought, picking it up and letting her hands caress it, but she had no use for it. She supposed that Pakistan must be very warm and yet he appeared hot as if the weather didn’t agree with
him. What must it be like for him in the winter?

‘Where you come from then?’ he asked, looking up and smiling with his warm, quick, dark eyes.

‘I come from the north,’ she said slowly.

‘North?’

‘From the Highlands,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ he said, as if he did not fully understand.

‘Do you like here?’ he asked innocently.

‘Do you like here yourself?’ she countered.

He stopped with a scarf in his hand.

‘Not,’ he said and nodded his head. ‘Not. Too cold.’ His eyes brightened. ‘Going back to Pakistan after law. Parents got shop. Big shop in big town.’ He made
a motion with his hands which she presumed indicated the size of the shop.

‘Do you come here often?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’ Nor tinkers. She never saw any tinkers. Up in the Highlands the tinkers would come to the door
quite often, but not here. Drummond their name was, it was a family name.

‘Not often. I’m on vacation, see? Sometimes Saturdays I come. I work in shop in Glasgow to make money for law. For education. This vacation with me.’

She nodded, half understanding, looking down at the clothes. She wondered what the women wore in Pakistan, what they did. She had seen some women with long dresses and pigtails. But was that
India or China?

The stuff he was selling was pretty cheap. ‘Men’s handkerchiefs.’ He held up a bundle of them. She shook her head. ‘Men’s ties,’ he said, holding up a bundle
of them, garish and painted. He looked quickly round the living room, noting the glass, the flowers . . .

‘You live alone, missus?’ he said. She said yes without thinking, wondering why he had asked. Perhaps he would come back later and rob her: you couldn’t tell with anyone these
days.

‘Ah,’ he said, again mopping his brow.

‘City no good,’ he said. ‘Too hot. Too great traffic.’ He smiled warmly, studying her and showing his white teeth. ‘Parents go to mountains in summer in
Pakistan.’

He placed a nightgown on top of the pile: it had a blue ground with small pink flowers woven into it.

‘Nice nightgown,’ he said, holding it up. ‘Cheap. Very cheap. Bargain. For you, missus.’

She held it in her hands and studied it. ‘Too small,’ she said finally. She had one nightgown already she had received from her sister in Canada; it had frills as well, but she never
wore it.

‘Dressing gown then,’ he pursued. ‘Two pound. Good bargain. Nice quality.’ It was far too expensive.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she said at last.

‘No today, missus. Perhaps next time if I come.’

If he came! That meant he might not come again. Of course if he didn’t sell much he wouldn’t come, why should he? And it didn’t look as if he had sold much, what with the case
crammed to the top, the children’s stuff still there, panties, jerseys, little twin sets. They were all intact. The young wives had been avoiding him, that was clear. But they would buy
sweets and cakes all right though they wouldn’t buy clothes for their children. It was scandalous.

‘Knickers,’ he said. ‘Silk knickers.’ He held them, very cool, very silky, letting them run through his fingers, his black fingers.

There was hardly anything else there that she could buy, except for the ladies’ handkerchiefs but she had plenty of these already, some even from the best Irish linen. One always gathered
handkerchiefs, though one hardly ever used them, not these delicate ones anyway.

‘Do you ever go home to Pakistan?’ she asked.

‘Not to Pakistan since I came to this place two years ago. No money.’ He smiled winningly, preparing to return everything to the case. ‘Some day, perhaps. Two year from this
time.’ He held up two fingers. ‘When law finished.’

She watched his black hands busy against the whites and reds and greens. She noticed for the first time that his own clothes were quite cheap; a painted tie, a dirty looking collar, a dark suit
and scuffed shoes, shoes so dusty that it looked as if he had been walking for ever. She was standing by the window, and as she watched him she could see a big red bus flashing and glittering down
the road.

He was really quite young when you studied him. For some reason she thought of the time that Norman had come home drunk at two in the morning after the dance, the sickness in the bathroom under
the hard early-morning light of the bulb, his refusal to get up the following morning for work . . . She wondered if this young man drank. Probably not. There would be some law against it in their
religion. They had a very funny religion, but they were clean-living people, she had heard. They didn’t have churches over there as we had. It was more like temples or things like that.

As he was putting all the clothes back in the case, she put out her hand and picked up the silk knickers, studying them again. She stood at the window looking at them. Lord, how flimsy they
were! Who would wear such things? What delicate airy beings, what sluts, would put these next to their skin? She wouldn’t be seen dead buying that stuff. It wouldn’t even keep out the
winter cold. Yet they were so cool in your hands, so silky, like water running, like a cool stream in the north.

‘How much?’ she said.

‘Fifteen shillings,’ he said looking at her devotedly, his hands resting lightly on the case.

She put them down again.

‘Have you any gents’ socks?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘How much are they?’

‘Five shilling,’ he said. ‘Light socks. Good bargain. Nice.’ He handed over two pairs, one grey, the other brown. As she held them in her hands, stroking them gently, she
realised how inferior they were to her own, she knew that no love had gone into their making. She had never bought a pair of shop socks in her life: she had always knitted Norman’s socks
herself. Why, people used to stop him in the street and admire them, they were so beautiful, so much care had gone into them! And she knew so many patterns too, all those that her mother had taught
her so long ago and so far away. In another country, in another time, in another age.

‘Five shillings,’ she repeated dully. Still, that was about the cheapest thing he had. She said decisively, ‘I’ll take them,’ though her heart was rent at their
cheapness.

She went into the bedroom and took the five shillings out of the shiny black bag, shutting the door in case he might follow her. That left her with three pounds five for the week. Still, in
summer it wasn’t too bad, she didn’t have to use so much electricity and she could save on the coal.

She counted the two silver half-crowns coldly into his warm black hand, and he gave her the socks.

‘Thank you, missus,’ he said. Could she detect just a trace of Glasgow accent behind the words? That displeased her for some reason. He bent down, strapping the case tight, and, when
he was ready to go, he smiled at her radiantly.

‘Will you be coming again?’ she asked, thinking how quickly the hour had passed.

‘Every Tuesday while vacation is on,’ he said, looking out of the window at the traffic and the children playing.

She followed him down the lobby.

‘You sit at window much?’ he said, and she didn’t like that, but she said,

‘Sometimes.’

‘See you Tuesday then,’ he said. ‘Maybe have something else. Something nice.’

She closed the door behind him and heard his steps going downstairs, and it was almost as if she was listening to Norman leaving. She went back to the window, looking down, but she
couldn’t see him: he must be keeping to this side of the street. Later on, however, she saw him crossing the road. He stopped and laid the case down and waved up at her, but she
couldn’t make out the expression on his face. Then he continued and she couldn’t see him at all.

She got up slowly and put the socks in with the pile of the ones she had knitted herself, the loved ones, as if she were making an offering to the absent, as if she were asking for forgiveness.
She hoped that next week he would have something cheap. She continued knitting the socks.

‘Well, Neil, aren’t you going to write the letter?’

He couldn’t see her, as he was lying face down on the bed, from which position he said,

‘Mother, please go away. I’m listening to the cricket. I’ll write it later . . . ’

‘But they said . . . ’

‘I know what they said. Just go away, will you?’

‘All right, Neil, but they said that the application has to be in tomorrow, and if you don’t write the letter tonight . . . ’ Her voice trailed weakly away.

He shut the door on her and went back to lie down on the bed again, the transistor beside him. It was right enough, they had to know tomorrow, but supposing he didn’t want to go? To go
would mean working for the rest of the summer at his Latin, which he had failed the first time, and it would take a lot of energy to pile into the subjunctive in this weather – even to get
into university – when you could go for a lazy swim and to a dance in the evening.

His mother’s voice came faintly from the kitchen:

‘I don’t know what you can see in that cricket . . . ’ And, true enough, he had never played cricket in his life, but he listened to it just the same, hour after hour. As
now.

‘This is a really interesting duel we’re witnessing at the moment between Illingworth and Redpath.’ That Australian drawl. Funny thing, they said ‘sundries’ instead
of ‘extras’. He scratched his face: he’d have to shave soon and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

‘There are twenty minutes left of this Test and the game is poised on a hair. With twenty minutes to go, the Australians have one wicket left. I feel sure that the Australians are not
going to play any daring shots at this stage of the game. They’ll be happy to force a draw. And now here is Illingworth. A short run, and he straightened that one up. Redpath had a bit of
difficulty with it. He came forward and then he went back again. Now he’s going out to prod at a spot on the wicket. It’s an interesting duel of wits, this, isn’t it,
John?’

Then there was this job he’d been offered in London, working in an airport office. He didn’t really know what it involved, but it might be quite exciting. In any case, he had never
been to London. Never. And people were always telling him about it. And then there was that book he had read about Soho, by Frank Norman. He had been in prison or something, hadn’t he? An
interesting book, not at all like the usual guide, a good, clean, unhypocritical style. A good lot in it about strip clubs too, all about these young girls setting out to ruin themselves. Well, let
him get down there and help them to do that. Fifteen pounds a week; not much, but then it would probably go up. By increments, as they laughingly said. And then there was this Latin drag. He was
all right at English literature, but Latin – all that grammar and stuff, and Ovid, and all these perverts. What use were they anyway? Just a ticket. Why, once he got his Latin – if he
ever got it – he would never read a Latin book or poem or conjugation again. What sort of education was that, when it turned you against a subject? And he’d already failed it once. And
probably would again. How could one concentrate on the stuff? It had no contact with the present, all memory work, that was all it was.

He shifted over to light a cigarette, a Sterling. The transistor fell down and he couldn’t hear it so well. He set it on its base again and raised the aerial.

‘Well, I must say this is really becoming very tense now. That’s twice Illingworth has beaten Redpath in the same over. And there are about ten minutes to go on my watch.
Illingworth, of course, gets through his overs fairly quickly, so there’ll be a few yet. He is an interesting bowler to watch. He doesn’t waste much effort and he seems completely
unflappable. He shows a lot of intelligence. In fact, both the batsman and bowler are showing a great deal of intelligence. Redpath is waiting for the loose ball and defending stubbornly against
the others. But Illingworth, of course, is not likely to bowl a loose ball.’

Poor old England! Up against it again. Here the Australians were, 88 for 9, and yet the English couldn’t bowl them out. There had certainly been ups and downs in this match, let alone the
series. In the first innings there was old Dexter walking on, everybody expecting him to hit the Australians into the next county. And what had happened? He had made six runs. You couldn’t
depend on these people: the more they were built up, the more they fell down like a lot of sandcastles. When you came down to it, all these so-called giants were very ordinary people. They had been
built into a legend over the years, but there was nothing to them really. He flicked some ash into the ashtray. Look at Cowdrey: just the same. Probably if you had gone along to see Hobbs, he would
have been out first ball as well. Years from now they would say, ‘Oh, if only you had seen Cowdrey that day at Lord’s. Great. That drive to leg! That four to the boundary! Sweet!
Exquisite!’ But when you came down to it, he took six hours to make a century. What sort of cricket was that?