The Watchers on the Shore (11 page)

'You're sure you've got everything?'

I look at the big suitcase I borrowed from the Old Man. The
handle's bitten into my fingers and the flesh is red and puffy. From
the weight of it you'd think the only thing I hadn't brought was the
furniture.

'I'll drop you a line if there's anything I want.'

'You'll write to me anyway, won't you?'

'In a day or two, when I know how it's going.'

'What will you do about your washing?'

'Send it to the laundry.'

'You could bring it home and let me do it for you.'

'I don't see much point in lugging things backwards and
forwards every other week-end. When it gets down there it might as well stay.'

Stay. For good. The visits, the temporary things, will be back
here. Has she grasped it yet? Has it sunk in?

Oh yes, she's got it all right. She's saying good-bye on a deeper
level than I am. There's more for her in this than see you in a
fortnight. It's the end of something and the beginning of something
else that might never be any good. And she's scared to death of it.
And holding it in, standing there, moving her feet in the cold, her
gloved hands together. She always did look her best in winter, I
think; though her heavy coats muffle her neat little body, they don't
hide the colour in her cheeks, the soft cleanliness of her hair, and
her white teeth with the breath whisping away from them. Nor the
length and shape of her legs.

'You're an attractive little piece, you know. And there's a black
man looking you over.'

The quick lowering of her eyelids and the sideways flick of her
eyes is more than a sharp looksee at the West Indian standing a
few yards away; it's the way she always takes a compliment.
Ingrid hardly ever looks me in the face in times of either personal
pleasure or anger. When we make love she'll offer her body and
hide her eyes. It might give some people the impression she's sly;
but I know it's a deep basic shyness and a lack of confidence in herself that over three years of being married to me have done
nothing to cure. And why should it have? The way we started our marriage it would need continuous doting attention like I gave her
when I first began taking her out to put her in the position she
ought to be in. And it's an act I can't put on. Not that she wouldn't
know it was an act anyway. There's too much water gone under
our bridge. But at least I'm what she always wanted and I'm what
she's got, for what I'm worth.

The diesel slides into the platform and stops. I pick up the case.
The weight of it tugs at my tired shoulder muscles.

'This is it, then.'

'Yes, good-bye. You will write, won't you?'

'Yes, soon as I can.'

I give her a quick kiss and catch the shine of tears under her eyelids as I pull back. I can't suppress the irritation.

'Oh, for Pete's sake, Ingrid. I'll see you in a fortnight.'

'You'd better get on.'

I move,to the train and turn again once I'm inside the door. She's
already walking away, striding briskly along the platform to the
gate.

'Well, what the hell!'

But I can read unhappiness all over her back and when I go into
the carriage and find a seat I've got agitation, restlessness and frustration leaping about inside me. Shovelling coal, digging a
ditch, smashing windows. There's any number of things I'd rather
do than sit for hours in a train. But something violent.

6

Conroy's pad is in a tall narrow house up a street off the London Road, near the railway. Mrs Witherspoon, his landlady, is a small, nodding, bird-like woman who fixes you with her bright little eyes and never seems to hear a word you say, though her head nods and nods as though she's taking all in and hearing the gospels for the first time. Very putting off, because you find yourself raising your voice until you're all but shouting at her and her head nods faster and faster as though to say yes, yes, yes, I can hear you, you don't have to shout, and you wonder if it wouldn't be possible if you ever got really mad with her and told her off for her to nod herself right into a convulsion or something. Conroy tells me not to mind as there's not much I'll need to talk to her about, and if ever I want anything seeing to, the best thing is to do what he does - leave a note (a memo, Albert calls it) on the kitchen table. ('Conroy, Room Four, to Mrs Witherspoon, c.c. Sanitary Inspector, Longford Borough Corporation, Subject upstairs lavatory. The above-mentioned installation is now in such a condition that it showers the puller of the chain with water rather than flushing away the waste matter in the bowl. I can only conclude that it constitutes a danger to health in this house and I should be obliged if you would kindly arrange to have it rectified.') It's Sunday when I go down there and Albert's arranged to pick
me up at the station. 'Tell me what time your train arrives King's X,'his letter said,'and I'll calculate what time you'll reach here.'And only two minutes after I've come out of the station building and I'm stamping about the forecourt trying to keep my feet warm the little red Morris comes round the corner and pulls to a halt in front of me. He winds the window down, grinning at me.

'How's that for service?'

'Perfect, Albert.'

He gets out and hoists my case into the boot himself, exclaiming at the weight of it. 'Jesus, what you got in here, Kilnsey Crag?'

'That's what I've been wondering. I think Ingrid must have
slipped a few bricks in when I wasn't looking.'

He gives me one of his quick looks.'Everything all right on the home front, is it?'

This is a bit direct and I wonder what I've said to give myself away to that extent. The crack about
the bricks and the little outburst in the pub when I came down for my interview are no more than the kind of things lots of husbands come out with: lines in the battle-of-the-sexes routine they subscribe to all the time. And Conroy, as I recall it, can't know the exact circumstances in which I married Ingrid. Neither could Jimmy be
sure because I'd
left Whittaker's by that time and the evidence went when Ingrid fell downstairs and brought on her miscarriage.

I shrug it off. 'Not bad. Ingrid's mother's not well and that complicates things a bit for her. I expect it'll work itself out, though.'

Conroy just grunts as we get into the car and starts telling me
more about him getting me fixed up in his digs for the time being.
Maybe I'm too sensitive and reading more into his remark than he
meant. But it'll bear watching and I shall have to remember that
he's got a bust-up marriage somewhere in his past and he'll be
sharp on the signs of strife.

Mrs Witherspoon nods her way through the introductions then
nods me upstairs and into what's to be my room; a pretty cheerless
hole to be sure, but what boarding-house room isn't when you've
been used to home comforts all your life? A few books, a gramophone, perhaps; maybe even a picture: they'll make a difference.
One feature I do like is a narrow french window which appears to
open on to a little iron-railed balcony overlooking the railway; but
when I go over and try the handle Mrs Witherspoon tells me she
had it screwed up in 1942 after a maiden lady living in the room fell
three floors into the backyard.

'Saturday night, it was. She was all right then as far as I
know; but on Sunday morning I found her, all crumpled in her
nightdress.'

'What a nasty thing to happen.'

'Oh yes, indeed, Mr Brown. Very nasty indeed. It upset me for a long time, I can tell you. Not a nice thing to find when you get up on a Sunday morning. Not a nice thing at all.'(Nod, nod, nod.)

I hold my neck rigid till the muscles start to ache to stop myself
from joining in and making her think I'm sending her up.

'Was it accidental, then?'

'Oh yes, yes. Accidental death. Or was it misadventure? She would have the window open wide, summer and winter alike, no matter what the weather.
I
think she walked in her sleep.'(Nod, nod, nod, with a step nearer to me and a conspiratorial look as though the bird in question had been a junkie and stupid with drugs before she fell.)

I make tut-tutting noises with my tongue. 'I think you did the
right thing, Mrs Witherspoon.'

'I'm sure I
did,
Mr Brown.'

'I'm
sure
you did, Mrs Witherspoon.'

'Yes indeed. I'm sure there are more people who walk in their sleep than is generally realized.'

'I'm sure. And it'd look very odd if it happened again, wouldn't it?'

'Well, of course. That's just what I thought.'

I'm about to tell her that I've been known to indulge in a spot of
nocturnal perambulation in times past, but decide this might
unsettle her, so I let it. go.

'The little pane at the top opens for ventilation. I'm sure you'll find that quite sufficient.'

'I'm sure that will be ample.'

'They say we're in for a severe winter.'

'Yes, they do.'

'I expect you've had snow already.'

'Only in Scotland, I believe. I come from Yorkshire.'

'Yes, of course. You'll find it a pleasant change to live here after being cut off every year.'

'I live in an industrial town, Mrs Witherspoon. It's only the villages and farms on the moors that get cut off.'

'Oh, how strange. But I should have known. I had a sister who
lived in Yorkshire for a time. I visited her once at her house in
Manchester.'

I'm getting a feeling of going quietly out of my mind when Conroy appears in the doorway behind Mrs Witherspoon and leans against the jamb, his head going in perfect time with hers, Ms face blank. I struggle to keep from laughing as she prattles on a bit longer. Then as she turns to go she sees Conroy. His head stops moving in a flash and his face takes on an expression of friendly interest as he looks at her.

'But here's Mr Conway. He'll see that you make yourself at home.'

'Yes, I'll show him the ropes, Mrs Witherspoon.'

He stands aside to let her pass, but she turns in the doorway with
another thought.

'Just one more thing, Mr Brown. I don't allow dogs or children. I hope it won't inconvenience you, but I have to make it a positive rule.'

She disappears and I collapse on to the bed.

'For Christ's sake, Albert. Why didn't you warn me?'

'I thought I'd let you find out for yourself. Did she tell you about the bird who fell out of the window?'

'Yeh. That's why it's fastened up.'

Conroy grins. 'She must have fallen out of every upstairs
window in the house. If she ever fell at all. I think it was two other
fellers.'

'She is harmless, I suppose?'

'Old Lady Witherspoon? 'Course she is.'

'No dogs or kids. Jesus! What is it about me that makes me run into weird old birds, I wonder... Do you remember me going to Hassop's house and meeting his sister?'

'No, I never knew that.'

'It was one time when he had the 'flu. Miller sent me up with a
note. She was the queerest one of all. Just like something you find
locked up in a turret in a horror film.'