England's Lane (19 page)

Milly watched the light die down in little Paul's eyes. Then they were bright again, but with a silent pleading to his Auntie Milly. She had winced when Paul had let the cat out of the bag: she had told him not to mention it while they were having their lunch, although she knew he would simply be dying to. And nor was she sure quite what it was she had been dreading … though possibly something along the lines of this.

“Well you can't, Jim. It's all arranged. Stan is taking them. And anyway—you're not even dressed.”

“What you mean I'm not dressed? I'm dressed. Not sitting here like Lady bloody Godiva, am I? What you on about?”

“I mean you're not
properly
dressed. When ever are you? And don't use language, please—I'm tired of telling you. Of course you snore—you snore like an absolute foghorn.”

“Blimey, Mill—it's the Zoo we's going to, not Buckingham Palace. I don't reckon the chimps and the elephants is going to care too much about what I got on. And I got it, I understand what you
said: Stan's taking them. Well that's all right. I'll go with him. I don't mind old Stan. Just nip upstairs and get my shoes …”

Milly despairingly watched him as he gruntingly heaved himself out of the hammocky slump that a very long time ago had been a perfectly respectable sofa, and then followed with her eyes his effortful shambling toward the door, careless of ash dropping away from his cigarette and on to the carpet. Oh dear … Paul, now—he looks positively panicked, poor boy. Whatever can I say to him …?

“It'll be all right, Paul. Don't worry. Once you're inside the gates, you just run on ahead with Anthony and Amanda. Leave your Uncle Jim with Mr. Miller. Yes? And Mr. Miller, he'll, I don't know—talk to him, or something. Two grown-ups. Men together. You don't have to worry. It won't affect your day. Promise. But heavens—I really don't know what's got into your Uncle Jim, though. Hardly believe it, really. Going out! And on a Sunday afternoon! Gracious … Now here, Paul—here's some money for ice creams. All right? Although it really is so beastly cold today, I think you might want to buy something else. I went out to the bins this morning and I'm telling you: like the North Pole. Now this money—keep this money separate, because this is for your tickets to get in. All right? There's enough there for the three of you. So you will remember not to let Mr. Miller go paying for everything, won't you? Yes? Good boy. And keep it safe. Here—let me tuck it into this little pocket, all right? You'll remember it's there, won't you? Right, then. Now is your coat in the hall? Well let's get you all bundled into your scarf and cap and everything, shall we? Ooh … you're going to have such a lovely day …! And it looks like the rain is keeping off, so that's a good thing, isn't it?”

Oh God I do so hope everything's going to be all right. What I mean to say is, I simply couldn't bear it if Jim were to spoil this. Because there are so many ways, you see, he could quite easily achieve
this end, and he would be perfectly oblivious to each and every one of them. Whenever he says or does something utterly appalling—which is a good deal of the time, let us face facts—he is constantly amazed by other people's reactions. He demands to know what's
wrong
with them. Because he doesn't see it: he simply doesn't see it. Well … at least he hasn't had too much beer, anyway—not yet, at any rate. I'm not sure whether they sell it at the Zoo. If they do, he'll find it, of course. But maybe because it's Sunday, they won't. I think there's a law, not sure. But Jim, though … I truly cannot imagine what has possessed the man. I mean—he does like animals, it's true … but only in the rather floppy and endearingly English way that we all do. Though for him to volunteer to actually pay to see them—and in the company of children …! I would, you know, for Paul's sake, go up and try to put him off … but that would only be the proverbial red rag to a bull: make him even more determined than ever. Because he really is so very stubborn and juvenile whenever he is quite set upon getting his way—and particularly so when any sort of a treat is in the offing—that I am afraid the only way I might just possibly be able to deter him is to dangle enticingly some or other alluring alternative … though naturally enough, I have nothing to offer.

Oh well. None of this affects anyway what I have to do. Because I'm committed, of course, after all my promises to Stan, to not now letting him down. It was just before I left him in John Barnes' cafeteria that I had rapidly formulated and then put forward to him a sort of scheme: I ran through it fairly speedily, and not just for the reason that I'd felt that his attention had been steadily eroding—suddenly he had become really quite intent and serious, seemingly completely preoccupied with something else entirely, the Lord knows what—but also because this anyway wholly unexpected little tea party was now becoming somewhat protracted (two further cups
he'd bought for himself by this time, this making four, or was it five, in total: I can't think where he puts it) and I was terribly aware of the remains of the precious day now quickly trickling away: I had been so very eager to abscond into my secret and velvet existence. A vision had suddenly come to me: the coziness, the intimacy, of our little back office … the Turkish rug warm in the smoldering glow of the woodstove, my skirt and cardigan not at all neatly folded over the back of the chair, but rumpled and roughly discarded in a corner—and then the chink of our two little crystal glasses, brimful of Benedictine. But before I could go, before I could escape into the wonder of all that, I had to get things straight with Stan. So I had said to him: Listen, Stan—are you listening? Are you sure? Right. Well on Sunday, after lunch, if you can take the two boys off out somewhere for a couple of hours … although I don't think I'll really be needing that long, nothing like it, probably—but then I can come over when you've gone, you see, and have that little chat with Jane we talked about. Just remember to leave the back door open, that's all. Because from all you've said, she's never going to get up and answer the bell, is she? And don't tell her I'm coming, obviously, or else she'll almost certainly say no, and then you're in a spot. It's better the house is empty, I think. That you and Anthony aren't there. Don't you think? Yes—I do too. So—good idea? Yes, Stan? Good idea …? Well he looked quite startled at the very prospect, of course. Instead of agreeing with alacrity, thanking me for my forethought, the brilliance of the wheeze, my keenness to strike while the iron is hot and so forth, and then eagerly coming up with a variety of suitable destinations for the projected jaunt … he just sat there, blank-eyed, as men so often will. He looked as if I had just suggested he take an impromptu rocket trip to the moon. So I fed him with one or two ideas of my own—which were hardly dazzling, I grant you: cinema, Stan. Pictures, yes? Must be a U on
somewhere—if not at the Odeon, then the Classic, or maybe the Ionic …? Look it up in the
Ham & High
. But it turns out, oh dear, that Stan isn't at all keen on picture houses because he always feels uncomfortably enclosed—and the second the lights begin to dim, he suffers an irrepressible urge to bolt right back up the aisle and fight his way through the series of curtains and out into the freedom of sunlight. Right, I said: okay—pictures no good. Well what about the Hill, then? Primrose Hill, Stan …? He shook his head. Can't be in the park for a length of time, he said, not in this weather—and of course he had a point there: don't want Paul getting chilblains. So then I hit upon it: of course—the Zoo. A proper treat for the children, and a warm cafeteria to hand, so very necessary for all the tea that seems to take the place of Stan's very life blood (and who knows? They might even run to a wedge of fruitcake). Anyway he seemed to like that option—or, at least, he didn't openly object to it.

And so the thing was settled: you should have seen Paul's face when I told him! It did make me think, though—he really doesn't get out much, poor little fellow. In the holidays it's marginally better—in the holidays I do make the effort—but during term time, he really is rather cooped up in here. And it's not as if we've even got a garden—only a patch of yard at the back, and that's piled high with scrap iron, along with a motley of other rubbish all so utterly unspeakable that I don't really care even to think of it. The number of times I've told Jim to for God's sake get the rag and bone man round to clear out the lot, but of course he won't ever hear of it. He says that one day it will all come in useful. Whether he's so simple as to actually believe that or not, I really couldn't tell you, and nor can I spend any more of my time even wondering about it. Anyway, Paul then asked if Amanda could come too—and I said yes of course she can, Paul: what a perfectly sweet idea. If it's all
right with her father. If it's all right with her parents. And now, quite wholly out of the blue, Jim has added himself to the party as well, a thing I could never have foreseen in a month of Sundays. Well, I suppose it makes no difference. His absence or presence, it never does make a difference—or not, at least, as I think I've made plain, in any manner one would actually wish for. So in fact I'm rather contradicting myself—aren't I, actually? Yes—so let's be clear: while Jim's absence is a thing to be actively cherished, his presence, alas, can make all the difference in the world.

When I waved the two of them away, I literally had my fingers crossed behind my back. Awful, really—but it's hardly my fault, is it? It's Jim's. Paul, though—he looked quite the handsome young gentleman in his navy gaberdine raincoat—double-breasted in the military fashion, very becoming, and the only item of school uniform that is anything close to being worth the very high price they have the gall to charge for it: it's a quality garment—and yes made to last, though still within under a year it'll be far too small for him. I bought him a pair of flannels just over a month ago—his very first pair of long trousers! Can't tell you how thrilled he is. He yearns to wear them at school, but it's strictly forbidden until you are in the sixth form. I had to take them in a fair bit at the waist and buy him a pair of braces to hoick them up: well you see I just had to allow for an enormous amount of growing room. They're actually so tremendously huge that they do, in all honesty, look the teeniest bit daft, but obviously I'd never say so; still, though, he's delighted with them. He didn't want to put his school cap on today, but it's freezing, I had to insist—and the whole ensemble is quite nicely rounded off with a scarf and gloves, both of which I knitted for him in a very soft angora in RAF blue—there were just the three balls left of it in John Barnes' clearance sale, and they were generously reduced: the angora, it doesn't irritate his skin, because his neck and wrists,
you know, they can be rather sensitive. Jim, by contrast … oh dear God, where to begin? Whenever he goes out now—and it's a rare enough occasion—he will wear this sort of three-quarter-length jacket-coat affair that he bought—yes he did, actually paid good money for it—in some sort of a ghastly surplus store in, oh Lord, Camden Town. It's very dark blue, as stiff as wood, and there are these terribly shaming two great black plastic patches to either shoulder. I tried explaining it to him as gently as I could, the day he had borne it home in quite foolish triumph, that these coats, they are standard issue to workmen. People who dig up the road, Jim. People who see to the drains, yes? It is, I believe, called a “donkey jacket,” I can only assume because the people who are compelled to wear it are doomed then for the duration of their lives to no more than donkey work, do you see? And so to voluntarily wear one, not to say buy one, is surely the action of an ass. Needless to say my intemperance on the subject guaranteed that he is wedded to the thing, I suppose for simply ever. And prior to the acquisition of this abomination, he used to wear his old army greatcoat which was made out of horse blankets, so far as I could tell (while smelling like it too), and was of course the familiar wartime color of dung. And here is a thing I shall never forget: Jonathan, just the other day, was wearing a perfectly cut camel cashmere covert coat with contrasting velvet collar, which might be termed “chic,” you know, as the French will have it. And wearing that coat, he stood before me, opened wide the wings of it, and then I was enveloped. That coat, as he held me within, it became a cocoon, and I happily could have lived inside there, fused to the man, until the day I died. I have no doubt that during my life on earth as a woman, this might so very easily be the single most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.

But … it is Jim's “attire,” for want of a more credible term, that currently I am forced to contemplate … and what therefore cannot
possibly be ignored then is his wretched flat cap. Simply the very sight of this will always occasion in me a correspondent stirring of queasiness: he will not throw it out—he will not have it cleaned (although now it is long beyond that). Well—there it is. So where Jim is concerned, please do erase from your mind any images of such as David Niven, James Mason, Charles Boyer—or, indeed, Jonathan Barton: for what we have in Jim, as he waddles away with my Paul at his side, is rather more akin to a jobbing dustman.

“So then Pauly—looking forward, ay?”

Paul nodded eagerly. “I am,” he said. And he did not say that it would though be a whole lot better if it wasn't for
you
 …

“Bet you are. Me too. So what—we cross over to Stan's then, do we? That the set-up?”

“Yes. Amanda said she'd meet us there. We're actually a couple of minutes late … oh look. There they are. They're all outside.”

“Yeh well, couple of minutes. Blimey—Zoo ain't going nowhere, is it? Wotcha, Stan—all right?”

Stan had been eyeing their approach with a degree of unease, though quickly he assembled a smile of greeting.