For Love or Money (17 page)

An argument would take too long.

‘All right. But hurry.’

 *

Sally ran up to the landing again. George had left the bedroom door open. Softly she stole inside. On the bed the note was where George had left it.

‘Cunning bastard,’ she said under her breath.

Still holding the note tightly she ran into the lavatory.

George heard the noise of it flushing from the hall. She was certainly being quick.

 *

Sally was not satisfied though. Just like at the pictures, she thought as she dropped a lipstick and a bottle of scent
outside
the bedroom. Hadn’t she read about something like this in some old book?

‘Come on,’ yelled George from below.

‘Ready now.’

As they walked out through the hall door, George looked at his watch again. Definitely no time to check upstairs. Have to get the cases in and turn the car. The distant sound of church bells decided him. The suitcases bumped
painfully
against his thighs as he ran towards the car.

R
UTH
walked slowly across the lawn humming softly. She saw George’s chair with the coloured squares of the cushions resting on it. There was his glass of coffee that she had made him. The Sunday papers were lying crumpled on the ground. She smiled; dear George, he was always so untidy. But men always are.

As she went through the front door, she patted her brow with a small handkerchief. So hot … how lucky that they were going to have salad. In the drawing-room the
writing-desk
was open. She crossed the room and closed it. What a mess he made; but it was useless trying to change people. One learnt that with age.

 *

‘George,’ she called. Getting no answer, she started to climb the stairs. He would probably be dressing. She opened the door of their bedroom and let out a small cry. Drawers were open, articles of clothing lay scattered on the floor. She ran out on to the landing and threw open the door of George’s dressing-room. There were no cases on top of the wardrobe. She thrust aside the curtains and looked down the drive. The car had gone. She stood there for some moments completely still, apparently incapable of movement. Her body shook violently several times before she let herself slip to the ground. Crumpled in a kneeling position, with her chin resting on the window ledge, her sobbing grew more rapid. At first the spasms hurt but gradually each rhythmic and slowly swelling bubble of grief grew and broke easily from the one before. It was some minutes before she moved.
A sudden glimmer of hope gave her the strength to rise. He might have left a note in the hall.

On the stairs she stumbled and fell. Her foot had hit something hard and round. She saw Sally’s lipstick rolling away from her on the landing. Her grief gave way to a
feeling
of terror. Perhaps one of the cleaners had dropped it. It was then that she saw the bottle of scent.

Ruth gripped the receiver so tightly that her hand began to ache.

‘Operator, this is a serious call … please, please try and do it quickly.’

In a couple of seconds she was speaking to David.

‘You must come back. Something awful has happened … now, now on the next train. I can’t be alone …’

‘Oh Steven, Steven‚’ she cried as she let the receiver fall. ‘I don’t want to wake up tomorrow, I don’t.’

In the drawing-room the clock on the mantelpiece struck two.

S
TEVEN
tipped the contents of his wire basket on to the supermarket cash desk: a packet of frozen fish fingers, some dried peas, a tin of peaches and a packet of mashed potato powder. The girl slipped them into a carrier bag and handed it to him. He pocketed his change and pushed his way out into the street. The warm air was full of the smell of petrol fumes.

Saturday was always murder. He had had a pie and some chips after leaving the office. Now he was on his way to collect Robin from school. Robin was four.

 *

The school was in a small street near Kensington Gardens. From several doors away Steven could hear the high-pitched noise of playing children. The paved garden in front of the house was used as a playground. He opened the gate and went in. A group of children in blazers were jumping up and down on a garden bench. One of them fell off. Steven heard a loud wail of grief as he entered the hall.

‘I’ve come to collect Robin Lifton‚’ he said to a tall
grey-haired
woman hurrying towards the sound of the yelling.

‘First on the left‚’ she said, walking on past him. Steven looked after her through the open door. The children were standing back respectfully from their wounded brother, who was lying moaning on the ground.

He turned and went into the classroom indicated. Robin was sitting alone colouring the sea in a large picture of a battleship.

‘It should be blue.’

‘Miss Lang says it’s green and that’s how you tell it from the sky.’

 *

In the playground the grey-haired woman came up to Steven and smiled.

‘Are you Robin’s father?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure … I’m Miss Lang.’

‘The one who thinks the sea is green when the sky is blue?’

‘You see the children get so confused with colours‚’ she twinkled.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Steven as he towed Robin towards the gate.

‘Mummy’s out with Granny this afternoon. So we’re going for a walk in the park.’

‘Can you buy me a boat to sail on the pond?’

‘I can, but I’m not sure if I will.’

‘Please, please‚’ Robin in cap and blazer jumped along beside him chanting, ‘Please, Daddy, ple—ase.’

‘Perhaps.’

They came out of a toyshop with a plastic clockwork tug. Robin clutched it lovingly. Every few steps he looked at it. Just outside the park gates he walked into an elderly woman. Steven said:

‘Look where you’re going, or I’ll take it away.’

Robin made a great show of looking where he was going.

 *

Steven looked around him disdainfully. The usual crop of week-end cotton frocks spotted the burnt grass. Like litter he thought, just like litter. It had not rained for weeks and the grass and paths looked dirty.

Robin had seen a man with a tray of choc-ices.

‘Can I have one, Daddy?’

‘No.’

‘Please, please, Da—a—ddy.’

‘Keep quiet or I’ll take your boat away.’

Steven lowered the tug into the water.

‘Are you sure you wound it up enough to get it to make a circle?’

‘Yes, yes, let it go, let it go.’

Robin was hopping on one leg with excitement. The small boat progressed jerkily a few feet from the edge and stopped before turning back.

‘I thought you said you wound it up enough.’

‘I did. Perhaps you didn’t hold it right.’

‘Well, I’m not going to wait all day for it to come back. The wind isn’t helping us for a start.’

Robin began to cry.

‘You’re not still a baby. What do you suppose the other children will think?’

‘I don’t care. I want my boat back.’

‘I’ll get another.’

‘I don’t want another.’

Robin was standing right on the edge, craning his neck forwards to try and be closer to his boat. Suddenly he slipped.

‘Haven’t you ever been told not to stand so near the edge?’

Steven looked at him. He was wet to the waist. Robin was crying again.

‘We were going to listen to the band, but now we can’t.’

The crying grew more plaintive. What a bore to have to take him home so early. Perhaps as it was so hot the trousers could dry on him.

‘All right, we’ll stay.’

‘Will you get me another boat, Daddy?’

‘Not today.’

‘Can we listen to the band now?’

‘Yes. I want you to sit very quietly.’

On the way to the bandstand another child threw a ball that bounced a few feet in front of Robin. He picked it up and hurled it clumsily. It hit a man lying full length on the ground.

‘Go and say you’re sorry.’

Robin clung to Steven’s leg and buried his face in the folds of his jacket.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’

The man said:

‘Really, it doesn’t matter.’

‘I think it does. Robin, go and say you’re sorry.’

Robin broke away from him and started to run off through the mass of human refuse. Steven stared angrily after him.

In the distance he could hear the band playing ‘Colonel Bogey’.

 *

Sarah was sitting watching the television when they got home. She looked up as they came into the room.

‘Did you remember the cooking-oil?’

‘No.’

‘We can’t have any dinner then.’

‘You can do it in butter.’

‘You know how much that costs.’

Steven went over and switched off the television.

‘Don’t ask me, will you?’

‘No.’

Robin had picked up a belt that had been lying on the table and was swishing it about. He knocked over a vase of flowers.

‘Out‚’ shouted Steven. ‘Out.’

‘If you’d watched him instead of fiddling about with the television, he wouldn’t have done that.’

‘I have been watching him all the bloody afternoon. I could have thought that you might have a try now.’

‘Who’ll be watching him every day of the next holidays?’

‘Who’ll be working every day of the next holidays?’

Steven looked at her with contempt. He was very conscious of the shape of her skull under her hair. There were bags under her eyes and she hadn’t bothered to make-up.

‘I’m always so tired these days,’ she said. ‘Daddy thinks I need a holiday.’

‘Fine, if he pays for it.’

‘If you earned a bit more …’

‘I’ve told you a thousand times that this job is mainly to gain experience. I don’t enjoy it any more than you do.’

‘You don’t seem in any hurry to change it.’

‘Would you like filing items in a vast card-index system and then making checks on sales and stock? Not only that, but I do the accounts as well.’

‘You’d think they’d pay you more for all that.’

Robin came back into the room and picked up the vase. He put it carefully on its side on the table. Any water that had not gone on the carpet went on the table. Neither of them took any notice.

‘If you’ll only look forward a bit, instead of always
carping
, you’d realise the value of what I’m doing.’

‘That’s what you said with the last job.’

‘That was different.’

‘I hope so.’

Robin walked over to his mother and put his head on her knee.

‘My trousers are wet, Mummy.’

‘He fell in the pond,’ supplied Steven.

‘You didn’t bring him home at once?’

‘What the hell does it look like? We listened to the band.’

‘You couldn’t be bothered; isn’t that it?’

‘It was hot enough to fry an egg in the park.’

‘If he catches a cold …’

‘I’ve had enough. I’m going out to supper.’

‘Daddy’s a silly old crossy,’ whined Robin.

‘If you repeat anything your mother says to me, I’ll hit you.’

Robin cowered nearer Sarah. Steven slammed the door behind him.

‘Every blasted day of the week‚’ he muttered as he started down the badly lit stairs.

T
HE
number 30 carried George through the relentless rain  along the Old Brompton Road and then into Lillie Road.  His eyes passed over the broad expanse of Brompton
Cemetery
. Into drabber and less-ordered Fulham the bus drove  inexorably on, towards a land of commons, filter beds and  reservoirs.

Going home to beg at my age is degradation indeed, he thought. He looked out gloomily at the rows of sooty and crumbling houses. No more the pleasures of England’s pastures green for him. Only the dark and dank embrace of the satanic mills remained.

‘Putney High Street‚’ he said to the conductor. His change felt wet and sticky. In front of him a group of schoolgirls in plum-coloured blazers were chattering excitedly. George looked at them without emotion. They were probably going home too.

The bus was turning into Fulham Palace Road. Yet another cemetery. The place was full of them.

George’s mind once again slipped back over the events of the last two days. There had been compensations: Sally’s expression, after she had seen his London bank manager and his former stockbroker, had offered momentary solace. She had, however, created the most distasteful scene in the street which quite spoiled his brief enjoyment of her face.
Delicately
he ran his hand over his left temple where she had struck him with her umbrella handle. She had also called him a number of things which he had so far not managed to forget. The single night he had spent at her flat was to be his last. His two suitcases were now in the Left Luggage at Earls Court station. He managed a fairly convincing imitation of
a smile as he thought of the affection she had lavished on him immediately before her disillusionment.

Still rubbing his wounded temple, he had asked her why she was not going to try and make him get some money out of Ruth. She had told him about the scent and the lipstick.

Putney Bridge already. He stared out across the yards and yards of rain-spattered mud. The tide always seemed to be out when he went home.

His telephone call to Ruth had been, he reflected, painful, expensive, and unnecessary. She had obviously had the real story out of David as well has having found Sally’s relics.

His mother might be able to let him have ten pounds but little more. The only thing Ruth did not own was the car. He had put an advertisement in the evening papers. With luck it might raise
£
100.

 *

The water dripped down the neck of his macintosh as he walked down the street where his mother had lived since his father’s death over twenty years before. The pavement
glistened
underfoot and the drains bubbled vociferously. At last he was standing outside the familiar green door.

 *

‘Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I thought you’d quite given up your old mother.’ She looked at her son standing in the rain. His hair was plastered down over his forehead. ‘Come on in then, and I’ll get you some nice hot tea.’

George followed her into the sitting-room. Pictures of a more youthful George reproached him from every side. She saw the direction of his glances.

‘You used to be a sweet little boy,’ his mother said
nostalgically
.

Staffordshire figures crowded each other to death on the mantelpiece. The owl in its glass case still stared out through dried ferns and varnished leaves. In the windows heavy net curtains shut out most of the light of an already grey day.

‘Can we have a light on?’ George asked.

‘I wonder if you could dust the shade before you go? I can’t get up on chairs like I used to.’

George nodded. His mother went out to get the tea.

She came into the room again bowed with the weight of her tray. George recognised the solid willow-pattern cups that had been used since his childhood.

‘Can I help you?’ he said, getting up.

She put down the tray and started pouring without answering. She at least didn’t seem to have changed a great deal. Still small, grey-haired and slightly stooping. Her eyes were perhaps a shade less bright, her nose a fraction sharper.

‘You don’t come and see me as often as you used,’ she said without bitterness.

‘Well, I’m here now,’ he said jovially.

‘You’ve got your own life to lead. I’m not complaining.’

She held out a plate of assorted biscuits. George picked one out and nibbled delicately. It was rather dry. His mother said:

‘I was never happy when you went off with that woman. But it’s your life.’ She took a sip of tea and then resumed. ‘You make your bed and lie on it. It’s up to you to make what you will of it. I only hope that you’re still doing that job at the quarry.’

George nodded feebly. It was going to be impossible to break it to her. Was it his shame or a feeling of genuine pity for her? George hoped it was pride and the remnants of his self-respect. He had told that lie about the quarry years ago so that she could still be proud of him. In those days he had usually arrived in a large chauffeur-driven car, which he hired from a near-by garage. ‘Come up for a business
meeting
; we’re opening another quarry. So I thought I’d combine business with pleasure.’ He heard his former voice with
disgust
. There was an extra bedroom upstairs but obviously he couldn’t tell her the truth.

‘Yes, I’m still managing the quarry,’ he said at last.

His mother looked at him dubiously.

‘We’re not doing so well these days,’ he added quickly.

‘You must go on all the same‚’ she said sharply. The old glint was in her eyes again for a moment. ‘Your father, bless him, always used to say that a kept man is no man.’

‘I remember him saying that.’

‘Of course he didn’t like it any more than I did when you went away like that. Still, if you fly in the face of society you take your life in your hands and if you fail, you pay the consequences. If, though, you can stand and say to society: “I’m quite happy, thank you very much indeed,” well and good.’

‘That’s how I look at it,’ said George.

His mother went on chewing at a biscuit. George looked at the picture behind her chair: a meticulously painted Highland scene.

‘I remembered it as having a stag in the foreground‚’ said George.

‘There isn’t one.’

‘No, there isn’t, is there.’

His mother went on chewing with greater determination. She said:

‘You were never very keen on pictures when you were little. You preferred soldiers.’ She paused and said more softly: ‘When I look at the lake in that painting I long to swim in it. I’ve never been to Scotland.’

George said nothing. Although it was summer it seemed nearly dark outside. The hiss of the rain went on unabated. The room looked much cosier now. The heavily shaded lamps glowed warmly. He thought of the wet streets. The upstairs bedroom had become unbearably attractive. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came. With an effort he got up.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got to go now.’

‘So soon? I don’t see you very often but I suppose when there are people waiting one has to go.’

She was lonely and really wanted him to stay. The
bedroom
tempted him once more. He held his head higher,
re-signed
at last.

‘Good-bye then, Mummy.’

He felt like crying as he embraced her. Never had he known the same longing to be at home.

 *

His hair had dried inside the house. He felt the rain
beginning
to weight it down. Not long till it would be
dribbling
down his collar again. He walked on quickly. Near the end of the street he stooped to look at his reflection in a car window. He would hardly qualify for the Y.M.C.A. The
Salvation
Army might be a better bet.

When he reached the final corner of his mother’s street he realised that he had forgotten to ask for any money. He looked back for a moment and then started to run in the opposite direction. The five pounds he still had might last till the sale of the car.

He paused on Putney Bridge and looked down at the dark water. Not to be thought of … there was every possibility that he would scream and be rescued. That would only make matters worse.

His feet moved under him. He would catch the tube somewhere. He would at least be dry while he was in the thing. He stared hard at his feet as he walked on. His shoes were so well polished, his trouser creases so neatly pressed. ‘Pathetic, that’s what it is, pathetic!’ He raised a hand to his eyes. Pure waste of time. In this weather it was impossible to tell tears from rain. George smarted under the increasing downpour. Each drop seemed a personal insult. And yet each drop also seemed a challenge.