New and Collected Stories (81 page)

Even though her brother Henry was younger he chased Edie with a stick, till the end of it flicked her, so she turned round and threw it into the river and both of them watched it float away like a boat. Joel was glad they got on so well. Henry was squat-faced and fair, while Edie was dark-haired and had olive skin like her mother.

Edie poured tea into his own big white mug, and put in a whole spoon of sugar. ‘When the war's over,' he said, ‘I'll get half a ton of sugar from the shop. Then I can put three spoons in. You can't even taste one.'

‘Pour me a cup as well, duck,' her mother said. ‘Where did you go tonight?'

Edie took the tea-cosy off. ‘A walk.'

Her legs ached as well as her back. It seemed a long way that she had gone, though she remembered every place as close enough – but far off all the same when somebody talked to you who had seen so much of the world, and then kissed your hand. The pot was poised over the cup and saucer.

‘Where to?' Ellen asked.

‘I just went out.' She wondered what else there was to say, for it didn't concern anyone where she had been, and tonight she felt no connection to her mother or father, nor would she to Henry when he came in.

‘Sly little bleeder!'

Joel tapped at the bars with a poker. ‘You'll never get a straight answer from her.'

It had been the same ever since she was born, that if one of them started to get on at her, the other would always join in. She had the feeling that they knew where she had been, and wanted to drag her out of it and back to what she had always hated. She didn't know how they could tell, but was sure they'd twigged something.

‘You ought to stay in at least one night of the week.' Her mother stood up to cut bread for Joel's lunch next day. ‘And clean the house up a bit. I have enough to do as it is when I get home from work.'

She had noticed, as soon as they came in, that both of them smelled of beer. ‘I go to work as well,' she reminded her mother, knowing when she spoke that they would have succeeded in pulling her out of her dreams. But she'd never say who she had been with. She brought more than two pounds into the house every week, which seemed enough for them to get out of her. ‘I scrubbed the parlour floor last Sunday, didn't I?'

Hot tea sprayed over the saucer and the cloth, and the pot itself rolled itself on to the floor before she could stop it. The cup broke with the weight of the big brown teapot. She didn't know how. Dropped on to it. The noise shocked every bone, and she stood with fingers curled as if the pot were still gripped – or as if, should she keep them held like that, the teapot bits would reassemble and jump back into place.

In spite of her mother saying that she was always in a dream, that she was as daft as they come, that she had never known anybody to be so clumsy – and several other remarks that she wouldn't listen to but that would come back to her later when, she knew, she would have even less use for them – she felt that if there had been a hammer close enough she would have lifted it and smashed the remains of the teapot and cup to smithereens.

But she didn't care as she looked at the bits of pot mixed among the tea leaves and stains. She remembered Mario's face by the bridge, when he had taken the cigarette and put a hand over while lighting it, as close as if the whole meeting was happening bit by bit again. She saw both herself and him as real and plain as ever, the pair of them right by her side. The picture hypnotized her, and held her rigid with surprise and a feeling that gave some protection for what was sure to come now that she had smashed the teapot.

‘She allus was clumsy,' her father put in, a mild response which told her to be on her guard. The jollier they were on coming home from the pub only meant that they would be even more nasty and hateful later. It was best to be out of their way at such times, but unless you went to bed there was nowhere to take refuge, and she didn't want to go to sleep so early after talking to Mario.

‘I couldn't help it.' She heard the tone of fear, apology and shame, which made her more angry with herself than at dropping the teapot. The accident didn't seem important, anyway. She wasn't a bit clumsy at work. ‘My fingers slipped.'

Her father put his half drunk mug of tea on the mantelshelf, as if it would be safe from her there. ‘What am I going to do in the morning, then? There's nowt to make the tea in.'

If she looked up he would hit her, but in turning away she saw his grey eyes lifeless with anger, and his lips tight. Ellen picked up a few bits of the saucer from the cloth.

‘Let
her
do it,' Joel said quietly. ‘She dropped the bleddy thing.'

He sometimes chased her and Henry around the room in fun. All three laughed, but Ellen looked on as if thinking they should act their age and have more sense. But the last time Joel had been playful they suddenly felt too old for it. The time had passed when they could play together.

Edie sometimes said things without thinking, and when she did she was frightened. If she had known beforehand that she was going to be frightened she would still have spoken because she was never able to stop herself even when she thought about it. The words seemed to jump from outside of her: ‘I'm not going to clear it up.'

He sat down with his tea, and she felt sorry she had cheeked him, so picked some brown sharp pieces of the teapot to put in a little heap on the corner of the table. This methodical enjoyment of her task caused a flash of rage to blot out Joel's brain. Edie knew it was only right that she should try to clear the mess up, though her mother had already done most of it, and had come back from the coal place with a dustpan to start clattering bits on to it.

It couldn't have been worse if a ten-ton bomb had dropped on the place and killed them. All because of a teapot, Edie told herself, about to cry, as if she alone in her might and viciousness had broken the spirit of the house. There was such gloom that, after a few moments, the only thing possible was to laugh. She wanted to be walking again with Mario – while doubting that she ever would – crossing a bright green field with him, under a pale blue sky full of sunshine instead of bombers.

It was as if her father had picked up the wall and hit the side of her face with it. She wondered how he knew what she had been thinking. The blow threw her across the room, and coconut matting scraped her skin as she slid with eyes closed and banged her head at the skirting board. In darkness she saw nothing, but it was followed by a dazzle of blue lights as his boot came at her.

When her father lashed out like this her mother always got on at him to have more sense, and now she tried to pull him off, telling him not to be stupid or he'd get in trouble knocking her about like that, thinking of the times he'd pasted her, Edie supposed, but then wondering if she interfered out of spite, because he only answered by giving her another kick that was worse than the rest.

As she lay half stunned Edie knew she would go to the bridge again and meet him as often as she liked because he had been so gentle and interesting. They didn't know, but even if they did they couldn't stop her seeing somebody who made her feel she need never be anybody except herself.

After a parting half-hearted kick at her back which she hardly felt, her father sat down to light his pipe and finish his tea, ignoring her agonized and shouted-out wish that it would choke him.

The drawn curtains in her room made the blackout complete, but when she put off the light it was so dark she couldn't go to sleep. She ached from the last big kick but cried no more, not even when she hoped a German plane would drop a single bomb on them and make the blackout so final that they would never be able to switch a light on again.

She'd die of shame if daylight ever came, but if it did, she would never let anybody hit her again. If her father lost his temper and tried to, she would blind him with whatever she could grab. That sort of thing was finished from now on. She didn't know how, yet knew it was, because she had made up her mind, hoping that when it looked like happening she would be able to remember what she had made up her mind to do, and blind him no matter what.

She heard them arguing downstairs, though not what was said. Their speech sounded like the flood of a river hitting a bridge before going underneath. Now that she wasn't there they could start on each other. They could kill each other for all she cared. They had been cat-and-dogging it for as long as she could remember, but no wonder when she thought about what her mother used to get up to.

When dad was out of work – she would tell Mario (whether he could understand or not, because if you didn't tell your thoughts to somebody there was no point in living) – which went on for years and years, that mam kept going downtown at night saying she was off to Aunt Joan's, but one day after she'd bought some new shoes and a coat, and things for the house as well, and wouldn't say where she had got the money, dad followed and saw her on Long Row talking to somebody in a car.

He felt so rotten at the idea of her picking up men that he hadn't got the guts to put a stop to it. He didn't even let on he knew, though she must have known he did. But one night, after it had gone on for a long time, he decided he'd had enough, and caught her sitting in Yates's Wine Lodge as large as life with a man who'd had his nose blown off in the last war. Where the nose should have been there was wrinkled skin and two small holes that dripped if he didn't press a hanky to it.

When dad saw this he let his fists fall, but swore at them both and told mam never to come home again or he would murder her and the kids and then cut his own throat. Me and Henry liked what happened, because dad didn't even shout at us now she wasn't there. He pawned her clothes one day, and took us on a trackless into town and treated us to the pictures and an ice cream each with the money. The woman who lived next door often gave us toffees when we came home from school because she was sorry for us having no mother. It made us feel like orphans, and we liked that.

We were drinking tea and eating toast one night when somebody knocked at the door. The tap on wood was soft, as if a beggar was hoping we'd ask him in and give him some of our supper, and when dad opened it we were surprised to see old No-nose come in from the cold. Dad was mad at being disturbed from his newspaper and his peace, but No-nose asked: ‘I want to know if you'll be kind and take your Ellen back.'

‘Take bloody
who
back?'

‘Your Ellen,' No-nose said.

Dad stood by the mantelpiece, as if ready to crank his arm up for a real good punch. No-nose stayed just in the door. He wore a nicky-hat and was wrapped up in a good topcoat and scarf – as well as gloves – because he had an office job and was better off than us. He would have been goodlooking if he'd still had a nose.

Me and Henry was too frightened to say anything, and when dad, after a bit of an argument in which nobody said much, said that mam could come back if she liked, No-nose looked as happy as if his nose had come back on to his face, which made us want to laugh – though we daren't in case dad turned on us.

He went out to get mam. She'd been standing at the end of the street waiting for him to come and tell her whether it was all right or not. No-nose gave us some chocolates and sixpence each, then went away after shaking dad's hand but saying not a word to mam. He only nodded at her, as if he'd had enough of the trouble she'd caused – though he was to blame as well.

When he'd gone mam sat on the other side of the fireplace to dad. They scowled at each other for half an hour. Then mam laughed, and dad said a string of foul words. He's going to get the chopper and kill her, I thought, but suddenly he was laughing and so was she. Me and Henry was even more frightened at that, and said nothing, because we weren't able to make things out at all.

Mam and dad kissed, and sent us to buy a parcel of fish and chips out of the few quid that No-nose had given her. Afterwards we had a good supper, and everybody was supposed to be happy, though I wondered how long it would last.

When Edie started to feel more sorry for them than for herself she fell asleep.

With her coat tight-wrapped around her, and holding Mario's two South African banknotes folded into her pocket, Edie went downtown into Gamston's Travel Agency to try and change them for him. She was glad that only one other person was being served as she opened the notes out and showed them over the counter, feeling daft because she had not been in the place before.

‘Can't change 'em,' the bloke said, an old man with a moustache who first looked over his glasses at them and then at her.

‘Why can't you?' Money was money, she'd always thought, and Mario had earned every penny of whatever it was called.

He held a pen, as if about to write all over her face. ‘Because we can't. We're not allowed to, that's why.'

She stood, hoping he'd alter his mind, whether they were supposed to or not. ‘Oh.'

‘We can't anyway. It's regulations.'

He went to get a railway ticket for somebody but, not wanting to leave without doing what she had come for, she didn't move. Last night Mario had showed her some photographs of his mother and sister, and his two brothers, and they all looked as nice as Mario himself and she felt that if she couldn't get his cash changed she'd be letting them down as well as him. So she held up the large gaudy-coloured banknotes again.

The man came back. ‘There's nothing I can do for you. It's foreign money, and there's a war on, and that's why we can't change it. Come in after the war, then it might be all right!'

‘It'll be too late then. I need it now.'

A woman behind the counter put a cup of tea by his elbow, and maybe he didn't want to let it get cold because he said, as if ready to fetch the police to her: ‘Where did you get 'em from?'

She saw by his face, and knew from his tone, that he thought she had nicked them or – she screwed the words painfully into her mind – earned them like
that.
Her mouth filled with swearing, but she couldn't spit it at him as he deserved, so walked out and then went quickly along Parliament Street towards a café where she could get a cup of tea.