New World in the Morning (11 page)

“How many has he?”

“Three. But listen, Junie, let me tell you why he phoned. He's still living in that place near Lincoln and they've got some important cricket fixture next Sunday, but one of their best players has broken his leg and John's desperate for a good replacement. He asked if I could go up for the whole weekend and I said yes because, although it's actually a bit of a bind, it does sound as if they're in a fix and I was really quite flattered. Mavis will look after the shop on Saturday but I said you might pop in and relieve her at lunchtime. Naturally John would have asked you and the kids but his wife's away at the moment—her mother isn't well—and they've got the workmen in and anyway what with its being Ted and Yvonne's anniversary celebration on Sunday…”

The gabble was to let her understand it was all a
fait accompli
. I had no fears she'd stand in my way but I hoped she wouldn't sound reproachful.

Which she didn't. Not at all. I should have known better.

“Darling, obviously you've got to go! It's like you're answering a Mayday signal and although we're going to miss you—of course we are—you could scarcely have refused. But just imagine! John Caterham! After all these years!”

So then I phoned the station: as Moira owned a car we'd both considered it unnecessary for me to drive—and anyway I wouldn't have wanted to leave Junie and the children dependent upon lifts. I was just finishing the call when Mavis arrived. It was lucky we'd agreed she needn't begin until ten—because even in the midst of tidying or cleaning she was apt to thrust her head around the door to share a thought or put a question and I could hardly, suddenly, have requested her not to. Besides that, there were certain areas of the shop from which a phone call could be heard…especially when the radio wasn't on…and I wouldn't have wanted to be asked (she was fully capable of it) why had I been speaking so softly and what guilty secret did I have to hide. Therefore, to guarantee myself a good five minutes of privacy, I sent Mavis out to buy rum babas before I rang back Moira.

And found the line engaged!

I counted, in a determinedly disciplined fashion, up to fifty. Then rang again.

Walked round the shop and made myself breathe deeply; this time counted up to sixty. My pulse rate had gone mad and even my bowels threatened treachery. My bladder, too. The patisserie was only down the road and what if on my third attempt the line continued busy…?

It didn't.

Benevolent heaven. In reality, the delay couldn't have lasted longer than three minutes. I relaxed.

Well, up to a point I did. I still needed to impress. And to hurry things a bit.

I said: “If I leave here mid-afternoon on Friday I should get to Victoria at six-forty-eight. Precisely. Which means, of course, I'll have a pretty long wait at Dover Priory. I hope you appreciate that.”

“Oh, I do! I shall be at Victoria at six-forty-seven-and-a-half in a strenuous attempt to compensate!”

“Thank you. To strike a more serious note, however, you don't have to come to meet me. I used to be a boy scout; could probably still find my compass.”

“I'm glad to hear it. To strike an even
more
serious note, however, I should
like
to come to meet you.”

“And to strike the most serious note of all, however, I was simply being polite—haven't any wish whatever to reject a sympathetic guide. No, on the contrary, I'll carry a white stick and tap my way along the platform like blind Pew.”

“You're better-looking than he was.”

“That's a weight off my mind. I can't believe I've only met you twice.”

“It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it. Oh—and while I think of it—will you bring your dinner jacket?”

“I… Yes, of course.”

“We'll do this thing in style.”

“You bet we will.” I heard the bell above the shop door. “Oh, damn, I'm afraid I've got to go! Customers.”

“It's all right, Mr G, only yours truly!” called out Mavis, over the partition.

“Be seeing you Friday, then. Ciao!”

“Ciao!” answered Moira. I cursed the interruption, even while I sensed it was a blessing. Left to myself I might have gone on talking for an hour. That would have been lovely, but…but I wanted to play it cool. I was totally without experience of intrigue, yet knew I had her interest and also knew, according to received wisdom, that at this stage it would be safer to retain a little mystery, keep her guessing, separate my heart from my sleeve.

“You are an idiot, Mr G—it was only yours truly,” Mavis repeated. She'd now opened the office door. “Sorry about that.”

I tilted back my chair and hitched both thumbs into my trouser pockets. I was magnanimous. “Nay, lass, think nowt on't.”

She giggled, held up the paper bag, took my change out of her purse. “I had to get meringues. They hadn't got babas.”

“No sweat,” I said. With Mavis I could play it cool.

Yet even with Mavis it was partly touch-and-go. I felt I could have let out a whoop. Felt I could have run a mile. (Literally.) Could have jumped into the sea with all my clothes on. Jumped into the sea without a stitch. Kicked a football (we had one), hurled a cricket ball (we had one), watched them either disappear above a rooftop or else re-descend to make the perfect header, present the perfect catch. I could have rung the bell on one of those things which test your strength at fairgrounds—felt I could have broken the machine.

But I merely sat there at my desk, with the most active thing about me being my brain. “Too soon to make the coffee?” asked Mavis.

“What?”

“Coffee?”

“Coffee? If you like. Up to you.” Yes—sure. There were times when I could be remarkably chilled out. “Hey, Mavis. I want you to tell me something. And I want you to be perfectly candid.”

“Oh, Lord! I hate it when anybody says that.”

“Does my hair need cutting?”

“Is that it?”

“What?”

“The thing I've got to be perfectly candid about.”

“You mustn't ever underestimate,” I said, “the importance of wearing your hair the proper length.”

“Mine or yours?” she asked, playfully. I had grown as used to the unruliness of her hair as to the exuberance of her breathing. I had to ride out my lack of tact; hope she either hadn't noticed it or hadn't been offended.

“And next weekend, you see, I aim to cut a dash.”

She gazed at me—her head held slightly to one side. At rare moments Mavis seemed to lose her little girlishness. “A rugged dash or a sophisticated one?” she inquired.

“Both.” I told her about what Junie had described as a Mayday signal and she was suitably impressed.

“In cricket togs I'd be inclined to go for the more rugged kind. I like you with long hair.”

“In white flannels, yes. But what about evening dress?”

That perhaps was indiscreet. Yet all she said was: “My word, is there going to be a dance? Well, Mr G—life is a compromise. You'd better play the match, then run off to the barber's as soon as stumps are drawn.”

“I don't believe in compromise.”

“Ah… I always said you must've led a magical existence!”

“You did?”

“No, not really.” She shook her head in apology.

“But how right you would have been! A
very
magical existence.” Abruptly, I stood up. “I'm going out for twenty minutes. You, my girl, can eat the two meringues. Make up for a lifetime of half measures.”

While I was in the mood I went into the bank and by chance was able to get an interview with the manager. (No, not by chance: by charm: by the irresistible persuasiveness of someone convinced that life, let alone bank managers, could deny him nothing. From now on, I reminded myself, I should never
not
be in the mood!) Hal Smart had been a schoolfriend. Because we'd regularly had our arms around each other in the rugger scrum and larked together in the shower it meant I never felt trepidation about asking for a loan; Hal knew better than to condescend. (In fact if either of us felt superior, it could well have been me: although he'd once been slim and muscular, in the last ten or fifteen years he'd put on a lot of weight and lost a lot of hair; no stranger would have considered us the same age.) This morning he readily agreed to my request; understood about the upkeep of old houses—owning one himself. We asked after each other's families and said, as we always did, that we must all get together sometime. Then he walked me to the main door and slapped my back by way of farewell; an attention not every overdrawn client was likely to receive from his bank manager. “All the very best, Sam!” I wanted to tell him I'd already got it. I strode away jauntily, with my shoulders squared and my hands in my trouser pockets, like a man who'd just staged an eminently successful holdup and knew in these enlightened times that the censors were going to let him get away with it; enjoy the fruits of his inventiveness and daring.

From the bank to the hairdresser's…but only for the merest trim. (Okay, Mavis, I admit—a compromise!) I also had a manicure. It was good to have a svelte and pretty blonde hold your hand and relate to you the latest chapter in the saga of her search for Mr Wonderful. I offered her some worldly-wise advice.

Then finally, or almost finally, the men's outfitters: the snazziest in town. A dinner jacket. With more warning I could have had it made; the one I settled on, however, looked extremely dashing, even without the proper shirt or tie or shoes—and I was assured that without fail the alterations could be carried out by Friday. I turned this way and that and was far more impressed than I revealed to the probably gay assistant. Why on earth had I ever waited so long? I was a toff. I was a man-about-town. I was the model off the cover of a Harrods catalogue.

I wrote the cheque in the same happy fashion that I'd handed out tips at the hairdressers. With something of a flourish. I needn't have, not until Friday.

Equally, I could have waited for the trim and manicure till then, merely have booked an appointment. But why? If you were going to live each day as though your last, didn't it behove you, on each last day, to look, and therefore feel, as fine as you possibly could?

But I'd been absent from
Treasure Island
for over two hours. On occasion it was almost unbelievable how quickly time could pass.

“Mavis, what do you think of my hair?”

“Have you had it done?”

Well, that was absolutely as it should be.

“No wonder you've been gone so long! I must be mad. I thought you told me twenty minutes.”

“You are mad. Twenty minutes! What an extremely
odd
idea! But I'm sorry—have I made you late for lunch?”

“It doesn't matter. I did eat both meringues. And telephoned to warn my ma.”

“Oh, that reminds me, I've a present for your ma. Wondered if a bottle of wine might cheer her up a bit. Encourage her to shimmy like her sister Kate.”

“Or maybe shimmer like her uncle Sam. Bless you,” said Mavis. “You are good!”

12

“I've been thinking,” I said. It was the same evening, while we sipped our Martinis. Poor Susie sat beside my chair, with her head on my lap, and we told ourselves she was improving. After all, it hadn't yet been forty-eight hours. I scratched behind her ears and she seemed to be enjoying it, for she had closed her eyes. But the old vitality was missing—for the moment—and although there were many things which she plainly remembered, far too often we would still find her with her nose against a wall or against some other large blank area, like the back of a settee or the front of a bookcase, merely standing and staring and placidly waiting. This obviously was worrying and Mr Dodd had said we should see how she was doing in another week. “That old defeatist,” I'd declared. “He doesn't reckon for the power of love. You've got to be positive, haven't you, Suze? It's love that's going to pull you through.”

“Hurray for love!” said Junie. I don't know why that should have sounded slightly out of character.

Not unlike her reply—a short while later—to that opening gambit of mine.
I've been thinking
.

“Well done,” she said.

Though she was smiling.

I stared into my drink. It had been the lead-in to something quite important. “How are things?” I asked. “You seem a little tired.”

“I am—a little. Not wholly unexpected. It's probably because my period's due.”

“Oh, hell. Already?”

“I don't mind, really. The sooner it comes the sooner I get it over with.”

“Yes, of course.” I did my best to adjust to this. “You poor old thing, it isn't right; you have a lot to put up with, don't you?”

“Mmm, it's unusual. Not many women get periods. Why me, I ask myself. Why me?”

I laughed. If she were acting a trifle strangely I reflected that (a) it was good to have a wife who could still surprise one after seventeen years and (b) that it was principally her period talking. (Which shouldn't have begun until the following weekend—blast it! Ah, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men an' o' potential Casanovas…)

But I had always hoped that at times of small reversals like this I would remember Count Basie's basic philosophy. ‘Life is a bitch and if it's not one damn thing then it's going to be something else.' I topped up our drinks:
Martini—for the beautiful people
. And when we sat down to supper I almost immediately got up to fetch four wineglasses and a bottle of Sauternes from the sideboard. (On the way I tousled Ella's hair. “Oh,
Dad!
” she said—and jerked away her head. “Oh,
Dad!
” I said, with the old familiar sense of disappointment.) “What's that for?” asked Junie, surprised, indicating the bottle.

“Mum, don't stop him!” cried the children, in rare harmony.