Plender (13 page)

“Good picture last night, eh, Pete?”

“Not bad,” he said. “I’ve seen worse.”

There was a pause. Then I said, “Have you seen it yet, Susan?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t go to pictures in the week. I go on Saturday nights with my parents.”

She looked at me so straight that I had to look away. For a moment I had a terrible feeling that Peter had told her what I’d said.

“What are you doing tomorrow morning?” Peter asked me.

Tomorrow was Saturday.

“I dunno,” I said. “Nothing. Why?”

“Susan and me are going biking down on the river bank. Want to come?”

I could hardly believe it. A whole morning, out of school, near Susan. And Peter wanted me to go with them.

“Yeah, all right,” I said.

“Call for us,” said Peter. “About half past nine.”

The next morning Peter and I biked up Westfield Road. Susan was waiting outside the drive that led up to her house. We all rode off down to the river bank.

We stayed down there till gone one o’clock. I’d never enjoyed a morning so much. There was a high April wind, cold and clear, and racing turpentine coloured clouds, and the water looked fresh and crisp with the wind roaring into it and cutting it up into thousands of tiny waves. And the mood of the day seemed to blow inside us as we ran along the beach and climbed over the broken jettys. Everything seemed funny and exhilarating and the three of us were the only people to appreciate the day. And I lost all my fears as far as talking to Susan was concerned. Today there seemed to be no barriers. And Susan seemed to like me talking to her.

On the way home Susan invited us in. I knew I should have gone straight home, because on Saturdays at one o’clock it was my job to go to Carters and get the fish and chips and mam would be waiting. But I wanted to spend as much time as I could near Susan, and terrified as I was of mam and terrified as I was of actually going into Susan’s house, I accepted.

I’d never been in a house like it. There were so many things—so many clocks, so many pictures, so many little tables, so many rugs, carpets that fitted, wallpaper that stood out in relief, an enormous gramophone, and even a television set, a huge veneer console with a ten-inch screen.

And Mrs. Armitage was as well turned out and modern as her house. Permed hair, flowered dress, even wearing high heel shoes in the house. She looked years younger than my mam, only I knew that they must be about the same age.

Susan introduced us to her mother and then took us into a room she called “her room.” It was at the back of the house, with bookshelves and a writing desk and a big wicker basket full of her old toys, and her school things, her satchel, her hockey stick, her tennis racket, and on the writing desk, spread all over, was her weekend homework; she must have started doing it on Friday night. And on the walls there were pictures of her in the netball team and in the hockey team, and one of her and a crowd of other children in the market place, about to get into one of Rowson’s coaches at the start of last year’s school holiday to France, and there was a signed photograph of Dickie Valentine, and another of Anne Shelton, and on the floor there was a brand new record player with records scattered all around it.

I took it all in, every detail, so that I’d be able to imagine her at home, in this room, listening to her records and doing her homework.

Susan put some records on the record player and after a while Mrs. Armitage pushed a tea trolley into the room and on the trolley there were sandwiches and biscuits and three big glasses full of milk.

Peter and I left at about half past two.

As we biked down the hill Peter said to me, “I reckon Susan likes you, Brian.”

“Don’t be so daft,” I said.

“She does,” he said. “I can tell.”

“How?”

“I just can.”

“Did she say anything then?”

“Naw. Lassies never do.”

“Well, then.”

“It’s up to you. You’ve got to ask her.”

“But supposing she said no.”

“That’s nowt to be frightened of, is it?”

I shook my head.

“Suppose not,” I said.

“If you like,” said Peter, “I’ll do it. I’ll ask her.”

“Naw, it’s all right,” I said.

“You’re off to ask her yourself, then?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Shall I, then?”

There was no way of getting out of it now.

I nodded.

I spent the rest of the weekend in a state of sweet terror.

At break on Monday, Peter came over to me. I was standing near the Boys’ Entrance, keeping off the field so that Susan wouldn’t be able to see me.

“I’ve asked her,” he said, grinning.

I looked at him.

“She says she will.”

I couldn’t believe it.

“What did she say?” I said.

“She said to meet her behind the pavilion at dinnertime and then you can fix up a date.”

“Why there?” I said.

“I dunno,” said Peter. “But that’s what she said.”

The thought crossed my mind that she didn’t want to be seen walking round the field with me, the way the other courting couples did. And then I was glad it was to be behind the pavilion, because that meant that nobody would see me, nobody would call out after me.

Between break and lunchtime the agony grew. What was I going to say to her? What would she expect me to talk about? What kind of date would I have to make? Would she expect me to bike home with her after school, on our own, without Peter?

After dinner, it was the turn of our table to put the forms and tables away after the rest of those who stayed to School Dinners had been dismissed. This usually took about five minutes. It was a hated job because it meant five minutes less football on the flags or five minutes less fighting on the bank or five minutes less smoking in the Valley. But today it was a thousand times worse. Supposing Susan got there first, waited a few minutes and then left? What would I do then?

When the last form had been stacked I rushed out of the main hall and into the washrooms and stood in front of the mirror and ran my comb under the tap. Late as I was I had to make sure my hair was all right.

Outside the day was warm and overcast. I crossed the field towards the pavilion and the ground was hard and dry under my feet.

Some second-formers were chasing a tennis ball up and down the hockey pitch. There was no sign of Susan. I’d been right. She was there already, waiting, out of sight.

I climbed the slight sandy slope that led to the back of the pavilion and turned the corner. Tall bushes made the trampled space gloomy and quiet.

She wasn’t there.

I shuddered as the pent-up breath rushed from my lungs. She hadn’t come yet. I leant against the white boards of the pavilion. Now I had to wait and the waiting would make me even more nervous.

I fingered my Windsor knot to make sure it was just so and patted my hair at the front and made sure that my hymn book was neat in my top pocket and I rebuttoned my blazer and made sure my shirt collar was flat.

Five minutes passed.

If she doesn’t come soon, I thought, maybe the usual pavilion crowd would turn up and want to know what I was doing. And if she came while they were there, that would be terrible. She might even think I’d asked them along.

I began to want to pee.

It was nerves, just like before going out to bat. I knew, because I’d been to the toilet before I’d crossed the field. I tried not to think about it, but the more I tried the worse it was. And I daren’t risk having one now in case she came just as I was doing it.

Another five minutes went by.

I looked round the corner of the pavilion to see if she was coming across the field but there was no sign of her. Perhaps she’d had a puncture on her way back from her dinner. Perhaps she’d had an accident. Maybe I ought to go and wait by the gate.. . . Behind me, the bushes rustled.

I turned round and the rustling stopped. Then, almost immediately, there was a new noise, a snorting stifled giggle. The bushes began to tremble again.

I approached the shaking leaves and peered into the green gloom. Then the bushes exploded with laughter. In the bushes there was Peter, two of Peter’s friends, Johnno and Petchy, and Susan, and Susan’s friend, Stephanie Toyne. They were all lying on their stomachs, facing the pavilion. They must have been there all the time.

KNOTT

“What would you like, Peter?” said Kate’s father. His voice washed over me like warm water.

“Do you feel like a drink yet, Peter?” said Kate, all polite iced concern.

“A scotch and water, please,” I said, trying to keep the words separate, lifting my head slightly from the back of my chair.

Kate’s father rang the bell and Kate walked over to the French windows to hide her mood from her father. Rain streamed down the window panes. Kate’s father jabbed at the logs in the fireplace with the huge brass poker. Of course he knew I was drunk, but he was damned if my impoliteness was going to get in the way of his politeness, prevent him from behaving in the proper manner. And if, like him, one wasn’t the real thing, then propriety was all important; it helped paper over the cracks.

And of course it had worked when I’d first met him. I’d thought he was the real thing. It had only been later when Kate had given me the real family history that I’d found out he’d started out in totally different circumstances to the ones he’d ended up in. He’d married into money, but not before he’d made a few bob of his own—in scrap, shoddies, old furniture, lead, that sort of stuff. With the money he’d made he bought a shop with a good position just behind the city centre and began selling cheap mass produced furniture and a bit later he bought two more shops located in the town’s poorer areas and ran them almost entirely on customer credit. Then he’d met Kate’s mother, Dorothea. Her family had been in just about everything there was to be in—ropes, candles, trawling, clothing, anything that was going. In principle just like Kate’s old man, except that Kate’s old man had three shops, a yard and a warehouse, while the Millen family had an empire. When Kate’s father had met Dorothea she’d just returned after having been sent to all the places in the world a girl from Dorothea’s background used to be sent to, and her family had given her a dress shop to play with until she decided to accept one of the okay short-list which the family had got standing in line waiting for her.

The shop had been next door to Mark Dixon’s furniture shop, a good position just behind the city centre.

Kate’s father’s man came into the room.

“Negus,” said Mark Dixon, “we’d all like a drink. Wheel the trolley in, would you?”

Negus went out and Kate’s father said to me, “How’s the catalogue coming?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m sending in all the shots on schedule.”

“No problems?”

“Only that I need another assistant and there just doesn’t appear to be one to be had.”

I marvelled at myself. Clear, precise, just the right amount of vague irritation in my voice. Not being able to find another assistant was obviously the greatest of my worries, but apart from that minor problem, everything else in my world was fine, just fine. There was no dead girl, no Brian Plender, no meeting at half past seven.

Kate turned away from the window and said, “Nicola begins at the riding school next Sunday, Daddy.”

Kate’s father turned to Nicola who was sitting at a table playing snakes and ladders with Kevin.

“Wonderful,” he said. “You’ll enjoy that, Nicola. Like mother, like daughter. Will you ride with her, Kate?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, assuming her arm-scratching position again. “All those youngsters would probably make me feel a bit past it.”

“Nonsense,” her father said. “Youth is only a state of mind.”

“Quite,” said Kate.

Negus returned with the drinks trolley and Kate’s father did the honours. I moved towards the French windows.

I looked out and beyond the swimming pool and the rolling lawn and the woodland until my eyes focused on the other side of the river. White against the greyness of the afternoon I could see the quarry where I played as a child.

I turned away from the window. For Christ’s sake, I thought, if he doesn’t offer me another drink I’m going to give myself one. What was I doing here anyway, listening to the boring old fart and his daughter conduct their mutual admiration society.

Plender knew. That’s all I could think: Plender knew.

And where was Eileen now?

PLENDER

I walked into the Ferry Boat at five past seven, their first customer of the evening. I ordered a half of bitter and went over to a corner table. The rain was still sheeting down outside. I took off my trench coat and hung it on the coat stand and sat down and took a sip of my beer. It tasted good, and then I remembered, of course, it was Masters and Drews’, the stuff they used to have in the Volunteers over in Brumby, the stuff we all used to drink as lads at school, when Mrs. Burnett would let us in her back bar. The first time I’d ever got drunk had been on Masters and Drews’, followed up with some V.P. Rich Red Ruby. It had been before we’d gone to the fourth form Christmas party.

We all fell out of Mrs. Burnett’s snug.

There was Mouncey and Croft and Storey and Ghandi and Greevo and Gilliat and Peter and me.

The cold night air hit us in our faces.