Stories (10 page)

Tommy gave his wife an alarmed and warning look, and said, “I wish to God they wouldn’t use so much garlic.”

“It’s not much use coming to France,” said Mary, “if you’re going to be insular about food.

“You never cook French at home,” said Tommy suddenly. “Why not, if you like it so much?”

“How can I? If I do, you say you don’t like your food messed up.”

“I don’t like garlic either,” said Betty, with the air of one confessing a crime. “I must say I’m pleased to be back home where you can get a bit of good plain food.”

Tommy now looked in anxious appeal at his wife, but she enquired, “Why don’t you go to Brighton or somewhere like that?”

“Give me Brighton any time,” said Francis Clarke. “Or Cornwall. You can get damned good fishing off Cornwall. But Betty drags me here. France is overrated, that’s what I say.”

“It would really seem to be better if you stayed at home.”

But he was not going to be snubbed by Mary Rogers. “As for the French,” he said aggressively, “they think of nothing but their stomachs. If they’re not eating, they’re talking about it. If they spent half the time they spend on eating on something worthwhile, they could make something of themselves, that’s what I say.”

“Such as—catching fish?”

“Well, what’s wrong with that? Or … for instance …” Here he gave the matter his earnest consideration. “Well, there’s that government of theirs for instance. They could do something about that.”

Betty, who was now flushed under her tan, rolled her blue eyes, and let out a high, confused laugh. “Oh well, you’ve got to consider what people say. France is so much the rage.”

A silence. It was to be hoped the awkward moment was over. But no; for Francis Clarke seemed to think matters needed clarifying. He said, with a sort of rallying gallantry towards his wife, “She’s got a bee in her bonnet about getting on.”

“Well,” cried Betty, “it makes a good impression, you must admit that. And when Mr. Beaker—Mr. Beaker is his boss,” she explained to Mary, “when you said to Mr. Beaker at the whist
drive you were going to the south of France, he was impressed, you can say what you like.”

Tommy offered his wife an entirely disloyal, sarcastic grin.

“A woman should think of her husband’s career,” said Betty. “It’s true, isn’t it? And I know I’ve helped Francie a lot. I’m sure he wouldn’t have got that raise if it weren’t for making a good impression. Besides, you meet such nice people. Last year, we made friends—well, acquaintance, if you like—with some people who live at Ealing. We wouldn’t have, otherwise. He’s in the films.”

“He’s a cameraman,” said Francis, being accurate.

“Well, that’s films, isn’t it? And they asked us to a party. And who do you think was there?”

“Mr. Beaker?” enquired Mary finely.

“How did you guess? Well, they could see, couldn’t they? And I wouldn’t be surprised if Francis couldn’t be buyer, now they know he’s used to foreigners. He should learn French, I tell him.”

“Can’t speak a word,” said Francis. “Can’t stand it anyway—gabble, gabble, gabble.”

“Oh, but Mrs. Rogers speaks it so beautifully,” cried Betty.

“She’s cracked,” said Francis, good-humouredly, nodding to indicate his wife. “She spends half the year making clothes for three weeks’ holiday at the sea. Then the other half making Christmas presents out of bits and pieces. That’s all she ever does.”

“Oh, but it’s so nice to give people presents with that individual touch,” said Betty.

“If you want to waste your time I’m not stopping you,” said Francis. “I’m not stopping you. It’s your funeral.”

“They’re not grateful for what we do for them,” said Betty, wrestling with tears, trying to claim the older woman as an ally. “If I didn’t work hard, we couldn’t afford the friends we got….”

But Mary Rogers had risen from her place. “I think I’m ready for bed,” she said. “Goodnight, Mrs. Clarke. Goodnight, Mr. Clarke.” Without looking at her husband, she walked away.

Tommy Rogers hastily got up, paid the bill, bade the young couple an embarrassed goodnight, and hurried after his wife. He caught her up at the turning of the steep road up to the villa. The stars were brilliant overhead; the palms waved seductively
in the soft breeze. “I say,” he said angrily, “that wasn’t very nice of you.”

“I haven’t any patience with that sort of thing,” said Mary. Her voice was high and full of tears. He looked at her in astonishment and held his peace.

But next day he went off fishing. For Mary, the holiday was over. She was packing and did not go to the beach.

That evening he said, “They’ve asked us back to dinner.”

“You go. I’m tired.”

“I shall go,” he said defiantly, and went. He did not return until very late.

They had to catch the train early next morning. At the little station, they stood with their suitcases in a crowd of people who regretted the holiday was over. But Mary was regretting nothing. As soon as the train came, she got in and left Tommy shaking hands with crowds of English people whom, apparently, he had met the night before. At the last minute, the young Clarkes came running up in bathing suits to say goodbye. She nodded stiffly out of the train window and went on arranging the baggage. Then the train started and her husband came in.

The compartment was full and there was an excuse not to talk. The silence persisted, however. Soon Tommy was watching her anxiously and making remarks about the weather, which worsened steadily as they went north.

In Paris there were five hours to fill in.

They were walking beside the river, by the open-air market, when she stopped before a stall selling earthenware.

“That big bowl,” she exclaimed, her voice newly alive, “that big red one, there—it would be just right for the Christmas tree.”

“So it would. Go ahead and buy it, old girl,” he agreed at once, with infinite relief.

I
n the mornings, when Mr. Brooke had hung his hat carefully on the nail over his desk and arranged his pipe and tobacco at his elbow, he used to turn to the others and say hopefully: “You should have just seen Twister today. He brought my newspaper from the doorstep without dropping it once.” Then he looked at the polite, hostile faces; laughed a short, spluttering, nervous laugh; and bent his head to his papers.

Miss Jenkins, the private secretary, kept a peke called Darling; and she had only to mention him for everyone to listen and laugh. As for Richards, he was engaged, and they pulled his leg about it. Every time he went purple and writhed delightedly under his desk. The accountant, Miss Ives, a tart old maid who lived some proud, defiant life of her own, had a garden. When she talked about trees the office grew silent with respect. She won prizes at flower shows. There was no getting past her.

At eight, as they settled down for the day; at eleven, when cups of tea came round, slopped into saucers; at three in the afternoon, when they ate cream cakes—they all had something.

Mr. Brooke had bought his terrier Twister simply so that he could make them notice him sometimes. First it was a canary, but he decided at last canaries couldn’t be interesting. Although Miss Jenkins’ peke did nothing but eat, she could talk about it every day and get an audience, but then she was a very attractive girl. She wouldn’t have been the
boss’s private secretary if she weren’t. Mr. Brooke’s dog did everything. He taught it at night, in his room, to beg and balance and wait for sugar. He used to rub its ears gratefully, thinking: It will make them sit up when I tell them he can keep perfectly still for ten minutes by the watch the office gave me when I had worked for them twenty years. He used to say things like that to himself long after he had given up trying to attract their notice.

And, after all, he had not been alone, had not added up figures from eight to four for thirty years, without making something of his own he could live from. He decided to keep the canary, because it took no room and he had come to enjoy its noise. He kept the dog, too, because it was company, of a kind. The real reason why he got rid of neither was because they annoyed his landlady, with whom he bickered continually. After office hours he used to walk home thinking that after supper he would make the dog bark so that she would come in and make a scene. These scenes usually ended in her crying; and then he could say: “I am alone in the world, too, my dear.” Sometimes she made him a cup of tea before going to bed, saying bitterly, “If you won’t look after yourself I suppose someone must. But don’t let that damned dog spill it all over the floor.”

After she had gone to bed, and there was no chance of meeting her in the passage, he cut out pictures from magazines, sent off postal orders to addresses he was careful to keep hidden from her inquisitive eyes, and was not in the least ashamed of himself. He was proud of it; it was a gesture of defiance, like getting drunk every Friday. He chose Fridays because on Saturday mornings, when he was really not fit for work, he could annoy Miss Ives by saying: “I went on the loose last night.” Then he got through the hours somehow. A man was entitled to something, and he did not care for gardens.

The rest of the week he used to sit quietly at his desk, watching them talk together as if he were simply not there, and wish that Miss Jenkins’ dog would get ill, and she would ask him for advice; or that Miss Ives would say: “Do help me with my ledger; I have never seen anyone who could calculate as fast as you”; or that Richards would quarrel with his girl and confide in him. He imagined himself saying: “Women! Of course! You can’t tell me anything.”

Other times he stood looking out of the window, listening to the talk behind him, pretending not to, pretending he was indifferent. Two stories down in the street, life rushed past. Always, he felt, he had been looking out of windows. He dreamed, often, that two of the cars down below would crash into each other, and that he was the only witness. Police would come stamping up the stairs with notebooks; the typists would ask avidly, “What actually happened, Mr. Brooke?”; the boss would slap him on the shoulder and say: “How lucky you saw it. I don’t know what I would do without you.” He imagined himself in court, giving evidence. “Yes, your worship, I always look out of the window at that time every day. I make a habit of it. I saw everything….”

But there never was an accident. The police only came once, and that was to talk to Miss Jenkins when her peke got lost; and he hardly saw Mr. Jones except to nod to. It was Miss Ives who was his real boss.

He used to peep through the door of the typists’ room, where six girls worked, when the boss went through each morning, and go sick with envious admiration.

Mr. Jones was a large, red-faced man with hair grown white over the ears; and after lunch every day he smelled of beer. Nevertheless, the girls would do anything for him. He would say breezily, “Well, and how’s life today?” Sometimes he put his arm round the prettiest and said, “You’re too cute to keep long. You’ll be getting married….” He said it as if he were handing out medals, something one had to do, part of his job. It’s only to make them work harder, thought Mr. Brooke bitterly, surreptitiously shutting the door and listening to how the typewriters started clattering furiously the moment Mr. Jones left. Then he used to go to the washroom and look at his own face in the glass. He had no white hair himself; he was quite a good-looking man, he thought. But if he put his arm round a girl’s shoulder he would get his face slapped, he knew that.

It was the year he was fifty-five, retiring age, that Marnie de Kok came into the office as a junior, straight from school. Mr. Brooke did not want to leave off working. He couldn’t live on what he had saved; and in any case the office was all he had. For some weeks he looked crumpled up with apprehension; but Mr. Jones said nothing, and after a while he took heart again.
He did not want to think about it; and besides, with Marnie there everything was changed. After one morning there was a different feeling in the office.

She was a girl of eighteen from some little dorp miles away, the youngest of ten children. She had a small plump, fresh face that always had a look of delighted expectation, and a shrill; expressive voice, and was as slim and as quick as a fish. She darted about the place, talking to the staff as if it had never entered her head anyone in the world could not be pleased to waste his time on her account. She shattered the sacred silence of the main office with her gossip about her family; sat on the desks and swung her legs; put vases of flowers among the telephones. And even Miss Ives took off her glasses and watched her. They all watched her; and particularly Mr. Jones, who made plenty of excuses to leave his desk, with the indulgent, amused, faintly ironic smile with which one looks at children, remembering what all that fearlessness and charm is going to come to. As for Mr. Brooke, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. For a while he was afraid to speak, for Marnie, like the others, seemed not to know he was there; and when he did, she looked at him with startled distaste, a look he was used to, though it in no way corresponded with what he felt about himself. She might be my daughter, he said to himself defensively; and he used to ask her with whom she ate lunch, what picture she had seen the night before, as a jealous lover can’t resist talking about his mistress, feeling that even to speak about what she has been doing robs it of its danger, makes the extraordinary and wonderful life she leads apart from him in some way his. But Marnie answered shortly, or not at all, wrinkling up her nose.