The Children Of Dynmouth (16 page)

In the rectory garden the twins still laughed and clapped, more amused than ever because he was still standing there with his eyes closed, smiling at them. The most marvellous smile they’d ever seen, the biggest in the world.

Commander Abigail was not a heavy drinker, but after his gloomy morning walk he had felt the need of consolation and had found it in the Disraeli Lounge of the Queen Victoria Hotel. He had entered the lounge at twenty past two and had ordered a sandwich and a large measure of whisky, which he’d consumed quickly. He had attempted to obtain more whisky, but was informed that the bar was now closed until five-thirty. Unable to face his wife in the bungalow in High Park Avenue and fearful of meeting her in one of the shops if he hung about the town, he set off for another walk along the beach, striking out this time in the opposite direction from the one he’d taken that morning. With the passing of time, he began to think that he’d taken far too glum a view of the situation. His foremost maxim – of never admitting defeat, of sticking to your guns through thick and thin – came to his aid and offered the first shreds of comfort since the unpleasantness of the night before. At half past five he returned to the Disraeli Lounge and at ten to eight, his spirits further lightened by his intake of whisky, he entered the bungalow, whistling.

‘Where on earth have you been, Gordon?’ she demanded as soon as he appeared in the sitting-room. She was half-heartedly knitting, with the television on, the sound turned low.

‘Walking,’ he replied briskly. ‘I reckon I walked twenty miles today.’

‘Your dinner’ll be as dry as dust.’ She rose, sticking her knitting needles into a ball of blue wool. Laughter emerged softly from the television set as a man hit another man in the stomach. She could smell the whisky even though the length of the room was between them.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.

‘If you’re drunk, Gordon –’

‘I am not drunk.’

‘There’s been enough drunkenness in this house.’

‘Are you talking about young Gedge?’

‘I’ve been sitting here worried sick.’

‘About me, dear?’

‘I’ve been waiting for you for six hours. What on earth am I to think? I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

‘Sit down, my dear.’

‘I want to leave Dynmouth, Gordon. I want to leave this bungalow and everything else. I thought I’d go mad with that woman this morning.’

‘What woman’s that, dear?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, what’s it matter what woman it is? You’ve never displayed the slightest interest in what I do. You’ve never asked me, not once, how anything has gone, or where I’ve been or whom I’ve seen.’

‘I’m sure I’ve asked about your Meals on Wheels, dear, I remember distinctly –’

‘You know perfectly well you haven’t. You’re incapable of taking an interest in me. You’re incapable of having a normal relationship with me. You marry me and you’re incapable of performing the sexual act.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Of course it’s true.’

‘You’re sixty-four, dear, I’m sixty-five. Elderly people don’t –’

‘We weren’t elderly in 1938.’

Her bluntness astounded him. Never in their whole married life had she spoken like that before. No matter how tedious she was in other ways, he had always assumed that it wasn’t in her nature to be coarse, and certainly she’d never displayed evidence of the inclination. Prim and proper had always been her way, and he’d appreciated her for it.

She returned to her chair and sat down. The two sharp points of red that had come into her cheeks the night before were there again. If he wanted food, she remarked unpleasantly, it was in the oven.

‘We had a nasty experience last night, Edith. We’re both upset.’

He crossed to the window table. The decanter, diminished by Timothy Gedge, still contained a few inches of amber liquid. He poured some for them both, and carried her glass to her.

She took it from him and sipped at the sweet sherry, reminded by its taste that he bought it specially because she didn’t like sweet sherry. It was at least fifteen years since he’d carried a glass across a room to her.

‘Young Gedge didn’t know what he was on about, Edith. I’ll tell you one thing, he’ll never enter Number Eleven High Park Avenue again.’

‘The drink you gave him brought the truth out, Gordon. He spoke nothing but the truth.’

‘Well, it’s not our business –’

‘It’s our business what he said about you.’

In the Disraeli Lounge he had planned what he’d say. He had prepared the sentences in his mind. He said:

‘I didn’t really notice that he said anything about me, dear.’

‘You know what he said, Gordon.’

‘As far as I could gather, what he was saying was some nonsense about the Easter Fête. Well, I dare say there’s no reason –’

‘Are you or are you not a homosexual, Gordon?’

He remained calm. Signals operated in his brain. Further prepared sentences came readily to his lips. He returned to the window table and poured himself the dregs of the sherry. He remained by the table, holding the edge of it with one hand because the table was shaking.

‘For young Gedge to say,’ he said quietly, ‘that he has seen a person watching boys playing rounders hardly makes that person a homosexual. I am a normal married man, Edith, as well you know.’

‘No, Gordon.’

‘I am not a passionate man, my dear. I prefer things in moderation.’

‘Thirty-six years’ abstinence is more than moderation, Gordon.’

Her voice was as soft and as deliberate as his. She shook her head and stared into the fire and then at the television screen. The programme had changed: a collie dog was now gambolling about, apparently seeking aid for a distressed shepherd.

‘I don’t always feel well,’ he said, which was another statement he had prepared. He paused, searching his mind for something else to say, something that might move the emphasis away from himself. He said:

‘I honestly didn’t know you still had interests like that, Edith.’

‘I cannot remain married to a man who is known to be a homosexual.’

He shivered. He recalled again the game of Find the Penny, and the face of the cub scout who liked to talk about his badges. Once in the Essoldo Cinema a lad had moved away when he’d done no more than offer him a piece of chocolate in the darkness. Once on the promenade a boy had laughed at him.

‘It’s not true what he said. I’ve no interest in cub scouts. I swear by almighty God, Edith.’

She looked away from him, not wishing to have to see him. She said there was no need to discuss it: she wanted to leave Dynmouth and to leave him, that was all.

‘I never did anything wrong, Edith.’

She didn’t speak. Still standing by the window, he began to weep.

His mother was out when he arrived back at Cornerways, and so was Rose-Ann. In the small grease-laden kitchen the dishes they’d eaten a meal off were in the sink. On the draining-board there was a piece of butter, half wrapped in its original paper, with scrapings from toast adhering to it. There were two tins, one that had contained peaches and the other half full of spaghetti. His mother would be at Thursday-evening Bingo, Rose-Ann out in Len’s car.

He knocked what remained of the spaghetti into a saucepan, and placed four slices of Mother’s Pride bread under the grill of the electric cooker. He hunted in a cupboard for another tin of peaches – or pineapple or pears, he didn’t mind. He knew he wouldn’t find any. He wouldn’t even find a tin of condensed milk, because his mother always opened tins on the day she bought them. In Mrs Abigail’s cupboards there were tins and jars of all sorts of things, fruit cocktail, chicken-and-ham paste, steak-and-kidney pie, Gentleman’s Relish. He poked through a jumble of dusters and Brasso, a broken electric iron, clothes pegs and a jelly mould. Finding nothing edible, he closed the cupboard door.

He went on thinking about Mrs Abigail. When he’d finished eating the spaghetti he’d call round and see her. He’d explain that in the kerfuffle last night he hadn’t been paid for the jobs he’d done. He’d say he was sorry for the kerfuffle, which was what she’d want to hear. He’d blame it all on the beer and the sherry, he’d say with a laugh she’d been right to tell him not to take any. Then he’d raise the subject of the dog’s-tooth suit.

The spaghetti sizzled in the saucepan, the toast flared beneath the grill. Unlike his mother and Rose-Ann he didn’t object to burnt toast, so he buttered it as it was, not pausing to toast the other side of it. He poked at the spaghetti with a knife, separating the congealed orange-and-white mess.

The Abigails were still in their sitting-room when the doorbell rang. The Commander, having ceased to weep, was sitting on the sofa. Mrs Abigail was in her armchair. The television set, still turned low, continued to perform.

On hearing the doorbell, the Commander’s reaction was affected by the events of the day and the matter they had just been so emotionally discussing: irrationally, he believed he was being visited by the police. Mrs Abigail, similarly affected, believed that what she’d been dreading all day had now come about: the parents of some child had arrived at the bungalow.

‘I’d better go,’ she said.

‘No, no. No, please –’

‘We can’t just sit here, Gordon.’

She rose slowly. She passed close to him as she crossed the room, averting her eyes. He had sobbed like a child. Tears had run on his cheeks as she had never seen tears coming from an adult man before. He had collapsed on to the sofa, holding his face with his hands, shrunken-looking. She hadn’t said anything. She’d even felt quite calm, only thinking that in the oven his dinner would be in cinders now.

In the hall she dreaded the advent of a parent less than she had dreaded it earlier. It was less terrible because her marriage was over. She had spoken and he, by his tears, had confessed: everything was different. She felt as though she had regained consciousness in a hospital bed after some physical calamity, that because of injury and loss she must now map out a new existence for herself.

‘Cheers,’ Timothy Gedge said when she opened the hall door.

The sight of him dismayed her. Some of the strength she had gained through coming to terms with the truth oozed out of her. She attempted to be brisk, but could not.

‘Well?’ she said, and then cleared her throat because her voice was croaking.

‘I come up to say I’m sorry, Mrs Abigail. If there was any inconvenience, due to the sherry and the beer.’

‘The Commander and I would rather you didn’t return here, Timothy.’

‘I was trying to play a joke on you, dressing up and that. I thought we were on for charades. I didn’t mean to cause a kerfuffle.’

‘It would be better if you went.’ She shook her head at him. She tried to smile, attempting to indicate that she knew it wasn’t his fault, that he hadn’t known what he was doing. ‘The Commander and I are upset, Timothy.’

She heard a sound in the hall behind her and then Gordon was pulling at the hall door, opening it wider and shouting. In a high voice he used expressions she’d never heard before. His face had reddened. His eyes had a wildness about them, as though he might attack the boy, who was looking at him with his mouth open.

‘The kind of person you are, Gedge,’ the Commander shouted, ‘you should be locked away. You’re a bloody young devil. You can’t mind your own business. Can you, Gedge?’ shrieked the Commander. ‘Can you mind your own business?’

‘I do the best I can, sir.’

‘You can’t tell the truth, Gedge. You’re trying on a blackmail attempt. You can be had up for blackmail, you know.’

‘We’ll keep the secret, Commander. No harm at all. Easy as skinning a cat, Commander.’

‘You deserve to be birched. You spy on innocent people. You tell nothing but lies.’

‘I wouldn’t ever tell a lie, sir.’

‘You bloody young pup!’ screamed the Commander.

There was silence then. A door opened in a bungalow across the avenue. A figure stood in the rectangle of light, attracted by the noise. The Commander was quietly weeping.

‘It’s all right, Gordon,’ she said in a flat, emotionless voice. ‘It’s all right, dear.’

She tried to close the door but he was grasping the edge of it, supporting himself against it. He moaned and sobbed, clinging to the door. He said he thought he would commit suicide.

The boy didn’t go away. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t turn and go.

‘Lies,’ her husband sobbed, in a voice that was now so soft it could scarcely be heard. Spittle was running down his chin and dripping on to his clothes. His fingers still gripped the edge of the door, his small body was pressed against it. He’d been shy and fair-haired the Sunday afternoon he’d asked her to marry him, without any confidence in those days. She’d wanted to mother him. She’d wanted to press him to her and to stroke the thin, vulnerable nape of his neck. He had asked her to marry him because he was ashamed of himself, because he wanted to hide. For thirty-six years she had been convenient for this purpose. ‘Lies,’ he whispered again. ‘All lies about me.’

‘I was wondering about the cash that was owing,’ the boy said. ‘I was passing and I looked in. I was wondering if you’d agree to loan me the suit.’ He smiled at her, and then he mentioned the money and the suit again.

She prised her husband’s fingers from the edge of the door and pulled him into the hall. He was weeping more noisily now. She banged the door, pushing at it with her foot because her hands were occupied. After a moment the bell rang again, but this time neither of them answered it.

He didn’t mind. It wasn’t polite of them not to answer the door, knowing that he was standing there, but it didn’t really matter. Tomorrow or the next day he’d call in again and she’d hand him over the money and the suit. Just like Dass would get hold of a pair of curtains.

In the small car-park of the Artilleryman’s Friend he waited by a Vauxhall that had been abandoned there ten months ago. The public house was closed. All the other cars had been driven away.

From the back-yard came the sound of bottles rattling as Mr Plant stacked crates on top of one another. He whistled as he did so.

Timothy crossed the car-park, glad that the publican was whistling since it suggested good humour. He passed through an opening in a wooden fence into the yard, which was lit only by the light from within the house. Mr Plant was in his shirtsleeves. His three-legged dog was eating a cork.