The Watchers on the Shore (27 page)

I hope I'm not being nosey.'

'Be my guest.'

'Thanks.'

She puts the tray down on the hearthrug.

'It's only instant, I'm afraid.'

'That's my usual tipple.'

'Sugar?'

'One please.'

She sugars the coffee and passes me a cup which I balance on the
arm of the sofa.

'Biscuit?'

'Er, no, thanks.'

She sips at her coffee and looks at me.

'Does my small record collection reveal any unsuspected quirks of personality, then?'

'No, it just shows you're interested in music.'

Doesn't any record collection?'

'No,' I exchange a look with her. 'I used to work in a record shop.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. There's music and what passes for music.'

She says' Mmm,' and drinks some more coffee while I look at the records. Ella Fitzgerald singing Jerome Kern,
Sinatra's Sinatra, Beyond the Fringe, My Fair Lady,
soundtrack recording of
West Side Story,
the Francescatti recording of the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos, back to back, the Sibelius Concerto, and the joker in the pack, Rachmaninov's Second Symphony.

I hold that up.

'I don't think I know this.'

'Do you know the piano concertos?'

'Yes.'

Same Rachmaninov, but a bit more of a piece, if you know what
I mean. It's lovely. I heard it on the wireless one day and ordered the record. Lovely Russian melancholy.'

'What's the passion for fiddle concertos?'

'I used to take lessons. I was never very good.'

'The good old artistic background again, eh?'

'With pigs.'

'Yeh, mustn't forget the pigs.'

'It's true, though, that the arts - music, books, painting - have
always been there, part of my life.'

'You were lucky.'

'Was I?'

'Yes. I had to struggle for what I've got. What little I've got, I
should say. Culture's a bit of a dirty word where I come from.'

Oh, it is in a lot of places, you know. It depends an enormous amount on individual families.'

It was the old man I worked for in the record shop who first led me to music. He took me to concerts, and that. "It's like a wonderful voyage of discovery," he used to say, "with magic over every horizon. There's all the music in the world waiting for you to find it." He was right, too. I've had a bloody marvellous time.'

'Do you take your wife to concerts?'

'No ... I don't go much nowadays .. . Who did the picture? Your mother?'

'Yes, it's one of hers. What do you think of it?'

'I don't really know.'

'It usually provokes strong reactions.'

'I suppose I'm indifferent.'

'Can you be indifferent to a painting like that?'

'You'd be surprised what I can be indifferent to. I didn't say I could ignore it.'

I drink my coffee and glance at the time.

'I suppose I ought to be off.'

'It'd perhaps be as well.'

I wonder how I ought to take this. Does she mean because of the letter-writer or what I said earlier?

'Do you think I ought to peep between the curtains and see if there's a figure in slouch hat and raincoat lurking across the street?'

'Do you think it is a man?'

'I don't know. I thought it was women who went in for that kind
of thing, but God knows who'd want to get at me.'

'You haven't got some woman scorned in your recent past?'

'I've only been down here ten minutes. Give us a chance!'

She stands up as I get my coat and pull it on.

'I'll tell you what, though. Would you let me take the letter?'

'Sure.' She picks it up out of the hearth where she put it aside and hands it to me.

'I'll have a closer look at them both later. I shall have to do
something about finding out who's at the bottom of it. I can't make
a move without thinking somebody's watching me.'

'Let's hope they're satisfied and don't bother any more.'

'Yes ... Anyway ..." I look at her, 'it's not going to stop me
doing what I want to do.'

She knows that I mean seeing her. She returns my look and says,
'That's up to you.'

But I resist asking when I will see her again, thinking there's
always the Mitre and that there's a way in which the letter to her
has done me a good turn, letting me see her alone again and giving
me a chance to make a small move. The next move will have to wait
its turn.

So I think, not knowing that it's nearly on us, giving us just till
we reach the door.

There, a quick' Well, so long. Thanks again. I'll see you around'
would get me out. But her fingers are on the handle and some happy accident of me standing on the wrong side of her in the narrow hall as she opens the door a couple of inches brings us
suddenly very close together and for two important seconds we
freeze as her eyes stay on me in a deep, grave look. Then I've pushed
the door shut again and my arms are round her and her mouth's
under mine, mine saying into her hair as we break:

'Donna ... Oh, Donna, Donna.'

In a moment she holds me off, her look still serious but now with
an added element of concern.

'You know, Vic, this can't be good at all for you.'

I shake my head. 'Too late, love.' There's something wild and
altogether marvellous exploding
inside me.

'It'll get worse before it gets better.'

14

If I have a mental picture of her from those early days - the best
days - it's of her laughing. They're the best days because although
there's better yet to come it seems to arrive in isolated times that
are hedged round with a tension and a sense of oppression that the
first weeks don't have - in spite of that anonymous watcher who
seems to be always behind us and who drives us out of town to
places where we're less likely to be seen. There's fun in life and joy in just being with her in the tunes when she can get away from the
theatre. Joy in knowing she wants my company and the certainty
that there's a moment soon to come that I've no intention of rushing
after, preferring to let it arrive in its own good time and knowing
it'll be all the better for the saving.

Sometimes she's laughing at something that's happened at the theatre; sometimes at herself; sometimes at me. It's a good thing to be able to make a person laugh, especially if you love her. There's a streak of the clown in me that comes easily to the top when, as now, I'm happy, in love and, usually, I've had a couple
of drinks. But sometimes I find myself feeling a fool, which is
different from playing one, and about fifteen years old when all I want to be is the efficient, masterful male.

We're coming back from out of town one Sunday night - the
only time Donna can get away for a full evening - when the car
gives a sudden lurch and she has to hang on to the wheel to stop us
going into the ditch. She slows down and stops.

'Phew, I didn't care much for that, did you?'

'What's happened? A puncture?'

'It felt like it. Better see.'

She gets a torch out of the dashboard compartment and we get out and look at the offside rear wheel.

"That's it, all right. How's your spare?'

'Okay, as far as I know.'

'Let's have it out.'

We get the spare out, along with the tools from the boot, and as
I'm knocking the hub cap off to get at the wheel nuts, Donna's fitting the jack in position and starting to crank.

'If you wait a minute I'll do that for you.'

'I'm capable. I've changed wheels before.'

'Aye,' I say straining against the tightness of the nuts, 'I know
you're self-sufficient.'

'I didn't say that. I just meant I can change a wheel.'

You haven't changed this one recently. The nuts are stuck hard.'

They'd be tightened with a power tool when I had the new tyres put on.'

'It feels like it.'

'Can you manage?'

'This one's coming.'

Five minutes later, when the job's done, I'm sweating under my overcoat and I want to pay a call. I go to the wall at the side of the
road and look down into the field.

'Where are you going?' Donna asks.

'Over this wall.'

'What for?'

'Don't ask silly questions.'

There's a bank of deep snow under the wall and a dark patch of
what looks like firm earth. I jump down on to this and it gives
under me. I fall backwards, stopping myself from going full length
by putting my hand out. It goes up to the elbow in cold snow.
When I climb back I'm sure that things aren't what they ought to
be. Donna's back in the car and I open the door and ask her for the torch.

'What's wrong?

'I'm not sure, but I think . ..' I shine the beam on my legs and
feet and put my hand in the light.

'It's soot!'

'What?'

'It's soot.'

'Soot? It can't be.'

'It is, y'know. I'm covered in the bloody stuff.'

'You'd better get in.'

'But I can't with this stuff all over me.'

You're not going to walk home, are you?'

'No ... I suppose not.'

I get in and shut the door.

Can you beat it! Of all the spots I have to pick that one. What the hell's it doing there anyway? .. . Donna ...'

She's turned away from me and I can feel her shaking.

'Donna, are you all right?'

She's laughing. She's killing herself over it. She can't speak.

'Would you like me to do it again?'

She shakes her head as the laughter bursts out of her in a sudden
whoop. She feels for hankie and wipes her eyes.

'Oh, Vic, you are priceless.'

'You know me, love- owt for a giggle. Head first would make a novelty, wouldn't it?'

This only sets her off more. There's something very infectious
about her laughter at any time and I feel the sourness going as the
funny side of it strikes me.

'Oh God,' she says after a while. 'If you could have heard your
self- how outraged you sounded.'

'Well, I mean ...'

She starts the engine.

'We'd better get back and clean you up.'

'It's all in my shoes and everything.'