The Watchers on the Shore (4 page)

'Well, bless my soul; here it is. I could have sworn I'd attended
to that promptly.'

'We all make mistakes, Mr Van Huyten,'I tell him.'I've brought the cheque book with me. If you tell me the amount I'll make it out for you to sign and post it on my way home.'

He passes the bill over and sits down again. The chair seems to swallow him and his hands on the arms are thin, big-knuckled and never quite still. He's like a ghost sitting there; you get the impression you can see right through him. But he manages to sign his name to the cheque with an old-fashioned flourish that touches me as I look at it and remember all the talks we've had, the concerts we used to go to when he was running his car, and the way he used to
infect me with his enthusiasm for music; getting on his feet to clap at the end of a concert if he felt like it, and talking all the way home from Leeds or Bradford about Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Elgar. He showed me that they were men like other men, but they had this extra something that left a mark on the world; they left their music and it was mine to enjoy as much as anybody else's. And when he did this Mr Van Huyten somehow seemed to open up the world for me. He gave me a feeling of being part of something bigger than this minute and the latest passing fancy. It was a feeling I tried to pass on to Ingrid, but never could. Or was I not trying to pass it on so much as looking for some kind of response to what I felt? Looking for, how can I put it, a sense of things that could spread out wider and wider like ripples on a pond instead of being tied to a straight line of direct experience that grew longer, just longer, with age?

'I really don't know what I'd do without you, Victor,'Mr Van Huyten's saying. 'I'm very grateful for your efficiency in handling things.'

'I'm glad you think like that, Mr Van Huyten,'I say; 'only, I might as well tell you that I'm not happy about it at present.'

'Oh?'

'Well, this electricity bill, for instance. If you'd left it with me it
would have been paid long since.'

'Yes, yes. I'm sorry about that. Perhaps I am a little forgetful at
times. But then, you must make allowances for me.'

'That's the trouble. I can make allowances for you, but you won't make them for yourself.'I wonder if I'm rattling him by talking like this, but I have to go on.'What I mean is that I'm more or less running the shop from day to day -'

'And you do it very well,'he puts in.

'Well, thanks very much. But, you see, you haven't got your finger on things like you used to have, and when you decide to come down to the shop there's times when you - 'I want to say 'interfere' but I soften it,'- when you do things off your own bat and throw the work out of gear.'

He looks at me and in his eyes there's a flash of the old Mr Van
Huyten, canny and understanding.

'You mean I interfere where I'm not wanted?'

'I can't say you're not wanted, can I? I mean, it is your business.'

He sighs.'Yes, it's my business. But perhaps I've clung to it for too long. I've never subscribed to the view that a man should automatically withdraw from active life at sixty-five; but there comes a time when he must let go . . .'

His voice has sunk almost to a whisper and I have to lean forward
to catch the last words. He gazes into the fire for a minute or two
then lifts his hand and looks round.

'I can feel a draught on my feet. I wonder if you . . . There's a
rag . . .'

I get up and find the thick tartan travelling rug and wrap it
round his legs.

'Yes, that's better . . .'His hands fuss with the rug for a bit. 'As a matter of fact, I could probably sell out immediately.'

'Sellout!'

'Yes. Fenwick Brothers have intimated that they'd be willing to
make an offer if I'm interested.'

'Well that's all right, Mr Van Huyten; but where does it leave me?'

'Oh, they'd be sure to take you on. I could make it a condition of sale.'

'But it's not the same thing at all, is it?'My voice is loud now, upset. I'm as near being really annoyed with him as I've ever been. 'I didn't leave engineering to be a shop assistant for any Tom, Dick or Harry. I did it to work for you.'

'But I shan't last for ever, Victor. I'm an old man.'

'I know, but.. .'And I'm wondering, is he getting really gaga? Can't he remember what he said, or didn't he say what I thought he said? Have I had hold of the wrong end of the stick all the time? No, perhaps there were no promises, but there was a lot of talk I couldn't have got wrong. And what's more, the Old Man talked to Mr Van Huyten as well, and came away satisfied.

'I find your loyalty very touching,'Mr Van Huyten says.

'I don't think loyalty comes into it at this stage, Mr Van Huyten,'I say, giving it to him straight in my anger. 'At least, not on my side. When we had that long talk before I came to work full-time for you, you promised me there'd be better prospects than there are for an ordinary shop assistant.'

'I said that one day I should want you to manage the shop when
I felt like taking things more easily. And now you're doing that.'

'But there's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. It's
about salary. I seem to have dropped behind lately and now I'm about three pounds down on what I'd be getting in industry.'

'Oh, so much?'

'Yes. You did say I wouldn't lose by coming to you.'

I tell him what an engineering draughtsman my age can be earning and point out the difference between that and what he pays me. In a minute, without any hesitation, he's offered me a
two-pound a week rise and taken some of the wind out of my sails,
but not all of it.

'And while we're talking I ought to say that we need some more
staff.'

'More staff? You mean the work is becoming too heavy for you? You've got the little girl I took on in the summer. Isn't she efficient?'

'Oh, she's all right for what she does. But a young lad with some savvy would be a big help. He could take care of the counter with Olive while I got on with the books and paperwork. That side of it doesn't get any less, you know, Mr Van Huyten. Business is good and if you think about it we're worse off for help than when you and I used to do it all.'

'Yes, yes. I can see that.'

'And there's the question of a replacement for Walt.'

'Walt?'

'Henry's assistant.'

'Oh yes. Is he leaving us?'

'Henry'd give him his cards tomorrow if he could. He doesn't
know a thing.'

'I don't know. He seemed capable when I interviewed him.'

'But you don't know anything about servicing television sets,
Mr Van Huyten; and neither does Walt, according to Henry.'

There's a minute or two of quiet while he thinks all this over.

'Dear me,'he says then, 'how out of touch I seem to be getting. It really does look as though I shall have to rely on you a great deal more, Victor.'

'I don't mind,'I tell him. 'But this talk about selling out has upset me a bit.'

'Don't worry about that, Victor,'he says, leaning back in his chair with the tips of his fingers together.'I thought you'd be interested to know, though, that our friends had made an approach.'

'They've got record shops all over the north. I suppose they'd be
glad to take over an old-established business in Cressley.'

'They won't get mine. It will stay as Van Huyten's Music Shop
until I die. What happens after that...'

I lean forward again, eager to catch what he's going to say; but
he just lets the sentence die. His eyes close and he seems suddenly
short of breath. I don't like the look of him at all and I get up and take a step towards him.

'Are you all right, Mr Van Huyten? Is there anything I can do?'

His hands are fumbling under the rug and one of them comes up
holding a little bottle of pills.

'Would you...'I can't catch what else he says except the one word 'water'.

I run out and down the hall to the kitchen. This is the neatest
room because his daily woman keeps it in order. It takes me a little
while, though, to find a glass, then I fill it and hurry back to him.

'Here you are, Mr Van Huyten.'

I can't see him for the back of the chair and I go round and look
at him, still holding the glass.

'Mr Van Huyten...'

I reach out to touch him but my hand stops short.

'Oh, crikey!'

I dash to the phone in the hall. Nothing happens when I lift the
receiver and I've jiggled the bar a
few times, swearing at the opera
tor, before I realize that the line's as dead as a doornail.

The next minute I'm out of the house and racing down the hill to
where I vaguely remember seeing a phone box on the corner.

3

'But he never actually said he'd leave the shop to me, Mother,'I say, irritated by the way she's talking about something that's settled now and can't be altered.

She's got her mending-basket open by her chair and one of the
Old Man's socks pulled over a darning-stool, the needle giving off
an occasional flash of light as she pulls the grey wool across the
hole.

'You know very well that's the impression he gave both you and your father,'she says.

'Oh, he gave that impression all right,'the Old Man says, fiddlingwith his pipe; 'but he never made any promises except them he kept.'

'Well all I know is he persuaded our Victor to give up a good trade - against my advice, I'll have you remember - and now he finds himself in a dead-end job, just another shop assistant.'

'I can always go back into engineering,'I point out; 'and I've got five hundred quid to take with me, so I can't see that I've lost much by it.'

'It's not what you were led to expect,'the Old Lady says, her mouth in a stubborn line. 'And it's all right thinking about going back to draughtsmanship, but look at the seniority you've lost at Whittaker's.'

'I haven't said I'm going back to Whittaker's. There's lots of other places. I might even make a break and move right away.'

'Right away? Have you talked it over with Ingrid? She mightn't take too kindly to that idea now her mother's on her own. There's not just yourself to think about now, y'know.'

'I do know.'Oh, but she makes me wild the way she goes on. I wonder now how I ever stuck it when I was at home. 'All I'm saying is what I
might
do. I wish you'd stop pouncing on every little thing I say and driving me into corners.'

'Well, it's a job if your own mother can't talk to you now.'

'It's funny, though, y'know,'the Old Feller says, half to himself, 'the way Mr Van Huyten talked abut how much he liked you and he had no relatives that he knew about. I mean, there was only one construction you could fairly put on it.'

'I know there was, and he probably meant that. But he had to see how I made out first, see if I was capable and all that. And though he was very fond of pointing out how old he was I don't think he thought he was going to die for some time. I'm certain he didn't expect to go as sudden as he did. And for all I know he might have
intended changing his will any time. The fact is he didn't, and so we've got to make the best of it.'

I'm fed up with all this talk. Of course I was disappointed, and no mistake. But looking back at it now it seems fantastic to think there was any chance of Mr Van Huyten leaving the shop to me.
And I don't like my mother and father to talk as if I've been led up the garden path and made a fool of. I'm ready to bet that Mr
Van Huyten never did that to anybody in his life.