A Rather English Marriage (19 page)

Together, eyes closed, the two men swayed in unison. Midnight passed, the clock chimed, the long-playing record played on. They hummed to the familiar music, dancing a few inches apart, smiling at memory. When at last the needle ground to a circular hiss, Reggie dropped his arms and walked away from Roy without a word. He lifted the stylus arm from the turntable, swung it to rest and turned the radiogram off. Roy placed the guard in front of the fire and switched off the standard lamp that had softly illuminated the room. The dying fire flickered in a momentary draught as the door closed behind them.

At the top of the stairs they turned towards their separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the landing corridor.

‘Happy New Year,' said Roy.

‘Auld lang syne,' said Reginald.

When Alan was sixteen, a strapping lad with a couple of O levels and not much else to his credit, Roy had managed to get him a job in a local men's outfitters. The time was the early Sixties, and Alan had been reluctant to give up wearing the tight trousers and winkle-pickers that got him noticed by girls, but the old-fashioned shop insisted on dark grey flannel trousers, a white shirt, tie (not kipper, not floral), and round-toed black lace-up shoes.

‘Might as well be back in school uniform,' Alan grumbled.

Grace said, ‘They didn't pay you eight pound ten a week to go to school, though, did they, Allie?'

‘Shut up calling me Allie, Mum,' he muttered. ‘Anyway it's not eight pound ten. After what I've got to give you and Dad and National Insurance and tax on top of that, I'll be lucky to have a fiver. Costs almost that for an evening up in London.'

‘You don't have to go to London, Alan,' Roy pointed out mildly. ‘There's plenty to do here at home. Meet your mates, go to the flicks …'

‘Flicks
!'Alan said, witheringly.

A friend of Roy's from the depot had wangled Alan the job. His brother-in-law was chief salesman at the shop, a dull, deferential man who combed his hair from a parting just above the ear on one side to sweep across the top of his balding pate. The man had taken one look at Alan's defiant young figure, vigorously male from his Beatle fringe to his elongated shoes, and determined to break his spirit. Roy understood now, as he had not then, that he had picked the wrong job for Alan. It had been a chance, perhaps his one and only chance, to introduce his son to a grown-up world of work and wages where he might have felt valued and found his feet. He
had been wrong to challenge Alan's emergent sense of self by forcing him to wear clothes he despised in order to conform to the humiliations imposed by an ageing poof. The dreary salesman's attire and the dreary goods he offered from behind the old-fashioned, glass-topped counter, made Alan a figure of fun among his contemporaries. Worst of all, the shop was the sole supplier of the local school's uniform, so that Alan found himself forced to serve kids over whom he had been lording it just a term or two earlier. He had to display socks and shirts for their mothers' appraisal, advise on the buying of blazers and trousers - ‘Would one size bigger be an economy or will the cuffs have frayed by the time he grows into it?' – as the lads sneered openly, knowing that Alan was powerless to retaliate.

The wonder was that Alan had stayed in the job so long – six months, maybe eight. Roy looked in once or twice, peering sideways through the shop window to catch a glimpse of his son. Alan resembled a wild bird in a cage, his movements cramped and humbled, only his eyes darting furiously at his captors.

‘Leave him be,' Grace urged. ‘He'll settle down in time, and the money's good. Another year and he can move on, maybe get a job in one of those modern shops, Michael Somebody, selling the smart young men's clothes
he
likes. It's a start. It's got prospects, no shift work and half days Saturdays. He might even end up in one of the big London stores, Barkers or D. H. Evans; buyer, floor manager, anything. It gives him a real future.'

Grace's vision of Alan's horizons had been wrong, and their son never forgave his parents those months of enforced humiliation. He lost faith in their judgement, even in their love for him. Silently he beseeched them to release him from the trap; silently they waited for him to get used to it. In the end he broke out without their permission.

‘Sodding poofter kept touching me up!' he exploded on the Friday he came home with his cards. ‘Nothing obvious - wouldn't bloody dare - but
squeezing
past me behind the counter or using me to guess the right trouser lengths. “Would your son be about
this
size, Madam?”
Spastic
!'

‘Allie, darling, that's unkind …' Grace had pleaded, but Alan said, ‘I'm not
your
Allie darling any more, Mum, so forget it. My name's
Alan
and you might as well know I'm getting married.'

‘Married
!'

‘Getting
what
?'

That had been the wrong response as well.

Vera, silent, spindly Vera, had spoken up for once.

‘Is it Chrissie?' she asked.

‘
Course
it's Chrissie,' Alan said. ‘Any reason why not?'

‘I'll give you one good reason why not,' Grace put in unexpectedly. ‘She's under age.'

‘No she's not,' said Alan.

‘How do you know that?' asked Roy in the same moment.

‘I know what I know,' Grace answered. ‘You go and ask her Mum and Dad how old she is. She can't marry without their permission. There's other things she shouldn't be doing, either, permission or no permission, and the less said about
that
the better.'

‘She's left school,' Alan said, defiant and sullen. ‘She's earning her living. We both are. And we're going to get married.'

‘Not till your Dad and I have discussed it,
and
talked to her parents as well,' Grace told him firmly. ‘Is he, Royston?'

‘How did you know?' Roy had asked Grace afterwards. And she had said, ‘I guessed she might have had her tonsils out, or her appendix - even chance she'd be in the hospital records somewhere. I've got influence. I had someone look her up. And I was right. She can't have been fifteen when Alan first brought her home. And she's not sixteen yet. It's just a phase. It'll pass.'

It had passed, all right. Chrissie's parents, furious, had forbidden them to see each other till Chrissie was past her sixteenth birthday and by then Alan had found a new job and a new girlfriend.

Roy still saw Chrissie in Tunbridge Wells sometimes: a stout young matron in fancy sweaters pushing a laden trolley
round Tesco's. She always looked right through him, pretended not to recognize him. She'd turned out all right in the end. Married one of the porters at the station; station manager he was now, cocky in his BR uniform.

Had they been wrong there, too? How could they have known? Chrissie had looked like a tart, behaved like a tart, been brash and cheeky. How were they supposed to see behind that fifteen-year-old's bad language and lack of respect a suitable wife for their beloved only son? They'd done their best for Alan, then and always. And look where he'd ended up.

‘Your son's in jug, isn't he?' Reginald asked Roy one evening during dinner. They were eating late and Reggie had drunk several double whiskies.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Instinct. Got a nose for these things. He's in Ashford Prison, am I right?'

Steak-and-kidney pudding congealed to tepid on Roy's plate. He'd cooked it himself, spent hours in the kitchen making proper suet pastry, cutting fat off the beef, peeling skin from the kidneys and washing them under running water.

‘Yes,' he murmured, just audible.

‘Not your fault. Can't be responsible for him all your life. How old is he? Forty something? Fifty?'

‘He's forty-three.'

‘Well then. What is he in for? Theft? Embezzling? Drunken driving? What? Not a nasty sex crime, I hope. Sorry, old man. Don't have to tell me if you don't want to. You can ask me questions, too. Ought to know each other better. No secrets.'

Roy said, ‘He's in for bigamy. He married two wives. Bigamy. He got eighteen months. It's more than what you normally get for bigamy, but he wouldn't express remorse, the judge said, so he gave him the extra.'

‘Did he, by Jove?' said Reginald. ‘Well I'll be damned. Bigamy, eh? Didn't think it still existed. Wouldn't have
thought there was any need. You just get a divorce. Easy nowadays. No one minds any more. Even the Royal Family does it. Wonder what stopped your son?'

‘It isn't as though we didn't set him a good example,' Roy said after a silence. ‘His Mum and me, we was always happily married. Me and my wife, Grace. We had a wonderful marriage. Darby and Joan, people used to call us.'

‘So you say,' said Reginald. ‘Don't think I ever got the hang of it.'

‘More steak-and-kidney?'

‘Yes all right, give us some more. Jolly good pud.'

‘You never talk about … your wife. Don't mind me if you'd rather not. I can mind my own business.'

‘Mary? Not much to say. Ordinary sort of Englishwoman, good legs, not bad-looking. Just your usual sort of marriage. Quiet. No fireworks.'

‘How long were you married?'

‘Forty years. Forty something, must be, at least. Let's see, 1942 … No, by Jove: almost fifty! Would have been our fiftieth next year. Hadn't realized that till now. Give us another Scotch, there's a good fellow.'

Roy refilled the glass, adding more than half water. By this stage of the evening it wouldn't be noticed. He cleared the plates and set them on the sideboard, not wanting to break the mood by going downstairs to the kitchen. He placed the cheeseboard in front of Reginald, flanked by a tall jug of celery and a bowl of bright red apples, and watched him cut wedges from the fruit and cheese.

‘I'm not a marrying man, not in the sense that women mean. That lovey-dovey, sentimental guff isn't my line. I was
fond
of Mary when we met, of course, but
love
… at the same time as
flying Spitfires?
What could compare with that? Main reason I married her was to please her. She'd have felt let down otherwise; couldn't have faced her parents. Don't suppose I ever really wanted a wife; more a matter of someone to look after me. You - or Mary - or even Mrs Owsyerfather: doesn't make much difference. Miss her, though. I'm surprised
how I miss her. Keep seeing her about the place. Funny thing, that: walk into the bathroom and there she is, cleaning her teeth or wiping cream off her face. She looks up at me, always that sort of guilty look - and then she's gone. Or I look out of the window and she's on the lawn with the dogs. We haven't had dogs for years. She used to love Labradors, sloppy sort of dogs, or Dalmatians. Spots the size of a half-crown, no bigger. At one time she even walked young greyhounds. Two or three at a time. Kept her fit, she said, the excercise. She'd go on long walks with them, up over there, at High Rocks. Know the place?'

‘Yes,' said Roy.

‘Ever been to the Dordogne? In France? No, you wouldn't. Well, she used to say High Rocks was like that. Great grey rocks like elephants. She liked wandering about there with the dogs. Then one of them got run over and killed, and that was that. That put a stop to it, of course. She said we were cursed.'

Roy was surprised. ‘Cursed? Because a dog got run over? It's hard when you've got fond of them, but it happens all the time.'

‘Affected her very badly. She took the other one - Palmer, that's it; Huntley was the one that got killed, Palmer was pining for him, so was she. Took Palmer to the RSPCA and asked them to find him a new home. Couldn't bear to take him to the vet, have him put to sleep. Lovely young dog he was.'

‘Dalmatian?' asked Roy, since Reggie seemed to be winding down, and he wanted to hear more.'

‘Yes. Huntley and Palmer: they both were. Hope he found a good home, poor old chap. Never knew a dog could grieve.'

‘Just like a human being,' prompted Roy.

‘Better than a human being,' Reggie answered. He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Leave all this. Do it in the morning. Let's go next door. Coffee done?'

‘All present and correct.'

During dinner the pattering of rain against the windows had worked itself up into a storm. The wind was howling and shaking the tall cedars and pines in the front garden, making
the top branches of the spreading cedar beside the road rattle and creak. The five-sided brass lantern hanging in the front porch squeaked as it was whipped back and forth by the gale.

Reginald wasn't thinking about Mary, but about himself - himself when young, unencumbered by bulk or drink or the bulbous accretions of age that covered him like scar-tissue. He often escaped from the weight of his present self by thinking back to his airborne youth. Was it the same for Harry, that unrecognizably elderly Harry who had sagged in a wheelchair at the funeral, pushed around like a giant baby by his wife? He and Harry had been pilots together in many a scrap.

One, he recalled, had been an utter balls-up. Overconfidence, he thought now, reliving it with the benefit of hindsight. We hadn't had any losses for days but this time we got too near Abbeville, home of Adolf Galland's boys, the best in the whole bloody Luftwaffe. We were bounced good and proper. Suddenly the sky was full of yellow-nosed 109GS, tracer everywhere. Two kites went down straightaway and after that it was every man for himself - throttle right through the gate, full left rudder, stick hard forward and across, then right back into a tight turn. Blacking out for a second, then something flashing across your front - hoping to God it wasn't a Spit - hearing the cannon hammering before you even knew you'd fired.

It had seemed to go on like this for ages (must've been all of twenty seconds) and then it was over. Not a thing in the sky. But he didn't trust his luck, and had dived right down to the deck and flown home like that, practically dodging houses and trees and scaring the hell out of Jerry's cows.