A Rather English Marriage (32 page)

‘What is it, Dad?' she asked. ‘Something bugging you?'

‘You
sure
you'll be OK without me? You will – you know – leave yourself alone …?'

Bloody hell, he can read my mind! Better watch out.

‘I'll be OK, I swear it. Tell me again what you got for supper.' It comforted them both, his recitation of what was in the fridge, what was in the freezer, and what was in the cool, freshly cleaned larder. The incantation of supplies was reassuring. The hunter was home from the hill. We shall not starve this week.

‘And there's lentils and a knuckle of ham,' he ended. ‘So when the boys get back, if we get a cooler day, you can make ham-and-pea soup, and even a meat loaf with the rests so little Joe can learn how to use the mincer, like his Dad loved to do.'

‘How'd you learn all that stuff?' June asked. ‘Was it just from watching Mum?'

‘Used to be a cook in my young days, before I went on the milk.'

‘One day you can teach me some new recipes. Go on, off you go. Tell me next time.'

Neither was quite sure what form of parting was suitable at the end of a long day in which Roy had taken June under his roof, given her the bedroom and the very bed he had shared for over forty years with his wife – the bed in which, in all probability, Alan had been conceived. Roy feared an embrace, yet longed for physical contact, some firm touch to prove that his flesh was still solid, some momentary reminder of the scent of female softness. June wanted to know whether any echo of her dead man still clung to his father.

They'd had a dog when she was little, and after her own father had died – killed in a car accident, drunk – the dog had moped and slunk about for weeks. Eventually it seemed to forget, but two years later her uncle, her father's brother, came to visit and the dog had gone mad with joy. What did it catch that humans could not? If she inhaled deeply enough, could she catch a trace of Alan on his father?

‘Don't get up,' said Roy.

‘No no, I'll see you to the door,' said June.

‘You'd best double-lock it from the inside. Do you want to test it?'

‘OK.'

He went outside and tried the handle. It wouldn't budge, and, calling out a cheery ‘That's it! You're quite safe!' he turned away and walked down the path, so that in the end they neither touched nor took any leave of one another at all.

For Roy the anti-climax was so sudden that his need for human contact, newly evoked, cried out for satisfaction. He crossed the road towards Arthur's place, but the house was in darkness, with only the hall light shining to deter passing burglars. He knocked on the door all the same and waited, but there were no answering footsteps. He rejected the pub. He was too tired for that.

On the spur of the moment, he decided to drop in on Molly before going back to The Cedars. It wasn't yet nine o'clock, still quite light, and he owed his thanks anyway for her help.
So he turned right on John's Road and set off along Woodbury Park. What would Grace have to say about the day's events? he wondered. She'd surely think he had done the right thing. Thank God she had never known about Alan's grey and bloody death!
O for the touch of a vanish'd hand
… But he could no longer summon up the sound of her voice that was still; he knew only that she had been his wife, that he had loved her, but now their home had been dismantled and she would no longer recognize the rooms in which she had lived and moved. The fact was, she no longer belonged there. The other night he had dreamed of finding her in the house, and, worried that the boys would be frightened by this apparent return from the dead, he had in his dream tried to hustle her away or conceal her. He had woken feeling guilty and ashamed. His own Grace, no longer welcome!

On Saturday Billy and Joe were due back from camp. June had arranged to go up to Balham, meet the Cubs' bus, and bring them back with her on the train to Tunbridge Wells, after dropping in to say hello to Gloria. Roy spent the morning at Thomas Street preparing a meal so that when Junie got home she'd only to pop it in the oven. He checked that the boys' beds were dry and aired, and nipped down the road to the newsagent to buy a comic for each of them, so they could read in bed. They'd be too excited to go to sleep straightaway, he thought, remembering the long-ago evenings when Vera and Alan used to read the
Dandy
and
Beano
in bed for hours by the dwindling light of dusk. Then he caught the bus back to The Cedars.

Going down to the kitchen to put a kettle on in case the Squadron Leader wanted a cup of something, he found a strange woman there, wearing a big white apron.

‘Who are you?' she asked.

‘Excuse me,' said Roy. ‘I'm ever so sorry. I didn't know you was here. I came down to make a cuppa for Sir. I'll just put the kettle on. I won't be in your way.'

‘He's upstairs. Outside on the terrace, I think. I'm Michaela
Simpson, by the way, Mick and Flick Catering. We're doing him a special dinner for two. You're going to be serving it, I dare say. He said he didn't need us. I must have a quick word with you later on, about the
saumon poelé.'

‘Beg your pardon?'

‘The fish course,' she amended.

‘Righty-ho,' said Roy. ‘I'll be back in a tick. I'll just go and see what he wants.'

Reggie was sitting on the terrace with his cigarettes, an ashtray and a tall drink beside him. It looked surprisingly non-alcoholic.

‘Ah!' he said. ‘There you are at last. Beginning to wonder if I'd ever see hide or hair of you again.'

‘I need to have a word with you, sir,' said Roy. ‘I thought you might care for a coffee?'

‘Mrs Mick down there mixes a bloody good Pimm's,' said Reggie. ‘Have a look at the jug. Pour me another, and see if there's a drop left for yourself.'

‘Not for me, thanks all the same, sir,' said Roy. ‘I wondered if I might have a word …?'

‘About tonight,' said Reginald. ‘Haven't forgotten, have you?'

‘You want me to serve dinner?'

‘That's right. ETA latest, twenty-thirty; dinner should kick off about fifteen minutes after that. You can go after you've dished up the main course. Leave the pudding and cheese on the sideboard, clear away downstairs, and go home. I won't be needing you in the morning. Please yourself what time you come in tomorrow, as long as it's not too early.'

‘Very good, sir,' said Roy. He tried again. ‘Squadron Leader…?'

‘I said go ahead. Help yourself to some Pimm's.'

Roy, seeing there was no other way to attract his attention, did so. He sipped the clear, bitter liquid. It was unexpectedly delicious.

‘It's ever so nice, sir.'

‘I should say it is! Perfect summer drink! Even better than
gin and It. Tell Mrs Mick downstairs to brew us up another jug, will you?'

‘You wouldn't care for a coffee now, sir?'

‘I said, another jug, Southgate.'

Roy returned to the terrace ten minutes later having stiffened his resolve to the point where his mouth was dry and his heart was pounding. His hands shook as he poured a fresh Pimm's into the Squadron Leader's proffered glass.

‘I say, old chap, steady on.'

Roy sat down abruptly.

‘The thing is, sir, I keep trying to tell you and now it's tonight. I won't be sleeping here no more. My son died …'

‘I remember. Rotten business. Anything I can do, just let me know,' said Reggie, drawing deeply on his cigarette and averting his eyes.

‘… and his wife couldn't cope no more on her own and the boys was running wild and the Social poking their nose in, asking questions, so I've brought them all down here, to live with me. In
my
house,' he added, as a look of horror flickered briefly across Reginald's face. ‘Now I'm going to have to move back in there and look after them. She's not been that well, June, that's my daughter-in-law; it's been a great trial to her, and the boys is getting older, twelve and ten they are now.'

‘You mean to tell me you're going
away?'
said Reginald.
‘Leaving?'

‘Yes, sir.'

Reginald drained his Pimm's. Automatically, Roy refilled the glass. The Squadron Leader looked devastated. His colour was high, and his eyes protruded more than usual. The tiny red veins that branched like trees across his corneas appeared close to bursting. The veins on his forehead throbbed visibly, great pulsing purple ropes. Roy felt his own heart race in sympathy.

‘I could always come back and clean for you, sir,' he added, although he hadn't meant to. ‘For the time being, that is, until you find someone else. I could keep the kitchen and
bathroom nice, that's the main thing, and run a hoover downstairs twice a week, and if you took your shirts to the laundry – only until – for the time being …'

Reggie looked at Roy in dismay. He stubbed his cigarette out. Almost at once he lit another. Eventually he said, ‘Is this final? Suppose I offered to pay you a wage? Say we started at twenty' – he amended it hastily – ‘no,
thirty
pounds a week?'

‘It's ever so good of you, sir,' Roy told him, ‘but it isn't a matter of money. It never was. I come here to give you a bit of comfort and company, not for the wage. I'm not saying I shan't be sorry to go sir …'

‘Well, then?' said Reggie, clutching at a straw.

‘But I have to, on account of June and the boys. I've been happy here, sir, looking back, and I was right miserable when I arrived. It's been like a kind of a marriage in a way, hasn't it? You and me living together here these last, what is it, nine months must be, sort of both looking after each other. When I first come here, I was that cut up about my Grace I couldn't hardly see through both eyes at once. All I done was think of her and feel sorry for myself. But you took me out of myself, made me see there was others besides. You done me a power of good, sir. Vicar was right. You've looked after me, in a manner of speaking, and I hope I've looked after you. We've been almost like a couple.'

This was too much for Reginald, who muttered querulously, ‘Hardly.' He regarded Southgate as little more than a servant, and Roy had come to behave as though Reggie were his master. Reginald would have been greatly surprised had anyone told him they were equals, indeed friends; and not just because no money had passed between them. And yet they were equals, though only Roy had realized it.

‘Blood's thicker than water, sir, and I have to put those boys first,' Roy concluded, having at last said what he meant to say.

‘When were you thinking of leaving?' asked Reginald.

‘Tonight. I thought I'd move my stuff out this afternoon, do my packing and that, leave the spare room nice and tidy
for the next person. I'll look in next week, make sure you've got everything. But I won't be sleeping here no more. So don't you worry about your dinner. I won't be in your way. I'll serve up and go.' As a final placatory gesture he added, ‘Would you like me to wear anything special, sir? I could put on a white shirt and my black trousers, make it look smarter, formal, for the occasion?'

‘Thanks,' said Reginald. ‘That'd be very suitable. And a plain dark tie. Black, in fact. That'll be all for now, Southgate.'

Reginald arrived sharp at eight outside Liz's Georgian doll's house in Garden Street. He wasn't feeling on top form. He'd had to park the big car a couple of hundred yards away. His head ached low down in the skull at the back, ached and thundered. Too many bloody Pimm's, he thought. Taste so innocent you think there's nothing to them, and then they deliver a kick like a mule. He cheered up at the sight of Liz. She was wearing some white thing, plain and simple, cut straight across her breasts and suspended from narrow straps, and tiny nonsensical gold sandals that teetered as she stepped forward to greet him. Something gold and chunky round her neck gleamed dully. Certainly got some decent jewellery, thought Reggie. Never marry for money, Nanny used to say; love where money is. Jolly good advice.

‘Darling!' said Liz.
‘Reggie! Goodness
, it seems a long time! I've missed you – bad boy.'

This was promising. Reggie felt the waist of his trousers strain, and relaxed.

‘Quick drink?' asked Liz. ‘Glenmorangie?' She smiled at him. ‘First drink we ever had together. Remember?'

‘You look very lovely,' said Reggie. ‘Knock-out. No, I won't come in. Plenty of Scotch back at base, and the cook will have my guts for garters if we're late for dinner. Been cooking all day.'

‘Mmm,' said Liz. ‘I can't wait.'

She tottered along the pavement towards his waiting car
and slid in to the seat with a flash of burnished leg. Reggie drove along Crescent Road and down Mount Pleasant, shutting his eyes at the usual spot, then past the cricket ground into Nevill Park. He parked the car, helped her out, and, as he walked up the steps towards the front door, it swung open.

‘Evening, sir,' said Southgate. ‘Madam.' He took the long drift of chiffon that Liz was holding and laid it reverently across the back of a chair in the hall. As Reginald ushered Liz towards the drawing-room, Roy Southgate said, ‘I've set the drinks out on the terrace, sir, seeing as it's a warm evening. Would you like me to bring them inside?'

‘Liz?' Reggie turned to her. ‘What do you think? Are you going to be chilly out there in that frock?'

‘The terrace would be heavenly. What a lovely idea. Thank you, Southgate.' She favoured him with her Revlon-bright smile.

‘Oh!' she gasped a moment later, in honest admiration. ‘Your garden is
glorious!'

‘You should have seen it a few weeks ago,' Reggie replied, and Liz laughed.

‘People
always
say that when you praise their garden!'

The evening started exactly according to plan. Southgate did his stuff and Mrs Mick came up trumps. The food was superb. Liz looked perfectly at home in his dining-room. Her shoulders, lips and necklace shone beguilingly. Reginald began to feel he had been over-pessimistic earlier in the day. Southgate's leaving accelerated matters but didn't really change anything. No reason to hang about. They were both adults, free and unencumbered.