Alligator Playground (19 page)

Sailor kissed her as she went by, looking at the clock so that he could, she thought, decently surmise the hour for going to bed. ‘I suppose there are certain things I should tell you now that we’re married, my love.’

Matched with what she ought to say would cancel both sides out, though she was pleased by his offer. No ripple should pass through their perfect day. ‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now except us, Sailor.’ She kissed his worried face till the boyish smile came back, and when he led her upstairs the flush of eagerness was on both their faces. Drifting to sleep against his naked back, she knew him to be a man who could make a woman happy.

Ann offered to read the map but Sailor said he had given it a good looking over before she got out of bed. ‘All I do is set course southwest and keep my hands at the tiller. Towns are like islands, and I’ll stay clear of them when I can. It’s the same as going across the ocean to me.’

In the afternoon he steered his black Austin Countryman up the gravel drive of The Tummler Hotel, and a naval-looking man with
a thick beard took their cases in. After approving the room with its four-poster bed they came down to a set tea in the lounge. A solid black-boxed body of a dog, with a jutting black box of a mouth, waddled lamely from under the next table for a piece of Sailor’s scone. ‘It’s funny getting a whiff of the sea again. Did you smell it, when I opened the window upstairs?’

‘Let’s go for a walk when we’ve finished. You can have a paddle if you like!’

‘No fear. I swam in it once, and not for fun.’ She was glad he was fuelling himself against the memory, eating to live. ‘We’ll take a look at it, though.’

Pale stones clashed underfoot. ‘I wouldn’t like to walk ten miles on this.’

She kissed his cheek. ‘Nor me.’

Cold gusts struck when they descended the hogsback from which to view the water. She watched the subtle guidance of wings on gulls riding the thermals. Sailor didn’t like the muffler-ring around the white button of the sun. ‘Stand behind me, love, if the wind starts chilling you.’

An isolated white cloud on the horizon rose like an iceberg out of the nondescript. ‘I shan’t see anything, then.’

‘Let’s walk down the bank. It’ll shield us both.’ He took her hand, finding dry patches along the muddy path. Stopping by a gate, they looked inland up a hillside of sheep. He breathed heavily, as if the walk had worn him out. Or maybe the sight of the sea had put on a year or two. She took his arm. ‘You’re tired, sweetheart, after driving all that way.’

A white-topped wave, neat as a quarter mile straight-edge, crumbled on cue at a line of pale cliffs, making way for another behind. She was surprised to see what little distance they were from the hotel, smoke at the cold end of September coiling out of its chimney. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said.

He stretched full length in an armchair by the lounge fire, while
she read an old Georgette Heyer from the shelf, dozing towards sleep. Sailor touched her arm. ‘Come on, my love, let’s have a drink before dinner.’

Two double whiskies were followed by pints of lager with his platter of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, boiled and roast potatoes, cabbage, carrots and peas. For her he ordered a half bottle of iced champagne, which she relished to the final fizz with the Dover sole and sorbet that followed.

He finished as if he hadn’t had a hot dinner for months, though for a big man it wasn’t so much. ‘You were hungry,’ she said.

‘Must be the sea air.’

Tramping the humps and hollows of Maiden Castle they looked both ways, at land and sea. Sailor’s energy was renewed, and when she lagged over the thick damp grass he put out a hand for her to catch up. ‘I don’t like the sea anymore.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I’ve seen too many people drown in it. Hundreds, though you had to expect that. I’ve taken against it in my old age.’

You wouldn’t think so, the way he talked with Ben the manager, who had been on a destroyer in the Falklands. They were locked into each other’s tales, alternating up to midnight with pots of beer and measures of whisky. Ann, content with her book, was happy to recall Edna’s doubt that Sailor had been a sailor. The only other guests were a couple who stayed most of the time in their room.

A week at Scarborough with Sidney had been as nothing compared to her days at The Tummler Hotel. Sailor was a man hard to know, but love was more enduring with someone you couldn’t entirely fathom. He let nothing worry him, though he was far from simple, suggesting that he had been through hard times after all. From thinking all men were more or less like Sidney she now knew there were different sorts in the world and that Sailor was one of them.
He was relaxing to be with, and as long as she went on being curious she would never stop loving him.

The first thing Sailor brought from his flat at the school was a coat of arms of his last ship served on. Then came his precious life’s papers, and a Japanese tea service which he set on the living-room sideboard. ‘That’s been round the world a time or two, but it’s found a home at last.’

A paper-thin cup held to the light showed a Geisha girl with a parasol. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ She polished the front-room table and laid out his thousand piece jigsaw puzzle.

‘We’ll do it between us,’ Sailor said, ‘in our idle moments.’

She wondered when they might be, because like all true mariners he cherished his drink. Most nights they went to the pub in Radford, sat among smoke and beer fumes at a small round table in the saloon bar. She was happy to be with Sailor because he was so obviously glad to be with her. She drank her half pint of Midland ale, while he bandied with his friends, or held her hand and told stories of his travels, pints going like magic. He ordered a whisky for them both before the towels went on.

‘Will you be all right driving?’

He steered away from the kerb. ‘With you in the car we’re as safe as houses. We’ll be back to our bread and cheese, and a nice pot of tea, in no time.’

When she stayed at home one night with the cat and watched television Sailor came back with flowers. ‘Where did you get them, so late?’

‘There’s always somebody selling ’em.’

She loved it when he brought her little gifts, and told him so.

‘You’re worth it, my love.’ He filled a vase with water in the kitchen, then drew her onto his knees. ‘First, I think of you as would like to have them. Second, I think of the poor old drudge as comes round trying to sell ’em. Third, I get selfish and think of
me who’d like to do a good turn to the seller, and an even better turn to the woman I love and who I know would appreciate it. That way I get credit for everything. You can call it selfishness, if you like, but more things fit mortise and tenon in this life than you might think.’

‘You’re my young man, and I love you, Sailor.’ He was sixty, but could be any age, always sure of himself in knowing what he wanted while rarely admitting he needed anything. He was also a man of habit and regularity which, he said, made life easier for all concerned, and she liked that.

He laid the table for supper, and lit the gas for the kettle, though she told him after more kisses to fill it before putting it on the flame. ‘You must have had a drop more than usual.’

The screw top of the pickled onions was no match for his big hands. He stabbed in his fork. ‘I’ll tell you what, though…’

She laughed. ‘You’ve been thinking.’ He sometimes was, behind those blue eyes. ‘What about, Sailor?’

‘I’m beginning to feel I’ve done enough work in my life. I’ll be glad when I’ve finished at school.’ He put a sliver of cheese into her mouth. ‘Would you mind if I started taking my ease a bit?’

‘I thought you’d still got two years to do.’

‘So I have, but there are times when I wonder if it’s worth waiting for.’ The shade of uncertainty was a welcome confession of intimacy. ‘I never do anything in a hurry,’ he said in his usual voice, ‘though even if I don’t wait there should be enough money coming to us.’

On their wedding day his account had shown five hundred pounds, and how much remained was his business. He never enquired about her savings, which had been more than a thousand at the last statement. It wasn’t much these days, but as long as there was something in both books they felt secure enough.

Sailor fell into sleep soon after kissing her goodnight, and Ann
knew nothing till morning when the still warm space told her he had gone to work.

At the school party she served tea and cakes, a cloth folded around the handle of the large metal pot. Sailor, togged up in beard and scarlet, shed gifts from a sack sewn up out of sheets, and said a few gruff words to make each child laugh.

When they got home he needed a glass of whisky, Ann topping up hers with water. ‘You should have been an actor, the way you charmed those kids.’

‘I should have been a lot of things,’ he said, as if he easily could have. ‘I know who I am while I’m acting, though, so you can be sure I’ll always be myself when I’m with you.’

‘I know that.’

‘I want us to have as easy a life as possible, something I’ve only thought about in the last year or two.’

She didn’t say life was already good enough for her, in case it disturbed him. Nor could she ask why he didn’t think it was, because she knew he respected her for not bothering to probe. Love depended on such unspoken treaties. ‘Do what you think best, Sailor.’

He put on the finest smile, and spread his arms. ‘Welcome aboard!’

Such a covering embrace heated her sufficiently to say: ‘You are a devil!’

‘Now you’re flattering me.’ He spoke passionately in her ear. ‘If I am, though, let’s finish our supper, and get to bed, which is where I like you most.’

Every bottle lining the sideboard on Christmas Day displayed a badge of Sailor’s popularity with parents at school. He sniffed the odour of roasting pork permeating the house, and twisted the cork from a bottle of sherry. ‘We’ll have a look at the jigsaw puzzle after our dinner. It’s time we set to on it.’

A glass of wine, followed by brandy, made her sleepy, but she looked at the painting on the box while Sailor had a go at sorting sky and bits of rigging. Dark blue to the left faded into grey at the right, slivered by the tips of masts. Between billows of white and orange she followed the trunk of HMS
Victory
with her fingers, solid in its girth and strength, as if cut from one great oak, down to the main deck where red-coated marines with white crossbelts held muskets ready. Men stood back from fire and shot, a fallen sail waiting to become a shroud.

The job would be a long one, though a few pieces latched in every evening would one day get it done. ‘It’ll take us quite a while, Sailor.’

He fitted up a corner, but she supposed he had got that far before. ‘We’ll do it, my love, never you fear.’ He worked along the top line till it was almost done. ‘The sooner the better, though.’

The jumble of ships brewing slaughter touched anxiety in her. ‘You think so?’

Flattening every piece face up till none were hidden, he turned away as if he also was disturbed. ‘We’ve made a start, but let’s go up for a kip now. We can have another go after tea.’

She expected to see more of him after he retired from work, but he often went out alone and came back half seas over at well gone closing time. Pubs would put the towels on, then lock the doors, with favoured customers still inside. When he stood in for the new caretaker and went straight from school she had no idea where he ate, if he did, because he didn’t care for supper. Persuading him into a few mouthfuls, she guided him upstairs, to get his shirt and trousers off before he fell on the bed.

Some evenings she sipped a glass of whisky to ease her mind, soothing the tremor that something would happen to stop her seeing him again. Every possible mishap pictured itself, especially as he drove the car so blithely. She looked at the clock, and when
such notions rushed back with their worry, she had another drink of whatever was on the sideboard.

‘Never be afraid of things like that, my own dear love. After the perils I’ve been through in life nothing can happen to me.’ He closed the door, taking a video, and a bottle bought at the pub, from the pocket of his naval jacket.

‘Where have you been, though?’

He sat with a hand on each thigh. ‘I was at The Black’s Head,’ he said in a gentle tone. ‘Ask anybody, and they’ll tell you. I got talking to Arthur Towle about old times. Nobody could see us under the smoke of our pipes. Arthur was a stoker, and we once served on the same destroyer. Afterwards I had to walk around to get some fresh air into my faculties before driving home. Tomorrow, we’ll go arm in arm, though, you and me together. I can’t have the love of my life feeling neglected.’

‘I’ll never feel that, Sailor.’

A piece of grit seemed to irritate his eye. ‘Even so, it’s only when I’m with you that I can be sure of not seeing it.’

‘Seeing what?’ She couldn’t be certain whether he meant a spectacular musical comedy, or a queen walking the Bloody Tower with her head under her left arm.

He smiled the question away. ‘Something that’s finished and done with.’

‘Tell me about it.’ The pain seemed too much for him. ‘But don’t, though, if you don’t want to.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s so far in the past it’s not worth the candle.’

She put an arm around his shoulder. ‘Just as you like, Sailor.’ If there was so much to talk about that he couldn’t then there wasn’t. When he had to, if ever he did, she would hear whatever it was. They stayed up till midnight with their arms around each other, seeing the video and drinking from the bottle he’d brought.

He came back one day and unloaded six tins of paint from the car boot. ‘We’re going to decorate the house.’

Trestles were borrowed from Bill and Edna, and Sailor hoisted himself up to transform the walls into a shining scape of white. With his cap on and pipe going, he came down to lay newspapers over carpets and furniture. Ann, in shirt and jeans, did the woodwork of cupboards and skirting boards, wondering why she had waited so long to have the house re-done. ‘Now we can see each other, Sailor.’

‘Even the cat,’ he laughed, wiping the end of Midnight’s long tail with a rag soaked in turps.