Alligator Playground (20 page)

In the garden he got out of his seat to dig a bed and weed the borders, though his energy seemed diminished. A trellis fence screened them from neighbours, and at the lower end clouds showed above the roof tops. He had built a feeding board for the birds, and collared doves drove sparrows from the peanuts. They rarely flew away when Sailor walked out. She watched him talking to them. ‘What do you say to each other?’

‘We have a chat,’ he grinned, ‘about the oceans we’ve crossed. We compare notes.’

He gazed at the sky, a battle with the west wind imminent, clouds distorted as if into shapes he needed to see. Midnight lay in a hump on his knees and he stroked him into a purr, another black cloud under his control.

Craving a swallow at the bottle, or wanting to read the newspaper, his knees parted slowly to let the cat fall. He filled his pipe as if putting shreds of his soul into it, then puffed out shapely billows of smoke.

When the weather was bad they picked away at the puzzle of Nelson’s last battle, Ann listening to Sailor’s stories as if she hadn’t already heard them, wanting to know what happened next in those half forgotten. He assembled a patch of the main deck, while she
worked at the glowering French ship that had given so much slaughter.

‘We’ll need a month of Sundays, but we’re getting there.’ His remark signalled a break from the gloom of billowing cannon smoke behind the
Victory’
s deck. He reached for glasses and a bottle from the sideboard.

They played games of draughts, alternated by tots of whisky and mugs of tea. Sailor drooped in the armchair and slept. She wondered about the travels of his dreaming mind, and one afternoon he came out of sleep with skin like pale clay, dull eyes looking but not seeing. ‘Oh,’ he moaned, ‘I’m glad I’m back.’

She held his hands. ‘Of course you are, Sailor. You’re with me. But where did you go?’

The old smile was distorted by uncertainty. ‘I wish I could put a name to it. All I know is I don’t like being there. I’m in a boat, you see, and the alarm bells go. The ship’s sinking and the sky’s all dark. The flashes could be guns or lightning, because there’s no sound. It never bothered me when I was young, so why does it now?’

He tried to shut his past from her. If she knew everything she would love him more, but if she never knew anything more about him she wouldn’t love him any the less. Maybe it was only the war which tormented him. She hoped so. His medals were in a case on the mantelshelf, and she had seen the paper with his name written there, telling what they were for: ‘In the Service of the Principles of the Charter of the United Nations; Korea; the Defence Medal; the Pacific Star; the Africa Star; the 1939-1945 Star.’

‘You’re all right now, Sailor.’ Tears on her cheeks said she couldn’t be sure. ‘Nothing bad can happen while you’re with me.’

‘Don’t worry, love.’ He stroked her face. ‘We’ll be all right. You’re the queen, and I’m the king. That’s the only thing as matters.’

The pain of her spirit, so hard to endure, was dulled by a drink
of whisky. ‘It’s the best thing out for lessening life’s little obstacles,’ he said.

You had to believe him, for who knew better? He must have fought through many obstacles in his life, and keeping the memories in watertight compartments was his way of making the pain bearable. Perhaps not talking made them worse, but dousing their pain with alcohol brought her and Sailor closer than if he had relinquished his guard and told all that gnawed at him.

Sidney’s prize carriage clock was no longer in its place on the living-room shelf, and she stared at the space as if to make it come back. It was plain they had needed the money, and Sailor had sold the clock that he knew was precious to her, because how else had the whisky that he brought back every day been paid for? His savings must have finished long ago.

The thought that he might be out of the house so much because he had found another woman almost caused her to faint. She couldn’t wait for him to fall against the kitchen door, but put on her coat to go out and look for him.

The slow bus seemed to be sliding backwards, her emotions melting into that pitch of jealousy which she had been too unknowing to suffer with Sidney. He wasn’t in The Black’s Head, and she didn’t find him in the Radford pub, either. She imagined herself either one step behind or one in front, weeping because she didn’t know whether or not she was being a fool. On her way home she bought supper at the chip van, and Sailor was waiting at the house.

‘Thank God.’ He held her for a kiss. ‘I thought you was gone for good.’

‘How could you think such a thing?’ But there was a lightness in his tone. ‘Have you been in long?’

‘Ten minutes,’ he said.

She spread fish, chips and saveloys, sliding the pan into the oven. ‘Where did you go? I looked everywhere.’

‘I was in The Jolly Higglers.’

She hadn’t gone there, but she couldn’t have called in every pub in Radford. ‘Were you?’

‘You don’t believe me? I was talking to a chap as deals in cars, and I sold him my old banger for a hundred quid. He’s taking it away tomorrow morning. I don’t drive much these days, and it’s only good for the knackers’ yard. Anyway, it’ll help our finances along.’

She sat before him. ‘What have you done with the carriage clock, though?’

He paused from filling his glass. ‘I’ve hidden it.’

‘You wouldn’t tell me lies, would you, Sailor?’ She looked into his eyes. ‘You didn’t sell it, did you?’

He reached for her hand. ‘I love you too much to lie. I suppose you’ll think me a bit touched, but I didn’t like such a valuable timepiece being kept on the shelf for anybody to see and carry away as soon as they broke into the house.’

She was ashamed at having called him a liar. Even if he had been she shouldn’t have said it, and he wasn’t, which made it worse. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you.’

He pulled a shoe box from behind cloths and tins of polish jumbled in a cupboard under the stairs, showing her the clock in the bed of a yellow duster. ‘Maybe I am barmy. The notion does occur to me at times, but so many houses around here get broken into that I had a funny feeling somebody would nick it. I like to follow my instinct, as I did when I fell in love with you and asked you to marry me.’

‘And I’ll always be glad you did, Sailor. I can’t think of a better man than you.’

When supper was heated to a tolerable crisp in the stove he fetched a bottle of whisky from behind the settee, which he had hidden as a surprise on coming in, and they laughed at a slyness made innocent only because he wanted to make her happy.

She flooded what was done of the puzzle with light, and saw that it hadn’t much increased. A completed frame hemmed the conflict in, but she longed to see the picture finished, in the hope of finding something about her and Sailor. When it was done she wouldn’t be able to use the table, but she couldn’t bear the thought of breaking it up after years of slotting every piece together. ‘That would bring bad luck on us,’ she told Sailor.

‘I sometimes think the best thing would be to burn the whole lot,’ he said. ‘I’ll never want to see it again after it’s done.’ He assembled a glimpse of clear sea. ‘Look at this space for lost souls, though.’

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s so much part of you. We’ll fasten every piece onto some sticky Cellophane and have it framed. It’ll look nice on the wall above the fireplace.’

‘Anything you like.’ He pounced on another bit of the sail. ‘Your wish is my command.’

‘It’s looking wonderful.’ Both were happiest at such moments. ‘We’re really getting on.’

The face of Roman numbers was plain to see when unwrapped from the cloth. The key stopped unmistakably against the barrier of being fully wound, minutes clicking healthily as if measuring her life and Sailor’s from its snug hiding place. She knelt on the floor to feel its weight, knees sore on standing up and life itching back.

The cloth wrappings dropped from her fingers, and for a moment her heart seemed to stop. She couldn’t see the clock with the eyes God had given her. Or the devil of a timepiece had grown legs and gone walkabout, sending out rays saying come and find me. She pulled everything onto the carpet but it still wasn’t there. Sailor had found a new hidey-hole, and she already heard him making a joke of it. His mind might be unfathomable, but he wasn’t the sort to play a game without good reason, in which case she wouldn’t
let the matter worry her, and saw no point asking where the clock had gone.

Whenever the vision of any clock moved across her eyes she searched every cranny, as if exploring the house for the first time, which made it easier not to let Sailor know the clock wasn’t where it should be. Even so, it was nowhere to be found, and from deciding to say nothing so as not to spoil his fun in thinking she hadn’t twigged its disappearance, she said when he came out of the bathroom looking fresh from his wash: ‘Sailor, I can’t find that carriage clock anywhere.’

His embarrassment showed as usual by a firework crackling of knuckles. She couldn’t feel regret at Sidney’s heirloom going west, and didn’t care that she would never see it again, but had asked without intending to.

He faced her across the table. ‘I suppose it’s time I told you. I owed a big bill at the off-licence, and when I showed him the clock he agreed to take it in exchange. Otherwise he would have had me in court.’ He sat as if waiting for a sentence of doom. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘I wish you’d asked me.’

‘I should have done. I don’t know why I didn’t.’

First the car, and now this. Money had to come from somewhere for their drinking. Nobody could afford to go at such a rate. She laid a hand on his wrist, unable to bear the least sign of his misery. ‘I’d do anything for you, Sailor. You know that, don’t you?’

He nodded. They were silent, like two thieves caught out instead of one. Speculating as to who was the biggest made her smile, which gave him hope. She would rather not have known, and searching for an explanation as to why she had brought the matter out made her laugh.

The sculptured fixity of guilt on Sailor’s face dissolved. ‘There’s only one thing to do, if that’s the way it takes you. The pubs’ll be open in ten minutes, and it’ll be nice sitting there to forget our troubles, if that’s what they are.’

To prepare them for the walk he took a half-gone bottle from the top of the television and poured two powerful drinks. She liked his style, and his timing, and the first sip of whisky was as welcome as if she had been waiting for it all day.

On their way to the pub it was no longer necessary to keep up with his pace, and she even adjusted hers so that he could stay level. He sat in his usual corner, little framed hunting scenes on the wall behind, pipe well chimneying. His arm lost its slight shake after the enabling liquid of the first strong bitter had gone down.

People who had known him from his caretaker days called out: ‘Hello, Sailor, how are you? Still at that titty-bottle, I see!’

Knowing himself to be a waymark of their ordered lives lit his eyes back to a hundred watts. He only nodded, however, not wasting words, though he liked being popular. What man didn’t, Ann thought, or any man at all, come to that. Some greetings were so brazen she wondered whether he had known the woman before meeting her. Still, such attention only increased his value in her eyes, and the esteem for her in his, and she knew that the more esteem he felt for her the more he loved her, which made the love between them as perfect as any could be.

Walking home hand in hand she stopped to kiss him beneath the corner sodium, not caring what anyone might think. A feeling of carefree youth had come back to her on living with Sailor.

‘I love you.’ He relaxed his embrace. ‘I can go through the shoals and the shallows with you.’

One day he went out on his own and was away longer than usual. The sky was black with a threat of rain, and streetlights came on as he reached for the gate latch. He sat in the armchair as if he would never get up again.

She stroked his face. ‘I wish you wouldn’t overdo it, Sailor. You aren’t as young as you were.’

‘I know. I walked too far.’

‘Where did you go?’

He yawned. ‘To damn near Strelley and back. When I get going it’s hard to stop.’

‘That’s miles away.’

‘No buses went by, and when I was near home three shot by.’

‘If I’d been with you I’d have called a taxi.’

‘It’s all right, love. I’m better now I’m back with you.’

She followed him down the spirals and discovered it was where she wanted to go. If he pawned or sold their possessions it was only because she had always wanted to do the same. All that mattered was for two people to use them so that they could live the way they wanted. Love wasn’t love unless you could break free of the crushing pressures inside yourself.

She kept a glistening sort of order in the house, everything spick and span, as if to spite Fate at her surrender to the way it said she should live. Energy came from she didn’t know where as she pushed the Electrolux in and out of the bedrooms. A green cloth suitcase with a number stencilled across in black lay at the bottom of the wardrobe. She lifted it, to suck dust from the corners. What he kept inside she didn’t know. Her own papers were stowed in a cigar box of Sidney’s which she kept on her dressing table. Now and again she threw away old bank statements and cheque stubs, or took out cashpoint and credit cards when they were short of money.

She swilled dishes and cutlery, and stowed everything in its place until she felt exhausted. By the time Sailor came down from the mists of sleep, she had cooked the breakfast he was so fond of, and put biscuits and coffee out for herself.

‘I eat so much of a morning,’ he quipped, ‘that you’d think I was going to be hanged.’

‘Except it’s almost midday,’ she smiled, ‘so it’s a bit late for that.’

He took the empty plate to the sink, looking around before
lighting his pipe. ‘The place is as clean as a new pin. I don’t know how you do it, my love.’

‘I have to,’ she said. ‘I like it that way.’

‘Same here. Squalor would be the death of me. You get a horror of it after a life on the mess deck.’