Collected Short Stories (25 page)

On his way out of the Store the floors were silent and deserted, the counters humped with canvas covers, and the little house looking strangely real now under a solitary light. A mouse nibbling at something on the floor scurried off between an alleyway in the counters, and on the ground floor two women were sweeping up the dust and gossiping loudly.

The caretaker let him out by a side door, and as he walked off in the rain through the lamp-lighted streets he put up the collar of his coat and avoided the puddles as best he could. A sullen resentment seized his heart and he began to drag from the corners of his mind the things that irritated him. He thought they should have given him his tea before he left, or even a bun and a glass of milk, and he thought of his home and maybe the fine tea his wife would have for him, and a good fire in the grate and the kids in bed. He walked more quickly. He passed boys eating chip potatoes out of a newspaper, and he stole a glance at Joe Raffo's chip-shop and the cloud of steam rolling through the open door into the cold air. The smell maddened him. He plunged his hands into his pockets and fiddled with a button, bits of hard crumbs, and a sticky bit of caramel paper. He took out the caramel paper and threw it on the wet street.

He felt cheated and discontented with everything; and the more he thought of the job the more he blamed his wife for all the agony he had suffered throughout the day. She couldn't leave him alone – not for one solitary minute could she let him have a thought of his own or come to a decision of his own. She must be for ever interfering, barging in, and poking into his business. He was a damned fool to listen to her and to don a ridiculous hard hat for such a miserable job. Father Christmas and his everlasting smile! He'd smile less if he had to wear a pair of boots three sizes too small for him. It was a young fella they wanted for the job – somebody accustomed to standing for hours at a street corner and measuring the length of his spits on the kerb. And then the ladder! That was the bloody limit! Up and down, down and up, like a squirrel in a cage, instead of giving you a stick and a chair where you could sit and really look like an old man. When he'd get home he'd let his wife know what she let him in for. It would lead to a row between them, and when that happened she'd go about for days flinging his meals on the table and belting the kids for sweet damn-all. He'd have to tell her – it was no use suffering devil's torture and saying nothing about it. But then, it's more likely than not she'd put on her hat and coat and go down to the Manager in the morning and complain about the boots, and then he might lose the job, bad and all as it was. Och, he'd say nothing – sure, bad temper never got you anywhere!

He stepped into a puddle to avoid a man's umbrella and when he felt the cold splash of water up the leg of his trousers his anger surged back again. He'd tell her all. He'd soon take the wind out of her sails and her self-praise about the hat! He'd tell her everything.

He hurried up the street and at the door of his house he let down the collar of his coat and shook the rain off his hat. He listened for a minute and heard the children shouting. He knocked, and the three of them pounded to the door to open it.

‘It's Daddy,' they shouted, but he brushed past them without speaking.

His wife was washing the floor in the kitchen and as she wrung the cloth into the bucket and brushed back her hair with the back of her hand she looked at him with a bright smile.

‘You got it all right?'

‘Why aren't the children in bed?'

‘I didn't expect you home so soon.'

‘Did you think I was a bus conductor!'

She noticed the hard ring in his voice. She rubbed the soap on the scrubber and hurried to finish her work, making great whorls and sweeps with the cloth. She took off her dirty apron, and as she washed and dried her hands in the scullery she glanced at him seated on the sofa, his head resting on his hands, the three children waiting for him to speak to them. ‘It was the hat,' she said to herself. ‘It was the hat did the trick.'

‘Come on now and up to bed quickly,' and she clapped her hands at the children.

‘But you have to wash our legs in the bucket.'

‘You'll do all right to tonight. Your poor father's hungry after his hard day's work.' And as she pulled off a jersey she held it in her hand and gave the fire a poke under the kettle. John stared into the fire and when he raised his foot there was a damp imprint left on the tiles. She handed him a pair of warm socks from the line and a pair of old slippers that she had made for him out of pasteboard and a piece of velours.

‘I've a nice bit of steak for your tea,' she said. ‘I'll put on the pan when I get these ones into their beds.'

He rubbed his feet and pulled on the warm socks. It was good that she hadn't the steak fried and lying as dry as a stick in the oven. When all was said and done, she had some sense in her head.

The children began to shout up the chimney telling Santa Claus what they wanted for Christmas, and when they knelt to say their prayers they had to thank God for sending their Daddy a good job. John smiled for the first time since he came into the house and he took the youngest on his knee. ‘You'll get a doll and a pram for Christmas,' he said, ‘and Johnny will get a wooden train with real wheels and Pat – what will we get him? And he remembered putting a cowboy's outfit into one of the boxes. ‘A cowboy's outfit – hat and gun.'

His wife had put the pan on the fire and already the steak was frizzling. ‘Don't let that pan burn till I come down again. I'll not be a minute.

He heard her put the kids to bed, and in a few minutes she was down again, a fresh blouse on her and a clean apron.

She poured out his tea and after he had taken a few mouthfuls he began to tell her about the crowd of applicants and about the fellow who shouted: ‘We'd better all go home,' when he had seen him in the hat.

‘He was jealous – that's what was wrong with him!' she said. ‘A good clout on the ear he needed.'

He told her about the Manager, the handbell, the blue and pink parcels, the little house, and the red cloak he had to wear. Then he paused, took a drink of tea, cut a piece of bread into three bits, and went on eating slowly.

‘It's well you took my advice and wore the hat,' she said brightly. ‘I knew what I was talking about. And you look so – so manly in it.' She remembered about the damp stain on the floor, and she lifted his boots off the fender and looked at the broken soles. ‘They're done,' she said, ‘that's the first call in your wages at the end of the week.'

He got up from the table and sat near the fire. She handed him his pipe filled with tobacco, and as she washed the dishes in the scullery she would listen to the little pouts he made while he smoked. Now and again she glanced in at him, at the contented look on his face and the steam arising from his boots on the fender.

She took off her apron, tidied her hair at the looking-glass, and powdered her face. She stole across the floor to him as he sat staring into the fire. Quietly she took the pipe from his lips and put it on the mantelpiece. She smiled at him and he smiled back, and as she stooped to kiss him he knew that he would say nothing to her now about the tight boots.

The old lady in the private ward had expected her married daughter since two o'clock and since it was now nearing four her scrap of patience had begun to shrink. Propped up in bed with a woollen lavender cap on her head like a tea-cozy she stared aggressively at the closed door and saw in its dull glass panels the blurred figures of nurses passing to and from the public ward. She could hear their bantering voices raised in laughter and she grew more annoyed and tried not to listen to them. They didn't give her much of their time, she reflected; indeed, she could be dead and gone for hours before they'd discover it. No one gave her a moment's notice, a moment's consideration. She supposed private ward meant privacy – it also meant neglect where she was concerned! And wasn't she old, and wasn't she paying through the nose for this private room, a room furnished like a Victorian hotel. And then there was the bell-push looped round the rail of the bed which she was to ring if she wanted anything. Oh, she liked that part of it! How often had she rung and rung and no one had paid any heed to it. And it wasn't that the bell was out of order for the seldom time they did answer it they did so immediately.

But today you'd think they had gone on strike for she was sure she had a calloused finger from ringing the same bell. She was sure too her temperature and blood pressure were rising steadily.

She turned around and eyed the bell, and to appease her annoyance she pressed it again and heard it cheer itself hoarse in some part of the building. But no one answered it. Laughter came again from the public ward, and she wondered what they had to laugh at and maybe some poor patients needing a little rest or, God help them, lying at death's door. Come to think of it she herself would have been much better off in the public ward instead of being cooped up all alone like a Victorian dowager. For one thing she'd have had loads of company and loads of attention, and strange people traipsing in and out, and so many of them on visiting days there wouldn't be enough chairs for them to sit on and they'd have to perch on the edge of the bed or stand leaning over the bedrails. Her daughter wanted her to go there in the first instance and it was a pity she didn't heed her.

But what on earth was keeping her so late today after promising she'd be here at two. Oh, the same girl never hurried except when it suited her! Selfish, selfish – that summed her up.

She sighed resignedly and glanced at the chart hanging over the aluminium rail at the foot of the bed. She saw the black peaks and hollows on it like an outline of the Rockies and wondered what it all meant.

The door was knocked and a nurse slipped in.

‘Did you ring, Mrs Collins?'

‘On and off for the past three hours.'

‘And what may I bring you or do for you?'

‘You're all doing for me if you'd like to know! But I'll lodge a complaint to the doctor in the morning.'

‘There are other patients in the hospital, too, Mrs Collins.'

‘I don't want any impertinence, any back answers, either from you or anyone else. I'm in a private ward and I'm not paying dear money to be scolded or abused. All I ask is a little attention, a little consideration – half of what's given to the patients in the public ward would suffice.'

‘We're doing our best for all, Mrs Collins. We're short-handed.'

‘You may be short of hearing too, but you're not short-tongued. Would you please hand me my knitting from the top drawer there.'

‘Let me prop you up on the pillows properly, and get you ready for your daughter.'

‘I'll require that if she comes. What sort of day is it outside?'

‘It's snowing steadily and the roofs are covered white.'

‘Snowing! Why wasn't I told so that I needn't expect my daughter? That's another instance of the silent cruelties of this place.'

‘It only came on a short while ago.'

‘You've an answer for everything, my girl. Perhaps you'd refill my hot water bottle before my poor feet are frozen stiff.'

‘With pleasure, Mrs Collins,' and the nurse fished it out from under the bedclothes and held it in her arms as she would a baby. ‘I'll be back in a minute,' and she smiled and hurried from the room.

Mrs Collins eyed the hand of the clock on the dressing table. She'd time that lassie.

Five minutes passed, and then ten.

She'd give her two minutes more before she'd poke the bell. Who ever heard of a quart of warm water taking ten minutes to boil!

I suppose she'll tell me the gas is on low pressure or the electric has failed because of the snow.

She lay back on the pillow and drew her feet up from the cold regions of the bed. She shivered. She'd get that blade to take her temperature when she'd come back! She stared at the clock and then gripped the bell-push and gave the button a prolonged squeeze.

At last someone stood outside the door and she could distinguish the white uniform of the nurse. She was talking to someone. Perhaps one of the young student doctors. The impudence of that one! The bottle would be cold by the time she had finished her tête-a-tête.

The door opened and the nurse came in backwards.

‘I thought you'd never come and my poor feet frozen.'

‘Was I long, Mrs Collins?' the nurse said brightly as she stowed the bottle beneath the blankets.

‘It's a pity I'm not a young man and not an old woman. I'd get full value out of my private ward, I'm thinking.'

‘You needn't expect your daughter today. By the look of it that snow's on for the whole evening.'

‘Indeed I'll expect her! My daughter has a sense of duty. From an early age she was taught to have consideration for others.'

‘If your daughter's wise she'll stay at home,' and the nurse stood at the window and gazed down at the snow obliterating the cars' tracks that led from the gate. ‘I wouldn't be at all surprised if the buses cease to run.'

‘You're very comforting, I must say.'

‘If you turn your head, Mrs Collins, you can see the snow on the roofs. It must be an inch or so deep, for the outline of the slates is blotted out.'

‘If you give me the hand mirror I might be able to see the snow without getting a crick in my neck.'

The nurse lifted the mirror from the dressing table, blew her breath on it, and wiped it with the corner of her apron.

‘Well now, Mrs Collins, what do you see?'

‘I can see nothing except an old woman who's badly failed since coming to this inhospitable place.'

‘Indeed, you're looking well.'

‘If you had seen me twenty years ago you would have seen a very beautiful young woman. Anyone would tell you that who knew me.'

‘I'm sure.'

‘The way you say it you're not so sure.'

‘You're still handsome. One hasn't to go back twenty years to find that out.'

‘Why don't you sit down, nurse, and relax for a minute or two.'

‘You never saw a nurse sitting except at meal times. We're always on the go.'

‘If you are it's not to this room you do be going. It's little attention I get from any of you.'

‘If you needed attention we'd be in and out twenty times an hour.'

‘So I'm not sick at all – is that the next of it!'

‘Oh, no, Mrs Collins,' the nurse smiled. ‘You're still far from well. But you're no longer on our danger list.'

‘If I were no longer on the paying list I'd be happy.'

The nurse rearranged a few bedraggled chrysanthemums in a vase at the window and on looking out saw Mrs Collins' daughter and grandchild coming through the gate.

‘I must go now,' the nurse said without telling her the good news. ‘Just ring if you want anything.'

Left alone the old lady lifted the mirror and watched the snow falling. Yes, the nurse was probably right. Her daughter wouldn't come, and that snow could be a convenient and plausible excuse. She lay back and shut her eyes, the hand mirror face downward on the eiderdown.

The door was knocked and in walked her married daughter with her six-year-old child. She carried a bunch of pink chrysanthemums that were moist with melted snow, and before greeting her mother she placed them upright in the wash basin.

‘Are you asleep, Mother?' she whispered, stooping over the bed to kiss her.

‘Sure you know I never sleep. And what possessed you to take Mary out with you on a day like this?'

She's in one of her tantrums, the daughter said to herself, and called on God to give her patience during the visit. Slowly she took off the child's cape and hat and draped them over the back of a chair, and sitting beside the bed she told her mother she looked greatly improved since her last visit.

‘I may look it, Lizzie, but I don't feel it,' and thereupon she launched into a litany of complaints about the nurses' inattention and cold meals served up to her. The daughter sighed and patted the eiderdown, but after listening to another volley of complaints she said quietly, ‘I wish, Mother, you weren't so querulous. The poor nurses are doing their very best.'

‘Oh, if that's the mood you're in, my lady, you shouldn't have come out to see a sick and lonely old woman.'

‘I don't like to hear you complain so much, that's all.'

‘I'm not complaining, I'm just stating the bare facts.'

The child, not interested in their talk, wandered about the room, pulled out drawers in a bureau and was surprised that they contained nothing, only a blue sheet of paper flattened tightly to the bottom. Some of the drawers stuck as she was closing them, and one rather stubborn one she pushed so vigorously that a statuette of Our Lady rocked precariously on top of the bureau.

‘Now see what you have done, Mary. Come here beside mother and keep your hands to yourself.'

‘It's high time you corrected her. She's a little curiosity box.'

‘Why do your teeth click, grandma, and mine don't?' the child said, staring at her grandmother and the lavender cap on her white head.

‘What does the child say?' the old lady asked, leaning forward with a hand to her ear.

‘She wants to know if you like her new blue cape.'

‘She doesn't suit blue. You should have bought her a red one or a black one.'

The child, dashed, hid herself at the back of her mother's chair, but after a few minutes they had forgotten about her and she once more roamed about the room.

‘John has a bit of a cold,' the daughter said, mentioning her husband's name for the first time. ‘But he'll be up to see you soon.'

‘I suppose he's overworked these days,' the old lady said with false sweetness, aware that sloth was John's predominant passion.

The daughter clasped her hands on her lap and yearned to be out once more in the wide airy spaces of the street. No matter what she said she failed to make contact or break down the tension that divided them. Everything was going wrong: the snow, the long wait for the bus, and then the failure of the visit. She sighed, and as the daylight shrank from the room she switched on the light and drew the curtains.

And then suddenly there was a rumble and stumble on the floor, for the child had opened a press and out spilled bananas, turning black, and oranges and apples.

‘Well, well, well, that's a spill! There's no peace with that child. Leave her at home next time you call.'

The mother stooped and pressed the burst bags of fruit into the press, and red in the face from exertion and anxiety she sat down and breathed audibly.

‘You should give some of that fruit to the nurses. The bananas, I may tell you, are turning black.'

‘They may turn pink for that matter. I wouldn't give the same nurses the skin of an orange if it were to save their lives.'

‘The nurses! The nurses! Can you not stop pecking at them sometime. They're an overworked and underpaid body if you'd like to know.'

‘That's right, stand up for them against your poor tortured old mother.'

The child by this time had discovered a small box of Turkish Delight that had fallen at the side of the press and she was poking a finger on the sugared jelly and licking it when her grandmother spotted her.

‘My God, look what she has now!' she shouted. ‘My Turkish Delight, the only sweet that lies at peace on my stomach. Hand them up this instant!'

She took the box and pushed it beneath her pillow, and the child, almost in tears, stood beside her mother and asked if they weren't going home soon.

‘In a minute or two, Mary. Be patient, girly.'

‘You should have left her at home instead of hauling her out through all that snow.'

‘If I had left her at home you'd have asked why I didn't bring her. Oh, you haven't spoken a kind word to her since we came in.'

‘I didn't wish to interrupt her plundering expeditions.'

‘She didn't get much plunder as far as I can see!' the daughter flashed back, and then in an instant regretted it. The old lady closed her eyes, turned her head away, and raised a hand in a gesture of dismissal.

Quietly the daughter put on her own coat and then buttoned on the child's cape.

‘Mother.'

‘Let me sleep, please.'

She pulled on her gloves: ‘Mother, I forgot to tell you that Sally Morgan is getting married.' She paused, but her mother didn't stir. ‘She's getting married to … You'll never guess?'

The old lady shrugged her shoulders, but did not speak.

‘We're, going now', her daughter went on. ‘Is there anything special you want and I'll have it sent up to you?'

‘Nothing, thanks. My needs are few. But do try to be in better form on your next visit.'

‘I'll try, Mother,' she said, taking the blow. ‘The snow and the long wait for the buses have put my nerves on edge, I suppose.' She stooped and kissed her mother.

The old lady looked fixedly at her: she wanted to ask her whom Sally Morgan was going to marry but she held back, stiffening herself against the impulse to please. But when the goodbyes were said and the door closed she felt her pride uncoiling in a long irregular line of angry discontent. She rang the bell. She wanted the nurse to call them back. She rang again and again but no one answered her.