Key to the Door (47 page)

Albert, almost from birth, had been the handyman in his mother's house, had learned how to mend lamps and fuses after only one shock, how to fix supports into the garden fence to stop it falling, put in a pane of glass or whitewash the attic—because his father had died when he was three. Albert told Brian the same night his mother divulged the secret to him, couldn't wait to get it out, he was so excited. They went into the Wheatsheaf at Bobbers Mill and ordered two pints of mild. “Sit down, Brian. Mam's just towd me summat I'd never known before. I allus thought dad had died of a bad heart when I was three, but you see, by Christ, you know what did happen?” The previous story had been of Albert's poor dad digging away at his prize allotment garden for all he was worth, shifting heavy clods of spud-soil near beds of multicoloured chrysanths that stood high in the sun like white and yellow pom-pom hats. The picture was that Mr. Lomax, having foolishly overdone it when he should have known better, had folded up from a stab in the heart and died on the spot; but it was now revealed to Albert that his dad had really got fed up with life and cut his throat, altering the picture to one of a tormented corpse twisted among the support sticks of his collapsing chrysanthemums. Albert got more pints and drank to it again: “Just think, the old man committed suicide! I don't know anybody else whose old man committed suicide! I don't know anybody else whose old man killed himself, do you? I wish mam 'ud told me sooner. Fancy leaving it till now.” Brian was glad to see him so happy, and went to get the next round. It explained a lot about Albert's cleverness, and the vivid light in his brown eyes, as if the life that had been forced out of his father had joined with his and made him so much stronger.

Albert sang himself up the slope and over the railway bridge—out of nothing, into nothing—the noise of his primeval voice drowned for a while by the hoot of a pit whistle, but emerging strongly (as if he hadn't heard it) when the hooting stopped as cleanly as if an invisible knife had slewed down it through the black air. He turned off for Radford. “See yer't wok tomorrer then,” he called to Albert.

No wonder Pauline packed me up, Brian thought, after I cracked her one like that—and me thinking I'd never hit a woman in my life after seeing the way dad knocked mam about when I was a kid and remembering how I hated to see it. I don't know. It's rotten to do owt like that. But if you come to think on it, though, dad hit mam for nothing at all, just because she cursed him or said he was a numbskull for not being able to read and write, but Pauline gave me a big whack first, before I hit her, and that's a fact. Maybe I shouldn't have hit her anyway, but I'm still not as bad as dad used to be. Anyway, maybe it's a lot worse to call someone a numbskull who can't read and write than it is to give a bloke a crack across the gob for nothing. It's anybody's toss-up which comes keener; but I still wish I hadn't bumped her.

Bert came home on weekend pass and Brian went out with him Saturday night to see what they could pick up. Tracks led by nine o'clock to the Langham, Bert lacquered up in khaki battle-dress and Shippoe's ale, small for his seventeen years but also drunk by the success of his lies that had joined him up a long while before his time. “I can't be bothered to desert like Dave and Colin,” he confessed to Brian, a chip on his shoulder at having to justify such action to his disapproving family. Bert had a mind of his own, had the same surviving face as when he was a kid, and Brian didn't think for a second that any Jerry bomb or bullet could put Bert's light out. He was a good shot and adept with foxhole and slit trench, wouldn't starve because he knew how to live off the land, could sleep standing up, march forty miles a day, make a fire in three feet of snow, leap off a lorry with full kit and rifle at thirty miles an hour. “That's how they train the infantry,” he said. “You've got to be tough to beat the Jerries, and if you can't beat the Jerries you can't help the Reds, can you? Can you, though, eh? We was doing street fighting in Newcastle, and you know how you get from house to house? You don't go out of one door and into another—like a rent man—you use grenades and blow out the fireplace, then creep through the hole. I enjoyed that. We might be doing it in Berlin soon; you never know, though, do you, eh? I hate the cold, though, I do. I can stand it, but I hate it. We was on a scheme last January in Yorkshire and had to sleep out, dig holes in the snow to sleep in. Christ, I'm not kidding when I tell you, our Brian, I was so cold I was pissing mysen all night. Couldn't stop. Couldn't hold it. I hate the cold.”

The Langham was crowded but they pushed a way through to the bar: Brian was good at that. “I can't see her,” Bert said. “But she swore blind she'd be here at nine. I asked her to bring a pal as well, for yo'. I hope she does.” Brian was jammed front and back, kept his pint at face level above other shoulders, and was able gradually to tilt the jar up so that a wall of ale slid into his mouth. “How's that tart o' yourn?” Bert asked when Brian shunted a second pint across. “See much on her lately?” Brian admitted he'd chucked her. “Looking for somebody else then?” The pub was packed, generating a noise even louder than the machine shop he worked in. It was impossible to hear: “What?” he bawled, seeing but not hearing the second question. The loudest voice was that of the piano, beating its pathways above smoke and din, where nothing could reach to compete with it. A jaggle of colliers in the corner crashed out into laughter over the antics of their dominoes, a sound like the sudden splintering downfall of a wooden fence.

Bert nudged him, held up the other hand to wave. “Here they are,” he said, nodding at two young women pushing in from the doorway. Brian got more drinks, two pints and a couple of gin-and-its, while Bert latched on to the stoutest of the two women, as if, being smaller than Brian, he needed to ally himself to someone hefty in order to strike the right average should everyone be weighed out by pairs as they went into heaven. She must have been well over twenty, married as like as not, a round face and well-permed hair, not much given to powder and rouge but making up for it by the amount of laughter that rolled out of her at everything Bert said—which must have pleased him because it kept a permanent grin on his face, a low-burning light which seemed to say: Look what I've landed myself with. She's a rare piece, ain't she? Brian cursed to himself. Her eyes shone, showed by their life that she was having the good time she'd got used to since her husband, you could bet, was going off his head in some snuffed-out hole of Burma or Italy. “What's your name, duck?” Brian asked.

“Rachel.”

“Down the hatch,” he said. “That's a Bible name, Rachel, ain't it?” which got him a louder laugh than Bert. He called for two more gins and slid them over before the first ones were finished.

“Steady,” Bert said, thinking Brian might get on all right with gels his own age but that he didn't much know how to treat grown women. If you bought them drinks the second they'd slung one lot down, they'd swill 'em off quicker than ever: you had to wait for the hint first, to keep things as slow as you could.

“He's trying to get us drunk,” the other woman said, unable to laugh as heartily as Rachel. “It'd tek some doing,” Brian retorted. “What's your name, love?”

A straight answer, as if she didn't mind telling him: “Edna.”

Bert already had his arm round Rachel's fine middle, like a kid embracing a jar of sweet biscuits. Edna was small and thin, well made up with rouge and lipstick and looked a year or two older than her pal if the truth were known. She had long curly hair and a well-padded coat—was so thin that Brian thought she might be heading for consumption, though the way she chain-smoked may have helped to keep her that way. Her small features seemed distrustful of the world and of Brian in particular, so that in odd troughs of soberness he wished for the knowledge and familiarity of Pauline. Nevertheless it was good to be in a pub, half-pissed with a grown woman who at last was beginning to smile and give him the glad-eye now and again. He held the bridgehead at the bar, passing over gin and beer and cigarettes: soldier Bert was moneyless, and women didn't pay, so money-man lashed out, one half of him not thinking about it and the other half glad to be the fountainhead of so much benevolence. Bert was telling both women that Brian his cousin had a cupboardful of books at home as well as a stack of maps for following up the war, and Brian turned to deny this and make out that Bert was spinning a tale just for the fun of it. “He says owt to keep the party going,” he told Edna, squeezing her thin waist, but then relaxing his grip for fear he should snap her in two and get hung for murder. Booze was clouding his eyes, and he was glad when “Time” was bawled because he didn't want to be dead-helpless by the time he got Edna in bed or against a wall, and in any case by ten he'd only that many shillings left, half of which slid away on the last order allowed after towels had been put on.

They linked arms and made their way with “Roll Out the Barrel” to the bus stop. Bert was half asleep while the bus crawled into town and only woke up loud and clear when Brian tried to kiss Rachel as well as Edna. Bert pushed him away and they poured on to the Slab Square pavement where the bus route ended. Edna lived at Sneinton and Rachel in the Meadows, so the foursome split up.

A cold mist cleared the fumes from Brian's eyes, his body light, though more controllable. He kept a tentacle well-placed around Edna's waist as they walked and was not afraid of snapping her in two any more. In fact, she gripped tight as well, which made him hope he was in for something good. The streets were empty except for an occasional mob of swaddies making for the NAAFI or YM. They went in a silence of loving expectation past the Robin Hood Arms and turned up Sneinton Dale. He wanted to ask whether she was married and had any kids, but didn't because he sensed she'd get ratty and wouldn't answer. A solitary drunk pushed into them and Brian swung to shove back, but Edna dragged his arm and asked him not to be a fool—which was the most definite thing she'd said all evening. They entered a long street of small houses. “You live here?”

She stopped by one. “Just here.”

“Can I come in then?”

“You'd better not. My husband's at home.”

“I can't see any lights on.”

“Wise guy,” she answered, which retort made him wonder how many Yanks she'd been with, and brought up the hope that he wouldn't get a dose of the pox. She leaned by the door and he pressed in for a kiss, whispering: “Let's go up Colwick Woods.”

“I can't, duck. It's eleven. It's late.” He enjoyed the kisses, for she clung to him and allowed his insistent leg to force hers open. “It wain't tek long.”

“I'm sorry, love, I've got to go.” But she didn't pull away, though she pushed his hand gently down when it went too close. “My husband'll come out.”

“I don't care. Come for a stroll to the end of the street.” Someone was walking up the entry, but she seemed not to have heard. “You will if he catches you. Anyway, I'll get it, not you. Stop undoing my coat, it's cold.” They buried themselves into another kiss. The stillness and force of their close-pressed kisses drew a haze over him and he felt himself on the razor's edge of luck, either about to get what he wanted or be sent off alone up the empty street. But he told himself that if he went on trying long enough, even against her quiet entreaties to pack it up, then she would open herself and give in. “No, don't, duck. Stop it, there's a good lad. I'd like to, but I've got to go in now.”

Footsteps sounded again from the entry, of someone soft-treading it out to the street. “Come on, Edna, we could have been at Colwick while we was chinnin'.”

“I'm going,” she said, irritated now. “I've got kids to look after.” A shadow stood by them, silent and oppressive. Brian noticed it, felt it must be that of some neighbour out to see if his kid was on its way back from the fish-and-chip shop, though he cursed himself later that this was the first thing he should think of instead of just running like mad out of it. A stinging hammer of hard knuckles hit him between the shoulder blades and he swung round, ducking as he did so to avoid number two, which missed by an inch. The man, unable to brake, lurched against him.

“Clive!” Edna cried, getting her information out in a fabulous hurry: “Stop it. Come on in. It worn't owt. I'd only had a drink. He woks at our place.” Brian brought up the full iron strength of his arm into the man's face before he could draw away, then hit him again and pushed him out towards the gutter, impelled to madness by what seemed the savage wreck of his shoulder blades.

“You dirty bastard,” the man said, and ran back at him. His fist came up and met Brian in the middle of his forehead, making it feel as if the skin had been pushed into his scalp. Words fused with the pain and starlit darkness of his mind: He's winning. He wants to kill me! And with both fists ready, he grabbed the man's shirt and felt it rip as he smashed at his face, then rammed out with his shoulders and forced him away from the housefront, hitting out quickly to give more than he got. The man stood in the middle of the street. “Leave her alone,” he cried, his voice wavering. “Get off.”

Brian waited with fists raised, though knowing that if he didn't fight any more the man would be willing to let it drop. “Yo' leave her alone as well, you daft sod. We'd on'y 'ad a drink.”

“Ar,” the man said. “I know y'ave. I know all about that.”

“Well, I'm telling you,” Brian said. He felt a loon standing with fists raised against fresh air; lowered them and walked off cursing his bad luck, determined not to rub the ache at his forehead until he had turned out of the street and could no longer be seen by the squabbling couple behind.

On Sneinton Boulevard, a wide dark artery of emptiness all to himself, he burned more with rage than the pain of his indecisive fight, could have pulled God out of the sky and given him a good thumping—though what's the use when there ain't no God? Belt up, keep calm, then you'll never come to harm. Yes, I know, he thought wrathfully, lighting a fag, and it's no use feeling sorry about Pauline having chucked you, either.