The Likes of Us (45 page)

‘Now what's up?' she said aloud, as he pointed first to himself, then to her, and began to walk towards the building. ‘Oh God, he's coming in.'

He was on the landing, trying to get his bearings, when she went to the door.

‘What do you want now?'

‘I've sprung a leak,' he said. ‘I can fix it, but I'll need a bucket of water to get me home.'

He advanced on her before she could speak, as though her allowing him in now was the most natural of courtesies and not even worth a request. She thought for a second of stopping him and telling him to wait; then, as he put his hand on her arm and turned her through the doorway, she went without protest.

She told herself afterwards that it was when she heard the door shut behind him she knew he was back in her life. A part of her was astounded that she couldn't resist, that she could not summon again the spirit with which she had first refused to ask him in; but that part could only observe now as the rest of her, as though hypnotised by the inevitable, waited for the clinching move. ‘If it doesn't come,' she told herself, ‘I'm safe. I can send him on his way and no harm done.' But she knew with a certainty she would have risked her life on that it would.

He crossed to the window and was standing where she had stood to watch him.

‘It's all right here,' he said.

‘I like it.'

‘Doesn't it get the sun?'

‘In the evening. I'm not bothered about during the day. I'm out then.'

‘Aye,' he said, ‘it's all right. Cheaper than the house?'

‘A bit.'

‘Aye,' he said again. ‘Got to watch the pennies. No sense in chucking money away.'

‘I don't know if I've got a bucket big enough,' she said.

‘I can always make two trips. Just so's I can fill up and get home without boiling.'

He followed her into the kitchen. ‘You wouldn't have such a thing as a length of insulating tape?'

‘I don't think so. I'll have a look.'

She had put her yellow plastic bucket into the sink and was running water into it. Now she bent to a cupboard below and took out her box of odds and ends: screws, nails, curtain hooks, a small screwdriver.

‘No, it doesn't look like it.'

‘I'm sure there was a roll among the stuff I left.'

‘Oh, I've had a clear-out since then. I threw a lot of stuff away when I moved here.'

‘You should allus keep a roll of insulating tape. It's one of the handiest things about a house.'

‘Like a man,' she heard herself saying, ‘but I've managed without one of them.'

‘Well, look; if you ever need a job doing 'at you can't manage yourself...'

‘You mean I can ring your wife up and ask her to send you over?'

‘I'm only trying to be friendly.'

‘You said that before.'

‘I meant it. I don't harbour any bitterness over what you did; all that's in the past.'

‘Over what I did?' Her laugh was short and bitter. ‘God! That's rich, that is. Watch your bucket.' She made to pass him and leave the confined space of the kitchen; then, a moment later, without any
seemingly deliberate movement, but like something subtly choreographed and accomplished before the eye could follow, he had her trapped behind the door. ‘You're a buggeroo, aren't you?' she said. ‘A first-class buggeroo.'

‘Sandra...'

‘Oh, you remember my name as well now? That's the first time you've used it this afternoon.'

‘Sandra... I've thought about you a lot, you know.'

‘You're a bloody liar. You'd have walked straight past me in the street if I hadn't stood in your way.'

‘Only because you took me by surprise. I was a bit... well, embarrassed.'

‘I'll bet you can't remember the last time. And for God's sake watch that bucket. You'll have it all over the floor.'

He reached behind him without stepping away from her and turned off the tap.

‘Sandra... there's no need for all this.'

‘Oh, bloody hell,' she said as she felt his hands on her. ‘God, I ought to have my head examined.'

 

Some time later she reached cigarettes from the bedside cabinet, lit two and handed him one.

‘I shall have to get rid of some of this weight.'

‘What for? Why do women no sooner get a bit of what a feller likes, they want to get rid of it?'

‘It's this spare tyre, though. It bothers me.'

‘Do some exercises for it, then.'

‘Only solution. If I slim for it I shall lose it off my tits and arms as well.'

‘You don't want to do that. They're just right now.'

‘You noticed, didn't you? As soon as you saw me. You noticed and you thought, there's old Sandra all fattened up for a quick kill.'

‘I thought nowt o' t'sort.'

‘What did you think, then?'

‘Well, I noticed. I hadn't seen you for three years, so o' course I noticed.'

‘Then it struck you while we were talking that you fancied me, so you thought you'd see if there was anything doing.'

‘I never really stopped fancying you.'

‘You bloody liar. You lie like breathing.'

‘Are you trying to kid yourself now you didn't enjoy it?'

‘Enjoy it or not, I shouldn't be here like this with you.'

‘But you did enjoy it, and you are here, so stop reckoning you wish it hadn't happened.'

‘Won't she be wondering where you are?'

‘I told you, she's with her mother.'

‘You've not got her pregnant yet, then?'

‘No.'

‘Maybe it was you after all, then, the reason we didn't have any.'

‘I'm not ready for a family yet. There's plenty of time for all that.'

‘It'd be funny if you'd managed it with me, this time, wouldn't it? That'd be a laugh.'

‘Why don't you relax and stop nattering yourself?'

‘I can't.' Suddenly she was crying. ‘Oh, God, all that time, all that trouble. I knew I should never have stopped when I saw you. You were walking on and I should have let you. I thought I'd got over it and now here we are again.'

‘Give up,' he said. He slid his arm back under her head and turned her towards him.

‘I don't want any more trouble.'

‘There'll be no trouble.'

‘There won't because you're not coming here again. I hope you understand that.'

‘We'll talk about it later.'

He stroked her shoulder. Behind his closed eyelids he was stroking Doreen. He had watched her as she slipped off garments, seen the shadows as they shaped her body. In a moment she would be with him. She knew when he watched her like that and she slowed her movements as if deliberately making him wait.

He moved, twisted, then straddled and covered her.

‘Oh, God, no!' Sandra moaned. ‘Don't say you can do it again so soon!'

 

They were demolishing three blocks of old property in the middle of the town. There were two huge deep square holes with a tall temporary fence round them. Des stood by his lorry, taking a few minutes out for a smoke while the JCB turned on its caterpillars and loaded broken masonry from the third site. Everything around was thick in dust. Fresh clouds of it rose and settled each time the shovel dug and took its load. Hollins came up, crowbar in his hand, and spoke to Des through lips caked with it.

‘You what?'

Hollins leaned in and raised his voice against Des's ear. ‘I said isn't that your missus over there?'
He motioned with his head.

Beyond the piled rubble two women were walking along the road between this site and the fence enclosing the next. One of them was Doreen.

‘Haven't you seen her lately?'

‘No.'

‘I thought you'd been back to try and make it up.'

‘You know what she did, don't you?' Des said. ‘She changed the locks on the doors so's I couldn't get in.'

‘She doesn't spend all her time in the house, does she?'

‘No, but if she feels that strong about it I'll be buggered if I'll crawl.'

‘Got another nest to keep warm in, anyway, haven't you?' Hollins stood beside Des and watched Doreen and her friend. ‘Smart lass, though. You know how to pick 'em, if not how to keep 'em. Look, they're off in for a drink.'

The two women were going through the front door of the King's Arms.

‘Look, Mick,' Des said, cover for me for five minutes, will you?'

‘He wants this load away before dinnertime, doesn't he?'

‘Get it filled. I'll be back. If he turns up, tell him I got taken short for a crap.'

He walked towards the pub and went in through the side door. The landlord came out of the Gents in the passage as Des looked at the signs on the doors.

‘Tap-room for you, lad, if you're wanting a drink.'

Des went into the big room at the back, where there was heavy linoleum on the floor and the stools and benches were covered in crimson leatherette. No upholstery or carpet for his clothes and boots to soil.

‘Give us a pint of lager.'

He usually drank only tea during the working day and he swallowed a third of the cold liquid before setting the glass down again, feeling it cut through the dust in the back of his throat.

There was a way through from this bar to the one in the lounge and he could see chairs and tables, but no one who was in there.

‘Are there two young women in yonder?' he asked the publican.

‘Aye. Just come in.'

‘There's one in a brown frock with like big yellow flowers on it. Tell her there's somebody in here wants to talk to her, will you?'

As the landlord went through he moved along the bar counter to where he would be out of view if Doreen looked across. He glanced round the room. There was no one else except two middle-aged men at a corner table, making up betting slips for the afternoon's races.

The door opened.

‘Oh, it's you. I thought it must be.'

‘Doreen. I saw you go by.'

‘What do you want, then?' She turned her head and looked at the two men, her voice restrained, low-pitched. She hated scenes.

‘I want to talk to you.'

‘Get talking, then.'

‘I can't here, like this. Are you working tonight?'

‘What difference does it make to you?'

‘Look, I've only got a couple of minutes before the boss is on me back. Can't I come round and see you?'

‘What for?'

‘I want my tool kit.'

‘I'll leave it out for you.'

‘I want to say I'm sorry.'

‘So now you've said it.'

‘Give us a chance, Doreen, love. Is this all it meant to you, two minutes' talk in a pub?'

‘You know what it meant to me. But you didn't give tuppence for it.'

‘Well, I do now.' He swallowed the rest of his drink. ‘Look, I shall have to go now. If I lose this job I don't know where I'll get another. I'll come round tonight, about eight o'clock, and we'll have a talk.'

‘I don't know what there is to talk about.'

‘Give us a break, lass. I can't carry on like this.'

‘You should have thought about that before.'

‘Christ, you're hard! Have you no feeling?'

She hesitated, glanced at the two men once more. ‘I'd made my mind up it was finished.'

‘Well, if it is, it is. But at least let's talk about it like two grown people.' He looked at her, knew he was at his most abjectly appealing, and waited while she wavered before his direct conscience-stricken gaze.

‘Come round if you want, then. But make it half-past seven. I've somewhere to go later on.'

 

Sluiced clean from head to foot and dressed in a newly washed shirt and his best fawn slacks, he arrived at the door ten minutes early and waited for her to answer his ring. She had changed into a sweater and cord jeans. Her make-up looked fresh and he followed her into the living-room on a hint of perfume.

‘I haven't got long,' she said.

‘Why'd you change the locks?'

‘Because I thought I'd very likely come home one night and find you tucked up in bed.'

‘It's a job when a bloke can't get into his own house.'

‘My house. It was mine before you came and it's still mine.'

‘Well, our home.'

‘A lot you cared for our home, or our marriage.'

‘Look, Doreen, I didn't come here to argue. We've had all that. I know I've been a rotten sod.'

‘Oh, you're admitting it now.'

‘Yes, I am. I've been a rotten sod and I want to say I'm sorry and see what we can work out.'

‘You mean to say you're admitting you'd been with another woman?'

He sighed. ‘Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?'

‘Please yourself.'

He was carrying a four-pack of lager. ‘Do you want a drink?'

‘Not specially.'

‘Do you mind if I have one? I'm not finding this easy.'

‘Confessing your sins?' He didn't answer. ‘You know where the glasses are.'

He went to the kitchen, took two glasses, opened one of the cans and poured into each.

‘Here, you may as well join me.'

‘Put it down.' He placed the glass on the low table in front of the sofa. The gas fire was on low heat. The room was warm to him. She had always liked more warmth than he did.

‘I asked you a question. You didn't answer.'

‘What was that?'

‘I said, are you admitting now that you'd been with another woman.'

He shook his head. ‘I can't deny it. I should have owned up before you threw me out.'

‘Why didn't you, then?'

‘Because I was scared you wouldn't understand.'

‘What makes you think I will now?'