The Unbaited Trap

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, I do.’ The smile was back again. ‘But I sometimes wonder myself about there being too much. But I like old stuff, I love it.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  She took a sip from her cup then leant towards him, her mouth twisted slightly as she said, ‘I bet you’re wondering how I came by it all.’

  For the first time since entering this room he found himself reverting to his professional training, and the process surprised him because he hadn’t realised that he had been acting and talking naturally, spontaneously, talking without first stopping to think. But now he said in his professional manner, ‘No. No, I hadn’t really thought about it. But if I had, I should have supposed that they were left to you. These things usually are…passed down.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She stretched her eyes wide. ‘But not in exactly the way you mean. I didn’t inherit them from my father, and he from his, not like that, yet I did get them from my father. You see, he was a second-hand dealer.’ She looked away from him towards a small Georgian mahogany sideboard and said slowly, ‘Ours was a rubbishy shop, not what you could call an antique shop, all bits of odds and ends. But he came across nice pieces in his travels, which he never put inside the shop, he always fetched them home.’ She brought her eyes back to him once more, and laughing gently she said, ‘My mother used to play war with him, because, she said, there was the profit all stuck round our walls, but me dad looked upon these pieces as a sort of investment.’

  ‘And he was certainly right; they would bring some money today.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I think they would too. In fact, I’m sure they would. I’ve had dealers after them more than once. But I’ll never sell any of them. When I don’t need them any longer they’ll go to Pat. I think that’s the kind of profit on his investment Dad would have liked best.’

  ‘I hope when your son is an old man you’re still surrounded by your beautiful furniture.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her head went up and back. ‘There’s not much chance of that…Will you have another cup of coffee?’

  ‘No. No, thank you, I feel I have intruded on you long enough.’

  ‘Oh, but you’re not intruding.’ Again her head moved from side to side, and the action seemed to sweep away all opposition. ‘I look upon Saturday as my day. I make it a lazy day, I haven’t to go to the office, I enjoy Saturdays…Not that I don’t enjoy my work. I suppose it’s unusual these days for anybody to say they enjoy their job, but I do. I suppose it’s because I’ve got a good boss.’ Without pausing, she went on, ‘I work for Holloways, the wholesalers. You know, in the market. I’ve been shorthand-typist there for thirteen years.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know Holloways.’ He inclined his head. ‘We handle their business.’

  ‘Well I never! But, of course…Ratcliff, Arnold & Baker. I’ve written to them often. But to a Mr Ransome.’

  ‘He’s my partner.’

  ‘Well I never! It makes us sort of connected.’ She leaned towards him, and he was forced to laugh, and was not a little surprised by the noise he made—he couldn’t remember when he had last heard it. Then, his eyes crinkling with enquiry, he said, ‘You did say you had been working for them for thirteen years?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded.

  ‘But…but you must have started very young?’

  ‘No, I was seventeen when I went there. It was my first job after the secretarial course…I’m thirty. I was thirty the night you put in your appearance.’ She dropped her head slightly towards her shoulders, but there was nothing coy about the action.

  He stared at her. Thirty! He couldn’t believe she was thirty. Of course, her boy must be nine or more. He was curious about the boy. If she had worked for Holloways for thirteen years it pointed to her not being married.

  The next minute she startled him by saying, ‘I was married when I was nineteen, but I kept my job on and went back shortly after Pat was born.’ It was as if she had been reading his mind and he felt a warmth on his face which deepened when she added, ‘My husband was killed when Pat was three. He was driving a lorry and a bus ran into him on the Low Town bridge and he went through the parapet into the river.’ Her voice was now flat, unemotional, her face straight.

  Low Town bridge. A lorry plunging into the river. He remembered. Yes, of course. The contractors sued the bus company. The bus had slithered onto the wrong side of the road. The widow of the deceased driver had been awarded quite substantial damages. Yes, he remembered.

  There came a little embarrassed silence between them. He supposed she was dwelling on a painful memory. He broke it by saying, ‘Have you always lived here?’

  ‘No, no. I’ve only been up here about six years.’

  ‘It’s an unusual flat; this room is so large, larger than any in our office. But then in the old days they built largely, didn’t they?’

  ‘I understand this was two rooms at one time. Would you like to see round?’ She was on her feet, looking down at him. And he noticed again how all her movements seemed to flow. Although quick, they weren’t jerky.

  ‘It’s very kind of you but I feel…’

  ‘Now I’ve told you, you’re not putting me out. Look, this is the bedroom. I have two.’ She preceded him into another large room, and here again there was old furniture on which the patina was soft to the eye. A bow-fronted tallboy stood corner-wise near the window, and what was evidently a Queen Anne cabinet stood in the opposite corner. The only modern article in the room was the bed, but flanking it, looking like bedside cupboards, were two small Georgian Davenports. He recognised these particularly because in his mother’s bedroom at home there had been one. It had known some rather rough wear yet his brother had been offered a hundred pounds for it recently.

  ‘I had to have a modern bed. I bet you wouldn’t believe it but Dad had a four-poster. Mam kicked up over that. Oh, but there were some laughs over that four-poster. Mam said she was always afraid of dying in it. And she did die in it, and Dad wasn’t long following her, and in the same bed. I think that was the reason why I just couldn’t sleep in it. And it was a pity for it fitted in with the rest of the stuff, while this…’ She waved her hands towards the plastic-headed double divan. ‘It sticks out like a sore thumb, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh no. I think it’s feminine, nice.’ They were smiling at each other, and she turned away and walked into the long room again and across it to another door.

  ‘This is Pat’s room.’

  ‘Yes, this is a real boy’s room.’ He looked about him, and saw that even here there were pieces that would have graced a drawing room, one being a sofa table, another a four-tiered whatnot which was being used for a display of miniature aeroplanes. The walls he saw were plastered with pictures of aeroplanes in all situations.

  ‘I see your boy is very air-minded.’

  ‘Oh, he’s crazy about aeroplanes.’

  ‘Is he heading for the air force?’

  ‘No, not particularly. He wants to be an engineer. He’s very good at maths, he’s at the top of his form, and his teacher says he should get through to the grammar school next year. He’s only ten now.’

  ‘Oh, that’s excellent.’

  ‘He’s a good boy.’ She was looking straight at him, her face unsmiling as she said this, and when she turned from him she again said, ‘He’s a good boy.’

  He felt he detected something in her voice. Was it a trace of anxiety about the boy?

  She showed him the bathroom that held a pink bath with matching basin and which was half-tiled in black. It was startlingly modern and in sharp contrast with the rest of the house. The modern pattern was repeated in the kitchen, but here the colours weren’t black and pink, nor yet the stark clinical greys and white of his own kitchen.’ Here various colours met and mingled, blue, lilac, primrose, soft green.

  ‘What a lovely kitchen!’ he said.

  ‘I did it myself.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. I went mad with eight colours. There’s eight colours in here. And look,
’ she said going to the window, ‘you can see the river from here. Just a little bit of it, but I love to see the river gleaming in the sun.’

  As he followed her pointing finger he said, ‘I often go on the roof to have a look at the river, and the air always seems fresher up here.’ He turned to her now. ‘That night I took ill, that’s why I went up there, I wanted air.’

  She looked back into his eyes, her own soft with innate kindness, her voice expressing it too, as she said, ‘And you were ill, weren’t you. As I said, I couldn’t get you out of my mind all night, and I kept wondering about you. I nearly phoned, but I didn’t like to. I had a call from Ted last night and he asked after you. He’ll be pleased to know you are better.’

  ‘He was such a help I remember. I would like to see him and thank him.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, Ted doesn’t need thanks. He’s a good sort, a real good sort, but you’ve got to get to know him. He might appear a bit brash at first but he’s not, he’s a good man at rock bottom.’

  Ted had extolled her virtues, and now she was extolling his. It was good to hear people speaking well of each other. There was likely something between them. And why not? Again, why not indeed?

  ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer. I have really outstayed my welcome.’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ She led the way out of the kitchen. ‘You’ve made a most interesting break in my day, something different, you know what I mean?’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘I generally know exactly what I’m going to do on a Saturday. I usually do some shopping and then …’ She swung round towards him. ‘You wouldn’t believe what I do on a Saturday afternoon.’

  He smiled, waiting.

  She leant towards him. ‘I go round the junk shops.’

  They were laughing again loudly, and again he was surprised at the sound of his own voice, and as he laughed he gazed at her. He had never met anyone like her, oozing life. That was the only word he could find in his mind for her, life. She personified it. Sometime before the war, right far away back he must have felt life like this, lived it, while being unaware of living it, expressing it in every moment, walking, eating, smiling, sleeping. Yes, sometime in his existence he must have unconsciously expressed life as she was doing now, but in one searing moment it had been burnt out. That moment was with him yet, and would remain with him until he died.

  He took his eyes from her as if unable to bear the sight of her. And he felt descending on him the sadness that would portray itself on his face and translate itself to others as inanity. He must get away from her before it showed. He had felt happy here, different.

  In his conventional manner he now held out his hand and said, ‘Thank you for the coffee, and for being so kind to me. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ She seemed a little nonplussed by his change of manner. She handed him his hat from the hallstand and held the door open for him.

  When he had passed onto the landing he turned to her, his eyes not looking into her face now but lowered towards her feet encased in high, spindle-heeled shoes, and again he said, ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  She watched him until his head disappeared from her view down the stairs; then she went in and closed the door, and after a moment she walked across the little hall and to the sitting-room door, and there she stood looking round the room. He had been impressed by it, very impressed. He knew old furniture. He was a nice man, oh such a nice man. A gentleman. Oh yes, a gentleman. She could tell. But there was something about him she couldn’t quite fathom, a sort of sadness or something, as if he was lonely. That was daft…him lonely! The leading solicitor of the town, living in the posh end where he did, and bags of friends…Lonely!

  She walked towards the fireplace and moving the pouffe with her foot she sat down on it and held her hands out towards the blaze, and her own action seemed to interpret him in some way which she couldn’t explain. And again she said, don’t be daft. Him a big pot in the town. Fancy thinking he looks lost and lonely. She moved her hands in front of the blaze. It was funny about him calling. She had felt happy and full of life this morning, and even all the time he was here, right up to those last few minutes. And now she felt flat.

  Aw well, this wouldn’t get the shopping done. She jumped to her feet. It had been a very nice break anyway, and he was a very nice man, and it was good of him to call. Now she would get her things on and go out and everything would go as usual.

  But when she was dressed for outdoors she paused before leaving the hall, and there came to her, as she termed it, a funny little thought. The usual Saturdays were finished it said. You’re crazy, she said; you get the daftest ideas.

  After she had closed the door she started to sing as she went downstairs.

  Four: A Little Perfume

  John finished his breakfast and went to renew his cup with more coffee when he realised that Ann was sitting at the table. He could never get used to her being down for breakfast. She had done this two or three times of late. Why, he didn’t know, except perhaps that with the approach of Christmas she had had so much to do that she’d needed more time, and today being Christmas Eve she had more than the usual preparation to contend with in connection with tomorrow’s dinner. Yet she hadn’t put in an early appearance other years and the arrangements had been the same.

  He handed her his cup, and as she filled it she said, ‘I’ll have to leave my car in, there’s something wrong with the brakes. Could you run me into town this morning?’

  ‘Oh! Well…Yes.’ There was a pause between each word. Then he added rapidly: ‘I can drop you on my way to the office, I won’t be going for another hour or so.’

  He was drinking his coffee when she said, ‘Arnold doesn’t go in Saturday mornings, is it necessary for you to do so?’

  He blinked a number of times before looking at her, then said, ‘Arnold doesn’t happen to be responsible for my clients.’ Without rising he pushed back his chair, and the action made a screeching sound as the legs scraped over the polished boards.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He now rose to his feet but did not look at her, yet he was aware that the sound of the scraping chair had brought her face into a grimace. He went past Laurie, who had his head bent over the morning paper, and out of the room, across the hall and up the stairs, and when he reached the upper landing he pursed his lips and whistled the first bar of Mozart’s Sonata No. 3.

  Back in the morning room, Ann looked towards Laurie, and he was looking upwards. The sound of the whistle had been as startling to them both as if a ship’s siren had suddenly let blast in the hall.

  It was close on eleven o’clock when John reached the office. He entered the room in a hurry, threw his case onto a chair, then went to the seat behind his desk and, sitting down, removed his hat, rubbed his two hands over his head, then looked at his watch. He had about five minutes, he never went up before eleven, although she wouldn’t have minded what time he went up, he was sure of that. He leant back in his chair unaware that he was smiling, his lips wide, exposing all his teeth. How many times had he been up there since that first time? Five, six, seven? He had lost count. It seemed now that every Saturday morning in his life he had mounted to the roof, gone over the parapet and down her stairs. Yet he would never have gone down those stairs a second time if it hadn’t been for the chance meeting in the market square. He had been passing the electric showrooms when he saw her standing gazing in the window. He could have passed on but he hadn’t. He had raised his hat, and with what appeared to most people old world courtesy had bowed slightly towards her as he said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Thorpe.’

  She turned a delighted face towards him, and her ‘Fancy seeing you!’ did not grate on him. ‘I’m looking at fridges,’ she said, ‘I should have got one years ago.’ To which he replied, ‘Don’t you think it’s as well you didn’t?’ And she laughed outright, a high, infectious laugh.

  ‘What do you think about that one?’ She pointed to a small refrigerator in the middle of the window. ‘I w
ould like one of the bigger ones, but you see it’s the room. That’s why I haven’t had one before. What with my washing machine, and the spin dryer, and then my stove and the sink, that wall is all taken up. You see?’

  He saw. And together they admired the small refrigerator, and he commiserated with her when she said, ‘The cupboard behind the door will have to go, and where I’m going to put the china I haven’t the least idea. And it’s good china, Coalport, and I’ve some pieces of Dresden…just a few.’

  What about her lovely china cabinet, he had suggested, for her overflow of china?

  But that was full. He had seen it was full. But perhaps he hadn’t noticed. Why should he? She was silly. Again her high laughter.

  They walked a little way round the market square until they came to a café, where she stopped and said, ‘I’ve got to go in here. This is where Pat comes and picks me and the shopping up after he’s finished at the greengrocer’s.’ To this he wanted to say two things: ‘Well I could do with a cup of coffee, and what’s to stop me running you and your shopping home?’ But the training of years checked such indiscreet spontaneity, and again he raised his hat and inclined his head towards her and bade her goodbye, and the morning once again became November, raw, bleak, with no break in the overhead leaden sky.

  It was the following Saturday morning that he had gone up on the roof. He knew what had taken him there; and it wasn’t to get the air. When she pushed open the fanlight he imagined his thoughts had drawn her from the room below. And from his side of the parapet he watched her hand reach out to the meat safe, then become stationary. He watched her face light up. As he stepped over the dividing wall she exclaimed, ‘Well, I never! You’re up here again. Aren’t you afraid of getting your death?’

  He assured her that he wasn’t, explaining that he had come up for air and to enjoy the view.

  She had pointed to the wire-mesh-fronted box, saying, ‘Well, this is the last time I’ll be using this, I’ve got the fridge coming on Monday. And I’ve got something else, guess what?’