‘Yes, sir.’
Len, his head lowered, whispered, ‘You know each other?’ And Joe whispered back, ‘Yes, very well.’
For the next half-hour, Joe, with the rest of the company listened to Mick talking about the intricacies of frequency modulation and of its advantages over amplitude modulation and all the while he felt happy inside, happier than he had been for years. If he had ever desired to see anyone from the old life, it would have been Mick Smith. Mick, who seemed to know all the answers, level-headed, deep-thinking Mick.
It was almost half an hour after the Saturday morning session was over, during which Mick had been introduced into the sergeants’ mess and shown his temporary quarters, that Joe and he really met up. They stood in the biting wind outside the hut, their hands clasped, and all Mick seemed to be able to say was, ‘Well, I never! Well, I never!’ And then he added, ‘The last person on earth I expected to see. Yet I’ve been looking out for you, because, if you remember, when we last met you said you were coming into the Air Force. Nobody seemed to know where you had gone.’ The bright light slipped from his face and he stared at Joe. ‘You don’t go home?’ he said.
‘No, Mick; I don’t go home. Oh!’ Joe rolled his head. ‘Oh I am glad to see you.’
‘Reciprocated, lad. Reciprocated.’ Mick had spoken in a broad Geordie accent, and now they both laughed.
‘What are you doing this afternoon?’
‘Nothing.’ For the moment Joe had forgotten he had intended to go up to the cottage and that Maggie, also being off, would be expecting him. Or would she? This had been a test week: if he didn’t put in an appearance today she would think that he had been scared off.
Mike broke in on his thoughts, saying, ‘You’ll never believe who’s living in Hereford.’
‘One of the family?’
‘One of the family: our Janet.’
‘Janet? No!’
‘Yes, a roundabout story, Janet’s. She met a sailor in Portsmouth. His mother lived in Hereford, so when she married him she came and lived with his mother. That was two years ago. Well, the mother died last August gone and Janet’s going back to Portsmouth again in the New Year to be near Reg when his boat comes in. I’m going down there this afternoon. What about coming with me? Oh come on. That’s if you’ve got nothing very special on.’ He now punched Joe in the arm.
‘No, I haven’t. No, nothing that I can’t cancel.’ Joe’s voice was hearty. ‘What time are you going?’
‘Oh, any time you like; half an hour. There’s a bus, they tell me, at two-thirty.’
‘See you at the bus stop then. Oh, Mick’—Joe put out his arms and gripped Mick’s shoulders—‘am I glad to see you!’ They stood a moment looking at each other, slightly embarrassed, then Joe turned abruptly away and made for the NAAFI …
‘Well, thanks for telling me, Joe.’ Maggie smiled at him across the counter. ‘Aunt will be sorry, but I’ll play rummy with her as a sort of compensation.’ She still continued to smile and he, smiling back, said, ‘Tell her to get that Christmas dinner ready for me, because I’m going to starve for a couple of days beforehand.’
‘I’ll do that. This fellow you met: he’s a very old friend?’
‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded at her. ‘I was brought up with him; he was on the staff.’ He bit his lip as if he had said too much.
‘Is he here permanent?’
‘No; he’s been sent from Cranwell, temporarily, to knock something into our dim heads about some new sets we have.’
‘Oh.’ Her chin moved up and down. ‘I’d like to meet him.’
He paused. ‘Yes, yes; you will,’ he said.
‘Would he like to come to dinner on Christmas Day?’
‘Oh, I don’t think he’ll manage that: he’s got a sister in Hereford, so he’s likely already made arrangements in that quarter.’
‘Oh well, enjoy yourself.’
His voice was low as he said, ‘Be seeing you.’
‘Be seeing you.’
As she watched him making his way between the tables, the weight inside her chest sank lower with every step he took away from her. It seemed that fate in the form of an old friend had taken a hand, saved him, sort of, from openly riding with her out of the camp. Who was this friend that could make him look so happy? She had never seen him really look happy before: his eyes had shone, he had looked handsome, beautiful. But then, he had always looked beautiful to her.
‘Where’s he off to?’ It was Peggy at her side counting out change and when she had passed it over the counter she came back and said, ‘Scuttling?’
‘No, he’s not scuttling.’ Maggie turned on her fiercely, her voice a threatening undertone now. ‘He’s met a friend from home. They’re going into Hereford for the day.’
‘Oh, all right, keep your hair on. I just thought with…’
‘Well, don’t think. Or if you do, keep it to yourself. And listen.’ She now pulled Peggy to the side. ‘I’ve had just about as much as I can stand for one week, so don’t you add to it.’
‘I’m sorry, Maggie; you know me. I’m for you, I just want things to go right for you. It hurt me to think you’re flogging a dead horse.’
‘I’m off now. Bye.’ The fire had gone out of Maggie’s voice.
‘Bye.’
Flogging a dead horse. Peggy was right, and she might as well face it now as later: for all their so-called friendship, he was a dead horse, a very dead horse, and she’d always known it.
Six
The house in Hereford was one of a terrace: it had a large sitting room, an equally large dining room, a kitchen, a scullery, and a long garden beyond. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, a boxroom and a bathroom. Janet Morgan, as she was now, showed Joe round with pride, as she well might, for the house was her husband’s property now and, as she had just told him, she was letting it for a mighty good rent from the middle of January.
He had been in the house an hour and she had never stopped talking. He had wanted to talk quietly to Mick.
It had been impossible in the bus, and it was even more impossible now, because she was bent on raking up all the events that had happened back in the house since she could remember.
He knew if he had met her in the street he wouldn’t have recognised her. She had been very pretty, as he remembered her, but now she looked coarsened, and blowsy. Yes, that was the word, blowsy. Her fair hair was crimped into a big halo round her face, her eyes were heavily made-up, and her mouth, rosebud as it had been termed when young, was now a big lipstick pout. He knew instinctively that he didn’t like Janet, and she was saying to him now, ‘Do you like Hereford?’
Before he could answer her she went on, ‘I hate it; dead-and-alive place, more dead than alive. They don’t know there’s a war on. They should have been in the North last year when I went through to see my mother. Or in Portsmouth. And they’re so damned snooty. Her next door…well, you would think she owned the bloody town, and she only rents her house, mind: doesn’t own it, like us. She never got on with Reg’s mother and she doesn’t get on with me either. Of course, mind—’ she now stubbed out half a cigarette, patted her lips and added, ‘It would have taken a saint to get on with Reg’s mother; I don’t know how I stuck it so long. I suppose it’s because I knew she wasn’t long for the top. I might as well be truthful. Still, it paid off. Look, you’re not eating.’ She pushed a plate towards Joe. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not short of stuff; I get bits and pieces on the side. There’s a little pub I go to not three streets away; I’ll take you to it after. Talk about the black-market centre; Finnegan’s Fair would be a better name for it.’ She put her head back and laughed, and her breasts wobbled beneath her tight woollen jumper; then again she went on, ‘What’s the matter with you, our Mick? Lost your tongue?’
‘No, no, Janet, but I can’t get a chance to wag it.’
‘Oh, you!’ She laughed as she flapped her hand towards him. ‘You used to always say I’d swallow meself in me gob one day, didn’t you? Eeh! The ti
mes we had in that house. House did I say? Pigsty. Mind’—she turned her attention now to Joe—‘your people had something to answer for, by God, they had! Things will be different after the war: you won’t get people to slave like our lot did for a pittance.’
‘Shut up, Janet. Joe had nothing to do with that.’
‘No? Well, perhaps he will have in the future when he goes back. They tell me your mother’s in a bad way.’
Joe brought his eyes fully on her now, staring into her face, and she went on, ‘Well, I mean since she had her stroke.’
‘Stroke?’ His lips formed the word but made no sound, and she said, ‘You didn’t know? Oh, but then you never go back. Do you? I don’t know how our Mary puts up with it. I told her she’s mad, I did. I told her to her face last time I was through there. The place is like a shambles. The military were going to take it over, you know, but then the solicitors stepped in. And then there was your mother; she couldn’t be moved. She can talk and move her right hand, but that’s about all. But some officers were billeted for a time.’
He felt sick. He was going to vomit. He pushed the chair back from the table, saying, ‘Ex…Excuse me,’ and made for the door and the lavatory upstairs.
She’d had a stroke, she could only talk and use one hand. Why didn’t he feel compassion? Why couldn’t he think to himself, it’s payment for her sins and let it go at that? Why was he still battling against her inside? Why did he hate her so?
Because she had killed three men and a woman, a young lovely woman.
But to be paralysed. And he had condemned her to that house. He had, in fact, chained her up with the corpses.
It was just retribution.
But who was he to play God?
Nobody should play God. He should do something. But what?
As he bent over the sink and swished the cold water around his mouth, he was overcome by a strange feeling, a recognised strange feeling; a numbness that he had felt before, the numbness he sank into on the night he’d found Martin and Dick Smith, and from which he had willed himself not to return, because in it he did not feel anything: there was no pain in the numbness, just a slight awareness that you were still alive, in spite of your body being dead.
‘You all right, Joe?’ It was Mick’s voice from outside the bathroom door, and after a moment he opened the door and said, ‘Yes, yes.’
‘You didn’t know she…your mother had had a stroke?’
He shook his head, then muttered, ‘No.’
‘Why don’t you ever go back?’ Mick’s question was a soft whisper, and he answered as quietly, ‘I can’t, Mick. There’s…there’s a reason.’
‘Strong enough to keep you away from her, when very likely she’s dying?’
‘Yes’—he bowed his head—‘strong enough even for that.’
‘Well—’ Mick turned about and gripped hold of the bannister rail as he said, ‘You know your own best. But when we’re on, I’d better tell you the place is going to rack and ruin. Our Mary does her best. She keeps the house cobweb free. That’s about all she can do, cooking and seeing after your mother. As for the outside, you can hardly get through it for grass. Danny does his best, but he can’t make up for half a dozen men. And I’m going to say this: I’ve tried to persuade our Mary to leave and let the solicitors get on with it, put your mother in a home somewhere. But she won’t. She said it would be on her conscience.’
‘What you two gassing about up there? About our Carrie? I forgot to tell him.’
At the name Carrie, Mick, without looking at Joe, said, ‘Carrie thinks she might be here for Christmas,’ And on this he went down the stairs and Joe slowly followed him.
In the sitting room again, Janet said, ‘She’s not sure; but if things go as she hopes she should get here on Christmas Eve.’
It was the first time Carrie’s name had been mentioned, and now Joe looked at Mick, who had seated himself at the side of the fireplace and taken the poker in his hand. He now stirred the fire as he said, ‘She’s in the ATS. She’s billeted in Grantham.’
‘Really?’ His voice sounded ordinary, yet her name had dispelled the feeling of numbness and he said again, ‘Really?’
This made Janet mimic him. Putting on a highfalutin tone, she muttered, ‘Yes, rerely, rerely.’ Then reverting to her own voice she added, ‘And here’s another thing that’ll surprise you, she’s been recommended for a commission. Now what do you think of that? She was on the clerical staff and she did so good that we’ll soon have a ma’am in our ranks. Eeh!’—She now looked at Mick saying—‘Can you believe it, Mick? Our Carrie.’
‘Yes, yes, I can believe it.’
‘Oh, of course you would. That was a damn silly question to ask, especially of you.’ She pulled a face towards Joe now. ‘The apple of his eye, always has been. But what’ll it be like if he has to call her ma’am?’ She had turned her attention again to Mick and he said quietly, ‘Don’t be silly, Janet. Don’t be silly.’
‘Don’t be silly? Who’s silly, eh? Who’s the silly bugger in this family? ’Tisn’t me: I’m married, done well for meself. What do you say, Joe?’
He stared at her for a moment, slightly perplexed about something, but he just couldn’t, in his mind, have said what, yet it lay in Janet’s attitude to Mick. But he said, ‘You’ve got a very comfortable home, and you should be happy here after the war.’
‘Don’t you believe it. I’ve no intention of staying here after the war. He’ll be selling it, because prices will go up then. Drive me mad staying in this dump…’
For the next two hours Joe listened to Janet’s prattle, and when on six o’clock she said, ‘Look, I’m just going to slip out; there’s an off-licence round here. She’s very kind to me. I’m gettin’ the stuff in for Christmas just in case Reg should turn up. If he doesn’t, it won’t go to waste. I’ve got a well-stocked cupboard already, but a little more won’t do any harm: never does any day in the week; but at Christmas you need a drop of extra cheer. What do you say?’
Neither of them said anything, until they heard the front door close; then Mick, sinking back into the chair, said on a laugh, ‘Poor Reg.’
‘As you say, poor Reg,’ said Joe, answering in the same vein.
‘She never stops. She’s always been the same. She’s not a nice character really, our Janet: and she’s me sister, but I’ve got to say it. She was the mischief-making one in the family; right from a bairn she knew how to stir it.’
‘How is Carrie?’ He had been wanting to ask this question since her name had been first mentioned.
‘Oh, she’s grand. Loves the job.’
‘Do you see her often?’
Mick pursed his lips, moved his head, then said, ‘It all depends on what you mean by often. Cranwell isn’t all that way from Grantham; just on seventeen miles. When our leaves coincide we meet up and have a trip to the pictures, or some such.’
‘She’s not married?’
‘Married? No. No.’
The answer was so emphatic that Joe said, ‘Why do you say it like that? She was and still is, I suppose, a beautiful girl.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Mick now moved his head from side to side on the back of the chair and looked up towards the ceiling before saying, ‘She doesn’t seem inclined that way: somehow she’s serious-minded, you know, very serious-minded.’
‘Carrie, as I remember her, was…well, light-hearted, sort of gay.’
‘You thought her gay?’ Mick was looking at him now. ‘Funny; I never saw her like that. She always seemed to me to have a serious turn. And it’s developed these last few years. It must be all of, what, nearly three years since you saw her?’
The numbness completely gone, Joe remembered vividly the last time he had seen Carrie. It was on the day a gun exploded his life. He replied slowly, ‘About that.’
‘Well, a lot has happened since then, as you yourself only too well know. And you have changed, an’ all. You know that, Joe? You were a young lad the last time I saw you.’
He paused, giving them both the chance to recall the time one of them cried; then he went on, ‘But now you’ve matured; you’ve grown, not only in height and breadth but in depth, I should say, and beyond your years, for you certainly don’t look just twenty.’
‘Twenty-one on Christmas Eve, please.’
‘Oh yes’—Mick laughed now—‘twenty-one on Christmas Eve. Well, Joe, I would never take you for that. Put another five years on it. And I don’t know whether I intend that as a compliment or not.’ Again they both laughed.
After a moment’s silence Joe asked, ‘How long will she be staying?’
‘Carrie?’ Mick said the name as if it had suddenly been introduced into the conversation and was not the essence of it, and Joe said, ‘Yes, Carrie.’
‘Oh, she’ll arrive likely on Christmas Eve, and leave on Boxing morning. That’s if she’s lucky, which she’s hoping to be.’
‘And you’ll be here all over the holidays? I forgot to ask you.’
‘To the first week in January, I think.’
‘Good! Good! Does Carrie go home, I mean, back North much?’
‘No, not very much. Look.’ Mick hitched himself towards the edge of his chair, saying now, ‘I wanted to have a natter with you on the side about this frequency business, and there won’t be much chance when Janet comes back, nor can I see much more opportunity in the camp. You see, it’s like this…’
The conversation regarding Carrie was adroitly cut short, and when Janet returned, happily laden with four bottles of beer and a bottle of Scotch, the latter which she insisted on opening, it was impossible to get a word in edgeways …
Two very large whiskies and three beers later…It entered Joe’s mind that one disliked more people in life than was the reverse, and that the one he disliked most at this moment, above all others, was Janet Smith, as he still thought of her, for she was sitting now on the couch beside him, her arm around his shoulder, her breast flopping against his side with every movement she made, and emphasising her words here and there by hugging him to her. She had a body smell that was a mixture of sweat and cheap scent. Her close presence was translated in his mind by one word: whore. She was a whore. He had overheard Martin, years ago, saying that most of the Smith family were whores.
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