As Time Goes By

by Hilary Bailey

  Small wonder by that Monday morning I felt pleased with myself. Geoffrey was being much nicer. We weren’t going to have to go to Scarborough – I might even be pregnant – I’d even lost another pound. I felt good, for once.

  While Polly slept the house agent rang, the police rang about the stolen van, Julie’s boyfriend rang to say Polly could have his van at two o’clock on Saturday, Councillor Brian Casey from the Labour Party rang Val about the asbestos on the William Thackeray estate, Clancy Goldstein rang to pass on his love to Polly, various friends rang Margaret, Kate Mulvaney rang Polly to say a friend wanted to get rid of a pair of brass candlesticks and Julie Thompson rang Pam to ask her to babysit. Polly’s mother, Mrs Turnbull, rang to check that she was still expected for Christmas, otherwise she would go to Malaga unless Clancy had come back, in which case she would definitely go to Malaga. Polly’s Auntie Daniella rang to speak to her son, Clancy, who she obviously believed was still living in Elgin Crescent.

  Polly, still worn out, took in some of this on Saturday morning, while piling the goods for the stall single-handed into two taxis, because no one else was up. She thought vaguely, I’ll sort it all out on Monday morning, and put out her stall in the chill, murky atmosphere of a slow December dawn. The other stall-holders already looked pinched. The brisk traffic between dealers began.

  By eight, as she stood with her hands wrapped round a mug of tea, a policeman came up to her. The stall-holders nearby stopped what they were doing and watched. ‘Mrs Polly Kops?’ said the policeman.

  Polly nodded, ‘That’s right,’ thinking of Clancy, the unpaid rates, and that peculiar vase a man in a torn coat had sold her a few weeks before, opening the coat to reveal the dull tone of unshined brass, then sliding it on to the stall from the protection of the coat, as if slithering unhatched eggs into an airing cupboard. ‘You do own a blue van, untaxed, number ASD 207S?’ And road tax, she added to the list of her involvements. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘Dumped in Acton,’ he said. ‘If you’ll bring the papers to the station we’ll let you have the keys.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said Polly. ‘I’ll come later in the morning, when trade gets quieter.’

  The others watched the policeman leave, as cats on a wall watch a dog go past them. Then they went back to stamping to keep warm and staring in front of them with the imprisoned look of people there to sell what no one’s buying.

  Polly phoned Alan to say she wouldn’t need his van and drove her own back. She found Harriet in an anorak and woolly hat, loyally in charge of the stall. Everyone, stall-holders and customers, looked tired and down; everything on the stalls looked drab, the clothes on their railings looked what they mostly were – old clothes, worn by people who were probably dead. Even the new clothes looked threadbare To cheer herself up Polly went into a callbox, rang up Moore-Biggs at the house agent’s and fired him. She then rang two other agents, accused Moore-Biggs of being in collusion with her ex-husband and made appointments to see them on Sunday morning. Then she took a few items the Irishman had sold her at random from the van and put them on the stall. There was a black coat with a fur collar the man’s late wife had probably kept for church and funerals, a large plate with a swan painted on it and a small Victorian oil painting in a nice gilt frame, showing two cows standing in a field. The picture had been propped on the stall for five minutes when a man in a green anorak said ‘How much?’ Polly looked into his face, saw the weary lines of a dealer inscribed on it, checked his haircut, saw a good barber had been involved and said quickly, ‘A hundred and fifty pounds.’ ‘Sorry Polly, I’ve sold it,’ said Harriet. ‘Customer’s paid already. ‘She’s collecting it later.’ Polly, who had been standing with Harriet the whole time, opened her mouth to protest, thought better of it and told the man, ‘Sorry – I didn’t realise. It shouldn’t be on the stall at all.’

  When he had gone she said to Harriet, ‘Do you think it’s worth more than £150?’

  ‘I didn’t realise I did until he tried to buy it,’ she said. ‘I’d take it to Sotheby’s if I were you.’ Polly took it off the stall. You could imagine the small, pretty oil painting hanging peacefully on anyone’s wall. Later, she saw the man in the green anorak eyeing the stall from a distance. The day, a long day of cold, of pinched faces examining her goods, filled her with the bleak sense of trying and often failing to scratch a living from people who were trying, and also failing, to do the same. She could see the situation getting worse and worse, more effort chasing less and less money, all of them in the same, sinking boat.

  The impression did not lift that evening as she showed two house agents round the house. They were well-dressed and confident but still, she thought, they were in the old house business, just as she was in the old clothes business and the old film business. They were recycling tired items, just as she was; they were all aboard the rubbish ship together in a sea of junk. Their estimates of what the place was worth were slightly higher than Moore-Biggs’s, but, she thought, if Alexander had been thwarted he might become keener to insist on his share. If only she could buy the little lock-up shop, to provide some housing and get some kind of a living, she thought. She wouldn’t ask any more than that. Gradually, as unemployment figures mounted and the national assets got sold off, No. 1 Elgin Crescent and the less prosperous parts of the neighbourhood inched towards Christmas.

  Down in the basement Julie Thompson got a frightening letter from the DHSS, asking for an interview. ‘She’s told on me, that bitch upstairs,’ she cried into a callbox phone while her children, looking anxious, waited outside. Alan, her boyfriend, on the phone in the plaster-covered empty drawing-room of a house they were doing up, squatted on the floorboards saying, ‘Come on, Jules. It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘I know the form,’ she said. ‘I’ll wind up in court. She’s been watching me coming and going. The woman I work for’ll make a statement about what she’s paying me – it’s defrauding the DHSS. I’ll have a fine, and a criminal record –’

  ‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ he advised her as his mate came in and dumped a sack of plaster inside the door. ‘Look – I’ve got to go. I’ll come straight round at dinner time. Listen to me, Julie, don’t worry – don’t worry, and don’t do anything,’ he cried above the sound of the pips, but too late. Julie rushed out of her front door and up the Lombards’ steps. She rang the doorbell, rang it again and again. Anna appeared, and stood inside the door, smooth face framed in smooth hair, slender body in slender dress. Julie, distracted, said, ‘I want to come in.’

  ‘It isn’t convenient,’ replied Anna. ‘Can you tell me what you want?’

  ‘I think you’ve told the DHSS about my job,’ Julie said. ‘It’s a rotten trick, Mrs Lombard. I think you did it to try to force me to go, and I’m not going to. I’m staying where I am as long as it suits me. I want you to know that.’

  Anna said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re in trouble with the DHSS it’s your fault. As to the flat, I’ve made you a generous offer you’d be silly to turn down, and I advise you to go back and think again. And please remember, my offer won’t hold for ever. I’ll need an answer after Christmas. And, quite frankly, I resent your coming here and making accusations. If you do this any more I’ll have to tell my husband. The results could be quite unpleasant for you.’

  Julie just stood there, thinking various things. She couldn’t be absolutely sure, now she saw Anna standing immaculately in her immaculate doorway, that Anna had really stooped to phoning the DHSS about her. She looked too far from that kind of world. She couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t be better to take the money, a lot of money, and get out. She didn’t know, if she refused the money, what her rights were. Perhaps Anna could make her go anyway. The horn of her boyfriend’s van honked in the street. She turned round saying, ‘I’d better go.’

  To this Anna said, ‘Yes. I think so.’

  ‘Stupid bitch,’ said Alan, when they were inside the flat.

/>   ‘Didn’t I tell you not to do anything? What d’you want to go there for?’

  ‘Oh Alan,’ said Julie. ‘Do you want a sandwich or something?’

  ‘Cup of tea,’ he said, as she put the kettle on. ‘Well, what did she say, then?’

  ‘Just said she didn’t know anything about the DHSS – well, I don’t know, do I, and I ought to take the money. Well – £10,000 – we could get a mortgage like you said –’

  ‘You told me you didn’t want to end up with me keeping you, and paying on the housing. You said you wanted to be independent, as long as you could get social security, which you couldn’t get living with me, in my house. Now, look Julie, you convinced me. Now you’re saying the opposite. Just think it over and tell me what you want.’

  Julie, depressed by Anna Lombard, now began to think Alan had gone off her. True, she had said all those things, and meant them, but now she needed a feeling of security. It looked as if Alan was backing off from the idea of a mortgage. Perhaps he was backing off altogether. She began to cry, thinking she could wind up with nothing, no flat due to the machinations of Anna Lombard, no £10,000, no Alan, just the children.

  ‘I don’t know where I am now,’ she said.

  Alan got up and put his arms round her. ‘It’ll work out, love,’ he said. As he pressed up against her, kissing her, he muttered, ‘Oh blimey, I’ve got to go. We’re running late and the owner’s wife keeps on turning up to check. Plus if we’re not finished by Thursday, the profit starts ebbing away.’ Julie sniffed.

  ‘I know, love,’ he said, kissing her and pulling her towards him, ‘Oh well –’ Just as she was thinking he would not go back to work, they would go to bed instead, he broke away and told her, ‘Take you out tonight – film and an Indian restaurant.’

  Julie nodded. After he had gone she sat down. Then she stood up and went, feeling very shaky, to collect the boys from school.

  Later that afternoon Polly, who had gone round to the flats with Val to collect some clothes and books they needed, said, ‘My God, they thought they were doing people a favour when they pulled down the slums. You know, this place must be practically on the site where that man killed all those prostitutes and buried them in the garden.’

  ‘It hasn’t lost its old atmosphere,’ observed Val, turning to the huge, dirty block she lived in. ‘I don’t recommend the lift – the smell’s awful.’ The smell on the stairs was not too good either, thought Polly as she climbed up, someone had peed somewhere. Rows of flats on the landings were uncannily silent. In one a large dog barked, throwing itself at its door. ‘I suppose every day,’ she said, ‘you have to decide whether to take Rufus into the stinking lift or climb three flights carrying him.’

  ‘It depends on what else I’ve got to carry,’ Val said. Inside the flat, which was tidy, but chilly, they put family clothing, sweaters, Rufus’s small wellingtons, a few items from the kitchen into plastic bags and holdalls, and went out along the concrete landing overlooking the grass, wrecked building, other blocks, to the stairs. Here they met a woman carrying two shopping bags. ‘What’s happening about the asbestos?’ asked Val.

  ‘It had to be stopped while they made enquiries,’ the woman said. ‘Well, a lot of women picketed the site in the morning and told the workmen they were at risk; and the workmen decided they wouldn’t go on. But of course they can’t leave it like that. And if they’re going to finish it they’ll have to evacuate half the estate. Course, what they’re saying now is they ought to demolish the whole building and put up small blocks, but there isn’t the money. So we’re all in suspense – meanwhile we’re still stuck here with all our asbestos still in place. Think those councillors would let their wives and kids go on like this? If they lived here we’d get immediate action.’

  ‘Have you applied for a transfer?’ Val asked.

  ‘Transfer? I’ve been on the transfer list for three years,’ she said. ‘I want a house. We’re trying to get ourselves treated as a priority because of the risks. But you ring them and they say what can they do, the housing’s not available. Then it depends what they offer you. Half the places are worse than this. You’re between the devil and the deep blue sea here. And they’re sitting on their bums working out how to do the next Royal visit – I’d like the Queen to come here and see it for herself. You’re lucky to be out of it.’

  ‘I know,’ said Val.

  ‘Oh well,’ said the woman, who was feeling the weight of her bags. ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do.’

  Val nodded. The woman trudged off down the passageway and Val and Polly continued on down the stairs, across the patchy grass with its sprinkling of crisp packets and coke cans. The great grey sky was open, moving, above the other tall buildings. Plastic sheeting blew in the windows of the big, wrecked skyscraper, empty and silent. A raw wind cut their legs. Two women stood chatting near the huge rubbish containers. At the bottom of the chutes, three boys rode past on bikes, a thin black young man walked along with his hands in his pockets. They were all too small against the giant buildings.

  ‘Thirty per cent unemployed on that estate,’ remarked Val. ‘Mostly under twenty-five.’

  ‘Yes?’ Polly said. ‘Do you and Max want to go out tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Val, ‘we do.’

  ‘Right,’ said Polly. A police car screamed past them into the estate as they turned into the street. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Polly said. ‘You can’t bring Rufus up here.’

  ‘I’m not planning to,’ said Val.

  Polly felt defeated. She had been a child of the post-war days of hope and full employment, and given birth to her own children in the 1960s when in a matter of moments the chains would fall from all their ankles, all would be free. The prisons, madhouses, clinics, even the graveyards so many of the enthusiasts ended up in were only way stations on the journey to this paradise. Surely all this trouble couldn’t be true? But supposing it was? Suppose Alexander and Clancy, who had both abandoned their pretences altogether and were just looking after themselves, were the realists? But with Val beside her, carrying Rufus, how could she tell herself this was all there would ever be, for any of them?

  Part II

  Polly was standing at the kitchen table, ramming stuffing up the bum of a huge, pale, pimpled grey turkey. She was alone in the house, except for the cat who had been pushed off the table eleven times but was back again, sitting neatly close to the bird, looking at it mildly from time to time, as if she and it were old friends.

  The glimmer of headlights and an expensive swishing sound from outside, under the street light, made her glance up, out of the window. The bottom of a black Rolls Royce came to a discreet halt, the gaitered legs of a driver got out, opened the door and seconds later out stepped more legs. Ducking down for a better view she saw her husband, Alexander, in a good suit, carrying a bulging bag.

  Her teeth clenched. It might be Christmas Eve, there might be presents for all the children in that bag, but she knew as far as she was concerned Alexander wasn’t Father Christmas. Hopped out of that black Rolls Royce just like the demon king, she thought, but just wondered if Alexander had heard the family was on hard times, perhaps he was actually bringing good will, season’s greetings, a football, couple of bottles of vodka, sweaters and carols across No Man’s Land. Half convinced by this idea, she smiled as she opened the front door. He smiled back, but it was a Richard Nixon grimace, the jolliness of a company director at the annual Christmas party, when he’s planning a close-down in the New Year. ‘Happy Christmas,’ said Alexander Kops.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ said Polly. ‘Come in the kitchen. I’m stuffing the turkey and I daren’t leave it alone with the cat.’

  He followed her down the stairs, saying nothing. She felt his silence. This was, after all, the place from which she had evicted him, in favour of Clancy, about fifteen years before, when Pam and Sue were only small. Clancy had robbed and betrayed her not long after, now she was broke and the house was falling down. She’d hardly seen Alexander
for years. What was he thinking? What was he going to do?

  He put his sack of presents in a corner of the room remarking, ‘Everything’s wrapped and labelled. I got a few things for Margaret, so she wouldn’t feel left out. Will Max be here?’ She nodded. ‘Pam and Sue said they were all living on a Council estate,’ he said.

  ‘They’re here now,’ Polly told him. ‘There’s asbestos there – but, as you seem to know, it’s all temporary. I’m selling up.’

  ‘Well, I wanted to mention that,’ said Alexander, still standing, in his suit, by the long crack in the formerly white wall.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ she told him.

  ‘You know it generally makes better sense to settle out of court,’ he continued. ‘I don’t want to spend time arguing with you in court and you can’t afford it. So if I pay you the market price on this, less my claim, of course, in a private sale, then we’ll all be a lot happier. You can get out of this sticky situation –’

  ‘You want to live here?’ Polly said incredulously. ‘In this house?’

  ‘I might,’ Alexander said. ‘I’ve always liked it. Jennifer likes it – the idea of it, that is. But that’s not the point –’

  ‘I suppose it isn’t.’

  ‘So – I’m guessing – if the place is worth about £300,000, how would £200,000 suit you? I waive any further claims, you’ve no agent’s fees to pay. You could have the whole sum in your hands by the New Year – it can’t be bad.’