Mavis Belfrage

by Alasdair Gray

“I need you.”

  He removed her cigarette, kissed her then gave it back.

  Then sat on the bed, warming his hands on the coffee mug and thinking hard.

  “You’ll be a lot happier with us,” he said at last. “The lad can have a room of his own.”

  “Us?”

  “My father and I. We took a house in Saint Leonard’s Bank when I started at the college.”

  She looked uneasy so he assured her, “We’re buying it through a decent building society. He pays a third and I pay two. I have the bigger salary, you see.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “Keeps a hardware shop.”

  “So your posh accent isn’t inherited.”

  “Acquired. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Will … your dad like me?”

  “O yes, we never disagree about important things. I’ll tell him tomorrow. But if you’ve no objection I’ll come to bed again because I want to hold you again, just to make sure you’re real.”

  5

  At six thirty next morning he returned to Saint Leonard’s Bank, a pleasant lane between a public park and a terrace of neat little Victorian houses with small front gardens. Colin entered his home quietly and quietly washed, shaved and changed his clothes. A morning paper was thrust through the letter-box. He took it to the kitchen and read while waiting for his father

  who entered half an hour later saying, “Aye aye, out all night were we?”

  “Yes. I must tell you about that.”

  “Son,” said his father starting to make breakfast for them, “you don’t need to tell me a thing.”

  “But I must tell you about this. I’ve met someone – a woman I’m keen on. I’ve asked her to stay with us.”

  “For the weekend?”

  “For the foreseeable future.”

  “You want to marry her?” said his father, staring.

  “Yes but I can’t. She’s married already and she has an eight-year-old son who’ll stay with us too.”

  “Jesus Christ Almighty Colin! Have you got her into trouble?”

  “I have not made her pregnant. I have no practical reason for wanting her.”

  “Who is she? What does she do?”

  “She’s called Mavis Belfrage, unemployed at present. She was a student of mine whose grant was cut because she failed her exams.”

  “So she has a practical reason for wanting you?”

  “I’ve taken that into account. It doesn’t matter.”

  “An eight-year-old son! She’s no chicken, Colin.”

  “I’ve taken that into account.”

  His father, frowning, laid bacon rashers in a frying-pan. Colin lifted his paper and appeared to read.

  “Listen!” said Mr Kerr a moment later, “when we took this house it was in my mind – and I thought in yours – that one day you’d meet a nice girl, marry, have weans and there would be room for us all here.”

  “That’s right. What are you complaining about?”

  “I never thought you’d pick up a family second hand!” said his father, chuckling. “Is it cheaper that way, Colin? Listen son, listen. You can do better for yourself. You don’t need to take damaged goods.”

  Without raising his eyes from the newsprint Colin said quietly, “Keep your sales talk for the shop.”

  There was silence then he heard his father sigh and continue making breakfast. They ate without speaking.

  6

  Two days later Colin brought Mavis, her son and three suitcases to Saint Leonard’s Bank and Mr Kerr welcomed them as warmly as Colin had expected.

  “Come in come in come in!” he said. “Drop those cases. Here’s where the coats go. The first thing you need in a new home is a nice cup of tea and something to eat.”

  He led them to the living-room.

  “Wrong, Dad,” said Colin, “the first thing we need is introductions. Mavis and Bill, this is Gordon my father. Gordon this is Mavis Belfrage and Bill Belfrage, her son.”

  “I can see why my Colin fell for you,” said Gordon, smiling and shaking Mavis by the hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “Hullo Bill Belfrage!” said Gordon, shaking the hand of a thin little boy who looked as unhappy as his mother and kept as close to her as possible. “Look around, Bill, and see if there’s anything here you would like.” Bill looked furtively round the room. So did Mavis. Colin, trying to imagine it through her eyes, wondered if she thought it cheap and vulgar.

  He had chosen the white walls, grey fitted carpet, Scandinavian furniture of blond wood and pale-grey upholstery. Colourful things came from the house where he had been born: curtains with repeat patterns of red-coated horsemen drinking stirrup-cups in the snowy yards of Tudor inns, a standard lamp with shade of scarlet pleated silk, bright brass and china ornaments on the sideboard and low bookcases. Before an electric wallfire stood an Indian brass-topped table set with tea things and a two-tiered stand holding plates of small triangular sandwiches and sweet biscuits. Between two china shepherdesses on the mantelpiece lay a long cardboard box with a 1940 fighter plane depicted on the side. This had held parts of a model Spitfire which, expertly assembled, now lay on top. After a quick glance at this Bill Belfrage looked away from it until Gordon said, “I thought a certain young man liked aeroplanes,” and Mavis muttered, “Go and look at it Bill.”

  Bill walked to the fireplace and stood in front of the Spitfire.

  “It’s yours!” said Gordon.

  “Say thanks,” hissed Mavis.

  “Thanks,” muttered Bill and returned to her side.

  “Colin’s the one to thank,” said Gordon. “He bought it for you.”

  “Thanks,” Bill told Colin who murmured, “Don’t mention it. I have lots of money.”

  “Well sit down sit down,” said Gordon rubbing his hands together. “Tea Mavis?”

  “To be frank … I can’t stand tea.”

  “Coffee?”

  “If it’s no trouble.”

  “White, brown or black?”

  “Whichever’s the least trouble – I mean black.”

  “Sure you wouldn’t like white?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “What about you, Bill? Lemonade?”

  Bill said, “Coffee. Black, please.”

  “Pull yourself together Bill,” whispered Mavis.

  “Lemonade then. No, tea. I can’t stand lemonade.”

  “One black coffee and three teas coming up,” said Gordon and left the room. No one had sat down.

  Mavis turned to Colin and said, “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes you should.”

  “Why does your dad act as if the house is his when it’s mostly yours?”

  “Force of habit. He’s trying to make you feel at home.”

  “I wish he would stop.”

  “You’ll come to like him – he’s a very good man.”

  She took the cigarette case from her shoulder bag, opened it, stared at a single cigarette and said, “God I’m nearly out.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Colin, taking a pack of twenty from his pocket and dropping it in her bag. She nodded, lit up, inhaled, exhaled then said pathetically, “Colin love me a little?”

  He embraced her. She offered her mouth. Before their lips touched Bill shouted, “Mum! Come here!”

  He had wandered to the end of the room and was out of sight round a corner. Mavis grimaced and went after him. Colin followed more slowly.

  The room was L-shaped. Round a corner stood a dining-table upholding an architecture of small blue, yellow and white plastic bricks, a central part nearly touching the ceiling. The general form suggested a blend of Babylonian ziggurat, Roman Colosseum, Edinburgh Castle and Manhattan Island. Bill hurried round it stooping to keek through openings and standing on tiptoe to peer over barriers.

  “What’s this?” demanded Mavis.

  “My hobby,” said Colin meekly.

  “What is it Colin?” asked Bill.

  “It began as
a city with a castle inside. I was so keen to make a really safe city that now most of the castle goes round the edge. It’s not finished – I’m still working on it.”

  “You can’t make a city safe nowadays!” cried Bill Belfrage scornfully. “One intercontinental ballistic missile will smash any castle in the world into little tiny radioactive bits.”

  “My city,” said Colin regarding it with satisfaction, “is on a planet where they haven’t learned to split the atom. They have no aeroplanes either. Or motor cars.”

  “Why isn’t it finished?”

  “I’m not satisfied by the position of the windmills.”

  Colin flicked a switch at the table edge. Little propellers began whirling on turret-tops round the outer walls.

  “They look lovely!” cried Mavis. While surveying this large toy she had relaxed, become jaunty, was smoking now with total indifference to where the ash fell.

  “They look all right,” admitted Colin, “but a besieging army could destroy them with gunfire and then the city would lose light and heat. The windmills drive its generators.”

  He flicked another switch and light glowed behind a myriad of windows in the central towers.

  “How can a planet have electricity without cars and aeroplanes?” cried Bill, shocked into indignation.

  “You must work that out for yourself,” said Colin, “but I’ll give a clue. Their ships and locomotives are driven by wood-burning engines.”

  “Colin!” said Mavis softly. Laying hands on his shoulders she held him at arm’s length, smiling with motherly humour. He looked back obstinately, ironically solemn.

  “Get his mind off that nonsense, Mavis, and you’ll do us all a favour,” said Gordon carrying a large tea-pot and small coffee-pot to the table on the hearthrug.

  “But I’m glad to find Colin has a touch of lunacy in him,” she said, following Gordon and sitting on the sofa. “In everything else he’s so abnormally safe and sober – unless you count his feeling for me.”

  “Now on that matter, for me to comment,” said Gordon, grinning, “would be unbecoming to say the least. Have an ashtray.”

  He passed her a small blue china dish in which she automatically stubbed the half-smoked cigarette.

  “Ready for your tea Bill?” said Gordon, sitting in an armchair and pouring coffee.

  “In a minute,” said Bill from the other end of the room.

  The adults round the smaller table grew talkative. “When did Colin start building that thing Mr Kerr? It’s huge.”

  “Call me Gordon, Mavis. It started when his mother and me gave him a box of Lego bricks on his eighth or ninth birthday. He made a clever little fort and kept tinkering with it so we gave him another box a year later. Of course in our old home he hadnae much room to expand. And, by the age of fourteen he had other interests and wouldnae have noticed if I’d broken the whole thing up and given it to Oxfam. I wish I had! Five months ago back he comes from Cambridge, brings the thing here and buys more boxes of Lego! He’s worked on it during his free time ever since.”

  “Why?”

  “He says Cambridge has spoiled him for social life in Scotland.”

  “It’s true,” said Colin. “The friends I had before I went south now meet in pubs I don’t like and talk politics which don’t interest me.”

  “Who keeps the house so beautifully spotless and tidy?” said Mavis, looking about.

  “We have a cleaning woman for an hour on Mondays and Fridays.”

  “Dad’s being modest,” said Colin. “He does practically everything. I’m no sort of housewife.”

  “Neither am I,” said Mavis.

  “I had to learn to be when Colin’s mum passed away,” said Gordon, smiling. “He was ten at the time and we hadnae the money to hire domestic help. But it’s surprising what you can take satisfaction in when you apply yourself – even dusting a room.”

  “The application is what defeats me,” said Mavis ruefully.

  “Is there no oil on this planet of yours Colin?” asked Bill sitting down beside them and taking a biscuit.

  “No fossil fuel of any kind.”

  “But they could have airships with steam-driven propellers.”

  “Not practical. Sparks from the furnace would ignite the gas and …”

  “Not if they used helium. It’s non-inflammable. I’ve looked into it.”

  “No steam engine could drive an airscrew fast enough to lift its weight.”

  “But if the airship was big enough –”

  “The bigger the airship the more engines it needs. Early airships and aeroplanes were equally dependent on the petrol engine.”

  Bill sulked for a moment then shouted, “Rocket-powered gliders! What about them?”

  “Listen Bill!” said Colin raising a warning finger, “if you mean to bomb my city you must expect me to defend it. I don’t know how yet but I’ll think of something – barrage balloons with gun platforms perhaps.”

  “That’s all right,” said Bill. Pointing to the Spitfire he added, “It’s very nice but you ought to have let me fit it together.”

  “I meant to but got carried away.”

  “And now perhaps Bill would like tea?” suggested Gordon.

  “Yes please,” said Bill sprawling very low in an armchair with his hands in his pockets, “though it’s only fair to tell you I take much more sugar than is healthy for a growing boy. Has your city a name, Colin?”

  “Can’t say. Never thought of one.”

  “You could call it Glonda. It’s a name I’ve just invented.”

  7

  As Mavis unpacked in the bedroom Colin said, “This is a bleak-looking room because I’m a natural Spartan. Change it how you want. Put up posters. Spread things around.”

  “But Gordon will come in and tidy it up.”

  “I’ve told him not to. This is our room and from now on he won’t set foot here.”

  “Thanks but I want something else from you – a rent book.”

  “I’m not taking money from you!”

  “I need it to prove to the Social Security office that I’m your lodger. If they know I’m fucking with you they’ll cut my allowance.”

  “But you will be … cohabiting … with me. And I’ll give you an allowance.”

  “In return for what? For housework? I don’t want to encroach on your dad’s territory. For fucking with you and you alone? That would be as bad as marrying again. Of course marriage is what you want – it’s a game you’ve never played. I’ve played it. I don’t like it. I need independence. Thank God I live in a country that will allow me some if I have a rent book and a landlord who signs it once a week.”

  “I’ll give you a rent book,” said Colin, sighing, “and even take your money, if you insist.”

  “I don’t insist on that,” she said, smiling. They were on the bed now, embracing. He said, “I hate lying to a public service but it won’t be for long. You’ll soon get a job.”

  “You don’t realize how hard it is for me to find work. Women who interview me are always suspicious and men either have sex in mind and show it or try not to show it and act worse than the women. They all think they have the right to ask impertinent questions and I can’t help showing how I despise that attitude.”

  “So you don’t get a job.”

  “I don’t get a job.”

  “Keep trying dear. It will make you less lonely while I’m at work and Bill is at school.”

  8

  A fortnight later a community of three sat in the circle of rosy light cast by the standard lamp round the living-room fireplace. Mavis read a detective thriller. Bill sprawled on the hearthrug tracing pictures of aircraft from an illustrated book. Colin was altering a turret, replacing the propeller with a tiny spool. Beside him on the sofa a tray of turrets awaited the same treatment. Behind the sofa stood the big table supporting Glonda.

  With stately steps Gordon arrived from the kitchen, flexing his arms and murmuring “aaaauch” like a man after worthw
hile effort. Taking horn-rimmed spectacles from the mantelshelf he donned them, lifted a newspaper and settled in his chair to read.

  “Gordon,” said Mavis without looking up from her book, “you didn’t need to wash the dishes.”

  “I don’t mind washing a few dishes Mavis.”

  “I was going to do it later but after a meal I like to relax.”

  “Our difference is mibby due to early training,” said Gordon amiably. “You can relax with dirty dishes near you. Not me! I’ve washed up automatically after meals for the last fourteen years. You cannae expect me to stop just because you’re here.”

  “Good,” said Mavis, glancing briefly at Colin who did not seem to notice. She went on reading. Gordon concentrated on his paper. Once his eyes rose when Mavis flicked ash far beyond the blue china ashtray close to her hand but there was silence for several minutes

  until turning a page he said, “Aye aye. I see old Enoch is shooting his mouth off again.”

  “He’s a menace,” said Mavis sharply.

  “A very clever man.”

  “The man’s a menace.”

  Gordon smiled and laid the paper down with an air of opening an interesting debate.

  “Now there I don’t agree. You, as an educated woman, have to admit that Britain is overpopulated.”

  “The race issue has nothing to do with that. A third of the immigrants into Britain are Irish. A third are whites from Europe and our former colonies. Only a minority are black or brown or yellow.”

  “I don’t say Powell is right on the race issue; I do say he’s right on the immigration issue. Keep out the lot, I say – Irish and ruddy Australians included.”

  “I wish you two were quieter,” said Bill. “I find it hard to concentrate.”

  “You forget that the British have been invading and exploiting the countries of coloured people for well over two centuries,” said Mavis coldly. “We owe them something back, I think.”

  “Who haven’t the British upper classes exploited for well over two centuries? My father was a docker in the thirties, he could have told you about exploitation. It’s only since old Clement Attlee started breaking up the ruddy old empire that the British worker has had a decent livelihood and trade unions who can defend him against the bosses. And now you upper-class socialists lecture us on what we owe the coloured races!”