Last night noises from next door suggested that once again the residents were not in perfect harmony. At my usual hour I went to bed with a mug of sweet hot chocolate and J B Priestley’s history of the old northern music halls. Around midnight the door softly opens and Gwinny creeps in, dressed for outdoors and with a finger to her lips. In a low voice she explains that horrible Tom had invited her to spend the night at his place, but when she got there he was so horrible that they’d quarrelled and split up, probably for good. Returning to her own room she found Karen in bed with her bloke who was obviously expecting to spend the night there. Gwinny, in no mood to explain her change of plan, pretended she’d come back for a toothbrush or something, grabbed it, went downstairs then realized she hadn’t money for a hotel and a respectable bed-and-breakfast place would not want a girl without luggage. So here she was!
Without a word I got up, put two armchairs together and made them up as a bed using cushions, a quilt, a bedcover I do not need, and two overcoats. I told her that I would not be gentlemanly and give her my bed, because if I lay on the chairs my old bones would stop me from sleeping and force me to crawl in beside her. I offered to make her a cup of cocoa. She refused. I returned to bed and lay with my back to her while she undressed and lay down, then I put the light out.
But I was quite unable to sleep and restless movements from her part of the room showed neither could she. Sounds from the room next door were to blame. After an hour or two she heaved a great sigh and began talking about her family and Karen and Tom. I think most of it was complaints but her low monotonous voice worked like a lullaby. I kept muttering “I see” and “that’s a pity” between moments of dozing off. At last she said something complicated which I asked her to repeat: “I’m afraid I’m developing a father-fixation on you.” I said she shouldn’t use Freud’s vocabulary when she’d never read him. She said, “You’re right. Why must you always be right? You’re giving me an inferiority complex.”
I told her that now she was quoting Adler and that before Adler described the inferiority complex folk just said they felt shy. For a while we lay listening to the faint sounds of Karen gasping and her architect grunting in unison. I had forgotten to shut the kitchen door. I was about to ask Gwinny to shut it because she was nearer when she asked in a tiny voice if I’d like her to join me in bed. I said I would. Nothing much came of it but enough for us to fall comfortably asleep together afterwards. We slept sound till nearly ten in the morning.
Over the breakfast table (usual English breakfast) she apologized for being bad at lovemaking. I asked why she thought she was. She said Tom had said so. I asked how often they had made love. After a lot of hesitation she said once, on the night of the party. I chuckled at that and said all she needed was some more lovemaking with someone she did not think horrible. She stared at me then said, “Are you asking me to . .?” and went on staring without another word. I said cheerily, “Nay! At my age I can ask nothing from lovely young women but I can’t stop hoping. I’m a great hoper.”
I felt young, Harry. Twenty years younger at least. I still do. Is that stupid of me?
Suddenly she laughed and jumped up saying, “I don’t care if those two next door ARE still in bed, it’s my room as much as Karen’s and I’m going in, see you later George.”
She grabbed her things and rushed out. That was forty minutes ago. Now just suppose, Harry,
Mr Goodchild stopped typing and thought hard, then went to the kitchen and made a cup of camomile tea. From the next room came sounds of two women and a man exchanging casual, friendly words. Once Gwinny said something and the others laughed. Mr Goodchild sat before his typewriter again and stared at the unfinished letter until someone forcefully knocked on his door. Mrs Dewhurst stood outside. She said, “A visitor for you,” and went away. Her place was taken by a big man wearing a business suit.
“So the mountain has come to Mahomet! Come in,” said Mr Goodchild pleasantly. “Would you like a cup of tea? Have a seat.”
The big man entered but did not sit. His mouth and eyes resembled Mr Goodchild’s but their expression was careworn. Glancing round the room he asked, “How are you, Dad?”
“Never better. How’s the garage?”
“Listen, Dad, I’ve talked to Myra about your Portakabin notion. She agrees to it.”
“That’s interesting but there’s no need for haste, Harry. Let her think it over for a month or two. How’s Nigel and Tracy?”
“They keep asking for you. Come back to us. Do it today.”
“Don’t be daft, Harry! It’ll take months for you to get planning department permission for a cabin in your vegetable patch, no matter how many palms you grease. I asked how the garage is doing.”
“It needs me there as much as it always does!” said his son impatiently. “A small businessman can’t afford days off and I’m not going to stand here gassing. Myra says you shall have your shelf in the fridge and make your own lunches till the Portakabin comes.”
“Anything else?” said Mr Goodchild, staring hard at him.
“You can also use our guest room as a work room.”
“Where will your guests sleep, Harry?”
“On the bed settee in the living-room,” said Harry, sighing.
“At last, my son, you are talking sense. Shake!” said Mr Goodchild holding out his hand. His son shook it a little wearily but with obvious relief, then left after another minute of conversation.
Mr Goodchild walked to his typewriter and stared at the single sheet of paper typed closely on both sides. After a moment he pulled it out, tore it carefully into small bits and dropped them in a waste basket. He then entered the kitchen, put four glasses on a tray, poured a small measure of The Macallan into each and placed the tray on his work table. Then he left the room, opened the door of the room next door and stuck his head round it without knocking. Karen, Karen’s architect and Gwinny sat with mugs in their hands, staring at him.
“Boo!” he said. “You must all come into my place – now – this instant. I have something to celebrate and can’t do it alone. Leave those mugs! Drink will be provided.”
He returned to his room. They filed in after him, Gwinny looking as curious and willing to be pleased as the others but slightly apprehensive. He gave her a reassuring nod as he handed round the whisky glasses. Glass in hand he then faced the three of them, proposed a toast to family affection, clinked his glass with theirs and took off the contents of his own in one swallow. As they sipped theirs he told them of Harry’s visit and what he had said.
“… which brings my stay here to a satisfying conclusion. Of course I knew before I came he would want me back. I just didn’t know when. Now YOU! –” (he told Karen’s architect) “– have a car. Right?”
The architect nodded.
“Half an hour from now you must drive us to the best restaurant you know where I will order and pay for a slap-up celebration champagne lunch. Of course the driver won’t be allowed more than a couple of glasses. But this is not an unselfish proposal. Afterwards you must help me pack my things because a van will arrive this evening to take me and them back to Bracknell.”
Gwinny said, “I’m not coming. I’m expecting a phone call from Tom.”
She put down her glass and left the room so abruptly that she left a silence.
Mr Goodchild looked enquiringly at his two remaining guests. After a moment Karen said apologetically, “She used to be quite a sensible girl – I would never have shared a room with her if she’d always been so moody. I thought it was Tom who upset her but an hour ago she came home from a night with him so cheerful and relaxed I thought he’d done her some good for a change. She was chatting quite happily before we came in here. I’ll never understand her now. Maybe it’s my fault.”
The kitchen door was open and from the room next door they heard faint sounds of sobbing. Mr Goodchild drowned them by talking in a more Yorkshire accent than he normally used.
“Nay lass, you aren’t the world’s cons
cience! You can help some people sometimes but nobody all the time –
that’s my philosophy. Let’s go for that lunch
I promised you.”
Money
In Britain only snobs, perverts and the wholly despairing want friendship with richer or poorer folk. Maybe in Iceland or Holland or Canada factory-owners and labourers, lumber-jacks and high court judges eat in each other’s houses and go holidays together. If so they must have equally good food, clothes and schools for their children. That kind of classlessness is impossible here. Mackay disagrees. He says the Scots have democratic traditions which let them forget social differences. He says his father was gardener to a big house in the north and the owner was his dad’s best friend. On rainy days they sat in the gardener’s shed and drank a bottle of whisky together. But equal incomes allow steadier friendships than equal drunkenness. I did not want to borrow money from Mackay because it proved I was poorer than him. He insisted on lending, which ruined more than our friendship.
I needed a thousand pounds cash to complete a piece of business and phoned my bank to arrange a loan. They said I could have it at an interest of eleven per cent plus a forty-pound arrangement fee. I told them I would repay in five days but they said that made no difference – for £1000 now I must repay £1150, even if I did so tomorrow. I groaned, said I would call for the money in half an hour, put down the phone and saw Mackay. He had strolled in from his office next door. We did the same sort of work but were not competitors. When I got more business than I could handle I passed it to him, and vice versa.
He said, “What have you to groan about?”
I told him and added, “I can easily pay eleven per cent et cetera but I hate it. I belong to the financial past. I agree with Maynard Keynes – all interest above five per cent strikes me as extortion.”
“I’ll lend you a thousand, interest free,” said Mackay pulling out his cheque book. While I explained why I never borrow money from friends he filled in a cheque, tore it off and held it out saying, “Stop raving about equality and take this to my bank. I’ll phone them and they’ll cash it at once. We’re still equals – in an emergency you would do the same for me.”
I blushed because he was almost certainly wrong. Then I shrugged, took the cheque and said, “If this is what you want, Mackay, all right. Fine. I’ll return it within five days, or within a fortnight at most.”
“Harry, I know that. Don’t worry,” said Mackay soothingly and started talking about something else. I felt grateful but angry because I hate feeling grateful. I also hated his easy assumption that his money was perfectly safe. Had I lent him a thousand pounds I would have worried myself sick until I got it back. If being aristocratic means preferring good manners to money then Mackay was definitely posher than me. Did he think his dad’s boozing sessions with Lord Glenbannock had ennobled the Mackays? The loan was already spoiling our friendship.
Five days later my business was triumphantly concluded and I added a cheque for over ten thousand pounds to my bank account. I was strongly tempted not to repay Mackay at once just to show him I was something more dangerous than decent, honest, dependable old Harry. I stayed honest longer by remembering that if I repaid promptly I would be able to borrow from him again on the same convenient terms. Since handing him a cheque would have been as embarrassing as taking one I decided to put the cash straight back into his bank. Despite computerization my bank would have taken two or three days to transfer the money, which would have meant Mackay getting it back the following week. I collected ten crisp new hundred-pound notes in a smooth envelope, placed envelope in inner jacket pocket and walked the half mile to Mackay’s bank. The morning air was mild but fresh, the sky one sheet of high grey cloud which threatened rain but might hold off till nightfall.
Mackay’s bank is reached by a road where I lived when I was married. I seldom go there now. On one side buildings have been demolished and replaced by a cutting holding a six-lane motorway. Tenements and shops on the other side no longer have a thriving look. I was walking carefully along the cracked and pitted pavement when I heard a woman say, “Harry! What are you doing here?”
She was thin, sprightly, short-haired and (like most attractive women nowadays) struck me as any age between sixteen and forty. I said I was going to a bank to repay money I owed and ended by asking, “How are your folk up at Ardnamurchan, Liz?”
She laughed and said, “I’m Mish you idiot! Come inside – Wee Dougie and Davenport and Roy and Roberta are there and we haven’t seen you for ages.”
I remembered none of these names but never say no to women who want me. I followed her into the Whangie, though it was not a pub I liked. The Whangie’s customers may not have been prone to violence but its drab appearance had always made me think they were, so the pleasure I felt at the sight of the dusty brown interior was wholly unexpected. It was exactly as it had been twenty or thirty years before, exactly like most Scottish pubs before the big breweries used extravagant tax reliefs to buy them up and decorate them like Old English taverns or Spanish bistros. The only wall decorations were still solidly framed mirrors frosted with the names and emblems of defunct whisky blends. This was still a dour Scottish drinking-den which kept the prices down by spending nothing on appearance, and it was nearly empty, being soon after opening-time. Crying, “Look who’s here!” Mish led me to people round a corner table, one of whom I knew. He said, “Let me get you a drink Harry,” starting to stand, but, “No no no sit down sit down,” I said and hurried to the bar. Apart from the envelope in my inner jacket pocket I had just enough cash to buy a half pint of lager. I carried this back to the people in the corner. They made room for me.
A fashion note. None of us looked smart. The others wore jeans with shapeless denim or leather jackets, I wore my old tweed jacket and crumpled corduroys. Only my age marked me off from the rest, I thought, and not much. The man I knew, a musician called Roy, was almost my age. The one oddity among us was the not-Mish woman, Roberta. Her hair was the colour of dry straw and stood straight upright on top of her skull, being clipped or shaved to thin stubble at the back and sides. The wing of her right nostril was pierced by several fine little silver rings. Her lipstick was dull purple. She affected me like someone with a facial deformity so to avoid staring hard I completely ignored her. This was easy as she never said a word the whole time I was in the Whangie. She seemed depressed about something. When others spoke to her she answered by sighing or grunting or shrugging her shoulders.
First they asked how I was getting on and I answered, “Not bad – not good.” The truth was that like many professional folk nowadays I am doing extremely well even though I sometimes have to borrow money. It would have been unkind to tell them how much better off I was because they were obviously unemployed. Why else did they drink, and drink very slowly, at half past eleven on Thursday morning? I avoided distressing topics by talking to Roy, the musician. We had met at a party where he sang and played the fiddle really well. Since then I had seen him busking in the shopping precincts and had passed quickly on the other side of the street to avoid embarrassing him, for he was too good a musician to be living that way. I asked him about the people who had held the party, not having seen them since. Neither had Roy so we discussed the party. Ten minutes later we had nothing more to say about it and I had drunk my half pint. I stood up and said, “Have to go now folks.”
They fell silent and looked at me. I felt that they expected something, and blushed, and spoke carefully to avoid stammering: “You see, I would like to buy a round before I go but I’ve no cash on me. I mean, I’ve plenty of money in my bank – and I have my cheque book here – could one of you cash a cheque for five pounds? – I promise it won’t stot.”
Nobody answered. I realized nobody there had five pounds on them or the means of turning my cheque into cash if they had.
“Cash it at the bar Harry,” said Mish.
“I would like to – but do you think the barman will do it without a cheque car
d?”
“No cheque card?” said Mish on a shrill note.
“None! I’ve never had a cheque card. If I had I would lose it. I’m always losing things. But the barmen in Tennent’s cash my cheques without one …”
Davenport, who had a black beard and a firm manner, waved to the barman and said, “Jimmy, this pal of ours wants to cash a cheque. He’s Harry Haines, a well-known character in the west end with a good going business –”
“In fact he’s loaded,” said Mish –
“– and you would oblige us by cashing a cheque for him. He’s left his cheque card at home.”
“Sorry,” said the barman, “there’s nothing I can do about that.”
He turned his back on us.
“I’m sorry too,” I told them helplessly.
“You,” Mish told me, “are a mean old fart. You are not only mean, you are a bore. You are totally uninteresting.”
At these my words my embarrassment vanished and I cheered up. I no longer minded my social superiority. I felt boosted by it. With an air of mock sadness I said, “True! So I must leave you. Goodbye folks.”
I think the three men were also amused by the turn things had taken. They said cheerio to me quite pleasantly.
I left the Whangie and went toward Mackay’s bank, carefully remembering the previous ten minutes to see if I might have done better with them. I did not regret entering the Whangie with Mish. She had pleasantly excited me and I had not then known she only saw me as a source of free drink. True, I had talked boringly – had bored myself as well as them – but interesting topics would have emphasized the social gulf between us. I might have amused them with queer stories about celebrities whose private lives are more open to me than to popular journalism (that was probably how the duke entertained Mackay’s father between drams in the tool shed) but it strikes me as an unpleasant way to cadge favour with underlings. I was pleased to think I had been no worse than a ten-minute bore. I had made a fool of myself by wanting credit for a round of drinks I did not buy, but that kind of foolery hurts nobody. If Mish and her pals despised me for it good luck to them. I did not despise myself for it, or only slightly. In the unexpected circumstances I was sure I could not have behaved better.
Mavis Belfrage Page 10
