A Coin for the Hangman

by Spurrier, Ralph

  “Wednesday matinee, in the balcony. Go on, my treat. Have a seat on the house.” Victor winked. “But don’t tell anyone else or they’ll all be wanting a free one.”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you.” Mavis weighed it up in her mind. Wednesday afternoon she was closed anyway, Henry could let himself in after school and she would be back by half past five at the latest. It would be nice to get out for once and she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone; just sit and watch the film.

  “That’s kind of you Mr Watson…”

  “Victor, remember, please call me Victor, Mavis.”

  “Victor.” Mavis felt a little unsure of this intimacy. “Well, yes thank you. I’ll take you up on that offer. Is it this Wednesday?”

  “Yes. Starts at 2.30 pm. There’s newsreels and a short called Britain at Bay to start with so if you’re a bit late don’t worry. If I’m not in the foyer, just ask for me at the box office and I’ll sort it out. OK?”

  In the two days between Victor’s invite and the Wednesday matinee, Mavis had second thoughts about accepting the invite and was quite prepared not to turn up. It wasn’t so much the actual going to the pictures – although that did trouble her a little – it was the fact that Victor had invited her and she was aware that he might expect something in return in the way of special favours on cigarettes that were going to be rationed. Everyone was learning pretty quickly that a bit of under-the-counter bartering was one of the ways to get what you wanted these days but so far she had resisted.

  By Wednesday morning she was still deliberating whether to go or not, but as Henry left for school she said, “You’ve got your back door key, haven’t you, Henry? It’s just that I might go to the wholesalers this afternoon and may be back a little late.”

  She didn’t know why she had to lie but it didn’t seem right to go to the pictures without Henry and, for his part, Henry would not have understood his mother’s need to do something other than look after the shop and be there when he got home.

  “Yes. I’ve got it here.” He held up a large key that hung from a piece of string tied around his belt. “But do I still have to take this thing, though?” He picked up the canvas gas mask holder. “I hate having it around me all the time, and Charley Flynn says that now our air force has knocked the Jerries out the skies they wouldn’t dare come back and drop gas bombs.”

  “Yes, you do, Henry! And I don’t care what Charley Flynn says, or anyone else for that matter: we don’t know what the Germans might do next. Anyways, the government says we have to have these and they’ll fine us if we don’t and I’m sure they know more than what Charley Flynn does, thank you very much.”

  Mavis picked up the box container with its string and looped it over Henry’s head. The string was a little too short and the box that was supposed to sit on his waist was tight against the right side of his chest. Henry made a grimace.

  “Alright, I’ll try and lengthen the string tonight but don’t let me catch you without it. Now, go on; on your way otherwise you’ll be late.”

  She kissed him on his forehead and bundled him towards the door.

  “Are you seeing Madeleine this afternoon after school? You haven’t been round there to tea for ages.”

  Henry turned back to face his mother. “I don’t see her very much now. She’s made some new friends. Those evacuees who came down last year just after Dad died.”

  “Oh. That’s a shame.” Mavis was unsure what to say. “She seemed such a lovely girl.”

  “She is.” Henry turned and left by the door.

  After Mavis closed the shop at 1 o’clock she had a quick lunch of the soup she’d been having all week, changed from her shop clothes and left for the town centre just after quarter past two. It felt odd to be walking out into the town on a Wednesday afternoon with nothing else to do but go to the flicks. The September sun was still warm enough not to require anything other than the short-sleeved patterned dress with the large bow that sat at her neck which Mavis had made from a Butterick pattern she had bought three years before. When Mavis was choosing something to wear that afternoon she realized with a shock that she hadn’t worn that dress since the summer before Arthur had died and, with clothes rationing being what it was, she reckoned that she would have to eke out her clothes as best she could. The wardrobe still had Arthur’s clothes hanging at one end: the best suit he kept for “special occasions” as he called them, although there had been very few of those in the later years, the grey jacket he wore down to the Legion and the brown warehouseman’s overall that he had worn in the shop and which Mavis had to struggle to get off his back to wash every couple of months. She had meant to get rid of them all and for the first few months after Arthur had died she purposely avoided going into that side of the wardrobe as she knew the sight of his clothes would upset her. Now she could look on them and not feel too much of the pain of those early days, although if she caught the faint smell that came off them, especially the shop coat, she would well up. Anyway, she argued, it wouldn’t be long before Henry would be big enough to wear some of them and it would be silly to throw them out now.

  As she walked down Silver Street towards the town centre she noticed strands of hay drifting along the roadway, pushed by the light westerly breeze. There seemed to be no-one else on the street and the upper windows festooned with the black-out blinds and curtains gave an air of a town deserted by its inhabitants. The sun was momentarily blocked by a small cloud and she shivered, wondering if she should go back for her cardigan. The sun emerged again and although the warmth on her face was welcome she couldn’t rid herself of the underlying dread that had crept into her life ever since Arthur died.

  Towards the bottom of Silver Street she turned just before Knee’s Corner and slipped through the Shambles with the short run of shops all now closed for half-day. As she passed the windows she glanced not at the various displays but at her moving image, reflected and refracted, like an old-time kaleidoscope. The fresh confidence of the young woman who had walked down the church aisle thirteen years before had been replaced by what looked like a middle-aged woman. She looked down at herself. This dress had looked so fashionable when she made it but now the vibrant colour of the pattern seemed to have bled out in sympathy, as it were, with her diminishing confidence. Even the beret which she wore on one side of her head, copied from an illustration she had seen in a recent magazine, looked out of place and silly. Throughout that first year without Arthur, that first year of war – it was ironic that her widowhood would now be forever bracketed in exact time with the length of the war – she had become more reclusive. She knew that she had neglected her looks – no time for long sessions at the hairdresser or careful application of make-up – and as a consequence gradually lost interest in her appearance.

  She came out opposite the cinema in Market Square. On her side of the street was the draper’s shop where she used to buy her fabrics. The blinds on the shop window were now pulled down to protect the dressed mannequins from the sun’s rays. A horse and cart, heavily loaded with newly cut hay, was standing next to the lamp-post in the centre of the road. The trail of hay debris sifted and fluttered in the wake of its journey into the centre of the market square and the hay-wain, as high as a beached whale, blocked out the view down Church Street. Around the base of the lamp was a circular horse trough and the horse, still in the cart shafts, was bent with its muzzle dipping in and out of the water. Mavis wondered where the cart driver was and then noticed him idly smoking a cigarette in the shade of the Swan Hotel on the other side of the street. A small bird that had the bravado to share the water trough with the horse suddenly fluttered up and away, startling the horse which shook its head. Mavis watched the path of the bird’s flight towards her as it gained height and then disappeared upwards and over the buildings.

  She hesitated on her side of the road, squinting into the sun towards the cinema. There were quite a few people queuing by the A-board which announced the showings of the film with Uniformed Patrons at
Half Price! emblazoned across the centre. As she watched she saw Victor Watson, dressed in a dinner jacket with a black bow tie, come out of the foyer and begin to usher the queue into the building. He must be quite hot in that outfit, Mavis thought, but he did look smart – a blackbird amongst the drab sparrows of the queue. She waited until the last of the people had gone through the door of the cinema before she crossed the road. The driver had finished his cigarette and remounted the cart, pulling the head of the horse up from the water trough and round into the direction that led to the bridge and off towards Trowbridge. As the cart bumped across the uneven surface of the road, small flurries of dislodged hay eddied in its wake.

  The cinema building had once housed the Town Hall and was splendidly Gothic in design. As Mavis stepped through the ornate archway of the entrance door, Victor Watson was just ushering an elderly couple into the auditorium.

  “Plenty of space this afternoon, so choose your own seats. Yes, anywhere you like.” He closed the door on their retreating backs and turned to see Mavis hovering by the entrance.

  “Ah, hello, Mavis. Come on in, come in.” He strode over and ushered her towards the curving staircase which led up to the balcony.

  Mavis recognized the elderly woman in the ticket booth at the foot of the stairs as someone who came into the shop from time to time but she said nothing as she passed. Mavis was sure she was watching carefully as Victor gently touched her waist, guiding her upstairs. She now wondered, for the first time and with a mild panic, what Victor’s married status was. He had never mentioned a wife or girlfriend but Mavis guessed that being in his late 30s it would be most unlikely for him still to be a bachelor. Now didn’t seem the right time to ask. As she mounted the staircase she began to feel more and more uneasy about her decision to take the offer of a free seat from Victor. He was talking about the nice weather putting people off coming to the matinee and the black-out keeping people in at night making business difficult, but Mavis wasn’t really listening.

  “I think you’ve probably got the balcony all to yourself this afternoon, Mavis. I’ve put everyone else downstairs. Here we are.”

  He pushed open the door and they went through to a small area surrounded by curtains.

  “Damn black-out regulations meant we had to put up these curtains to stop any light bleeding out into the foyer. Through here.” He parted the curtains and they both stepped through to the balcony area.

  The cinema hadn’t changed much since Mavis last visited with Arthur a couple of years before. Three dusty chandeliers hung from the roof and lit up the small auditorium. The screen was hidden by a red curtain that had faded from its original deep maroon and Mavis could see lines of dust where it folded when drawn back. The golden tassels at the base of the curtain were now frayed and threads hung down over the base below the screen.

  Victor indicated the back row tucked next to the door curtains. “In here, Mavis. This will be fine.”

  Mavis shuffled into the row and made to sit down on the end seat. Victor gave her a little nudge with his hand on her arm.

  “Budge over one, Mavis. Let this old dog have a space as well.”

  “Oh.” Mavis moved over one seat. “I thought you had seen this film.”

  Victor settled himself into the seat at the end of the row. “Oh yes, I have.” He touched the bow of his tie. “I don’t often get to look at the screen from up here. Normally I’m keeping my eye on the hoi polloi down there.” He laughed and nodded towards the stalls. “Still get some riff-raff that get up to their tricks, annoying the other customers, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Mavis.

  Perhaps he sensed Mavis’s indecision. She held her handbag tightly on her lap and sat upright in the seat.

  “I’ll just watch the newsreel and shorts – see how it goes like – and then I’ll leave you to the main film.” He tugged on his shirt cuffs and Mavis could see the glint of his gold cufflinks shining in the dull light. Then the lights flickered and went out and the curtains on the screen stuttered back into the recesses.

  Mavis found it difficult to concentrate on the screen. Victor’s presence in the seat next to her in the balcony, empty of any other people, made her feel uneasy. He was a decent enough fellow, amiable, talkative, sociable – no doubt about that – but it didn’t seem right for him to be sitting there in a cinema on a sunny afternoon when all those other men had been hauled off Dunkirk beaches and were even now encamped in barracks up and down the country. Of course, Victor was perhaps a little old for the call-up, and there was his lameness as well, but she felt that he should be doing something more worthwhile than running a cinema in a small Wiltshire town.

  The screen flickered and a trumpet fanfare announced the first feature entitled Britain at Bay. Mavis took a quick look at Victor who returned a smile.

  “Not bad this one – as these little films go.” He settled back into his seat and Mavis turned her head back to the screen.

  The opening image of a soldier standing at ease with a rifle and bayonet gave way to a collage of scenes depicting rural life. A laden cart being stacked with cut hay in a large field caught Mavis unawares, recalling the cart she had seen only a few minutes before just outside the cinema. This was quickly followed by a canal scene with a barge entering a lock very similar to that at the upper town in Bradford. More rural scenes gave way to towns and industry and the voice-over intoned the “menace of war” as shots of Hitler and goose-stepping soldiers marched across the screen.

  “Bastards.” Mavis heard Victor swear under his breath but she pretended not to notice.

  The rest of the film detailed the various tasks and jobs that could be done by the “ordinary man and woman”. A shot of a local defence volunteer force brought out a few cries of derision from the stalls and someone shouted out “nosy buggers” when there was a scene with one of the volunteers policing the streets. Mavis heard Victor snigger and she was about to ask him if he was planning to join up at any time when the image of Churchill in the back seat of a car was followed by cheers from some of the audience.

  “Noisy lot today, Mavis.” Victor leant over towards Mavis and she could smell the tobacco on his breath. “But it’s only the kids that start throwing things around so I don’t think we’ll be having any trouble.”

  The closing credits for Britain at Bay were quickly followed by the crowing cockerel of Pathé News. Mavis watched as scenes of the recent aerial dog fights over the cultivated fields of Kent and Sussex flickered on the screen with the commentator explaining how the long shot of an unidentified fighter plane plunging to the ground was “another Nazi pilot who won’t live to fight another day.” Mavis felt a slight exhilaration and involuntarily smiled when much of the audience, including Victor sitting beside her, sent up a cheer. There was newsreel footage of children coming ashore, rescued from the sinking of the Benares, and another of British troops in Egypt with Arab headgear. The last feature showed George Formby collecting metal for guns.

  “You’ll like this one, Mavis. Always makes me laugh.” Victor had lit another cigarette and leant back in his seat, one leg crossed over the other. “Spot the ukulele! And here we go!”

  Extracting a ukulele from the rubbish handed to him – “Mr Morrison won’t want this” – George began to sing a song that ended each chorus with the phrase: “If you don’t want the goods, don’t maul ’em.”

  The newsreel closed on the toothy smile of George Formby grinning from the screen. Victor chuckled to himself and stood up.

  “Makes me laugh every time. Mind you the full song’s a bit naughty, if you know what I mean.” He stretched his arms and shot his cuffs out. “I’ve got to go and organize the interval teas. Did you want one, Mavis?”

  “Oh no, I’m OK, thanks.” Mavis was relieved that Victor was now going downstairs. “I’m happy here.”

  “Right, see you later then.” Victor turned and disappeared through the curtains. Mavis heard the balcony door open and felt a faint draft across her face as the warm air of
the foyer momentarily parted the growing fug of cigarette smoke that drifted up from the stalls.

  About ten minutes later the lights went down once more and the curtains parted to show the opening credits of the main film. A woman’s voice spoke the opening lines of the story as the camera panned along an overgrown path showing how nature and time had wrought on the once magnificent driveway. The sense of unease chimed readily with Mavis’s mood and as the story unfolded she found she could relate to the character played by Joan Fontaine. The transformation from the demure companion/secretary to the second Mrs de Winter was a fantasy she guiltily recognized as one she had herself even before Arthur had died. She had often daydreamed of being whisked off to a country house by such a strikingly handsome man as Maxim de Winter. Mind, Manderley looked a little bit too grand. She wouldn’t want all those servants and especially that horrid Mrs Danvers poisoning her new marriage.

  The film continued with Mavis engrossed in the mystery surrounding the dead Rebecca. And there was that room, Rebecca’s room in Manderley, which hadn’t been touched since her death. Mavis instinctively tensed as Joan Fontaine walked up the stairs towards the door, intent on seeing inside that room. And oh! What a beautiful room! As Joan Fontaine pulled the curtains, partially revealing Rebecca’s room with a little sunlight, Mavis almost cried out in delight. Although she felt a light draft of air on her neck, Mavis’s attention was so drawn to the screen that she hadn’t noticed Victor quietly sidle between the black-out curtains.

  On the screen Mrs Danvers looked accusingly at Joan and strode over to the big window and pulled back the curtains so that the whole room was bathed in a bright glow.

  “Lovely room, isn’t it?” Victor was at Mavis’s elbow. He twirled a lit cigarette between the forefingers of his left hand.

  “Do you like it, Mavis? Would you like it?” Victor winked at her.

  The dialogue continued on the screen but Mavis was only vaguely aware of what was being said. The sense of unease that she had about Victor was quickly turning into dread. She had felt vulnerable from the beginning, marooned in the balcony with no-one except Victor. Mavis became aware of the closeness of Victor’s arm against hers, his legs splayed out so that his thigh was pushed up against the arm-rest of her seat, his knee almost touching hers. She moved her knees together and away. On the screen Mrs Danvers had opened a drawer and was proudly displaying Rebecca’s delicate underwear.