by Ted Lewis
“I’ll have to hide. Where can I hide?”
Jerry got out of bed and began dressing.
“Upstairs. In the box room.”
“What’ll you do when she comes?”
“Give her that chat. Smooth her over. You haven’t been here, have you?”
“Thanks, Jerry.”
“It’s a giggle, isn’t it?”
I went back into the front room. Janet was sitting on the edge of the settee, looking into the fireplace.
“Come on,” I said.
“She won’t let me see you again. I know she won’t.”
“She’ll be here any minute. I’ve got to go.”
A car drew up outside. It was Janet’s mother.
“Bloody hell. I’m off.”
Janet stood up.
“Telephone me this afternoon,” she said anxiously.
“At three o’clock.”
I hurtled up the stairs. The box room was small and narrow and overlooked the street. I squatted down, holding my clothes against me, dressed only in my vest and pants. The room was crowded with clutter. A pram, some cardboard boxes, a clotheshorse, some old boxing gloves, everything that no one wanted anymore. I shivered with cold. The sun streamed in through the curtainless window. My hand throbbed and twitched in the bandage.
I heard the front door open and then the door of the car open and slam. Jerry’s voice drifted up from the street.
“Good morning, Mrs Walker. I hope everything’s all right. We had to put Janet up on the settee but I think she’ll get over it in time.”
His voice was easily assuring, full of an apparently natural politeness.
Good old Jerry, I thought.
“Mummy, this is Mr Coward. He and Mrs Coward—(That’s right, I thought, play up the Mr and Mrs)—were kind enough to look after me when I—”
“Come along Janet.” Her voice was so polite. So polite and so deadly. “I’m certain Mr Coward did everything he thought to be right. Thank you, Mr Coward.”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything, Mrs Walker,” he said. I could picture the accompanying smile. “Anybody’d have done the same.”
“I’m not sure that they would, Mr Coward. You’ve done more than enough. Come along, Janet.”
Ice, sheer ice.
“Mummy, I—”
The car door opened.
“Get in.” There was almost a pleasant smile in her voice.
The car door slammed and then the other one followed and almost immediately the engine belched into life and the tires crackled on the frosty street. The car accelerated viciously and then the sound of it disappeared and left the street empty in the pleasant sunlight. I heard the front door close a minute later. I wished I was dead.
I stood on the stairs, still holding my clothes against me. Jerry leant with his back against the front door. A patch of sunlight fell gently on the hall floor. Jerry let out a soft breath and accompanied it with a quiet laugh. He closed his eyes and didn’t move.
“What was she like?”
“Whey-hey,” he said.
“Oh, Christ.”
“Do you know, Vic, there are just two people I wouldn’t like to be at this minute and you’re one of them.”
“Oh dear me. Oh dear, oh dear.”
Jerry laughed again, just as softly.
I got into my fancy dress and borrowed Rose’s bike and cycled down Allenby Road toward the city center. The day was cold but the bright winter sun gave the day the quality of early spring. I cycled along, filled with a great depression. My head and mouth were suffering from the retribution of alcohol. The area directly behind my eyes and my lower forehead felt like an overworked punch bag and my mouth had the tactile quality of a piece of rusty cast iron. My stomach housed approximately fifty lead cannon balls, and beneath the skin of my legs there was nothing but distilled water. My injured hand was pressed against my chest inside my coat. It was really hurting now. I hardly noticed the glances of pedestrians and I cared less about them than about any other entities in the whole world.
I was in one of those states of mind in which you can (or you think you can) view yourself objectively in relation to the rest of the world. I saw clearly all the actions of the previous evening and the effect they would have on everyone from the principal to Mrs Walker. It was clear that I would be, at the least, suspended from college. It was clear that Mrs Walker would forbid my seeing Janet again. Of course, I would see her at college (if I were ever to be allowed in again) but it was clear that, owing to the tenuous nature of the bond that was just beginning to grow between us, Janet would see the wisdom in her mother’s action and sever relationships completely. She would realize the advantages of Tony Jensen and of everybody else and bye-bye Victor. That’s what I thought riding a bike along Allenby Road at ten o’clock on a bright Friday morning not long before Christmas when I was nineteen years old.
I got off the bike in front of the college. I had to go in and see if I could find the top hat. I couldn’t afford to pay the hire firm for the loss of it. I walked up the steps not caring whether or not I might run into anybody. I was too involved in my hangover and in the terrible potential of everything between Janet and myself going wrong, but at the top of the steps, I noticed that one of the columns was decorated by two long narrow streaks and some random spots of blood. I stared at them, feeling nothing. I went into the college.
I found the hat but it was completely ruined by the bloodstains inside the crown. I also found Rudge, or rather he found me. I was standing gazing into the top hat, apathetically toiling over what to do with it. He strode over. He had been telling the President of the Union how much disgust he felt for all students. The President followed him across.
“And you,” said Rudge. “You. I don’t know how you dare show your bloody face, you rotten bleeder.”
I looked up from my hat.
“What?”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Bloody ashamed. I’ve got to clear this bleeding place up today, do you know? You and your rotten students. But you. You’re the worst. You’re for the chop, that’s what you’re for.”
The President was grinning at me from behind Rudge.
“I’ve got to clear this stinkin’ place up by myself. Do you know? Do you hear me?”
He moved toward me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Here y’are then. Clear this up for a bloody start.”
I gave him the hat and walked out.
That afternoon at the Steam Packet. In the upstairs room at two thirty. Jerry, Hilary, Hamish and myself.
We were putting up the Christmas decorations. We had bought hundreds of feet of coloured streamers and were making a false ceiling out of them below the level of the lights which we had fitted out with bulbs of different colours. The making of the ceiling was a long and tedious job. It meant passing the streamers between the picture rails on each side of the room and securing the streamers with drawing pin after drawing pin. Jerry was in command of the situation, travelling from one side of the room to the other at minute intervals, stepping onto a chair, then down, back across the room, up onto a chair and so on. Hilary was doing the same at the opposite end of the long narrow room. I was passing Jerry drawing pins whenever he ran out. Hamish was spending more energy than any of us in generally getting in the way, bashing his weight-lifter’s torso into unwitting tables or putting his feet on the streamers or laughing and jumping up and down in his extrovert manner.
“What time did you say you had to ring her, Vic?” asked Hamish.
“About three.”
For the present I was sitting on a cane-backed chair, looking at my black and tan.
“Want to borrow a spare pair of trousers?”
He bellowed with laughter, then his laughter died down, began to rise again so that his la
ughter engaged me in laughing, too, in spite of myself. That kind of remark had been going on most of the afternoon from Jerry or from Hamish. I found most of the remarks funny, but I couldn’t forget the frightening imminence of the phone call and all that it meant. I was scared to death in case Mrs Walker should answer the phone. Supposing she telephoned my mother? I tried to put the idea out of my mind.
Hilary came down to our end of the room and took a sip from her half of hitter. She pushed back her hair from the side of her face. She sat down in a chair a few feet away from me. She stretched her legs in front of her, flicking some cigarette ash from her jeans as she did so. Jerry and Hamish were engaged in some noisy repartee.
“Do you love Janet, Vic?” she asked, surprising me out of my despondence a little.
“Yes, I think so, Hilary. Why?”
She looked slightly embarrassed.
“Well, I know my opinion doesn’t count for much, with you I mean, but if you do and you mean it, well, then I think everything’ll be all right. Between the two of you, providing you’re right to her.” She paused. “I don’t know her really to speak to, but—well, I think she’s ever so nice, Vic.”
She looked at me. She was so sincere it hurt.
“I wish I was like her.”
She meant it. She wasn’t saying it for me to feel sorry for her. She really meant it.
“That’s how I’d like to be if I could.” She paused. “But I’m not.”
She looked morosely at the floor, not seeing anything but the image in her mind of how it would be if she were Janet.
I took a drink of beer.
“Thanks, Hilary,” I said. “You make me feel better.”
“Yeah.” She continued staring at the floor.
Her expression didn’t change.
“Come on,” I said, “don’t be a bloody misery.” I laughed. “It’ll soon be Christmas. Time for some nuts.”
She raised a dead smile.
“Yeah, roll on Christmas.”
She got up, smoothed her jeans over her bottom and wandered back down to the other end of the room.
I picked up the phone and dialed Janet’s number. After a couple of minutes, the receiver lifted at the other end.
“Hello, Isobel Walker?”
“Oh, hello Mrs Walker, it’s—it’s Victor speaking.”
“Yes?”
She had obviously been sitting in the deep freeze to get into the mood.
“Er, could I speak to Janet, please?”
“I’m not sure that I think that that would be altogether a good thing, Victor, do you?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Look, if it’s about last night—”
“Yes, Victor, it’s about last night.”
“Look. I mean, it was my fault entirely. What I mean is, I got in this mess and Janet was good enough to make sure I got home safely. She lost Jenny and there was nothing else she could do.”
“If I were to believe that, Victor, which really I have to as I haven’t any choice but to believe it, the main point is that Janet was in your charge. You were responsible for her. I trusted you and put her in your hands. It’s a thing I don’t do readily. By the time she met you, you must have been badly drunk. I understand you met her in a pub. Janet is underage. I like a drink, Victor, but Janet is too young to go into public houses, and when she is old enough she won’t make a habit of it. Janet is only seventeen, Victor. I trusted you with her. I’m afraid you’ve rather let me down.”
I couldn’t say anything very much. She had been successful in making me feel the guilt she intended I should feel.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Walker. You mustn’t blame Janet. It was completely my fault. I don’t really know what I can say except apologize. I know it wouldn’t happen again. Believe me, it wouldn’t.”
“You let me down, Victor. How can I know it won’t happen again? You must understand that Janet is very valuable to us.”
“I know. I realize that. I can only repeat what I said. It won’t happen again. Mr and Mrs Coward would have looked after her properly, I’m sure.”
“Mr Coward, judging by his appearance, is not exactly the type with whom I relish the thought of Janet spending the night. I thought you would have realized that, Victor.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, there’s nothing else I can say, I suppose. Can I—can I speak to Janet?”
“Victor, I think it would be best if you weren’t to see Janet for a while. For the time being, at least. I have to make up my mind about last night.”
“Oh, I see.”
There was silence.
“You can talk to Janet for a minute if you like.”
“Thanks.”
Janet came on to the line. Her voice was soft. She was controlling anything she might be feeling.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Janet. I imagine it’s not too good.”
“My mother refuses to let me see you again. She’s terribly annoyed, Vic. She means it.”
“Everything will turn out. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. You want it to, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Janet, so do I. So do I. You’ve no idea.”
“If my mother insists...”
“Listen, you mustn’t admit to my being there. That would be the end.”
“My God, I know. She would kill me. She even mentioned having me examined by a doctor to see—Vic, I can’t talk now. She’s listening. I’ll have to go.”
“Janet, listen. I’ll ring tomorrow. Can I?”
“I don’t know. Look, I must go. Yes, telephone tomorrow, whatever happens.”
“Whatever happens, tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.”
“Janet, I can’t say how sorry I am about last night.”
“I know. I know how you must feel, but—”
“But what?”
“I must go. I really must.”
Mrs Walker came on the line again.
“Janet has things to do now, Victor.”
“Oh, right. Well, I hope things—I mean...”
“I know what you mean, Victor. I’ll have to think things over. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mrs Walker.”
“Coming back to my place, Vic?” asked Jerry that evening. It was interval-time at the Steam Packet.
“Why, what’s going on?”
“Oh, I thought I might as well have a small do. There’s nothing else going on. Anyway it’s Christmas.”
“I suppose so. I’m not really in the mood, though.”
“Come on, Vic. Don’t be so bloody daft. You’ve nowt to worry about. Everything’ll clear up. It’s just a gesture on her mother’s part.”
“It’s not just her mother.”
“Well, there’s nothing you can do if the bird changes her mind.
So you might as well have a good time and a few drinks.”
It was strange and depressing to be back at Jerry’s so soon.
Stella dawdled up to me.
“I heard about last night, Vic. You must feel pretty bad.”
“I’m always pretty bad, Stella.”
I leered at her. Her concern was immediately replaced by a knowing, teasing attitude.
“That’s what they say, Vic, but I wouldn’t know, would I?”
“No, you wouldn’t. No, I don’t suppose you would.”
“Not to say, though, that I’ve never wondered.”
“You’ve wondered, have you?”
“Now and then.”
I lurched slightly and propped myself against the wall.
“Heard from Paul lately?” I asked.
“Paul?” She pretended to try and remember if she knew anyone called Paul. We both
laughed.
“Let’s have a dance.”
A Nat King Cole record was on the turntable. We danced close together. Stella’s fingers began massaging my shoulder blades. My hands gripped her waist, my fingers scraping the small of her back. We kissed. Her tongue danced all over the place. My leg slipped between hers. I felt her nails slowly trailing down my back.
I stepped back from her. She looked at me, wondering what the action meant. I took her hand and we went into the bedroom.
I left Jerry’s at a quarter to one. It was snowing heavily, almost a blizzard. The ground was thickly covered. I could hear the music growing fainter through the snow. I was completely sober now.
It was an hour’s walk from Jerry’s place to mine.
I was nineteen and betrayal was as stark as the white snow. I knew that I loved Janet more than I could love anyone else. To think of her in comparison to others made the thought of anyone else ludicrous. She would never know how much so. And yet, Stella. How could I? Stella was nothing. Stella was like all the rest. But it hadn’t been her fault. She had begun by sympathizing. I encouraged everything. Everything that had happened had stemmed from me. Why? Reason hadn’t wanted it. All the time it was happening, the wish for it not to be had been uppermost in my mind.
I trudged on through the snow. Trolley bus wires whipped about in the wind above my head. The snow sped across the open expanses of Princes Park on my right. I walked in the middle of the road, the night swirling and rushing, its noise partly muffled by the countless snowflakes.
Janet. I didn’t mean it and you know I didn’t but I mustn’t tell you.
The snow began falling even heavier than before, but the wind dropped suddenly.
I felt so bad about what had happened that it affected me physically. My body ached and the effort involved in putting one foot before the other was almost too much. At one point, I had to sit down on a bench for a while.
I sat there for about half an hour. The snow stopped falling. I wanted to do nothing but remain sitting on the bench. I was so numb I didn’t notice the cold. I couldn’t even cry.
I got up from the bench. I began walking. Then I broke into a run. I ran and ran, faster and faster, snow flurrying up in the silence of my wake.
“Oh, Victor! What have you done?” said my mother. “Your hand? What’s it all bandaged like that for?”
