by Stan Barstow
'Oh, there you are. Get yourselves something to drink in the kitchen and come and circulate.'
I'm hoping for some small special look from her but I get nothing. There's a tall good-looking bloke in the kitchen as we go in, wearing a fawn sweater and a bow-tie. He's got brown wavy hair and clean-cut features. A smoothie, if ever I saw one. A split-second impression because he eyes us both casually and goes out straight away, carrying a glass of what looks like whisky. We stand our bottles on the draining-board and look round for something to drink out of. There are no glasses about so we get a couple of cups out of the cupboard and use them; and I'm just expounding on the deficiencies of bottled beer after draught and feeling myself in for a session of quiet burps with the gas when Donna comes back with a lean dark-haired bloke, a year or two older than me maybe, in a suede jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a charcoal-grey wool sports shirt under it.
'Look, you two ...' Donna's saying as she comes in. She sees the cups. 'Is that all you can find to drink from?'
'We're all right,' Albert says.
'You're sure?'
'Well what are you going to do about it if we're not?' I say, conscious more than anything else of wanting to put my arms round her because I haven't seen her for twenty-four hours.
'True enough,' she says. 'Look, though, I wanted Wilf to meet you two. You're all from the same part of the world. Tykes, isn't it?'
'If you like,' Albert says. He's looking at the other feller. 'This'll be the author, I gather.'
'Yes...' Donna performs the introductions. 'Can I leave you for a minute while I go and see to my duties?'
'Tykes ...' Wilf Cotton murmurs, lifting his eyebrows. 'What part do you come from?'
We tell him, Cressley, and he nods.
'I know the area. I came from Bronhill originally. That's a mining village between Barnsley and Sheffield.'
My old man's a miner.'
'Oh?' He looks at me, smiling slightly. 'Your credentials are in good order, then.'
Yeh. Donna was telling me it's like blue blood in the theatre.'
It is as long as the right stuff's being written. The trouble now is, the tide's on the turn. People won't take north-country working-class stuff for its novelty value any more. It's got to be good in its own right.'
'Is that why you're living down here?'
'What? No. No, that doesn't matter. I still write about the same things.'
'I thought writers were tending to stay put now,' Conroy says, 'what with the provinces opening up a bit.' Cotton shrugs. 'Some do, some don't. Some like to stick close to their material and others benefit from shaking the provinces off their backs for a bit and seeing the thing in perspective. My idea is to try London for a while and then think of going back later. I've got mixed feelings about it but Marguerite - that's my wife - she loves London. Are either of you married?'
I tell him I am.
'You know what I mean, then. You've got somebody else to consider.'
He's holding an empty tumbler and I ask him what he's drinking.
'Beer, if there is any.'
I fill him up from one of our bottles as Conroy says:
'What about this play? Will it go on anywhere else?'
That's in the lap of the gods; the critics and managers who came out to see it. The idea in putting it on here was to see if it held together. If they do us proud tomorrow it could do something else.'
'West End?' Conroy asks.
'I daren't think about it.' Cotton pulls a face. 'A long run in London, two hundred pounds a week while I'm writing my next book. I'd be set up.'
I'll say!' I'm suddenly busy with thoughts of two hundred quid a week rolling in and Wilf, seeing this, laughs.
'It doesn't happen every day, mate.'
'No, but...'
The possibilities are there,' Conroy says.' You do make a living by writing, don't you?'
In a manner of speaking.'
'You must have done something before, though,' I say.
Oh, yes. I was a wages clerk in a pit office at first. Then I worked in a shirt factory for a bit. Nobody starts out being a full-time writer.'
'I don't know how they do it at all. I wouldn't know where to begin.'
'Good,' Cotton says.
'What d'you mean?'
'You're honest. I get sick and tired of stupid arrogant bastards who are going to write a book when they find the time. We can all do it, you know. It's just a matter of getting down to it. I tell them to get cracking. No capital needed. Buy a ream of paper and a tanner ballpoint and you're in business.'
'Are you better off with plays or books?' Albert asks. 'I mean, if you don't mind us quizzing you.'
He shakes his head, the little smile there again. 'No, that's all right. But you can't really measure it like that. It depends what you want to write. I suppose you could say that in a roughly equivalent play and a novel - whatever that might mean - you'd make more money out of the play. At least everybody pays to see it, but the trouble with novels is that not many people buy them. They tell you they're fifteenth on the list at the public library in a 'way that suggests you ought to pin a medal on them for being so keen.'
Having said one right thing I now drop a clanger, blurting out without thinking:
'Surely you must have made a packet out of that paperback of yours. It was all over the bookstalls at one time.'
He looks at me. 'Oh, I'm half-way to being a millionaire; anybody can tell you that. Ten thousand in hardbacks, a hundred thousand in paperbacks, magazine serialization and a film right option that nobody looks like taking up. Say four and a half thousand, less income tax and expenses. It's not a fortune, is it?'
'It's not as much as I'd've thought, but still...'
Still it sounds nice, doesn't it? And if you could do a book a year like that you'd be comfortable. Except you can't. You strike lucky with only one now and again.'
'You've got to do other things?' Conroy says.
'Yes. Like sending the wife out to work. Haven't I, love?' he says, turning to the good-looking girl with a haughty^way of holding her head who's appeared in the doorway.
She's only been there a second and Cotton was standing with his back to the door. I'm wondering how he sensed her presence as she comes forward and slips her arm through his.
'What was that?'
'I was telling Albert and Vic how you keep the domestic ship afloat.'
'Don't exaggerate,' she tells him. 'I came to see if you were thinking about going. You know we said we wouldn't be late.
You've got to be up and out in good time in the morning.'
'I know, and we'll go in a few minutes.'
He kisses her on the tip of her nose and Conroy shoots me an amused look. This kind of thing between two people when others are there can be irritating but I find the effect now rather touching. And suddenly, seeing the two of them like that, obviously batty about each other, Wilf Cotton as Yorkshire as I am and his wife a rather frosty Standard English type, it seems more possible somehow for Donna and me. Except that he's Somebody and I'm just a common or garden draughtsman. But still... It's as though I've suddenly opened my mind to the feasibility of a future for us; a notion that doesn't seem as ridiculous and beyond thinking about as it somehow did before. Little things ...
The tall feller in the bow-tie comes in looking for somebody who turns out to be Wilf Cotton.
Look, Wilf, what do you think. Don't you think she's absolutely right for it?'
'I think she'd be great, Clive. But she doesn't seem exactly sold on the idea.'
'Have you talked to her?'
'Yes, I told her the story-line and a bit about the character, but I detected a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.'
Oh, don't worry. I can handle Donna. Leave it to me. Where is she?'
He darts out into the living-room and Cotton and his wife exchange a look which ends with him giving a silent shrug.
This Clive's back in a minute, pulling Donna behind him. Almost literall
y pulling, with his hand round hers in a grip she can't get free of.
'Here she is. Now you tell Wilf. Put him out of his misery.'
'Really, Clive. I can't just -'
Look, ducky, he's completely sold on you, wild with enthusiasm.'
Cotton looks at them both, saying nothing.
'But I haven't even read the script.'
'There'll be one in the post Wednesday morning. But he's written it and I'm going to direct, so you can take our word for its not being rubbish. In fact, it's the best woman's part I've seen in six months.'
'I really don't think this is either the time or the place to - '
'Oh, stop stalling, Donna. Don't you want to get out of that flea-pit and do something big?'
A very forceful bloke, this Clive. I wonder if anybody else besides me can see that he's still holding Donna where she's standing by brute force, his fingers round hers in a way that must be twisting and crushing them something painful. It's there in her eyes, though she's saying nothing. I reach out and take his arm.
Steady on, mate.'
He twists his head to me, an irrelevant interruption.
'What?'
'You're hurting her.'
'Oh, rubbish.' He turns away. 'Now look—'
But I keep hold of his arm, tightening my grip until he's forced to take notice of me again.
'Mate.'
'Look, what's the matter with-?'
'Let go of her hand. You're hurting her.'
All eyes are on us now.
'Who the hell are you?' Matey says and a great spasm of anger and hatred for him shakes me. I don't want to shout so I say low and hard through my teeth:
'Let go of her bloody hand, and quick.'
He lets go and a cross between a sneer and a smile comes to his face. My heart's beating fast. I hate scenes in public but he's not getting away with that kind of thing. Donna rubs her fingers. They're white where he's had hold of them. I wonder why she hasn't slapped him down. She's got the spirit for it.
'Aren't you the forceful north-country boy?' this Clive says.
'I just don't like blokes who manhandle women,' I tell him.
'Brings out all the chivalrous instincts in you, does it? Is he a friend of yours, Donna?'
'Yes, I am a friend of hers but that's beside the point.'
'I've got the picture,' he says.' Musn't spoil a beautiful friendship. Got to give our friend a chance to play the protector.'
Cotton moves to break it up. 'Come on, Clive. You let yourself get carried away.'
'He'll get carried out, if he doesn't watch it,' I tell him.
This Clive's half a head taller than me but we're about even in weight and I'm mad enough to make up for any disadvantages I don't know about.
'Our friend seems set on a brawl,'he says as Wilf takes his arm.
Never mind that,' Cotton says.' It's time we were off, and you've got to drive us back.'
Such a pity to disappoint him,' Clive calls over his shoulder as Wilf ushers him out, turning his head for a second to wink at me.
Marguerite hangs back for a minute to speak to Donna.
'Are you all right?'
'Yes, of course I am. I don't know why there had to be such a fuss. I'll come and see you out.'
'Don't bother; we can manage.'
'I'll come with you to the door.'
Bastard,' I say to Conroy as they go out. 'Did you see how he'd got hold of her hand?'
'No, not till you mentioned it.'
'He was nearly breaking her fingers and she was standing there saying nowt.'
Albert pours himself some more beer.
'I thought you were going to drop him one on.'
'Another word and I should have done. What was it all about, anyway?'
'I think they were talking about a TV play.'
'And who the bloody hell does Mister Clive What's-his-name think he is? God Almighty?'
'Carter, they call him. Here, have some more beer.'
My heart's only now beginning to stop thumping. I put my hand inside my jacket and feel it as Albert passes the bottle over.
'I wouldn't make a fuss about it to Donna, if I were you.'
'What d'you mean?'
'I gather they used to know each other before.'
'What the hell's that got to do with it? He doesn't bloody own her, does he?'
'No, and neither do you.'
'Look, Albert, he was crushing her hand - hurting her. I had to go for him.'
'Yes. And now you've made your gesture. I'd let it drop and mind my own business.'
'Well, for Christ's sake, Albert -'
He cuts me short, taking my arm.
'Come on, let's circulate and find Fleur.'
The Christmas show was Fleur's last with the company and this party is partly a farewell do for her as she's going back to live in London. We've timed it nicely because as we go into the living-room the producer, a chap called Sanderson, is on his feet on the hearth, calling for attention.
'Listen, everybody ...'
'Order, please,' somebody shouts in a deep voice.
'While we're all here...'
'Let's not get personal.'
Order, please,' the voice shouts again.
'Thank you, Geoff,' Sanderson says.
'Orders please!'
'Yes, Geoff. Thank you ... I was saying ...'
'Will you kindly give order!'
'Sit on him, somebody.'
'Thank you .. . Now, while we're all here, I've got to remind you that one of our number is leaving us. I don't have to tell you how Fleur has graced the old Palace boards ...' There's a few wolf whistles and calls of 'Good old Fleur.' ' ... But now she's done her last production with the company and she's off to try her luck in the big city. I'd like you to join me in drinking to her and wishing her all good fortune in the future. To Fleur!'
The toast is taken up all round the room and a cove standing at one end of the sofa turns round and falls gracefully backwards across the knees of the people sitting there, ending up with his feet on one arm and his head in Fleur's lap. He looks soulfully up at her.
Say it's not to be for ever, dearest.'
The three of them push at once, rolling him off so that he falls on his face on the carpet at their feet. He stays there, looking as if he's gone to sleep.
I look at Albert.
'What now, then?'
He grins. 'I've got her new address, mate; don't you worry.'
I hang on as the party starts folding up, hoping to be able to see Donna alone; but finally I find myself going down the stairs with the last leavers. Once at the car, though, as the others are going off, I tell Albert I'm going back.
'To Donna's?'
'Aye, I want to talk to her.'
'Well, if you don't mind walking home, mate.'
I nip smartly back up the stairs and give the bell a short jab. She opens the door.
'Oh. Have you forgotten something?'
'No.' I step inside. 'I wanted to talk to you.'
She leads the way into the living-room. Her face looks pale and drawn with tiredness. I suppose a first night is a big strain anyway, without other things on top of it.
'Look, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about tonight. About making a scene, I mean.'
'Oh. that's all right.'
'I had to do it. I mean, any decent bloke would've cut up.'
She nods.' Yes. He's all right. A bit... well, impetuous and full of himself.'
'You knew him before, didn't you?'
'Yes, I know him from some time back.'
She shivers a little as though somebody's walked over her grave and looks round at the dirty glasses and overflowing ash-trays.
'The trouble with parties is they're so sordid afterwards.'
'Like casual sex.'
She musters a tiny smile. 'Yes.'
'I'll help you to clear up. It won't take long.'
No, I'll do it in the morning. I'll just make some coffee and go Jo bed. Do you
want some?'
'Please.'
She starts towards the kitchen and I look round for a minute then begin to collect the glasses up. When I take all I can carry into the kitchen she's got the milk on and is standing at the table measuring Nescafe into the cups. I put the glasses down and go to her and put my arms round her from behind, sliding my hands up to cup her breasts; not in anything like lust, but just with a yearning to comfort her in some way, because somehow I know this is what she's in need of.
My touch seems to melt her. The next thing I know she's in tears.
Donna... Donna, love.' I turn her round and she rests her face on my chest. 'What's wrong?'
'Oh, I shall be nothing but trouble for you. You'd be better off never having met me.'
'A bit of trouble, that's to be expected. But don't you know how happy you've made me? Don t you?'
'How long will it be before you start hating me, though?'
