by Stan Barstow
Early the next week Donna goes up to town to see her agent and the casting director of the television company and comes back with the part. Rehearsals start in a few days, as soon as she's finished with the play at the theatre, and she'll be away for a fortnight, staying with Fleur. On the Sunday night before she leaves we drive out into the country and have a meal at a pub Donna knows, a real genuine old place with roaring fires, oak beams and settles. After we've eaten we stand at the bar for a while and Donna, mentioning some old pub she knows in Cornwall, gets the landlord started on about the history of the place. What he's talking about is interesting enough but I'm only half listening most of the time because I've got a growing nagging feeling that there are things I ought to be saying to Donna, that she might be expecting me to say; but it's not until we're going back in the car that we have a real chance to talk.
I put my hand in her lap as she drives.
'I'm going to miss you, love.'
'I shall miss you.'
'I was wondering if we couldn't manage something next weekend.'
'Won't you be going home?'
'I could make some excuse and not go.'
'No, if things have calmed down a bit you don't want to go stirring them all up again.'
'Maybe it's about time they were really stirred up. Brought out into the open.'
'Darling, you-'
'She doesn't own me, does she? I mean, I'm still a person in my own right and I don't have to put up with a situation I don't like.'
'Vic,' she says, 'don't go thrashing around causing trouble.'
'I'm talking about getting rid of trouble; throwing it all off.'
Is it as easy as that?'
'It can be if you make up your mind what you want and go straight for it.'
She says something else, very short, that's lost in the noise of the engine. And then I ask her, straight out:
Would you marry me if I were free?'
There's a pause before she answers.
'I'd live with you.'
I snort. 'Live with me... Is it all you can think of- living with people? Don't you ever commit yourself?'
'You believe a lot in marriage, don't you, Vic?'
'I suppose I do;'
'Well, so do I. Enough to want it just once and for good.'
'But not with me?'
'Oh, Vic, you're not free and you can't act as though you are. There's somebody else involved.'
'I'm talking about getting free.'
There's a long silence. The car presses on through the dark, but not too fast because the roads are winding and the surface isn't to be trusted. Once, coming out of a bend, the back wheels slip on a patch of ice but Donna corrects the slide with a quick twist of the wheel.
I wish you hadn't brought this up,' she says at last.' It's not the right time.'
'Time is something we just haven't got. That's the point.'
'The fullness of time.'
'What?'
'Nothing. It's a lovely phrase, though, isn't it?'
I grunt and she drops her left hand, finding and squeezing mine.
'I'd marry you tomorrow if I could,' I tell her. 'That's my position in a nutshell.'
'Darling...' She turns her head and looks at me for a moment. 'Life and feelings ... they're so complicated,.. Promise me you won't go off the deep end and do anything rash.'
And what, I ask you, can you say to that?
I miss her like hell the next two weeks. I can't stop thinking about her. She's not out of my mind for two consecutive minutes. Even when I'm talking to people she's hovering there waiting to take over the moment I've no need to make any response.
Franklyn calls me in one day and I try to concentrate on what he's saying, which will be more than the friendly chat he starts the conversation with. He asks me how I'm settling down with the job and when I say okay he says he's glad, because he's happy with the way I'm shaping and he hopes I'll stay with them.
'Have you done anything about bringing your wife down?'
'No. Her mother's just had a serious operation and Ingrid doesn't want to leave her yet. She's a widow, you see.'
'Ah. Well, it's not the best weather for house-hunting. You'll perhaps be as well leaving it for a couple of months.. .Anyway...' He gets his fags out and we light up before he pulls a rolled print towards him and opens it out on his desk, weighting the corners with ash-trays and books. 'I've got a job here that I think will interest you. It's a bit tricky, so you'll have to keep your eyes open, but I think you'll cope with it all right.'
It's a design for a new-type seaside chalet-cum-bungalow based on a metal structure. The structure is what we're interested in and what Franklyn wants to quote for. The quotation, he tells me, has to be done in three ways, in quantities up to a thousand off. So it's worth having, and if it caught on it could be a nice steady line for years to come, with the jigs and templates paid for in the first order. The costing department will get the price out but before they can do that I shall have to sort out the structure from the rest of the assembly; and that's where the tricky bit comes in because it's all contained in one general assembly drawing with figures all over the place and the print we've got is a very bad one with some of the dimensions so near to unreadable that they'll have to be guessed at.
'We want eyesight money for this one,' I say, and Franklyn laughs.
'Yes, you'd think they could at least send us a decent print. I can write and ask them for another one, but there's a deadline on the job and I'd like you to push on as best you can in the meantime.'
'I think we can manage.'
I'm sure you can. Have a word with Albert if there are any real snags. I'd have given it to him but he's got enough on his plate at the moment. And anyway, it's time you had something interesting to do.'
He flashes me a quick on-off smile and I leave him, taking the print with me.
I've got it spread out on my board when Jimmy passes by.
'You've got a right 'UN there.'
'It's a beauty, isn't it?'
'You want a magnifying glass.'
I say aye, and laugh, thinking he's kidding, but he goes away to his own place and comes back in a minute.
'Here you are, then.'
He reckons to pore over the print with the glass, making little clucks and grunts in his throat.
Yes, yes, Watson. It's quite obvious that this print was made by a left-handed Chinaman with dandruff who lives in Wapping.'
'But that's astonishing, Holmes. How do you know?'
'Elementary, my dear Watson. He's my brother-in-law.'
I'd forgotten that Jimmy was always fond of gadgets, like patent pencil-sharpeners, three-colour ballpens and circular slide rules.
'I can have your fingerprint outfit and false moustache if I need 'em, eh?'
'Any time.' He holds up the glass. 'With this in your hand a fascinating new world of flaws and imperfections is yours. Nothing is as it seems. Look at that line of typing on that material schedule. It looks perfect to you but I'll bet it isn't.'
He looks at it through the glass.
No. The letter "s" throws a little to the right and above the line. Happens every time. Which shows that it was typed by a squint-eyed Portuguese from Hitchin, using the toes of his left foot.'
'Aye, I know,' I say, taking the glass from him and looking myself. 'He's your mother's cousin ... You're right, though, it is out of line.'
'The magic glass reveals all.'
'Aye, well piss off then and I'll get it to reveal some of the dimensions on this print.'
'There's politeness,' he says, going away. 'Just return the glass when you've finished with it. No need to grovel in gratitude.'
I run the glass over the most blurred of the figures on the drawing and see that I can make them out now without much trouble. Then I sit back and light a fag, thinking of the best way of setting about the job. I pull the material schedule over. There'll be one of these to do when I've got all the bits and pieces sorted out. Then the cos
ting boys will work out a price based on the amount of steel needed and the labour and jigs involved in cutting, drilling, welding, etc. Jimmy's aroused my curiosity about the typing and, knowing what way my mind's moving, I wonder, no more than casually, if all typewriters write with similar faults. There's a memo on my place, typed on Cynthia's machine, and I take that and examine it through the magnifying glass. No. There might be characteristics an expert could see, but nothing I can spot. I glance round to see that everybody's working then take out one of the anonymous letters - the first one, as it happens - and apply the glass. The shock I get then makes my heart give a little lurch. The letter 's' is slightly out of alignment to the right and above the line.
I let the first shock fade and then, finding I can't sit still, let alone concentrate on the job I ought to be doing, I go out and down the corridor to the bog, taking the magnifying glass with me. There, locked in a cubicle, I examine all three letters. I flush the lavatory as a cover, let myself out, and walk back, glancing into the general office as I pass. A little doll called Wendy Bamforth with hair like pink candy floss is sitting at the typewriter with the long carriage that's used for material schedules and anything else that's too wide for the other machines. I wonder who's been in there when nobody else was about and used it for typing anonymous notes.
It's lovely for examining young women's nipples in naughty books,' Jimmy leers across at me as I go back into the office.
'What a filthy-minded beast you are, Slade,' I say.
19
There's no Donna at the end of the fortnight, when she should be back. The expected phone call on the Monday doesn't come through and late in the evening I go to the Mitre in the faint hope that she'll be there and then round to her flat where I get no reply to my ringing. I think of asking Conroy for Fleur's phone number and ringing up to find out what's happened, but decide that this might bring Fleur in on the act and the fewer people who know about me and Donna the better.
It's nearly the end of the week when I get a letter to tell me she's down with the 'flu: 'I did the final recording with a raging temperature then flopped straight into bed where I've been ever since until today when I've got up for just a little while. I'm glad I managed to finish the job, though. It was a very exciting part to do and my agent has rung since to say that everyone seems terribly thrilled with it and it looks like bringing me some more work.'
She can't say when she'll be back in circulation again but she hopes to see me soon. I send her a note in reply, telling her to take good care of herself and not to go out in the cold until she feels properly fit. Then I compose myself to wait for her in patience.
Another week passes by before I get the second letter, which tells me she's not coming back at all.
'My agent has got two more parts for me now, another one pending and next week I'm to read for a new BBC series. He says the management at the Palace are being very cooperative in releasing me from my contract, which has a little while left to run. Fleur's got this flat, which is ruinously expensive for one person, and wants me to share, so all in all it's best for me to stay in town now.
'Those are the professional and economic considerations. The other thing is us. Is it more immoral to have an affair with a man without trying to take him from his wife? Knowing something of the way your mind works I can imagine you probably arriving at this conclusion and becoming indignant at the way I've trifled with your affections. Dear Vic.. .Things are never as easy and clean cut as that. If I say that I don't want you to leave your wife for me you'll think that I never have had any real feeling for you, which isn't true. It would never work for us. Mistakes are terrible when you make them for yourself; they're doubly so when other people are involved.
I'm writing this instead of seeing you and telling you because I don't want to argue with you and I don't want to quarrel, which we've been near to doing a couple of times. I want you to have time to work it out for yourself. If you decide you'd like to come and see me here I'll be glad. If you don't I'll miss you terribly, but understand.'
Miss you terribly... understand... real affection...' Words. Words, words, words. And all I know is feelings: how much I want her. I feel as though my fingertips have brushed eternal joy and it's been snatched away from me. Of course I know there's no such thing. You just make the best possible bid for it, and this was mine. Perhaps the only chance I'll ever get.
I don't reply, thinking I'll at least see her when she moves her gear from the flat. But when four or five days go by without sight or sound of her I walk round there one night and let myself in with the key she lent me and I never gave her back. Most of the furniture is still there but Donna has gone. No record-player, records or books, an empty wall over the fireplace where the fried-egg picture hung, nothing in the kitchen cupboards and a collection of empty bottles under the sink, including half a dozen pint light ales.
It's the sight of these that really sets the melancholy flowing. The times here and at the Mitre seem like legendary days of happiness, never properly appreciated while they were here, and gone now for ever. The sadness is mixed with some anger and bitterness at the knowledge that she could come and go without telling me or wanting to see me. It hurts, and I'm standing there feeling very sorry for myself when I hear a noise behind me and look round to see a middle-aged man in a grey smock in the doorway.
'What are you doing here?'
'I'm a friend of Miss Pennyman's.'
'She's gone. She doesn't live here any more.'
'I know. I was just looking to see if she'd left anything behind.'
He's watching me as if he thinks he ought to call the police.
'How did you get in?'
I hold up the key. 'With this. It's one of hers. Who are you, anyway, might I ask?'
'I live down below. I look after these flats. I saw the light from the street.'
'You'd better have this, then,' I say, walking towards him and holding out the key.
He takes it from me, standing aside to let me by. I walk out while he's still weighing it up, probably having dark thoughts about actresses and strange men with keys.
I live off wounded pride for some time after this. She shouldn't have done that, treating me like a child who can't be told the truth to his face and be expected to take it reasonably. Why should I run after her to London? What's in it for me? It's the full-scale banquet I want, not the crumbs from her table. Conroy lends a sympathetic ear when I pour most of it out over a pint one night and doesn't offer me useless advice or say I told you so. It helps a bit, I think, and we don't talk about it any more after that.
When Ingrid suggests coming down again I let her. She comes on the Friday night and I meet her at King's Cross and take her out to Longford, managing to drop into the conversation on the way the fact that she won't be meeting Donna because she's gone. She doesn't react openly to this but it must be welcome news and she can only be pleased. Conroy's as good as his word, running us round the town on Saturday morning. We have a look at a couple of new developments, the prices on the signboards making Ingrid gasp.
'Four and a half thousand for these poky little places! Honestly, Vic, it's daylight robbery.'
'That's the way it is down here. And like Albert says, you buy and sell in the same price range, so it doesn't make much difference in the end.'
When we're ready for lunch Conroy suggests running out of town and of all places he has to take us to the Coach and Horses, where Donna and I spent our last evening together. I don't know where we're going till we're nearly there and it's too late to get out of it. Conroy hasn't seen Ingrid for years and she never cared much for him when we all worked at Whittaker's. Now they've taken to each other straight away. Albert seems to be able to tune straight in on Ingrid's wavelength in away I never could and she responds with a spirit I haven't seen in her for a long time. There's no doubt she's looking as attractive as she ever did and there'd be many who'd say I'm a lucky bloke to have her. I sit at the table, letting them talk, answering when I
have to, but most of the time keeping quiet and missing Donna in a way that's almost like mourning for her.
Two days later I try to telephone but get Fleur who tells me that Donna's away for a few days. We have a bit of inconsequential chat and she asks after Albert who she hasn't apparently seen for some time. I tell Conroy this.
'I thought you'd be hopping into town at every available opportunity.'
He grunts. 'I haven't bothered. It was funny, but once she'd gone I somehow didn't care any more. A case of out of sight, out of mind.'
Just like that. Easy. And there are no other considerations stopping him. It gets me on thinking how wanton attraction is; how the world, which is short of love, is full of people loving in the wrong places at the wrong time. The great life force striking indiscriminately through all the barriers and restrictions, and causing as much misery as hate.
I try phoning again a week later and get no reply. If only I could snap my fingers and erase her from my memory. If I could treat it like a sickness and take a course of pills. Is hypnotism any good? Will time do the trick if I hang on long enough? Time does in fact begin to have some effect because during the next few weeks the pattern of wanting her changes gradually from a continuous almost unbearable longing to a consistent mild depression that goes off the deep end every day or two and plunges me into bouts of misery so bottomless and black I feel sure I'm on the edge of cracking up. It's in one of these attacks that I give in and admit I'm beaten. I've got to see her. It doesn't matter if it's not very often. It doesn't matter if I can't make love to her even. Just seeing her, talking to her, holding her hand in a pub, maybe; I'll settle for that. And when Ingrid comes down for good, well, I'll think of something. I'll find a way.
