By the time we had all got back to the Lane, it was to a milling scene of truly great ructions—an ambulance and a police car a little way down, with everyone—Miss Jenkins from Moore’s, Mr. Bona, Edie, Sally from Lindy’s … my hairdresser Gwendoline from Amy’s, she was there, and so was old Mr. Levy and the new woman from Marion’s … even poor Mrs. Dent—somehow, and doubtless horribly painfully, even she had managed to hobble along: all in the doorways of their shops, together with animatedly excited clusters of locals and passers-by, all of them chattering eagerly and arching their necks in the direction. Mrs. Goodrich I saw standing at the rear doors of the ambulance with her arms very firmly crossed beneath her always rather daunting bosom, this not remotely diminished by a very ample Harris tweed coat—it was rather as if she had been appointed the official custodian of this vehicle, and should anyone think to approach without due and rigorous authorization, then rest assured she would have a formidable deal to say upon the matter. I have to admit that at first it all did seem rather strange and unnerving to me … because the four of us—all dressed befittingly soberly—had been driven to England’s Lane in one of Levertons’ very glorious, lush, and almost impossibly glossy black Rolls-Royces, the bodywork dappled by a shivering of globular raindrops, and whose wings and running boards I thrillingly had thought to be a true and almost voluptuous delight. And now, of a sudden … the talk in the Lane was of nothing but death. It appeared that Mr. Effingham, the man in Curios—that rather odd little old furniture and bric-a-brac shop—had less than an hour earlier been found in the customary stoopedover position in his rocking chair, the habitual curved pipe firmly jammed between his teeth, and the newspaper folded to the crossword on his knees before him—all perfectly usual—while seemingly staring vacantly into the cluttered and overwhelmingly brownish and ochre interior, quite as he has done every single weekday ever since I or anyone else can remember … although on this particular morning, however, he had ceased to breathe. Everyone agreed that there was considerable irony in his discovery by a gentleman—a stranger to the area, who had just happened to be driving down the Lane on his way to visit Karl Marx’s grave up in Highgate, is what someone later on had been telling me—when an African mask of some sort, I think it was, had glancingly caught his eye in the window. He had parked his car directly outside the shop, entered, asked to know the price of the mask—if mask it truly were—and after rather too much silence being the only forthcoming response, had gently tapped the man’s shoulder, whereupon Mr. Effingham—very alarmingly, I should imagine—had tumbled immediately to the floor, in a very heavy heap. The irony of course being that no one could recall the last time anyone had so much as thought even to walk through the door of that shop, let alone been desirous of actually making a purchase: none of us ever did understand how Mr. Effingham managed to cope with his overheads. It was his heart, apparently: just stopped. Jim said to me—Blimey, dropping like flies: wouldn’t bother with the Christmas party if I was you, Mill—this rate, won’t be nobody about left to bleeding come to it. I considered the remark quite typically gross and insensitive … though, I have to confess, not utterly devoid of a fairly grim humor. It did not altogether surprise me that tacitly I had granted him this modicum of indulgence—for it has become increasingly plain to me quite recently that generally speaking—and initially, I confess, very much to my confusion—I am finding Jim, as each day passes, to be very slightly more, well … tolerable, I suppose is more or less what I am meaning. No … not what I am meaning at all: I see now immediately that this, of course, very considerably understates what it is that I am feeling … for while his countless very awful foibles, discourtesies and irritations still remain quite wholly undiminished—they coalesce, you see, into the very construction of the man—his attitude toward the current quite extraordinary situation in which we two now find ourselves … has been nothing short of overwhelming.
When, so gradually, I came fully to realize—and now I can but marvel at how unconscionably slow I was to see it—that just everyone in the Lane and doubtless beyond was thoroughly aware of at least the bones, if not the fleshed-out actuality, of my erstwhile relationship with Jonathan Barton … well then of course I was compelled to come to terms also with the inescapable fact that Jim, despite his determinedly ostrich-like manner, his proudly stubborn insularity … that Jim, well—he must know too. And—being Jim—he had not said so much as one single word upon the matter. And I really do believe, you know … that did I not find myself in this physically altered, new, and glorious circumstance, that I should certainly and forever have maintained a parallel silence. For it is so often the way, I find: to insistently ignore quite implacably any little discomfort, a fleeting pain, a passing concern—to quell them, to deny them space to grow nor air to breathe, before quite coldly snuffing them out … it is more often than not quite wondrously effective: because after time, as well we know, all things must pass. As will my own much garlanded scandal: the brand will become less furious, though of course the very faintest scar will forever be upon me. But yes—my crime, if crime it truly were, will be superseded by the next great thing that comes around: before me there was the advent of the negroes; the suicide of Jane and the death of Mr. Effingham can do me little harm.
I still do though feel so very foolish in imagining that all that might have reached the ears of Jim were Mrs. Goodrich’s mistaken and perfectly ludicrous assumptions concerning myself and Stan. Stan …! I ask you …! While all that time, the I suppose quite lurid reality had long been common knowledge. Rather interestingly, none has rushed to judge nor spurn me, which in turn has made me wonder. In the eyes of some women, I do detect the very outer edge of not maybe quite contempt, but certainly the mark of their own superiority—and at the edges of their lips, a hesitation that has all the makings of a sneer to come (while in Mrs. Goodrich, both are open, animated, and quite unashamed). And all this has led me to contemplation. Must some women wonder what such a thing can be like …? The illicit extramarital affair. Can others be remembering their own past indiscretion? Reveling in the memories of its blood-heat? And might not one or two secret liaisons yet be vibrant and alive? Or am I really the only woman in London throughout the whole of the nineteen-fifties to have done such a thing? Are women simply divided into those whose dalliances have been cruelly and shamingly exposed … and those others who thus far have eluded detection, camouflaged by the walls of the truly innocent, and so remaining for the present tightly swaddled within the impregnable warmth of decency? And during those days when my violated eye had shifted in shades from indigo to crimson before mercifully fading into a mild tangerine, how enthusiastic had been the debate over the identity of the inflictor? Could it have been the outcome of passion from the virile lover? Or merely impotent recrimination from the woman’s outraged and cuckolded husband, momentarily moved to violence? With the aid of such tinder, rumor is readily inflamed. And do not people so love to gorge on the burst of such bittersweet juice from the one and only forbidden fruit? Whereas in reality, of course, Jonathan … I always found to be gentle almost to the point of femininity—and Jim, not once has he ever raised a hand to me: a claim, I suspect, that few wives might honestly make. And for some reason I still am struggling to explain, I never did anticipate a confrontation with … you know … Mrs. Barton. His wife. I never envisaged such a scene, and nor has it manifested. But all of this—and even that—is no more than periphery. There remained just the one matter that was truly of the essence—and, painful though it would be for him, it was Jim I had now to talk to. I very much had to. He and no one other. And he sensed it, I could tell. He would hurriedly pass through a room with shoulders hunched, as if to deflect the sudden swooping down of me, or at least be more prepared for when I did it. He did not know, you see, what next I had to tell him: nor did he want to. Yes yes—I was well aware of all of that: but still, though … but still, though … it simply had to be done.
“Jim … don’t go out just yet. You know I’ve been
wanting to talk to you …”
“Yeh well—just were thinking I’ll stretch my legs a little bit …”
“Well you can do, Jim—but afterward, yes? It won’t take long. Not long. It has to be now Jim, because there just isn’t any other time, is there? Either you’re in the shop or you’re going down to the pub—or else Paul is still up and about. And it shouldn’t be really, but it does seem even harder now that Anthony is here, and everything …”
“How long he staying? I ain’t saying I mind, nor nothing. Just asking.”
“Well—it’s quite hard to know. Not too long, I don’t suppose. But the doctor did say that Stan has to have a complete rest. Utter exhaustion, apparently. I think he has undergone what they term a ‘breakdown,’ I think that’s what it is. Like a motor car, I suppose: needs an overhaul. That would explain why he’s been behaving really very oddly. And sometimes they just, you know—snap out of it. And other times, well … it can take rather a while, I gather. But he’s no trouble, is he? Anthony. Poor little mite. I can’t imagine all that can be going through his mind. All of a sudden, his mother’s dead … his father’s gone away. It must be so dreadfully upsetting and confusing for him. Mustn’t it? Don’t you think? I’ve tried to talk to him, but he doesn’t seem to be very communicative. Responsive, you know? I’ve asked Paul what he talks about, and he says he’s just like he always was. Well I don’t know what to think, if that’s the case. Because bottling it all up … well that can’t be a good thing either, can it? Oh dear. Anyway—we’ll do anything we can for him, obviously. I just have to remember about all his various ointments, and everything … I think I’ve got the hang of putting those awful things on to him, now …”
“He won’t be too happy about the shop, will he? Old Stan. I should bleeding think not. Week off of Christmas time, and he gone and shut the bloody sweetshop! Dear oh dear. Were me, I cut my throat. And up the Washington, they got a penny a packet extra on your Senior Service: couple days, you down a tanner. I says to Reg there—it only criminal, what you doing: taking advantage. He just laugh …”
“It is awful about the shop—but well, it’s hardly Stan’s fault, is it? Didn’t plan to go a bit loopy. Last thing in the world he wanted, I’m sure. Sally has said she can sometimes leave somebody else in Lindy’s and go round to help him out a bit. But honestly, from what I’ve seen of the way she carries on, I’m not too convinced that it’s altogether a good idea. When Stan comes back, he might take one look at everything she’s done to his shop, turn right round and go straight back to the hospital. I suppose I might be able to do the odd afternoon … it’s so awful to think of him losing the seasonal trade—and all those special Christmas lines, selection boxes and stockings and so on: not going to be much good to him in January, are they?”
“Got enough on your plate, ain’t you? What with this party what you getting up. And now another kid to think about, and all …”
“Another … kid …? What do you mean, Jim …?”
“Well—you know. Anthony …”
“Oh yes. Yes I see. Jim—look, sit down, won’t you? Shall I fetch you a glass of beer?”
“Well … it like I say—were going to go and stretch my legs, sort of style …”
“After, Jim. After. You just sit there. I’ll get you a nice bottle of Bass from the refrigerator—or do you prefer one from under the stairs? Why don’t you light up a cigarette, yes? Ah—you already have. All right, then. Fine. Well you just sit tight in here, Jim. Back in just a minute. And then we can talk.”
Yeh. Talk. That’s what I bloody afraid of. On account of I know she been wanting to—busting to, she been. Women, that what they always doing—yakking away. Can’t just belt up about it. And after all of the talk—what you got? Ay? What you got? You ain’t got nothing, has you? Nah—you just ain’t got nothing.
“There we are, Jim. I’ve brought you the less cool one, I hope that’s right? I know how you say they can get too gassy when they’re overchilled. Is it all right? Oh good. Good. That’s good. Oh Jim—the button on your cardigan …”
“What about it …?”
“Well—it’s not there, is it? Have you got it? Do you know when you lost it?”
“Never knowed I lost it. Look—sod the bleeding button …”
“Well you can’t go round with a cardigan with a button missing, can you? If it’s lost, I can probably find a match for it in John Barnes. They do have quite a remarkable range.”
“Yeh. So that’s all right then, ain’t it? And so—well? Come on, Mill. You say you want to talk—so bleeding talk. I here now, ain’t I? You want me to stop in, and I done it. So give it me. What you want to say?”
“Yes … yes, you’re perfectly right, Jim. It’s silly of me. I have been wanting to talk to you—wanted to for ages. And now that it’s come to it … I don’t know quite how to … um …”
“How to what? What you on about? Ay?”
“Well, Jim … it’s rather hard. And I don’t know quite how you will react. Well—the truth is, of course, I don’t at all know how you’re going to react. What you might think of me. Worse, even worse, than you already do. But anyway—the truth of the matter is, Jim … and it is all right then, is it? Yes? The beer …?”
“Gordon Bennett …! Never mind the bloody beer. Just get on with it …”
“Yes. Right. Well the bald fact is, Jim, that I’m … I’m, um—pregnant, Jim. I’m going to have a baby. Yes. There. Now I’ve said it. I’m going to have a baby … yes. And that’s what I wanted to tell you. Jim …? Jim …? Did you hear what I said, Jim …? I said …”
“I heard what you said. That it?”
“Is that … it …? Well—that’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Yeh. It’s enough. But I knowed that. Knowed that a long time.”
“You … knew? But you never said anything! How did you know, Jim? How on earth could you …?”
“Seed my old Mum like it often enough. All what been wrong with you. All with the stomach, and that. Yeh—I knowed. I knowed it.”
“Well … well … I don’t know what to say … I’m so … I’m just so—surprised. And—relieved, I think. Ought I to be relieved, Jim?”
“Don’t know what you mean. Happy—that what you ought to be. What you always wanted, ain’t it? Kid of your own. What you always wanted. And now you got it. So now you’s all right. Ain’t you?”
“And … you don’t mind …? No—sorry, Jim. Stupid thing to say. Of course—of course you do. Of course you mind. Sorry—so sorry. What an absolutely frightful thing to say. What was I thinking of? Oh please do forgive me. It’s just that … well, I don’t want you to … hate me, Jim. Or the baby. I don’t think I could bear it, you see. If you did that …”
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