The Children Of Dynmouth

by William Trevor

  ‘Delicious potatoes, Mrs Abigail,’ he said, smiling widely at her. ‘Really nice they are.’

  She began to say something, but the Commander interrupted her.

  ‘You’d go out hiking at the weekend. You’d take an early-morning train from London, you’d be in the middle of Bucks in half an hour. Packet of Woodbines in your back pocket, wet your whistle in a nice old pub. You couldn’t meet a soul, except some ancient labourer maybe, who’d raise his cap to you. Damned interesting, some of those old chaps were.’

  ‘So I heard, sir.’ He was feeling really good. Faintly, he was aware of applause, as though it were actually in the room. He closed his eyes, savouring the sensation of hearing something which he knew wasn’t really there. He concentrated on the sound. It flowed, softly and warmly, like a tepid sea. In the darkness behind his eyelids lights pleasantly flashed. He felt a hint of pressure on his left shoulder, as though someone had placed a hand there, in all probability Hughie Green. He was surprised when he heard the voice of Mrs Abigail, talking about steamed pudding. He opened his eyes. More time than he imagined appeared to have passed.

  ‘Fig, Timmy?’ she was saying. ‘Steamed fig pudding? You liked it last time.’

  She held a knife above a brown lump of stuff on a plate, asking him how much he’d like.

  ‘D’you know what a york is?’ the Commander was enquiring.

  ‘Timmy?’

  ‘Delicious, Mrs Abigail. Really good, fig pudding is. A town is it, sir?’

  ‘It’s a strap that used to be worn by a farm labourer, around his trouser-leg.’

  ‘Custard, dear?’

  ‘Great, Mrs Abigail.’

  She poured custard on to his pudding for him, fearing he would spill it if she handed him the jug. He wasn’t sober. Even before he’d taken more than a few sips of the beer she’d noticed that his movements weren’t co-ordinating properly. Sweat had begun to form on his forehead.

  ‘Time was,’ the Commander said, ‘when you could go into a grocer’s shop and there’d be a round-bottomed chair up by the counter for a customer to sit on. What d’you get now? Some child in a filthy white coat picking the dirt out of her nose while she’s working a till in a supermarket. No, I’ll not have any of that, dear girl.’

  ‘All right, Timmy?’ she whispered.

  ‘Cheers, Mrs Abigail.’

  ‘Some of those girls press half a million buttons a day,’ the Commander said.

  Timothy drank more beer, washing down a mouthful of fig pudding and custard with it. He remembered a time when he was eight or so, walking along the wall of the promenade and Miss Lavant coming up to him and saying he shouldn’t because it was dangerous. She was a beautiful woman, always fashionably turned out: you wouldn’t mind being married to Miss Lavant. When he’d climbed down from the wall in order to please her she’d given him a sweet, holding out a paper-bag so that he could choose, Mackintosh’s Quality Street. The one he’d taken had green silver paper on it, a chocolate-covered toffee. All you had to do was to smile at women like that and it pleased them, like it pleased this woman now. He tried not to laugh, thinking of Miss Lavant in her expensive clothes, going up and down the promenade, giving people sweets. But he was unable to keep the laughter back and had to say he was sorry.

  After that he lost track of time again. He noticed that she was on her feet, clearing their pudding plates away, putting them on the tray she always used, a brown tray made of imitation wood. She put the remains of the steamed pudding on it, and the custard. She was still looking grumpy, not smiling, not even trying to smile. Miss Lavant did that sometimes because for all her beauty she had bad teeth. He wondered if Miss Lavant was her sister. They were both small women, neither of them possessed children.

  Timothy sat back in his chair and finished his beer. She’d be back in a few minutes with flowered cups and saucers and a flowered tea-pot, and cake. She’d sit down, trying not to listen to the Commander going on with his rubbish. She’d offer him a piece of McVitie’s fruitcake, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t ask her if Miss Lavant was her sister. It would please her, a question like that. It would please her if he told her a couple of funnies from 1000 Jokes for Kids of All Ages. He laughed and saw the Commander looking across the table at him, laughing himself, a tinny sound as though the man had something wrong with him. ‘Cheers, Commander,’ he said, waving his glass at him. ‘Any more Watney’s Pale, sir?’

  ‘My dear fellow, of course there is. Well played, old chap.’ The Commander rose at speed and crossed to the sideboard, from which he withdrew two further pint bottles. He was feeling sunny, Timothy guessed, because it would annoy her when she came in and found more beer on the table. ‘Forgive my inhospitality,’ the Commander said.

  ‘Ever read books, Commander? Embarrassing Moments by Lucy Lastick?’ He laughed vigorously, wagging his head at the Commander. He could have sat there for ever, he said to himself, telling funnies where they were appreciated. ‘Lucy Lastick,’ he said again. ‘D’you get, sir? Embarrassing Moments by Lucy Lastick? Bloke in a cafe, Commander: “Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?” “Looks like the breast-stroke, sir.” D’you get it, Commander? This bloke in a cafe –’

  ‘Yes, yes, Timothy. Very amusing.’

  ‘This woman goes into the kitchen and says to her kid she should have changed the gold-fish water. “They haven’t drunk the last lot yet!” the kid says. D’you get it, Commander? The kid thinks –’

  ‘I understand, Timothy.’

  ‘D’you know Plant down in the Artilleryman’s Friend, Commander?’

  ‘I don’t know Mr Plant. Well, I mean I know him to see. I’ve seen him out with his dog –’

  ‘I was in the car-park of the Artilleryman’s one night and Plant comes out of the Ladies. Two minutes later this woman comes out. I saw him up to it a few times. D’you get it, Commander?’

  ‘Well, yes –’

  ‘Another time I got up at two a.m. to go to the toilet and there’s Plant in our lounge in his shirt. Paying a visit to my mum, taken short in the middle of it.’ Again he was unable to prevent himself from laughing, thinking of Plant’s wife blowing her top if she ever heard about any of it. A big Welshwoman she was, with a temper like a cat’s. Disgusting Plant had looked, with his legs and his equipment showing.

  She came into the sitting-room and placed a tray of tea things and the McVitie’s fruitcake on the table. He smiled, wagging his head at her.

  ‘It’s green and hairy and goes up and down, Mrs Abigail?’

  She didn’t understand the question. She frowned and shook her head. She was beginning to add that she wondered if Timothy could manage a slice of cake when she noticed the newly opened bottles of beer.

  ‘Gordon ! Are you out of your mind?’

  She couldn’t help herself. She knew it was wrong, she knew it was ridiculous to speak like that when he had opened the two fresh bottles purely in order to upset her. He smiled narrowly beneath his narrow moustache.

  ‘Mind?’ he said.

  ‘He’s had a pint of beer already. And sherry. Gordon, he’s fifteen. No child’s used to it.’

  ‘The boy asked for a little more ale, Edith.’

  Timothy was red-faced, his lips wetly glistening, the upper one speckled with foam. His eyes were stupid-looking.

  ‘A gooseberry in a lift,’ he said.

  ‘I told you not to take the sherry,’ she cried, suddenly shrill.

  He laughed, wagging his head. ‘D’you get it, though? Up and down in a lift. A gooseberry in a lift.’

  She asked him to try and be sensible. He looked absurd, sitting there with his head wagging.

  ‘Bloke in a cafe: “Do you serve crabs?” “Sit down, mister, we serve anyone.” This bloke goes into this cafe, see, and says do they serve crabs –’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Timothy.’

  ‘Ever read books, Mrs Abigail?’

  She didn’t reply. He couldn’t see if she was smiling or not. He couldn’t see
her teeth but she could easily be smiling and not showing her teeth. Her sister hadn’t shown her teeth for an instant, the time she’d given him the choice of her Quality Street. Funny thing, really, a woman handing out sweets on a promenade just because she met someone else. ‘I met the boy,’ Plant had whispered that night when he’d returned to the bedroom, and then a giggling had started even before Plant closed the bedroom door. Plant was the type who was always coming out of toilets, the Ladies in the car-park, anywhere you liked. Another time Rose-Ann and Len had been on the job, on the hearth-rug in the lounge, when he’d walked in after the pictures. They hadn’t turned a hair.

  The room moved slightly. On the other side of the table the Commander slipped about, to the left and then to the right, overlapping himself so that he had more than one pair of eyes and more than one moustache. ‘You’ve gone and got him drunk,’ her voice said, sounding distant, as though she were on the other end of a telephone.

  Feeling that a further drink of beer would settle his vision, Timothy finished what was in his glass. He liked beer very much. Alone in the Youth Centre one afternoon, the first time he’d ever tasted beer, he’d found two bottles which someone had hidden at the back of a cupboard. No beer was permitted on the premises, only Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but often for a special occasion some was smuggled in. He’d taken the two bottles to the Youth Centre lavatory and had drunk the beer they contained, not expecting to like it but drinking it because it didn’t belong to him. He’d left the bottles sitting in the lavatory-pan in the hope that someone would use it before noticing they were there. He’d walked out into a sunny afternoon feeling tip-top. Ever since, he’d drunk what beer he could manage to get hold of.

  He poured more now. He was aware that she was asking him not to. The liquid reached the top of his glass and overflowed on to the tablecloth because when he’d been smiling at her he’d forgotten to stop pouring it.

  ‘Whoa up there, old chap,’ the Commander protested with his tinny laugh.

  ‘Is Miss Lavant your sister, Mrs Abigail?’

  He felt her fingers on his, taking the bottle from his hand. He said it didn’t matter, she could have it if she wanted it, he wouldn’t deprive her of a drink. Her sister was always fashionably dressed on account of the thing with Dr Greenslade. Her sister had no children either, he reminded her, and fashionable though she was she didn’t like to show her teeth.

  The Commander was amused again. He was pointing at his wife with his thumb, only the thumb kept slipping about, like a bunch of thumbs. He was shaking his head and laughing.

  ‘I haven’t a sister,’ she said quietly.

  ‘My dad scarpered, Mrs Abigail.’

  ‘Yes I know, Timothy.’

  ‘He couldn’t stand it, a squawking baby around the place. If they’d taken precautions I wouldn’t be sitting here.’

  He saw her nodding. He smiled across the table at her.

  ‘This woman goes into the kitchen, Mrs Abigail, and the kid’s there with the gold-fish bowl –’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Timothy!’

  She was trying to take the glass away from him, but he didn’t want her to. He held on to it, smiling, with one eye closed in order to see properly. He heard her saying he’d better have some hot tea, but as soon as she released her hold on the glass he lifted it to his mouth and drank some more beer. The Commander was saying something about a young man growing up. She was trying to seize the glass again.

  He began to laugh because it was really funny, the way she would keep pulling at the glass and the way the Commander’s face was sliding all over the place, and the way he himself was dying to go to the bog. His fingers slipped from the glass and some more of the beer got spilt, which caused him to laugh even more.

  ‘I need to go toilet,’ he pointed out, endeavouring to get to his feet and finding it difficult. ‘Toilet,’ he repeated, suddenly recalling the two beer bottles sitting in the lavatory-pan in the Youth Centre.

  ‘Come on then, old chap.’ The Commander was standing beside him, not sitting across the table any more. ‘Steady up, old chap,’ the Commander said.

  Odd as square eggs they were. Standing up or sitting down, it didn’t matter a penny: really funny they were, funnier than the Dasses by two million miles. Ridiculous it was, the woman saying she hadn’t a sister. ‘Charrada,’ he said, up on his feet, with the Commander’s arm supporting him. ‘You’re out with a blonde, Mrs –’

  ‘Manage now, old chap?’ the Commander interrupted. ‘All right on your own, eh?’

  The room was moving again, going down at one end and then coming slowly back again. She was on about giving alcohol to a child. The Commander was saying to have sense.

  ‘We did charades at the Comprehensive,’ he told them because as far as he could remember he hadn’t told them before. ‘Only the Wilkinson woman let the whole thing out of control. They had me done out as Elizabeth the First, jewellery, the lot. I must go to the bog, Commander.’

  He felt better now that he’d got the hang of being on his feet. He crossed the room, opened the door without assistance and closed it behind him. He moved towards the lavatory, resolving that when he’d finished there he’d slip into the sitting-room and have another glass of sherry since she wasn’t keen on his taking any more Watney’s Pale. He whistled in the lavatory, saying to himself that he was as drunk as a cork. He felt really fantastic.

  In the dining-room, meanwhile, there was silence. Mrs Abigail poured two cups of tea and handed one across the table to her husband.

  ‘Dear girl, it’s not my fault if the boy had a drop too much.’

  ‘Then who’s fault is it, Gordon?’ She knew it was as wrong to say that as it had been to ask him if he was out of his mind. Yet she still couldn’t help herself. No one could just sit there.

  ‘The boy asked for it, you know. I told you he asked for it.’

  ‘He asked for it because you’ve given him a taste for it. It’s silly, Gordon. Drinking sherry with a schoolboy, bringing in beer. You never bought beer in your life before, Gordon.’

  ‘No harm in a glass of ale, dear girl. Prince Charles takes a glass, the Duke of Edinburgh –’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, Gordon.’ She spoke in a way that was most unlike her, not caring what she said now because it had all become so silly. ‘And another thing. All that talk about going into a grocer’s shop. What on earth interest d’you think it is to a boy of fifteen?’

  He delighted in her agitation. There was pleasure in a fleeting little smile that came and was quickly banished. He said snappishly:

  ‘It’s of historical interest, for a start. Are you saying it’s wrong for a lad to know the facts about his country?’

  Mrs Abigail did not reply. Two small red spots had developed in her face, high up on either cheek.

  ‘I’ve asked you a question, Edith.’ His head was poked out across the table at her, his shoulders aggressively hunched. ‘I’ve asked you a question,’ he repeated.

  She indicated that she was aware she’d been asked a question. Speaking quietly, she said that in her opinion the fact that there were once chairs in grocers’ shops was hardly of historical interest. In Mock’s in Pretty Street, she pointed out, a chair was still put out for customers but nobody ever sat on it.

  ‘That’s not true.’ His voice was controlled, matching her calmness. ‘I sit on that chair myself.’

  ‘Then what are you on about, Gordon? One minute you’re talking about chairs in grocers’ shops as though they were a thing of the past, the next you’re saying you sit on one yourself when you go into Mock’s. Besides,’ she added quietly, ‘it’s all irrelevant.’

  ‘It’s hardly irrelevant that the country for which men were prepared to give their lives has become a rubbish dump.’

  ‘It’s irrelevant at this moment, Gordon.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake have sense, woman!’

  He was losing his temper, which he loved doing. His eyes flashed, his lips quivered, causing the ginger mou
stache to quiver also.

  ‘That boy’s all part of it,’ he snapped. ‘D’you think he’d be the same, for God’s sake, if he was at Charterhouse or Rugby? Have a titter of sense, Edith.’

  She sighed, vaguely moving her head about, shaking it at first and then nodding it. It was no time for arguing. There was the problem of an inebriated boy, and she was being as silly as anyone, making matters worse by pursuing a pointless disagreement.

  She watched him drinking his tea with victory in the gesture of lifting the cup. The flare of temper had died away; he had inflicted the defeat he had wished to inflict without having to throw a milk-jug at the wall, as he’d had to do once, early on in their marriage. He would be complimenting himself on his restraint: she could even see a reflection of that in his gesture of victory with the teacup. It had often occurred to her that marriage was all defeat and victory, and worked better when women were the defeated ones since men apparently could not bear to be and had no philosophy for that condition.

  ‘What shall we do with Timothy, Gordon?’

  He drew back his lips, displaying a small array of teeth that were appropriately tinged with gingery brown.

  ‘Leave Master Timothy to me,’ he said, his tone of voice confirming what she already knew: that he had created the situation in order to display his prowess by sorting it out, just as he had goaded her into an argument in order to experience the thrill of winning it. She was reflecting upon all that, and at the same time worrying about the condition of the child who was being such a long time in the lavatory, when the door opened and Timothy entered. To her astonishment, he was wearing one of Gordon’s suits.

  ‘My God !’ the Commander murmured.

  He smiled at them, holding on to the back of a chair, swaying a bit. He said he wanted to show them the thing about the charades. He had invented a comic act, he said, which he was going to do at the Easter Fête. He had to dress up as three different brides. He had to dress up as George Joseph Smith as well: he was trying the suit on for size. He’d chosen the dog’s-tooth one because he reckoned it was the kind the man would possess.

  ‘Stringer took us into Tussaud’s, down to the Horror Chamber. Did you ever see Miss Lofty, sir?’