A Pocketful of Rye

by Anthony Masters

  And so they went on—until one or other would make a remark that really hurt. Then there would be tears—and reconciliation. After this had occurred, Alan said:

  “Anyway—you know perfectly well it’s a duty visit—What else could it be? They’re not really—well—my type any more, somehow. They’re so feckless.” He liked the word—its slightly outdated tone pleased him. The word seemed to have a slight superiority of usage. He smiled.

  “They’ll never be really happy—they’re too much on top of each other. Too close for comfort. Even Mother gets a bit weary of it.”

  “So I should think,” returned Nora grimly. “It’s an awful life—a pathetic life they all live, cooped up in that filthy place. Why can’t they do something a bit better—make something of themselves. They’ll never make a go of it, all living together like that.”

  They talked on, well pleased with their reestablished union. Then they began to pack for the despised visit. Together, happily, they continued with their criticism. Soon the kettle sang, and like two old maids they ran his family down over the tea-cups.

  Connie undressed and looked at her figure in the dressing-table glass. Not as bad as she sometimes imagined. Mick came up behind her and pinched one of her breasts. She squealed and laughed up at him.

  “You’ve got a marvellous body,” he said lecherously, and pulled her over to the bed.

  “You’re pissed—you dirty old man,” she told him primly. He covered her face and eyes and whispered in her ear. Connie burst out laughing.

  “We’re too old for this,” she said.

  Mick switched out the light, and giggling like children they got into bed.

  Bunt, similarly disrobed, sadly watched Henry lying in bed, mouth open and snoring. She picked up a book, shaded the light and began to read.

  The old man, baulked of a recitation by an uninterested audience, sadly clipped his toenails. He told himself that he’d got arthritis in the hip, and made a mental note to tell Connie first thing in the morning. Then he got into bed, turned out the light and stared out of the window at the moonlit Thames. He loved lying here and watching it move past. There was a pale sheen on the water and the poplars were dark sentinels behind it. Somewhere on the bank, fishermen with a floodlight waited to dazzle and hypnotise unsuspecting whiting. The sound of their muttered conversation came over the water to him. There was a splash and he saw spreading ripples in the water. Could have been anything—something small and wet—a water rat, maybe. He heard the fishermen curse quietly—obviously it had disturbed them. A white mist appeared on the water, translucent in the moonlight. Two swans glided up the middle of the oily dark stream. He could just make out the shadow of the reeds as the swans swam into their protection. The two merged and there was no more movement, except for the sluggishly flowing stream, caught in strands of pale moonlight. He drowsed—then slept. Before him the Thames flowed into a grey, weeping dawn, and he awoke to spitting rain and a leaden sky.

  Two hundred miles away Alan and Nora drove down the Mi. Nora slept, head cushioned on Alan’s shoulder. The wipers moved hypnotically across the windscreen, and cramped by the pressure of her head he found it difficult to keep awake. He tried to think of the day ahead, but his mind refused to function properly.

  “Damn!” He said it aloud and almost woke Nora. She stirred uneasily but soon settled again. He had forgotten Tommy and Barton. They were so damned scruffy and feckless. Both lived in a state of considerable filth in a ramshackle bungalow adjoining The Grotto.

  They’re probably queers, he thought disgustedly. Then in desperation he remembered their personalities. Tommy was impossible, of course. Although he was a cut above the others, he reminded himself. But why should a graduate, only thirty years old, choose to live there? Why couldn’t he make something of himself? After all, he, Alan, had made something of himself, at least. Without any education, too. A self-made man, he thought. It wasn’t everyone who could work themselves up to Assistant Sales Manager at twenty-eight. Oh yes, he was ambitious all right. Unlike Tommy—well he was just a waster! The curiously dated expression seemed to please Alan, and he smiled grimly. Yes—a real waster was Tommy. His only amusement seemed to be that irritatingly dry, sarcastic sense of humour. As for Barton, well at least he never spoke; just shuffled around in that ridiculous mack with a silly beard on his young, weak chin. Couple of queers, both of them, he thought smugly. Definitely Nora mustn’t meet them. She was too sensitive. He looked at her fondly, her face shadowed in the dashboard light. Then he sighed as he thought of the trials ahead. Oh well—better go and get it over.

  Connie woke up and watched the rain forebodingly. Mick was lying in bed, the hairs on his chest and the stubble making him look like a bloody great rug, Connie thought fondly. Generally speaking he was a little drunk when he made love to her—but it didn’t worry her. He was marvellous in bed—and she smiled as she thought of Bunt. Poor old Bunt, she thought. I wonder what her bloke at Southsea is like in bed. She looked out at the rain-mist over the Thames and sighed. “It could at least have been a nice day for Alan,” she muttered.

  Mick turned over and grunted something. Connie pulled a faded housecoat round her shoulders and went down to make her husband a cup of tea.

  Midday and still no sign of Alan. The rain was beating down and the bar was full.

  Suddenly Alan’s car drew up outside. Connie recognised it at once, and the butterflies in her stomach assaulted her full pelt.

  “Christ—he’s here, Mick!”

  Momentarily Mick looked as frightened as Connie.

  “You go,” he said.

  “No—both of us.”

  “No—” Mick was desperate—“the bar—”

  “Hand it over to Harry.”

  “He can’t do it.”

  “Hand over to Harry, please, Mick—” Connie’s voice rose in a panic.

  “Harry!” shouted Mick.

  “Where is he? the idiot’s disappeared.” Connie was literally hopping up and down in her agitation. Quickly she opened her compact and stared desperately at herself in the powdery mirror.

  “I look a sight,” she groaned, and dabbed ineffectually at her nose.

  “Harry—Harry!” Mick was as agitated as she was now.

  Harry appeared and crossed the room with infuriating lethargy.

  “Quick, Harry. Alan’s here—take the bar,” Mick and Connie screamed at his bewildered face, and Bunt appeared to blandly announce:

  “Con—Alan’s here with his wife.”

  “We know,” they shouted back.

  In the middle of the confusion Alan and Nora came in.

  Alan’s worst fears seemed realised as he opened the door. Immediately he saw his parents, apparently having a violent argument with Bunt and Harry. Dragging Nora behind him and closing the door against the rain, he walked awkwardly across the room. As the others saw him they seemed, to his horror, to gaze at him for what seemed like hours with open mouths. Then everyone spoke at once.

  “Alan—Alan love.”

  “How goes it, Alan?”

  “Well, you old son-of-a-gun.”

  “My, handsome as ever.”

  His mother encircled him and to his embarrassment he was hugged in front of the whole bar. His father seemed to be performing a complicated wardance around him, continually slapping him on the back and emitting short, sharp barks.

  In the background Bunt and Harry gesticulated and grimaced like maniacs. The bar fell silent and Alan felt the stares of at least two dozen interested spectators boring into him. He sensed the back of his neck turning puce and a slow flush creeping over his face. He also knew that the eyes of his un-introduced and ignored wife were threatening and appealing by turns in the background. The situation was growing too much for Alan. Outside, the Thames, already swollen by the summer’s rain, swirled and eddied past, its surface pitted by the relentless rain. The final horror was to come—a dripping, effusive Tommy strode into the bar followed by a silent, untidy Barton. Tommy m
arched up to Nora, who stared at him helplessly.

  “So this is what Alan landed up North,” he said, turning to Barton with a wide smile. Alan’s homecoming was complete.

  It rained solidly for the next three days. Outside, the river threatened to flood, the water having become a muddy torrent. Swathed in trench-coats, Tommy and Barton watched the boiling, swirling motion with a placid detachment. Driftwood and foliage floated past them, and overhead the sky was full.

  “The prodigal son returns,” said Tommy, “bearing gifts.”

  “She thinks we’re queers,” said Barton, and they looked at each other with quiet amusement.

  “She would.” Tommy threw a stick into the water and watched it twist out of sight.

  “Silly cow,” muttered Barton reflectively, and hunched his thin shoulders in the huge coat. Still the rain came down in torrents and the sky was like a grey suffocating blanket, too low for comfort.

  On the third day Nora could stand it no longer, and they had their first major row. Afterwards she had been tearful, and Alan, his temper recovered, became her comforter.

  “I don’t know—it’s all so horrible,” she wept. “First of all this horrible rain, and so many people I could scream. They’re always thronging round you, trying to suffocate you with their idiotic jokes—there’s not a moment’s peace. What with that dreadful Bunt—I mean she’s just a tart, Alan—and that horrible jokester of a husband. He’s not even funny, and he goes on and on and on. I don’t mind your grandfather so much—but he’s so pathetic somehow—always bad-tempered in the day and then tight in the evenings—singing those awful songs and reciting those morbid monologues.” Nora was now in full spate—nothing could stop her. “And that awful pair of queers—always staring and the tall one always making peculiar remarks. As for the other one—I think he’s mental—those ridiculous clothes and he stares too—in the most terrifying way.”

  “And what,” demanded Alan pompously, his temper returning, “have you to say on the subject of my parents?”

  “Well, they’re sweet, Alan, they’re much nicer than the others, but they’re just not my type. They don’t know what on earth to say to me and I haven’t the ghost of an idea what to say to them—They’re just not my type—and I’m not theirs.”

  “We’ll go home tomorrow, darling,” said Alan, and felt tears in the back of his eyes. But whether they were for his mother or Nora or just the whole lot of them he didn’t know.

  “She’s just not our type.”

  Connie and Mick lay in bed discussing the burning issue. Outside, the rain continued. Connie pulled two hairs from Mick’s chest and he grasped both her hands strongly. But she suddenly had no desire to fool around, to make love, to do anything but talk about Alan and Nora.

  “She’s just too bloody stuck-up,” said Mick comfortingly.

  “Yes—but she’s our daughter-in-law. We’ve got to try for Alan’s sake.”

  Mick yawned. “If only this rain would stop pissing down—at least we could get out of each other’s way.”

  The old man lay watching the poplars bend against the rain—the whole landscape seemed to cower against its force. He could see the muddy Thames with its boiling, cluttered surface. He shifted uncomfortably and felt the arthritis twinge in his hip. He must remember to tell Connie tomorrow.

  Bunt put down her novel and listened to the constant tattoo of the rain. She looked across at Harry and smiled—If the water rose to his bedclothes he would still go on sleeping. She crawled into bed beside him as it was warm—and companionable. The warmth enveloped her and she slept.

  At 2 a.m. the river flooded. The muddy turbulence of the water, having ran parallel to the banks, began to spill over. Slowly, quietly it spread over the unkempt lawn of The Grotto and came as far as the loggia. Then swiftly, purposefully, it flowed into the bar, and to the foot of the stairs where it halted. Gentle plops and splashes occurred in the pitch dark of the bar, and the tables gradually floated to the centre of the room.

  Tommy and Barton, in their ramshackle bungalow, climbed on to the beds in the dawn and looked out of the skylight. The water flowed around the room, swiftly coursing the wooden floor and gradually rising. Around them, in the mist, stretched a vast unrippled lake. Smooth, unbroken, it encompassed trees, telegraph poles and haystacks. The poplars stood mournfully above the grey expanse—and there was absolute, complete silence. The rain had stopped and there was no wind. Nothing disturbed the surface, except two swans, who glided majestically up to the loggia of The Grotto and nosed at the door.

  They had a camp breakfast in Connie’s room. The bed had been pushed back and card tables were inadequately being used, strung together. Dolefully they faced each other; the salvaged food and plates gazing dismally up at them. At the head of the oddly-fashioned table sat Connie, grimly determined to make the meal go with a swing. Mick, tired, dishevelled and damp from salvaging downstairs, sat next to her. Bunt and Harry, very much deflated, sat together in oddly similar dressing-gowns. The old man, too ill-tempered to speak, sat hunched in an armchair. Tommy and Barton sat contemplatively munching toast at the other end of the tables. They appeared to be quite amused. On the other side sat Alan and Nora.

  They’re just not my type—not my type at all, worried Nora to herself.

  Oh God, thought Alan, how long are we going to be here—together?

  Connie looked round at them all, and as she did so the sun came out, so suddenly that they were bewildered. From behind a cloud the strong, sure beam travelled over the water, turning it from grey to green in a second. The lake below them glistened, and the horizon turned golden. From below they could hear the slow stirring of the water in the bar, and the bump of the tables as they floated gently in the middle of the room.

  “Well—” Connie addressed them firmly. The inadequacies of the situation and her former forebodings simply served as a challenge to her. “It looks as if we’re going to have to muck in together for a while,” she said.

  They stared back at her.

  Outside, the sun picked out each leaf of the poplar trees, as they gently swayed and bowed in a delicate breeze that crept over the great lake that had been the Thames, and lovingly chased ripple after ripple over its green, winking surface.

  Bless This House

  The house, like a lean grey alley cat, sulked behind a hedge of dusty laurel. Strips of flaking plaster hung from the walls and the curtainless windows gaped dismally over the street. A withered climbing plant groped helplessly at the pitted surface, and along the overgrown path that led to the front door clumps of lavender grew amongst weeds. On the left wing of the house, poking forlornly from the laurel hedge, was an empty shop. The windows were unboarded, and shadowed in their grime was unreadable lettering. Above the windows the name of a long forgotten tailor could just be discerned. There was little sign of habitation, yet smoke curled unwillingly from a chimney-pot and there seemed to be the suggestion of movement behind the leaden hue of the windows. Yet before this impression could be registered a distinct and unyielding perfume drew the passer-by to peer through the shrouds of laurel—at the clumps of lavender that filled the air with a musky delicate tang.

  Next door, a little black-and-yellow stucco-fronted cottage sat contentedly. There was a trim, clean-bordered, begonia-strewn garden with crazy paving that seemed too regular, a black-and-yellow rain barrel and, as a final embellishment, black-and-yellow tubs full of flowering plants. The house was orderly, with lace curtains at the windows. The frontage was neat and the whitened step shone with an iridescent splendour. The house was well cared for, almost doted on, and there was an air of tender fussiness about its over-decorous structure. Bordering the front path were bushes of lavender that exuded an elusive scent that pervaded the atmosphere and seemed to linger in every corner.

  Summer was almost gone and there was a feeling of autumn. The leaves, slowly turning to a russet brown, would soon begin to fall, and already the evenings were becoming shorter. It was a pleasant time�
�an in-between season that was wistful and nostalgic. Gentle winds stirred a few trim hedgerows, and apples rotted under trees that had exhausted their crop months before. As the nights sheered daylight away and the mornings became lighter, the lavender grew more pungent. Its perfume seemed to complete the melancholia of the waning days—stirring hazy summer memories, brushing aside thoughts of the impending winter. It held the passing season captive, compressing for a few precious weeks the recollection of lazy summer days, holding within its musty aroma the gentle swiftly-dying season. Along the roadsides leaves scuttled and scurried their aimless way. The breeze drove their husks along the gutters, rasping fleetingly and finally. A bonfire threw out a corky fragrance and burnt the brittle leaves, their withered stems cracking and bursting in the leaping, growing flame.

  Amelia, raking the dry dusty earth energetically, ran her tongue over the arid roof of her mouth. Her back garden was as trim as the front, with a square of cool lawn and mathematically precise flower-beds. The rows of sweet-peas, and further down the carefully tended runner beans, seemed to exude the delicacy of Amelia’s interest in her garden. The miniature greenhouse, with its rows of seed boxes, and the newly painted garden shed conveyed a nicety of detail that seemed to wear Amelia well.

  Amidst her surroundings she was a contented woman. This was the world that she loved and believed in. Unlike her contemporaries the word ‘spinster’ spelt no horrors. She had never been in love, and as she did not know or understand the feeling, she had never wanted it or knew what it would be like to miss it. In fact, she even admitted to being typical, and if her lot in life was to be a typical spinster, then she welcomed it.

  Amelia had nursed an aged, bedridden and complaining Mother until she was thirty-five. She had neither been annoyed nor depressed by her existence. Her Mother, at her worst or perhaps best moments, had repeatedly told her that she would end up an ‘old maid’ if she were not careful, and that it would be better to leave her now rather than meet this fate. But Amelia had never left her Mother and the old woman eventually died, noisily bemoaning her fate. She said that she had no wish to die and neither was she prepared to do so quietly. At the last, under Amelia’s quiet eye, Mother had sat up in bed and noisily demanded a pair of heavy French candlesticks that they had sold years ago. She then died.