Love in Our Time

by Norman Collins

“O.K.,” said Gerald.

  It was now nearly seven; there was a lot of time to kill until nine o’clock.

  He had a feeling that he was just hanging about till nine waiting for the worst to happen. He felt that what he wanted more than anything else was to have someone to talk to.

  The idea of going round to Celia came to him quite suddenly. He remembered in the old days whenever he had been depressed about anything there was no one who could take him out of himself quicker than Celia. Besides, he wanted to explain about last time; he wanted to show her that there wasn’t anything else that he could have done.

  When she answered the phone she sounded rather surprised to hear from him. But when she heard that he wanted to see her she became friendly again at once.

  “Right-o,” she said. “Come straight along. I’m all alone. Bring some cigarettes in with you.”

  There was a milk bottle outside Celia’s flat when he got there; it gave a curious effect, as if either somebody hadn’t got up yet or had just gone to bed. There was a kind of incongruous sloppiness about it. And, now that he came to notice it, the whole place looked sloppy. Even the paintwork of the front door was scarred as if generations of previous tenants had opened it with their feet instead of with their hands. Indeed, as Gerald stood there on the narrow landing he suddenly felt sorry for Celia; he had always imagined that she would do better for herself than this. After Boleyn Avenue with its Tudor timberings, a top flat in Woburn Gardens seemed something less than luxury.

  He forgot all about the imperfections, however, as soon as he went inside. There was something about the flat with its little shaded lamps and its divan and its cushions that made it a comfortable corner in an uncomfortable world.

  And Celia herself seemed so angelically aloof from what was outside; she looked like a piece of Bond Street in the wrong part of Bloomsbury.

  They went into the room arm in arm. It was one of the best things about Celia, the way she was able to take up a friendship at the point at which it had broken off. There might have been no Alice in his life, and no Tony in hers, from the way they were behaving.

  “What’s on your mind?” she asked after she had given him a drink and they had both lit cigarettes. “What’s biting you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m all right.”

  “You look it,” she replied.

  There was a pause and then Gerald revived the conversation.

  “How are things with you?” he asked.

  “Oh, about the same, you know. Pretty lousy.”

  “Found a job yet?”

  “I’m not looking.”

  Gerald made no attempt to reply this time. He sipped his drink—it was a kind of half-warm Manhattan—drumming idly with his fingers on the cover of a book. For the moment he forgot all about Celia and, leaning his head back against the cushions, found himself wondering if his father had been frightened when they came to wheel him in the direction of the operating theatre. He suspected somehow that he had been; very frightened, in fact.

  Celia slid her arm round him.

  “You might as well tell me,” she said.

  He put his hand on hers and held it there. “It’s nothing really,” he said. “It’s just that I’m a bit worried.”

  “What about?”

  “Oh, just things,” he said. There was a pause, during which Celia went on quietly smoking as though he hadn’t said anything, and then he continued. “It’s my old man,” he blurted out. “He’s in hospital. He’s just been operated on.”

  “Your old man?” Celia asked. “You never told me you had one.”

  “We didn’t see much of each other,” he explained. “I cleared out.”

  “So did I,” Celia told him. “I know just how you feel.”

  “I’ve got to get back to the hospital at nine. He’ll be round by then.”

  “I won’t keep you,” Celia promised. “You go whenever you think you ought to.”

  “You’re a good sport, Celia.”

  “Am I?”

  He put his arm round her shoulders and kissed her. It was a simple, straightforward kind of kiss; he was still thinking of his father all the time. Then he lit himself another cigarette and sat there without speaking.

  “You’re awful to-night,” Celia said at last. “Your old man has got you down.”

  “I guess he has,” Gerald agreed.

  “Sure there isn’t anything else?”

  Gerald shook his head.

  “Everything all right with Alice?”

  “Oh, good Lord. Yes, we’re all right.”

  “Then what’s wrong with you?”

  “She’s going to have a baby,” he said. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  “When’s she going to have it?” Celia asked.

  “Oh, not for a long time yet. She’s only just known.”

  “Well, she can see about it, can’t she?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why’s she got to have it, if she doesn’t want it?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t be the first one,” said Celia.

  Gerald said nothing. He sat with his hands on his knees, staring into the red glow of the gas fire. One of the bars was broken and a mushroom of blue flame danced about on top of it.

  “Is it dangerous?” he asked at last.

  “Is what dangerous?”

  “You know—fixing up so as not to have a baby?”

  “Depends on who you go to.”

  Gerald turned to her. “What does it cost?” he asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “About a fiver,” she said. “You can get it done for less.”

  There was another pause. Gerald didn’t move. He was still staring at the maddening little cone of gas that bubbled up and down on the broken burner.

  “Do you know the name of anyone?” he asked.

  Celia thought for a moment.

  “Dr. da Leppo’s all right,” she said.

  “Has he done it before?”

  “It’s his living. He could do it with his eyes shut.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Mornington Crescent way. I’ll give you the address in case you want it.”

  She got a piece of paper and wrote it down for him.

  “It’s a funny thing,” she said, “you marrying a girl who doesn’t know how to take care of herself.”

  “Alice is all right,” he said. He felt a stubborn desire to defend her.

  “Of course, she’s all right,” Celia answered him. “She’s a nice girl. But she just doesn’t know how to take care of herself.”

  “She hasn’t had to. That’s why she doesn’t.”

  “I know. That’s just the trouble. She’s been one of the protected ones.”

  She got up and poured him out another drink. “Have this,” she said. “I’ll mix you some more later.” Then she crossed over and turned the light out. “I hate a glare,” she said. “Gets in your eyes.” She sat down beside him on the couch again and took hold of his hand. “You’re a nice boy,” she said. “You oughtn’t to go getting yourself all worked up about nothing.”

  “It isn’t nothing,” he said, “having a kid if you can’t afford it.”

  “Well, plenty of people have got themselves in worse jams. After all, you’re married.” She put her head down on his shoulder. “I often wish it had been us,” she said.

  They sat like that for about half an hour, sometimes talking but more often than not quite silent. It seemed to Gerald the first peaceful period he had for weeks. Then he looked at his watch. It showed eight forty-five.

  “I’ve got to be going,” he said.

  Celia seemed surprised.

  “You’re a cool one,” she said.

  “Sorry,” Gerald answered. “It’s the hospital. I’ve got to be back there at nine.”

  “Well, you know best,” she said. “Only I don’t seem to have seen anything of you.”

 
She put up her face to be kissed again, but the phone rang. She leant back and took up the instrument. It was concealed under a dummy doll with a wide crinoline.

  “Hallo!” Then her voice changed. “I thought it’d be you,” she said. “Are you coming along? … Oh, you’ve got a date, have you? … What’s that? … Of course I’m alone. I’m always alone. Who did you think I’d got here, Valentino?” She began tapping with her foot as if she were impatient about something. “Not that I know of,” she said. “I’m not expecting anybody. We’ll be quite alone.”

  She was frowning as she put the phone back again.

  “It’s just as well you’re going,” she said. “It’s Tony. He’s coming along later on. He’s crazy or something. Never trusts me out of his sight for a moment.”

  Gerald got up and began straightening his tie. He took out a small pocket comb and went over to Celia’s dressing mirror.

  “I’m glad you were in,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Then he went over and kissed her. She put her arms round him for a moment. But, when she saw that he really wanted to go, she didn’t attempt to keep him.

  “Come up some other time,” she said.

  She started to go round the flat tidying things up, throwing away the cigarette ends and removing the glasses.

  “O.K.,” he said.

  He walked back through twisted streets of dwindling respectability, towards the Gray’s Inn Road. As soon as his father was better, he told himself, he would have to give up seeing Celia like this. The whole trouble was that she was too damn fond of him; it wasn’t fair to Alice to risk going on with it.

  And when he came to the gleaming, steel tram lines, he paused. Groping about in his pocket he found the piece of paper with Dr. da Leppo’s address on it. With a feeling of sudden relief he tore it into little pieces and threw the bits in the gutter; that sort of thing didn’t belong in Boleyn Avenue at all.

  They let him go straight into the ward when he got there: it was like treading on sleep. There was a strange muffled feeling about the place. The only noise was the sound of breathing, the hushed melancholy sound of rows of sleepers.

  But there was quite a crowd round his father’s bed. The tops of their heads showed over the screen and he could hear voices. There was a doctor among them. Evidently Mr. Sneyd had just come round and they were talking to him. When the Night Sister saw Gerald she came forward hurriedly.

  She looked flushed and agitated.

  “You’re just in time,” she said. “He’s had another relapse. He’s passing.”

  Gerald felt his heart give a sudden leap at the words. But somehow he didn’t believe them. His father couldn’t be dying. He would have to die some time, of course; but not now. Gerald wasn’t ready for it. The old man was going to get better and go back to the Bon Marché again; they were keeping his job open for him. There wasn’t any sense in keeping a job open for a dying man.

  He knew as soon as he saw him, however, that the Night Sister was right. And his father knew it, too. He was conscious now, quite conscious.

  “He’s been asking for you,” the Night Sister said. “We told him you were coming.”

  Gerald took hold of Mr. Sneyd’s hand. It was cold and limp; under his grasp the bones seemed to be rubbing together beneath the skin. When he let go again it remained as it fell. Only the other hand showed any strength in it. The fingers were plucking restlessly at the sheet as though trying to unpick it. And there had been a great change in his father during the last two or three hours. All the puffiness in his face had gone. The blood seemed to have flowed away from it and the skin had fallen in. Taken at a glance, it was a peaceful face: the lines on it had gone. But so had the life. It was simply a dead, celluloid face, with a pair of human eyes set deep in it.

  “Hallo, Dad,” he said.

  Mr. Sneyd’s face kept twitching as though a fly were walking over it. Then his lips began to move.

  “He’s trying to say something,” the Night Sister remarked.

  Gerald bent closer—he could feel the thin breath on his cheek—but no words came.

  “He’ll get it out if we give him time,” the Night Sister observed.

  The doctor took Mr. Sneyd’s pulse and replaced the hand under the bedclothes. He and the Night Sister exchanged glances.

  “You can sit with him for a bit,” the doctor said. “I shall be on this floor if I’m wanted.”

  They had a last look at Mr. Sneyd and moved off, leaving Gerald and his father together. The ward seemed to grow quieter as they went, quieter and larger. Gerald felt lonely. The others were simply doing their work. They were used to this kind of thing; but it was new to him. Behind this quiet screen in the long, sleeping ward, a battle royal was raging. It was a battle to the finish—with all the odds on one side; he knew that. It meant just sitting there until there was no point in going on sitting there any longer. And because of that he was frightened. It was strangely terrifying to sit there like this waiting for death to come along and strike within a few inches of him, leaving him alive in the chair, and knocking off the older man in the bed.

  He realised that his father was again trying to say something. And this time he got the words out. He gave his little message quite clearly and unmistakably.

  “Take care of Mum and the kids,” he said. “Don’t let ’em miss me.”

  He looked once at Gerald to see that he had understood, and then closed his eyes.

  The Night Sister came back twice and felt Mr. Sneyd’s pulse.

  She smiled at Gerald in an understanding way that he disliked.

  “He’s asleep now,” she said.

  The ward seemed to grow even quieter till Gerald felt that he was the only thing awake in the world. The bedclothes rose and fell almost imperceptibly upon Mr. Sneyd’s chest. He seemed to have reached a stage where all the living that he wanted to do could be done without much effort. The only signs of life were the fingers of the right hand that still twitched even in his sleep; and occasionally the jaw moved.

  “Don’t let him die,” he kept saying to himself. “Don’t let him die and I won’t ever see Celia again. Don’t let him die and he can stay with us until he gets better.”

  In the silence of the ward his mind began to drift backwards as well as forwards. He saw little flashes of things that had happened long ago when he was a boy—going fishing with his father in Corporation Park; being taken on the cross-bar of his father’s bicycle to see a cricket match in a village five miles away; simply walking beside his father on the way to church. But always it was the same. His father was there all the time. No matter what happened he and the sick man on the bed beside him were tied up and entangled in an everlasting mesh of experience.

  He heard a noise behind him and turned. There was a hand protruding round the edge of the screen. It was a plump, prosperous-looking hand, with the first two fingers raised in a salute—the Mariner’s Salute. A moment later the rest of Mr. Biddle emerged. His face was brimming with encouragement; warm waves of sympathy ran over it. Then Gerald noticed Mr. Biddle’s expression as he looked towards the bed.

  He took a quick look at his father himself. The right hand had stopped picking at the sheet edge and the lower jaw was no longer moving. His eyes were open now, and stared up at the ceiling with a foolish, surprised expression.

  At the end of the bed Mr. Biddle was still standing with his hand raised in the Mariner’s Salute. Then he caught Gerald’s eye. Rather self-consciously he lowered his arm.

  Up the ward the Night Sister was coming.

  Mr. Biddle insisted on going back with Gerald; he even took his arm as they walked down to the tram. And on the long ride from Tottenham Court Road he was unremittingly comforting. At intervals he would lean across and whisper advice about keeping your pecker up and how it had to happen sooner or later to everyone. But in between there were periods of something deeper, when he would relapse into long, moody silences. He kept shaking his head and swallowing. It was
as though in his chosen role of comforter he might himself at any moment break down and give way to tears.

  When they reached Boleyn Avenue he could hardly get the words out.

  “Allus … Allus’ll be a comfort to you,” he said.

  Gerald nodded.

  “You’ve got each other,” Mr. Biddle went on.

  He nodded again.

  “Shall I break it to her or will you?” Mr. Biddle asked.

  “She’ll probably be asleep, anyhow,” said Gerald.

  “I’ll tell her in the morning.”

  But Alice was not asleep. She wasn’t even undressed. When they came in she was sitting in front of the fire looking at a magazine. She seemed surprised to see her father.

  “Gerald’s got something to tell you, dear,” Mr. Biddle said in a low, unnatural sort of voice. “I know you’re going to take it bravely.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “It isn’t—?”

  “Yes, it is,” Gerald said. “He had a relapse. It killed him.”

  “Oh, Gerald, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She came over and put her arm round him.

  “I was worried when you weren’t here when I got back,” she said. “I’ve been out myself. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known.”

  “Been out?” he said.

  “Yes, I went out with Tony. He came round to take me to the Dogs. You remember he promised me he would.”

  “You went out with Tony?”

  “Yes; we went to Harringay. He asked if I thought you’d mind. … ”

  But Gerald wasn’t listening. He had thrown back his head and was laughing.

  “Of all the bloody funny things,” he said. “To think that you were out with Tony to-night.”

  Mr. Biddle crossed over and laid his hand on Gerald’s shoulder.

  “Steady, old boy,” he said. He turned to Alice. “It’s the shock,” he said quietly. “It’s upset him a bit.”

  Chapter Ten

  The second Mrs. Sneyd arrived at Euston on the two-fifteen.

  Gerald was there to meet her. He saw her at once. On the long expanse of platform—the train was comparatively empty; it was only on excursion days that Tadford came to London in any numbers—she was as conspicuous as a nun on a cricket field. It was her clothes of course that gave her away. Since the event she had done some frenzied spending and was now dressed in black from head to foot.