Jack sniffed and said with fake despondency. ‘Ah well, it looks like I’ll have to sup all that ale on my own.’
Before he could make a start on this proposal, a knock came at the front door. Russ, averse to leaving Jack sitting here in case Rachel came down and found him, dithered on the threshold. The knocker sounded again.
Daw made an exaggerated oath. ‘I won’t pinch anything, you know!’
‘I never said you would.’ Yet Russ made it obvious he was none too happy on leaving Jack unattended.
But when he returned he was smiling broadly.
‘Good value, was it?’ enquired Jack. At the other’s quizzing look he added, ‘Well, you went out looking like a professional mourner and came back grinning like a Cheshire cat. I thought Half-price Hilda must’ve done a quick turn on the doormat.’
‘Mrs Haines’ mother’s dead.’ Russ twanged on a brace.
‘I’m sure that’ll make the whole street smile.’
‘Rachel’s millinery services are required urgently.’
‘What – for the corpse?’
‘Dozy bugger, shut up and go wait at the end o’ the street. I won’t be long.’ Russ, in lighter mood now, succeeded in shoving the other from the room.
The latch of the gate had just settled when Rachel came back. One step inside the room, she stopped dead. ‘You’ve had somebody in here!’
‘Sorry, love?’ Russ glanced up nonchalantly from the paper he had snatched before her entry.
She marched up to the sofa, pointed at the crumpled cushion and shook it briskly, replacing it in orderly fashion, at the same time touching her palm to the upholstery. ‘This seat’s still warm! Come on, who was it? I hope you haven’t had that Jackie Daw in my kitchen? Honestly, I could slave for a year and it would only take one blink from that ragamuffin to make the entire place look like a tip.’ Not satisfied with the cushion, she shook it and plumped it again.
‘Somebody called with a message from Mrs Haines,’ said Russ hurriedly. ‘Something about you making her a hat for her mother’s funeral. It’s the day after tomorrow so apparently there’s not much time.’
Rachel planted her hands on her hips. ‘Oh, the inconvenient times people choose to die! You’d think Mrs Haines would have a black hat somewhere, wouldn’t you? Everyone has a black hat. But no, she expects me to put myself out…’
‘I did say we were going out tonight,’ said Russ apprehensively, then breathed an inward sigh of relief as his wife replied:
‘Aw, Russ, I’m sorry to disappoint you! But I’ll have to go.’ She came to him, stroking his arm in sympathy. ‘That’s the trouble with being an expert at something, people are forever calling on your talents as if you don’t deserve a life of your own.’ After a tut she added, ‘Still, it’s all money in the bank, isn’t it? We’ll pretty soon have that shop of ours. Well… what will you do now?’
He shrugged plaintively. ‘There’s not much point in going out on my own.’
‘Now, I don’t want you moping at home on my account. Besides, if Robert cries you wouldn’t know which end is which. I’ll pop into Mrs Parker’s and ask her to step in for an hour while you go for your walk. Then when we both get back we’ll have a chat and a cuddle and you can tell me all about what you’ve been doing while you’ve been away.’
The image of his illicit affair made his skin creep, but he managed not to display the guilt on his face. ‘Aye well… I might just have a short wander, then.’ He tried not to sound eager, and waited for the door to slam before donning a wide grin and a coat.
Daw, lounging against the wall in the back lane, saw Rachel’s silhouette bob past the entrance and wandered out to watch her bounce smartly down the street. She moved just like Russ – shoulders back, left, right, left, right, face ever smiling. Ella always had a chuckle whenever she saw the married couple out together and would say, ‘There they are on parade again’. He wondered what would happen to that permanent smile of Rachel’s if she knew what her husband had been doing in Africa. Russ crept round the corner then, interrupting his thoughts. Fifteen minutes later the two were entering The Trafalgar Bay.
Few words were exchanged while the pints were being pulled, both men’s eyes fixed to the landlord’s hand at the pump. It was not until a good half had been consumed that Russ said, ‘Eh, I haven’t told you about my lad, have I? By, he’s a right cracker – screamed the place down when he saw me, mindst, but eh! he’s really grand. Big as well.’
‘Aye?’ Jack had guessed from the way Russ perched forward on the edge of his stool that this was going to be a long homily if anyone showed the slightest interest. Well, that wasn’t going to be him. He wiped the froth from his moustache and lit a cigarette.
‘Aye! You’ll have to come and see him – when she’s out of the way, o’ course.’ Russell’s face brimmed with paternity.
Daw nodded, but seemed more interested in a game of darts that was being played. Russ felt a pang of affront, then, recognizing his own tactlessness, settled back to his seat and was thoughtful. It hadn’t been very diplomatic of him to waffle on about his son when Jack and Ella were having the same problem that he and his own wife had once had. He sought to appease. ‘You never know, Jack, you might have your own lad to brag about next year.’ Daw shook his head dismissively and took another drink. ‘It’s never too late, you know. Look at me and Rachel, we’d almost given up after five years. I think it was the shock of both our mams and dads dying within such a short time of one another that altered things – must’ve jolted Rachel’s works or something.’
‘I should send your findings to The Lancet,’ was Jack’s dry utterance. ‘I’m sure the medical profession would be impressed with your novel solution to sterility.’
Russ clicked his tongue. ‘I’m just sayin’ that’s what seemed to sort out our problem, that’s all.’
‘Some people take powdered rhino horn, some take minced-up bats, Filbert advocates disposing of one’s respected elders. I’m sure my mother’ll be delighted when I tell her she’s going to be a granny… before plunging the knife in her ribs.’
Russ sighed. ‘I was only trying to offer my assistance.’
‘Father of two and he thinks he qualifies as a stud.’
‘Father of one, Jack,’ growled an alarmed Russ. ‘Father of one.’
Daw turned to look him in the eye, but said nothing. Neither did Russ for a while. He called Daw his friend and knew that Jack would address him likewise, but a friend was someone you liked, someone in whom you could confide – neither was pertinent to this relationship. Why, then, did it continue? Russ couldn’t say. It was possibly because the two had grown so used to being together as boys that the partnership had just automatically extended to adulthood. Everyone else regarded the pair as close friends, but it was more a case of them enduring each other than actual liking. In fact, Russ found Jack’s holier than thou attitude very irksome – though in the present clime it could well be advantageous; sanctimony would forbid Jack to break his secret… or so Russ could only hope. One never quite knew with Jack. He might just drop one of his sarcastic hints and spawn mayhem. With Jack there was never that safe feeling one experienced with true friends. Both sat watching the darts thud into the board until, after a space of three minutes, Jack announced, ‘Anyway, I’m buying her a dog.’ This drew a blank look from Russ. ‘You know, a dog.’ Jack stuck his tongue out and panted. ‘One o’ them things that barks and pisses up the rhubarb.’
‘Oh… very nice,’ answered Russ, then reached for a cigarette to cover the smell of Jack’s breath.
‘It’ll be company for her while I’m away.’
‘Aye… it will be.’ Russ ignited the cigarette and took a long drag. ‘You’ll be signing on for another spell will you, Jack?’ Daw, too, was nearing the end of his present term.
A nod. ‘You?’
‘No, a bit keen for my liking. I wasn’t expecting that little lot we’ve just been in.’
‘Funny, I always thought that’s
what armies were meant to do – fight. So what’re you going to do instead, then?’
Russ was a time in answering. Whenever he had spoken to Jack of his intentions in the past his so-called friend had always beaten him to it, then made out it had been his idea and that Russ was the one who was copying. Whatever it was, however trivial it might seem to others, it never ceased to infuriate Russ. Right from their school days it had been the same: Jack would say, ‘What’re you going to draw?’ and Russ would answer, ‘An elephant fighting with a giraffe’ or something equally unusual, and the instant he said it Jack would start scribbling away and sure enough the picture he presented for the teacher’s inspection – seconds before Russ – was of an elephant fighting with a giraffe. The teacher would say, ‘Most original, Daw,’ and give him a star and pin his picture on the wall for all to envy, whilst Russ would receive only a look of rebuke for his lack of imagination.
If he had refused to divulge what he was going to draw or crouched over his paper with his arm curled round like a protective fence, then Jack would go into a sulk for days and Russ would be at the mercy of the playground bully from whom the tougher Daw normally protected him. When Jack had asked, ‘What’re you going to be when you leave school?’ and Russ had answered rashly, ‘I’m going to be apprenticed to Mr Sanderson the joiner,’ sure enough, Jack was there before him and Russ had been forced to make do with the job at the drapery.
When Russ had married, so had Jack. Russ doubted that his pal had ever done anything of his own volition. It had been more or less the same in the Army: Russ had told his friend he was thinking of joining up and had found himself on parade with Daw. It seemed that Jack had got himself dismissed from his trade – accidentally or on purpose, Russ never knew, only that here he was stuck with Jack again. On a par with all their other undertakings it was Daw who gained first promotion. At least in this instance it had been well deserved, for Daw was the better soldier – but that hadn’t made it any less annoying. And then when Rachel decided that she wasn’t going to live in the barracks among all those rough soldiers’ wives and had hankered after one of the modern houses being built on South Bank, who should he find as a neighbour? It was unbelievable, the lengths to which Daw would go to emulate.
Now, in response to Jack’s question as to what he would do when discharged from the Army, he hedged. ‘I haven’t really decided.’
Jack was not to be duped. ‘You always know exactly what you’re going to do, have it all mapped out before you make your move. That’s what I admire about you.’
This was obviously a revelation to the other. ‘Do you?’
‘Aye… it’s the only bloody thing, mind.’ Jack took a drag of the newly lit cigarette and tossed the match on the floor. There was no doubting his gist.
Russ felt compelled to say, ‘Look Jack, I know you regard what I did over there as cheating…’
‘Is there any other word for it?’
‘No… no, you’re right… but I’d like to think I’m going to be allowed to make amends without…’
‘Without living in fear of me shopping you,’ finished Jack.
‘Will you?’ Russ tried not to make it sound as if he were begging.
‘If, by some improbable chance, I’d been the one to go astray, would you rat on me?’
‘No, of cour—’
‘Then what’re you worrying about?’ This was all the reassurance Russ was going to get. ‘Now come on, about leaving the Army, what’ve you got tucked under your wig?’
‘Well, it’s nothing really definite…’ At Daw’s expression the reluctant corporal disclosed his plan. ‘Me and Rachel are going to buy ourselves a business.’
‘Be a shopkeeper?’ Jack sounded slightly amazed.
‘What’s wrong with that? Better than being shot up the arse.’
‘I suppose so.’ Daw was thoughtful. ‘Rachel’s idea, was it?’
‘Eh, I can make my own decisions, you know,’ retorted the other acidly.
‘Getaway! She’s always been after you leaving the Army.’
Russ performed a gesture of acceptance. ‘So, how long will you be staying with the Colours, then?’
A shrug. ‘Till I make General.’
‘General shit-shoveller.’ Russ took Daw’s glass and his own to be refilled, asking on his return, ‘When you do pack it in, what might you do for a living?’
‘I haven’t given that much thought.’
No, you want to pinch my bloody ideas, thought Russ, angry at himself for being talked into divulging his own scheme. He fully expected Jack to be out of uniform by the end of the year, despite the man’s statement to the contrary.
The barmaid came round to empty the ashtrays and wipe the tables. ‘Eh, we don’t put these here for ornament, you know.’ She flourished one of the ignored beermats, lifted Russ’ glass and wiped the wet ring from the wood.
‘Sorry, my darling.’ Russ, as was his penchant, gently cupped her bottom.
‘I’ll give you my darling! And get your hand off my bum.’
‘It’s clean,’ he told her. ‘Feel.’
She swiped at him. ‘Save your sauce for your chops.’ And to Daw, ‘Can’t you keep him under control?’
Jack tossed his partner a disdainful glance. ‘It’s with being out in Africa – he’s like a wild animal.’
‘Well, you know what they do to animals,’ riposted the girl.
* * *
When he arrived home, Rachel was cutting out a pattern in the front parlour. Hearing the door, she called, ‘Is that you, Russ?’
‘No, it’s Nimble Nip and his elephant.’ He hung up his hat and wandered grinning to the doorway, not wanting to go too close for fear of betraying where he had been. ‘What’re you doing?’ This room reeked of lavender polish. Choose any piece of furniture – oval mahogany table, elaborate sideboard with marquetry flowers on the doors, piano – one could see one’s face in it. Around the dining table were grouped eight Hepplewhite reproduction chairs with red moquette seats. These matched the two armchairs, one on either side of the fireplace. There was a sofa in here too, and in the bay of the window stood Rachel’s sewing machine. Over the fireplace was a large mirror. The other walls held family photographs, two landscapes and Russ and Rachel’s wedding portrait.
Rachel’s speech was handicapped by a mouthful of pins. ‘I thought I’d get Mrs Haines’ hat cut out before bedtime. Did you have a pleasant walk?’
‘Aye, very bracing.’
‘But I doubt very straight,’ she said wryly, and at his frown, ‘You shouldn’t’ve bothered with the peppermints, Russell, they don’t cover it, you know. Scoundrel! No wonder you didn’t want me to come with you. You’ve been with that Jackie Daw.’
‘Never had a whiff of him,’ came the firm reply.
Her brown eyes upbraided him. ‘I’ve just had Ella round – seems we were both deserted. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!’
He hung there like a chastened infant, until she grinned forgivingly and, sticking in her final pin, said, ‘Oh I’m only kidding! It is your first night home, I wouldn’t begrudge you a bit of relief – but don’t think you’re sloping off every night. I’ve been without you for fifteen months, I expect some attention, you know.’ She took the completed effort and laid it on top of her sewing basket, along with scissors and pins, then picked up a lamp. ‘Come on, I’ll make us some cocoa before we go up.’
Once this was made, Rachel joined him on the sofa in the kitchen. ‘Oh, it is nice to have you back, Russ.’ She cuddled up to him.
He returned the fond gesture, rubbing his head to hers. ‘It’s lovely to be back. An’ I’m sorry again about… you know, Nancy and that.’
‘Oh, please! Don’t mention that woman’s name to me.’ Rachel snatched a sip of her cocoa. ‘She’s left me everything to see to on my own.’
‘You’ll have to hire someone else.’ He raised his own cup.
She was dubious. ‘I don’t know about that. If you’re going to be home a lot
more often… the girls of today can’t be trusted.’
‘Not all of them can find me fatally attractive – I mean, I know I’m gorgeous but there must be one who…’ He ducked his head laughingly as she tapped him.
She told him they would see. ‘Now less about that! I want to hear what you’ve been doing since last I saw you.’
‘Well, only what I told you in my letters.’ Russ hid his face in the cup.
‘You’re not exactly the world’s greatest letter-writer, are you? I mean, what were these Boer people like?’ She ceased leaning on him and tugged the creases from her skirt, sitting primly.
He rested his cup on a knee. ‘Oh, you know, they had two eyes, a nose…’ He laughed again. ‘Well, they were a tough lot, I can tell you, Rache.’ Russ soon found himself slipping back into the dust of the veld. ‘Half the time you couldn’t see what you were firing at and their weapons were a lot more advanced than ours, massacred a lot of our brave lads…’ The heat of the cup seeped through his trousers and he shifted its location. ‘And it wasn’t all done on a gentlemanly basis either. I saw some dreadful injuries from dum-dum bullets.’ Rachel interrupted to ask what these were. He demonstrated with his fingers on the cup. ‘You make a couple of cuts on the nose of the bullet like this, so’s when it hits somebody it spreads out inside them and causes massive internal damage. I saw one poor chap hit in the side of the head, it took the best part of his face off.’
‘Oh, that’s dreadful – Russ, d’you think those curtains would match better if they were beige?’
Puzzlement drew him from his trance. ‘What?’
She was staring intently at the window. ‘Those curtains, d’you think they’d go better with this sofa if they were beige? I bought the material thinking it was a bargain but I’m not sure that shade of green goes well with brown. What d’you think?’
‘I think… they look fine to me.’ That was obviously the end of their meaningful tete-a-tete. He loved Rachel but oh, he did sometimes wish she had more inclination towards serious debate.
My Father, My Son Page 4
