by John Harris
“Don’t know what I’m going to do about that licence if Ma pops off,” she complained. “Them magistrates’ll think I can’t run a pub if I can’t keep a barman. People take advantage of me proper because I’m only a girl.” She sniffed loudly. “Don’t dash off, Jess. Stay and have a bit of supper with me and a drink. I’m feeling a bit low.”
There was a huge fire in the back kitchen when we went there after we’d locked the doors and hung the glass-clothes over the pumps to dry.
“Cold outside,” Minnie said, putting more coal on the fire. “We might as well be cosy.”
“People are a worry to me,” she said as she sat back on the settee beside me. “You seem to be the only person I can trust, Jess. Give us a kiss.”
As I released her she stretched luxuriously and pushed the cat to the floor.
“Hop it, you,” she said. “There isn’t room for three of us on here.” She turned and eyed me sleepily. “Get us another gin, Jess, love.”
She leaned against me as she sipped the drink, then slid an arm round my neck. “Give us another kiss, Jess,” she said in her hearty manner. “A real one, this time.”
My embrace was fierce and passionate, and Minnie eventually pushed me away, laughing.
“You are a one, aren’t you!” she giggled. “Gawd, it’s gone warm in here all of a sudden. It’s you, Jess, making a girl’s blood boil.” She looked sideways at me and began to fiddle with her beads.
“I’m goin’ to undo me frock a bit,” she said archly. “That’s the worst of being fleshy like me. I get so hot.”
She unbuttoned her dress at the throat and leaned back languorously on the sofa, eyeing me under veiled lids.
“’Smatter, Jess?” she asked innocently. “You findin’ it hot, too?”
All I could see was a white throat and the curve of white, swelling breasts, and a suggestion of satin that only partly hid the shadow between them.
“Minnie,” I said, leaning towards her. My lips were suddenly stiff.
She put her arms round me and drew me towards her, strongly, passionately, and kissed me with a warm, moist mouth. Then she pushed me away again, abruptly, roughly, almost as though she’d no time for me.
“It’s no good, Jess,” she said. “I’ll have to have these damn’ corsets off.”
She rose and moved towards the stairs. As the door closed behind her I heard a bump and a cry, and, darting after her, I found her holding her ankle.
“Oh, blast it!” she wailed. “Everything’s going wrong. I’ve twisted me ankle now, Jess. Help me upstairs. You’re broadminded. You won’t mind being in a lady’s bedroom.”
My arm round her, we began to stumble up the stairs and I sensed I was being caught by the oldest trick in the world. But my common sense was fogged by the desire in me.
She turned to me, managing a pathetic smile, though her brain must have been ice-cold and clear. I was a nice enough lad, she was thinking, I’ll bet, and she might even grow to like me. Not as exciting as Pat Fee. He’d that look in his eyes that made a girl feel he was undressing her. I’d seen it often, and Minnie liked that kind of look.
“You go and sit down, Jess,” she said. “It’s not as bad as I thought.” But she leaned a little more heavily on me, so that her breast pressed softly on the back of my hand as I held her elbow.
“I’ll see you upstairs safely first,” I said. I was suddenly aware of a thunderous pulse in my temple and a dryness in my throat.
In the middle of the bedroom was an old-fashioned wooden bed, square and ungainly, and there was a comfortlessness about the room I hadn’t expected. Minnie pushed me away and sat down on the bed, fiddling with her dress.
“Gawd, that room,” she said.
She lay back on the pillows, smiling up at me, her eyes suddenly bright, her lips parted, her teeth showing. There seemed to be more satin showing at her breast now and more blue-veined white skin and soft round flesh.
I suddenly noticed a picture on the table by the bed, and I saw Minnie frown as I stared at it. Pat Fee’s heavy, handsome face gazed out at me from the silver frame, starting a whole host of uneasy thoughts at the intimacy it suggested.
Then Minnie’s hand snatched the picture away from under my eyes and slammed it face downwards on the floor by the side of the bed.
“It’s an old one, Jess,” she said. “It is, honest,”
I wasn’t convinced, and there must have been a stubborn look in my eyes, for Minnie turned her face sideways into the pillow.
“Jess,” she murmured, “I thought you loved me. Be nice to me. I’m frightened of this old place on my own.
I leaned over and took her in my arms. She twisted on to her back and flung her arms round my neck, warm and soft and fiercely passionate, and her fingers were in my hair. Her mouth was by my ear, whispering urgently, her breath hot on my skin.
“Jess,” she begged, “don’t leave me tonight. Stay here with me.”
Desire like a sweeping wave surged over me, and I kissed her white throat and down to the soft flesh that was no longer hidden by satin.
Minnie was staring at the ceiling when I awoke, her eyes bright and alert. She turned as she saw me move and slipped silently into my arms.
In the grey light of the morning the room seemed smaller and shabbier and more untidy. I became aware of clothes crumpled and shapeless on the chairs and a pair of curling shoes under an old-fashioned wash-hand stand.
Minnie’s voice was by my ear, meek and ashamed.
“Jess, we oughtn’t to have done it. It wasn’t right.”
“Don’t be soft, Minnie,” I said. “You can’t help things like that. After all, you’re a grown woman and I’m a man.”
“But, Jess, what will people say?” She suddenly put a hand to her mouth and began to moan. “What if I have a baby? I’d have to leave the Steam Packet if Ma was taken. Oh, Gawd!”
She began to sniff and seemed to shrink in my arms.
“They’ll find out!” she wailed. “They’ll not stand for this, them magistrates. Me! An unmarried woman!”
“You won’t be unmarried long, Minnie,” I said softly.
She raised her eyes to mine and, God help me, I failed to see the bright, eager light in them.
“Do you mean that? Do you mean you want to marry me?”
I hadn’t really meant that at all, but, suddenly, it was said, and I felt as though I’d put another milestone in my life behind me. Minnie kissed me fiercely – though, fortunately for my peace of mind, I didn’t realise then just what instigated her passionate enthusiasm.
“Oh, Jess,” she said, hugging me happily. “Now I shall never have to leave the Steam Packet.”
And, in spite of the warmth and softness of her and her fierce embraces, I suddenly felt there was an anti-climax, and the room seemed bleak.
Six
Minnie and I were married with a haste that opened a few eyes and set the tongues wagging round the neighbourhood.
Dig expressed an unhappy, fumbling disapproval but it was ineffectual and indefinite, and useless as an opinion. “It’s your affair,” he said shyly. “It’s nothing to do with me. You’re old enough to know your own business, but are you sure you’re doing what’s right?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” I was touchy and resentful of criticism.
He shrugged and flapped his hands awkwardly, then picked up a magazine and appeared to immerse himself in it.
“That’s for you to decide,” he said into the book. “If you’ve thought it over, there’s no need for me to say anything.”
Ma’s comment was terse and to the point. “I married beneath me,” she said. “Why shouldn’t you?”
The days before the wedding were a bit of a trial for everybody. Even Old Boxer disapproved and showed his disapproval strongly.
“She’s a wrong ’un, Jess,” he snapped. “I know she’s a wrong ’un. God knows what she’s up to, for she’s not your type any more than you’re hers.”
“Don’t he damn’ silly,” I s
aid. “Why should she be up to anything? Why should she want to marry me, apart from love? I’ve got nothing. I’m only a sailor.”
“You were a sailor, Jess,” he said, and there was a contempt in his voice that made me squirm inside. “You smell stale now with too much drinking.”
He drew his hand across his face hurriedly.
“God!” he said. “Listen to me! ‘Too much drinking,’ and me boozing myself bow-legged every night. I’m a sanctimonious old devil. My God, I am!” He looked earnestly at me. “Take no notice of me, lad.” He hesitated, then, as though the words were wrenched from him, he burst out: “But you’re too good for this bitch of a woman! You’re wasting yourself on her!”
He watched my face and seemed to shrink into himself. “I’m sorry, Jess,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said that about her. It was wrong. It’ll do no good at all.”
“I’m blowed if I know what you’ve got against her,” I said.
“I’m blowed if I know myself,” he sighed. “But she’s a wrong ’un, Jess. Doesn’t anyone’s opinion mean anything to you?” He seemed to be trying to tell me something without using all the words, but I was in no mood just then to understand anyone. I could hardly understand myself.
“It doesn’t mean as much as Minnie,” I said coldly.
The concentrated disapproval of everyone around me seemed to make me all the more determined. It was almost as if the issue had ceased to be whether I loved Minnie or not, but whether I was going to triumph over the opposition to the marriage.
“And, anyway,” I asked, “why is she a wrong ’un? Just tell me that. How do you know?”
“How does anyone know?” Old Boxer queried wearily. “But I’ve known too many. God knows I have.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her, Jess,” he went on, as though he were making a tremendous effort to be lucid. “But there’s something about her I don’t like – something that never sees daylight–”
“You’re a damned old hypocrite!” I shouted in a sudden fury. “Go back to your bloody booze and leave me to sort out my own affairs!”
A look of torment crossed his face, almost as if I’d struck him, and he turned away.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” he said quietly. “You’re quite right. It’s nothing to do with me. I shall come to your wedding, of course, if I may.”
“Though at first you might like to be best man,” I mumbled. I felt as unhappy as he did. In actual fact, I hadn’t expected seeing him at the wedding, decrepit, sick at heart and shabby, enough to take the pleasure out of anything, but I had to say something to cheer him up.
He turned a bleak look on me, as though his heart were being torn out of him.
“I’d be glad to, Jess,” he said. “I’d be glad to.”
Neither Dig nor Ma were at the wedding. Dig sent his excuses, saying he couldn’t get away from work, and even stayed late at the office – much to Ma’s annoyance – in case I should call to enquire. But his subterfuge was easy to penetrate, as he must have known it was.
Kate Fee’s invitation had been answered with a brief note that showed none of her emotions and left me feeling depressed. I thought of her several times before I left for the wedding. She’d been to blame at first for the coldness between us, but I’d done nothing to help her overcome her fears. In fact, dashing after Minnie the way I had and whipping her off to church as though I couldn’t wait to get her into bed must have made her more than ever convinced she was right in her opinion of me…
Although he was far from sober, Old Boxer performed his duties as best man with a curious old-world dignity, gravely polite to Minnie’s relations in a way that was instinctive rather than studied. But afterwards, back at the Steam Packet, without saying a word to anyone, without even congratulating me and Minnie, he proceeded to drink himself stupid. He sagged speechlessly in a corner, oblivious to the other guests and the noise around him, still drinking long after he was drunk. He stood swaying on his feet, spilling the whisky from his glass on to the guests near him while he gave the conventional toast, which was the only thing he said all afternoon.
Only Minnie, brazenly in white and chirpy as a cricket beside me, cheered me up as she dragged me away to introduce me to her relations.
A dreary bunch they were, too, all of them with faces as long as fiddles because Minnie’s Ma was still in hospital.
“Thought you might ’ave waited till she was better,” one of them even pointed out acidly.
“I’d wait till I was dead before Ma came out,” Minnie said coolly. “She’ll never come out till she comes out feet first.”
I was aware of their shocked faces as she spoke. They were all determined to make it more of an occasion for mourning Minnie’s Ma than a celebration for her daughter’s wedding.
As I turned away I found myself face to face with Pat Fee. He was smarter than anyone else there, in a pearl-grey suit with a carnation in his buttonhole. His black hair was sleeked down with oil and the inevitable cigar was between his thick fingers.
“’Lo, Jess.” He grinned, showing white teeth beneath his black moustache. “Congratulations to the happy bridegroom. You’re all right now, eh?” He winked and I’d have liked to have closed the other eye with my fist.
I hadn’t wanted him to be present at all, but Minnie had insisted.
“But what’s he got to be at the reception for?” I’d asked.
Minnie’s anger at the question had startled me, for her eyes had blazed suddenly. “I’ll show him,” she grated in a fury. “He’s made me mad more than once. I’ll show him what it feels like.”
I’d felt an uneasy jealousy.
“Minnie,” I said, “there isn’t something between you and Pat Fee, is there? You aren’t wanting to marry me just to get your own back on him, are you?”
Her reply was fierce, but oddly unconvincing. “Between me and Pat Fee? A dirty bookie? Me?”
Her laugh was harsh and bitter. I’d only consented to Pat’s presence because I hoped that Kate might come, too. Now, as I stared at his sardonically smiling face, I realised that Minnie’s strenuous denial hadn’t been a denial at all. And if Minnie had hoped to annoy Pat she failed dismally for he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. He even went so far as to flirt with Minnie’s cousin, a bouncing, fat girl with a shriek for a laugh.
“Enjoyin’ yourself, Mister Fee, aren’t you?” Minnie said bitterly as she passed round the sandwiches, all the liveliness gone from her suddenly.
“Always do,” Pat grinned back. “Like my birds on the well-built side, Minnie, as you know.”
Seething rage was in my throat as he spoke, but Minnie snatched at my arm and dragged me away.
“What did you have to invite him for?” I whispered furiously to her. “I’d like to knock his teeth down his throat.”
“Wish I hadn’t, now,” Minnie admitted savagely. “It’s sickening to see him hanging round that soft bitch. Likes ’em well-built indeed! She’s fat. And she’s over thirty if she’s a day.” She allowed herself a last glare at Pat, who returned it with a knowing wink and a smile that spoke worlds.
“The dirty rat!” she hissed viperishly. “And them teeth of his are only china ones, I bet.”
It wasn’t a happy reception. There were odd, strained silences and uncomfortable pauses when everyone stared at each other, searching for conversation. Yorky, very tipsy in a borrowed blue suit that nowhere near fitted his dumpy frame, tried to help by singing a comic song.
“There was Brown–” he yelled in a breathy tenor that set your teeth on edge
“– upside down,
Mopping up the whisky off the floor.
‘Booze, booze!’ the firemen cried,
As they came knocking at the door…”
And worst of all, there was Old Boxer in a corner, dazed and fuddled but still drinking with a fierce determination, his eyes always on me or Minnie.
Finally, long after I was sick of the whole shooting match and wanting to get away somew
here on my own in the fresh air and have a bit of peace, Minnie’s Uncle Fred made a speech. I only remember its length and bad taste.
“There’s one thing about this old carry-on,” he said as it drew to a close. “There’s one thing we can be ’appy about, anyway, even if we ’ave to be sorry for Minnie’s poor old Ma in ’ospital. At least we know that if anything ’appens to ’er, we shall still be able to keep the Steam Packet in the family now that Minnie’s got ’erself a ’usband.”
I saw Old Boxer’s head jerk up as Uncle Fred finished, and for a moment intelligence showed in his dull eyes.
“Ha!” he snorted, and all eyes in the room whipped round to him. “Ha! Now we have it! Now the cat’s out of the bloody bag!”
Minnie had never liked Old Boxer. He’d always treated her with grave courtesy – for my sake, I reckon – but with a contempt he made no attempt to disguise. Everything he’d ever said to her seemed to have a veiling of sarcasm over it, and there was a sneer in his eyes whenever he looked at her. He had the gift of making her feel embarrassed and uncomfortable, which, with Minnie, was something of a feat, and made her detest him all the more.
We were having no honeymoon – there was no one to look after the pub – and on the morning after the reception, when Minnie went downstairs, her eyes bleary with the wedding-day gin she’d drunk and her hair frizzy from the perm she’d had to get married in, she found him asleep on the seat in the taproom where he must have been all night. She came bounding back upstairs to me, her eyes glowing with fury.
“That blasted old fool’s here!” she said fiercely. She was still wearing the blowsy remains of her finery, though her wedding-day bloom seemed a little faded even to me. “Your pal! Boxer!”
“He’s doing no harm, is he?” I queried.
“I don’t care whether he is or not. Get him out! He’s no pal of mine an’ he looks at me as if I was dirt. Get him out!” Her voice rose hysterically. “He’s tryin’ to get you away from me, Jess.”
“Don’t be soft,” I said soothingly, startled by her anger. ‘‘There’s no harm in him.’’
