New World in the Morning

by Stephen Benatar

  “And next weekend, you see, I aim to cut a dash.”

  She gazed at me—her head held slightly to one side. At rare moments Mavis seemed to lose her little girlishness. “A rugged dash or a sophisticated one?” she inquired.

  “Both.” I told her about what Junie had described as a Mayday signal and she was suitably impressed.

  “In cricket togs I’d be inclined to go for the more rugged kind. I like you with long hair.”

  “In white flannels, yes. But what about evening dress?”

  That perhaps was indiscreet. Yet all she said was: “My word, is there going to be a dance? Well, Mr G—life is a compromise. You’d better play the match, then run off to the barber’s as soon as stumps are drawn.”

  “I don’t believe in compromise.”

  “Ah… I always said you must’ve led a magical existence!”

  “You did?”

  “No, not really.” She shook her head in apology.

  “But how right you would have been! A very magical existence.” Abruptly, I stood up. “I’m going out for twenty minutes. You, my girl, can eat the two meringues. Make up for a lifetime of half measures.”

  While I was in the mood I went into the bank and by chance was able to get an interview with the manager. (No, not by chance: by charm: by the irresistible persuasiveness of someone convinced that life, let alone bank managers, could deny him nothing. From now on, I reminded myself, I should never not be in the mood!) Hal Smart had been a schoolfriend. Because we’d regularly had our arms around each other in the rugger scrum and larked together in the shower it meant I never felt trepidation about asking for a loan; Hal knew better than to condescend. (In fact if either of us felt superior, it could well have been me: although he’d once been slim and muscular, in the last ten or fifteen years he’d put on a lot of weight and lost a lot of hair; no stranger would have considered us the same age.) This morning he readily agreed to my request; understood about the upkeep of old houses—owning one himself. We asked after each other’s families and said, as we always did, that we must all get together sometime. Then he walked me to the main door and slapped my back by way of farewell; an attention not every overdrawn client was likely to receive from his bank manager. “All the very best, Sam!” I wanted to tell him I’d already got it. I strode away jauntily, with my shoulders squared and my hands in my trouser pockets, like a man who’d just staged an eminently successful holdup and knew in these enlightened times that the censors were going to let him get away with it; enjoy the fruits of his inventiveness and daring.

  From the bank to the hairdresser’s…but only for the merest trim. (Okay, Mavis, I admit—a compromise!) I also had a manicure. It was good to have a svelte and pretty blonde hold your hand and relate to you the latest chapter in the saga of her search for Mr Wonderful. I offered her some worldly-wise advice.

  Then finally, or almost finally, the men’s outfitters: the snazziest in town. A dinner jacket. With more warning I could have had it made; the one I settled on, however, looked extremely dashing, even without the proper shirt or tie or shoes—and I was assured that without fail the alterations could be carried out by Friday. I turned this way and that and was far more impressed than I revealed to the probably gay assistant. Why on earth had I ever waited so long? I was a toff. I was a man-about-town. I was the model off the cover of a Harrods catalogue.

  I wrote the cheque in the same happy fashion that I’d handed out tips at the hairdressers. With something of a flourish. I needn’t have, not until Friday.

  Equally, I could have waited for the trim and manicure till then, merely have booked an appointment. But why? If you were going to live each day as though your last, didn’t it behove you, on each last day, to look, and therefore feel, as fine as you possibly could?

  But I’d been absent from Treasure Island for over two hours. On occasion it was almost unbelievable how quickly time could pass.

  “Mavis, what do you think of my hair?”

  “Have you had it done?”

  Well, that was absolutely as it should be.

  “No wonder you’ve been gone so long! I must be mad. I thought you told me twenty minutes.”

  “You are mad. Twenty minutes! What an extremely odd idea! But I’m sorry—have I made you late for lunch?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I did eat both meringues. And telephoned to warn my ma.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, I’ve a present for your ma. Wondered if a bottle of wine might cheer her up a bit. Encourage her to shimmy like her sister Kate.”

  “Or maybe shimmer like her uncle Sam. Bless you,” said Mavis. “You are good!”

  12

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said. It was the same evening, while we sipped our Martinis. Poor Susie sat beside my chair, with her head on my lap, and we told ourselves she was improving. After all, it hadn’t yet been forty-eight hours. I scratched behind her ears and she seemed to be enjoying it, for she had closed her eyes. But the old vitality was missing—for the moment—and although there were many things which she plainly remembered, far too often we would still find her with her nose against a wall or against some other large blank area, like the back of a settee or the front of a bookcase, merely standing and staring and placidly waiting. This obviously was worrying and Mr Dodd had said we should see how she was doing in another week. “That old defeatist,” I’d declared. “He doesn’t reckon for the power of love. You’ve got to be positive, haven’t you, Suze? It’s love that’s going to pull you through.”

  “Hurray for love!” said Junie. I don’t know why that should have sounded slightly out of character.

  Not unlike her reply—a short while later—to that opening gambit of mine. I’ve been thinking.

  “Well done,” she said.

  Though she was smiling.

  I stared into my drink. It had been the lead-in to something quite important. “How are things?” I asked. “You seem a little tired.”

  “I am—a little. Not wholly unexpected. It’s probably because my period’s due.”

  “Oh, hell. Already?”

  “I don’t mind, really. The sooner it comes the sooner I get it over with.”

  “Yes, of course.” I did my best to adjust to this. “You poor old thing, it isn’t right; you have a lot to put up with, don’t you?”

  “Mmm, it’s unusual. Not many women get periods. Why me, I ask myself. Why me?”

  I laughed. If she were acting a trifle strangely I reflected that (a) it was good to have a wife who could still surprise one after seventeen years and (b) that it was principally her period talking. (Which shouldn’t have begun until the following weekend—blast it! Ah, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men an’ o’ potential Casanovas…)

  But I had always hoped that at times of small reversals like this I would remember Count Basie’s basic philosophy. ‘Life is a bitch and if it’s not one damn thing then it’s going to be something else.’ I topped up our drinks: Martini—for the beautiful people. And when we sat down to supper I almost immediately got up to fetch four wineglasses and a bottle of Sauternes from the sideboard. (On the way I tousled Ella’s hair. “Oh, Dad!” she said—and jerked away her head. “Oh, Dad!” I said, with the old familiar sense of disappointment.) “What’s that for?” asked Junie, surprised, indicating the bottle.

  “Mum, don’t stop him!” cried the children, in rare harmony.

  “I’m going to put it in the fridge so that we can have it with our puds.”

  “Fine,” she answered. “Good idea. I simply wondered why.”

  “In celebration,” I called.

  “What of?”

  “Just of things generally. Of life. Of the fact you’re all so nice.”

  “That’s very sweet,” said Junie, once I had returned.

  “Oh, Pop,” said Matt, “I got my project back today.”

  “So soon?” I asked.

  He lowered his head, gave a shamefaced smile. “I know I let you think the deadline would be yes
terday but I suppose I misled you: most people handed in their work about two weeks ago. Sorry.”

  “And that call you had reminding you?”

  “Peter Bale—to warn me Miss Martin was finally losing her rag.”

  “Well, anyway. Thank you for coming clean about it. I think that’s what really counts.”

  “Though perhaps it would have been even better,” said my wife, “not to tell such a fib in the first place.” Junie had this awful reverence for truth.

  “At all events, Matthias… What was the verdict?”

  “Miss Martin seemed pleased with it.” His look of penitence had quickly faded. “Especially—you were right—with that thing I did on Theseus. That thing you did on Theseus. But she said I left out the ending. Said he wasn’t someone I should really wish to emulate.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of Ariadne.”

  “What about Ariadne?”

  “Well, you sort of gave the impression they got married, lived happily-ever-after, all that kind of guff. One of the great love stories, I think you said. She told me he turned out to be a louse. That he deserted her.”

  “She accused Theseus of deserting Ariadne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Called him a louse? I can’t believe that. I’m sure you must have got it wrong.”

  “Dad! How can you dream up louse? Dream up desertion?”

  “Then—I’m sorry—she must have got it wrong! You’ll have to tell her.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s not so world-shakingly important.” He shrugged.

  “Of course it’s important!”

  “Then you tell her! I shan’t.”

  “And don’t think I won’t. Next parents’ evening? When’s that?”

  “You don’t mean you’ll actually be coming?”

  “Try and stop me.”

  “There’s one on… I think it’s a fortnight Thursday.”

  “Then make me an appointment!”

  We all laughed, myself as much as anyone. “Action Man,” observed Matt. “Three cheers for Miss Martin!” said his mother.

  Action Man… I savoured this for several seconds. On one of the tables in the shop there was an Action Man stripped down to his black briefs. I often saluted him as I went past—or set him back on his feet if vibrations had caused him to topple: despite his magnificent physique he wasn’t that well-balanced. “Glad you’ve noticed the resemblance,” I said.

  “Why don’t you just phone her, Dad?” asked Ella.

  “No, you shut up,” said Matt. “He’s coming to the parents’ evening. They both are. Aren’t you, Pop?”

  “Course I am.”

  “Promise?”

  “Only the grave could stop me now. Honest!”

  “Honest Sam Groves,” said Junie. “My husband the bookmaker.”

  “Funny you should say that.” Though I hoped she didn’t have in mind a fairly recent but far from funny incident.

  “Why? Is that what you’re thinking of setting up as?”

  “Well, no. Not necessarily. But you remember how I said earlier that there’s something I’ve been thinking about?” Yes, this was as good a time as any; the children could be in on it, too. In on it right from the beginning. “It’s this. That RADA business last night. I don’t believe it’s going to come to anything. I don’t see how it can, one’s got to be realistic. One’s got to be—”

  “But, oh, Daddy,” Ella exclaimed, “you’re not giving up the idea of being an actor?”

  “Darling, you really shouldn’t interrupt,” admonished Junie.

  “If RADA auditioned me and decided to take me on, that would be fantastic, Ella. But what I’m saying is—it isn’t very likely. Yet supposing it was? We’d been talking about Mum being the one to look after the shop, hadn’t we, getting out a bit, meeting people, discovering—?”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m all that disappointed,” Junie cut in. “You don’t have to worry that you might be letting me down.”

  “You said you’d quite enjoy it.”

  “That’s true but—”

  “Junie, hold on. I went to see Hal Smart today.”

  “Hal? You mean, on business?”

  “What other reason would I go for?”

  I paused. It had suddenly occurred to me how sad was that remark. Hal and I had once been very close. I’d actually had a crush on him. For practically the whole of my fifteenth year, during what had turned into an unexpectedly curative, even an almost carefree time, the two of us had been inseparable. ‘They’ll never prise apart young Groves and Smart,’ some budding versifier had once scrawled across the blackboard, ‘they’re like apple with cloves, young Smart and Groves,’ and I recalled how I’d secretly felt immensely proud to form half of such a brilliant couplet, a couplet which had seemed to me quite as inspired as any in the Golden Treasury, of which my grandmother had given me a copy. But now…some twenty-two years later…

  “Yes, of course on business,” I said. No wonder I should be such an expert on the matter of life’s little ironies. Seeing Hal now could sometimes make me shiver in disbelief. And also in embarrassment: we had once embraced while in the shower.

  “And…?” Junie queried.

  I looked at her.

  “Darling, what were you leading up to?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. I got sidetracked.” Remembering a rider the nasty Evan Saunders had later added to that couplet—though only verbally, thank God, it was never taken up. ‘Apple with cloves, young Smart and Groves. The tastier tart—young Groves or Smart?’ In some ways I’d minded it less at the time than I did today. Or, at any rate, it hadn’t tarnished my then pride in the original.

  I hastily reassembled my thoughts.

  “Woolgathering,” I smiled. “It’s just that… Well, you know I never worry you about these things, Junie—not normally—but the shop isn’t doing all that well at present. It’s probably nothing serious, of course: the usual pre-summer lull: and I suppose I should never have thought of taking Mavis on fulltime…” Junie didn’t know I’d taken Mavis on fulltime; this seemed a good moment to reveal it. But, even in spite of that, I hated having to appear so negative. It required a great deal of determination and like Matt last Saturday I kept my fingers crossed—although unlike him I didn’t parade the fact. This helped a little: feeling like my son. Gilded youth! Gilded youth, I thought, but really not so many years divided us, merely twenty-three, less than a generation, I oughtn’t to forget that. My own golden future gleamed every bit as bright.

  “Oh, Sam…!” Junie got up. She came and did to me what I had done to her the previous evening: stood behind my chair and put her arms about my neck and kissed the top of my head. “I knew you’d been behaving a little too cheerfully these past few days! Darling, I should have realized what it meant. I think you’re very brave but I also think you’re very foolish…” She bent and put her cheek against my own.

  Unsurprisingly, all this solicitude made my eyes moisten. No less predictably, it brought a mocking reaction from our children. (“Oh, no, not again! And see that, Cinders? Action Man is having to dash away a tear!”) Junie resumed her seat while I reprimanded my offspring, although with a tolerance roughly matching their own, for being so silly and immature—and was unsporting enough to remind them that they hadn’t yet received their wine.

  I turned my attention back to Junie. “Sweetheart, it’s truly not so tragic as it sounds.” And now I hammed up the eye-dabbing. “Especially since I’ve had a bit of a brainwave—and it’s all due to this thing about RADA; I mightn’t have thought of it otherwise. Now, we have a real need to supplement our income, right? And the job opportunities in Deal at the moment—like in any other small town in this country—are virtually non-existent and—”

  “I could maybe get a job at Marks & Spencer’s,” said Junie, “or British Home Stores or somewhere. Sam, you should have told me if we were getting into difficulties.”

  “No. That isn’t your department. Nor is it for y
ou to try to get us out of them. It’s very sweet of you, darling, but…”

  I gave a shrug.

  “But what?”

  “But I could earn a far better wage in London than you could ever hope to earn down here, where if there’s anything at all, it’s most likely only part-time and poorly paid. Besides, darling, you know me: I’ve never liked the idea of my wife going out to work.”

  “What would I be doing at the shop then? Getting a suntan?”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “You’d be the owner. The wife of the owner. It’s somehow not the same.”

  “Mr Spock would never understand,” declared Matt, mournfully, shaking his head.

  “Captain Kirk would.”

  “Well, I’m not too sure about this,” said Junie. “I don’t think I go for it. We’re a family. When would we ever see you?”

  “At weekends. I’d be home every Friday night; wouldn’t leave again until Monday. You’d hardly notice I was gone.”

  “Is that what you honestly believe?”

  “Obviously it’s an arrangement that none of us really wants. But if we look at it positively there may be some advantages. I mean—apart from all the extra money and the higher standard of living and the holidays abroad.”

  “We already have holidays abroad.”

  “Yes, but that’s only because your parents pay so much towards them—and naturally have the major say in where we go. And that’s nearly always to some part of France. But this way we could occasionally branch out: Italy, Greece, maybe even California. Just think of it, how good that would be for the children’s education…”

  Ella and Matt were instantly in favour of extra money, a higher standard of living and holidays abroad. Even Junie herself was invariably influenced by any question of the children’s education.

  “Also,” I said, “think how special the weekends would be. A father coming home brings presents and a husband coming home takes his wife out to expensive restaurants on a Saturday night.”