Miss Winters was very forthcoming. ‘They were the happiest days of my life,’ she said, her miserable face denying every syllable. Indeed even Miss Winters occasionally confessed to herself, surrounded as she was by all the trappings of contrition, that as matron she had never been more miserable, but her subsequent retirement had been even more desolate, so her matron happiness was purely retrospective. ‘I must confess,’ she said, ‘I preferred the little girls. They were so helpful about the house.’ Had she been honest, as she was on occasion, lying stiffly between the sheets beside Him who had died for the likes of her, she would have admitted that she did not prefer the girls to the boys. She simply loathed them less. But over the intervening years, she had talked herself into the image of the loving and kindly mother substitute, and most of the time she believed in her illusion. ‘I was an orphan myself you see, so I knew their problems. But they were luckier than I ever was. I was brought up in a work-house. I’m not ashamed of it,’ she almost shouted, ‘because I worked hard and I made something of myself.’
Brian thought she was quite loathsome and a fit companion for his mother. ‘Of course you did. Anyone can see that,’ Mrs Watts said and as she was speaking, she was wondering about her return service and how she could justify herself to this stern daughter of duty. ‘I think you could say the same for me, couldn’t you, Brian?’ With her cold eyes she dared him to deny it, and he, fearing the puddle, hastily agreed. ‘I was brought up in an orphanage too,’ she lied. Or did she lie? Brian wondered, and he suddenly realised that his mother had never talked to him about her childhood. Her invective was confined to the years of her marriage, and the burden that Brian had been on her. Somehow he couldn’t imagine his mother as a child, orphaned or otherwise, and he listened eagerly to the recital of her real or imagined childhood. When she mentioned the almshouse, Brian was suspicious, sensing that she was playing one-upmanship with Miss Winters, vying with her for the monopoly of deprivation in their formative years. But she gave its address, somewhere in the north of England, and she reeled it off with honest confidence. She’d left school when she was fourteen, she said, and like all the other girls, had gone into service. A variety of jobs followed, but she never rose above the rank of scullery maid. Miss Winters turned up her nose, not so much at the status itself, but that it betrayed a singular lack of initiative and efficiency on Mrs Watts’ behalf. Mrs Watts caught her grimace, and pleaded that it was not her fault, that there was too much competition and that the head housekeepers were always against her. Miss Winters stiffened, as she had stiffened so many times in her matron days when faced with laziness and insubordination. Poor Mrs Watts knew that she had made a bad start, and she hastened to move on to the recital of her disastrous marriage, a subject which Miss Winters found much more to her taste and with her smiling voice and rigid face she offered her profound sympathy. ‘Then I had him,’ Mrs Watts said without looking in Brian’s direction, ‘and that more or less finished me off.’
For someone who’d been finished off, she looked pretty hale and hearty, but his mother was still insisting on her hardships and deprivation until even Miss Winters sought to change the subject, preferably back to herself.
‘I always saw that my girls understood marriage, and all the business that goes with it,’ she said quickly. ‘Before they left the orphanage, I never ceased to remind them of the dangers that lay outside, and I gave them lots of tips to avoid them.’ Brian wondered if those tips had been based on personal experience, but looking at Miss Winters, it was difficult to imagine that her knowledge was based on anything but prejudiced theory. She was not exactly a repulsive woman, but there was something actively repellent about her. It was nothing definable like bad odour or ugliness. Miss Winters was over-clean and passing fair for her age. But she gave off a sour air of untouchability and a hint of dire consequences for anyone who so much as tapped her armour. But Brian was not tempted. He was happy to leave the two of them locked in their own life-enhancing bitterness.
After lunch, he took his mother back to her room and Miss Winters followed. She had a deep sense of her own privacy but it did not extend to others. She hovered at Mrs Watts’ door as Brian took his leave. ‘I’ll come and visit you,’ he said. ‘One day next week.’
‘Only if you want to,’ she said.
He didn’t, any more than she wanted to see him. She saw herself settled for life in this luxury, and she was glad of it and she wanted no reminders of her pre-Petunia days.
‘I’ll come next week,’ he said. He didn’t quite know how to say goodbye. Miss Winter’s alarming presence on the threshold required, as audience, a formal farewell. He wasn’t going to kiss his mother, and certainly he would not touch her snake-like hand. So he went behind her and pecked at her dowager’s hump, noticing it for the first time. He backed towards the door. His mother wasn’t even looking at him. She was busy putting a coloured glass paperweight on the mantelpiece. He sidled past Miss Winters forebearing to touch her too, and he was out of the drive and hailing a cab, before they noticed that he had gone.
When he reached home, he saw his mother’s visiting card on the cracked lino. It would be the last one she would ever leave in this place, and this thought gave him heart as he took the mop and cleaned it away. Then he put the evil-smelling mop in the dustbin, together with her mattress. He spent the next hour cleaning the flat of all her remaining possessions. As he swept under the bed, he noticed that she had forgotten her slippers, and he was about to send them to the dustbin too, but he had an abrupt and acute feeling that he was burying her alive. And all of a sudden, he missed her. He sat on the springs of the bed and tried to accommodate the feelings that were so alien to him. He told himself that she was better off where she was. He patted himself on the back that he had made it possible. She would eat well and be cared for, and she already had one friend which was one more than she’d ever had before. And hadn’t he kept her all these years on his moral as well as immoral earnings? But with all these rationalisations, he still felt an uncommon ache in his heart. Had he investigated further, he would have realised that the ache had less to do with his mother than with poor Miss Hawkins whose cheese-paring slippers looked exactly the same. But no matter the cause, he wept, and his tears were on behalf of all the indecencies he’d ever committed, and all the love to which he’d never been able to surrender. For the first time in his life, Brian Watts acknowledged that, after all, he was only human.
Chapter 13
Miss Hawkins rose full of resolute decisions. She had promised Maurice that she would talk to Brian and she dare not let Maurice down. As far as she was concerned, she was happy to let matters slide, and to trust that Brian had invested her money wisely. But Maurice was worried on her behalf and it was only right that she should set his mind at rest.
As she crossed through the hall into the kitchen, she saw a letter in the box. There was no account due, and she wondered who on earth could be writing to her. She had a presentiment of bad news, and picked up the letter and did not look at it until she’d reached the support of the sitting-room settee. On the back of the envelope was printed the name of her bank, and her stomach rumbled with fear. She opened it quickly, seeing no point in delaying the bad news. The letter was from her bank manager. He had noted, with some concern, she read, the dwindling deposit of her savings, and he would be glad if she would come to the bank at her earliest convenience to discuss the matter with him. He added a P.S. to the letter wishing her a Happy New Year, but it was clearly an afterthought, and as such, held out little hope for her future prosperity. A surge of Brian-hate welled inside her, but she controlled it, knowing that the letter came as no surprise. She knew that she had been drawing on her savings, but what worried her was the bank manager’s concern, which strongly reflected her own, and confirmed that she did indeed have something to be anxious about. She tried to cheer herself up with a cup of tea, and to convince herself that Brian had surely invested her savings. She decided to dress and go straightaway to th
e bank so that she would be armed to face Brian in the afternoon. Whatever the outcome at the bank the confrontation was imperative, so she opened her diary and wrote, ‘Tackled Brian. (About my investment.)’
The bank manager was delighted that she had answered the summons so promptly, but she found his solicitousness very unnerving. She sat opposite him at his desk, as he mulled over the thin file which lay before him. ‘To tell you the truth, Miss Hawkins,’ he said, ‘I’m a little worried by the state of your account. Especially your savings account and its dwindling condition.’ He looked up at her for some explanation.
‘I’ve had a lot of expenses recently,’ she said, playing for time.
‘They seem to be very regular ones,’ he said, ‘and have been going on for some time.’ Then mercilessly he itemised her weekly withdrawals, opposing their extravagance with her ludicrous income. She had the impression that she was on trial, and this fed a growing belligerence. She couldn’t see that her private spending was any business of the bank manager, and she said as much in the politest possible terms.
‘I’m concerned about you,’ he said. ‘And your future. If this regular expenditure continues, in a very short time, my dear lady, you will be penniless.’
His statement was unanswerable and there was a silence.
‘Could you tell me how you are spending this money?’ he asked kindly. ‘D’you have some debt or obligation?’ He paused. ‘All this is absolutely confidential,’ he said. ‘You need have no fear about that.’
‘No,’ she heard herself shouting. ‘I don’t owe a penny to anybody. I pay my way,’ she said.
‘Yes, but for how long?’
‘I give my money to a friend. He invests it for me.’ She felt she owed something to the bank manager for his concern.
‘Could you tell me what he’s invested it in? Is it stocks or shares or …?’
She noted the suspicion in his voice. ‘I’m not quite sure,’ she said. ‘I’m going to see him this afternoon. I’ll ask him. He said it’s a good investment and I’m not to worry.’
He could see the worry on her face. ‘But where are the returns, Miss Hawkins?’ he said gently.
‘I’ll ask him,’ she said.
‘Would you let me know?’
She nodded with little faith that she would ever have anything to tell him. The interview was obviously over. She got up and went towards the door. As she reached it, he said, ‘Is he a particular friend, this gentleman?’ She felt a hot flush on her face, and it was an involuntary answer.
‘Keep in touch, Miss Hawkins,’ he pleaded. He was genuinely worried now. In his work as Branch Manager in different parts of the country, he had seen enough old ladies who had been conned into parting with their savings, and it was always a ‘particular’ gentleman, one who knew his way about the stock market, and would earn an enviable return. The pattern was always the same. He would notice a dwindling account, and he would call for a meeting, such as the one he had just conducted. He would keep a weekly eye on the withdrawals until finally there was nothing left. He wouldn’t have to ask for another meeting. The lady in question would present herself voluntarily and in acute distress. And then the whole sorry story would spill across his desk and it was always the same. They had invested a last bid for love, and as the shares fell, they had in desperation, invested more. Then the bottom had fallen out of the market and they were penniless. Miss Hawkins had £500 left in her account. At her rate of spending, she would be back at his desk within three months. For no reason that he could think of, he phoned his wife.
Miss Hawkins laid the trolley for tea and put out the glasses and the bottle of port. She took herself a generous swig to still the rage inside her. When the doorbell rang, all the questions gathered like a hostile army on the tip of her tongue, and when she opened the door, they retreated in humble confusion. She noticed how shabby Brian’s suit was, and realised that it was the same one he had worn on their first meeting. Her savings had certainly not gone into his pocket. He was clearly as poor as she was, and she pitied him. ‘A Happy New Year,’ she said.
‘And the same to you.’
‘I’ve a feeling this is going to be a good year,’ she said, without any feeling at all.
‘You always say that,’ he said, knowing exactly what she hoped by it, and each year ignoring his cue. He sat on the settee while she went into the kitchen to make tea. He looked around the room and suddenly found its familiarity highly irritating. On the trolley, the inevitable sponge cake that lay on his stomach from one week to the next. The bottle of sickly sweet port that she seemed to need before each spending spree, and the bowl of soft sugar that was always encrusted with tea-droppings. He thought affectionately of the dry sherry and savouries on Violet Makins’ trolley. Poor old Miss Hawkins had no class at all. He winced at the neat pile of silver spelling out the paltry limits of her investment, and he wondered why he bothered. Then he noticed, underneath the port bottle, a five pound note, a sign that Miss Hawkins was graduating to another category. The prospect of higher profits pleased him and he wondered whether she would ever make the full grade. There were a number of varied services she could buy for five pounds, and all would serve to give her an appetite for further exploration. Who knows, Brian thought, in time she may well turn out to be his best customer. He got up and himself drew the curtains. Then he lit the candles that she’d placed on the table. He waited at her service.
Before leaving the kitchen, she made herself read the diary’s order, so that it was on her tongue as she poured the tea. But it turned into an offer for a nice piece of sponge and a little port to wash it down with. Brian had a distinct feeling of words unspoken or substitute words for a subject that refused to surface. He shifted uneasily on the settee.
‘I wanted to ask you something, Brian,’ she said.
Here it comes, he thought, and he postponed it with a request for more sugar. Then, as he stirred his tea, he considered it more expedient if he himself were to introduce the subject, and fraudulently set her silly mind at rest. ‘Before I forget,’ he said, ‘I must tell you about your savings.’
She almost dropped the cup from her hand in gratitude.
‘I’ve put them into tin shares,’ he said. ‘A friend of mine who knows someone on the Stock Exchange recommended them. They’re very steady and they’ve even increased a little in value.’ He had no idea what he was talking about.
She took the plunge. ‘Can I get my money back whenever I like?’ she asked.
‘Not immediately,’ he said, playing for time. ‘You see, they were the sort of shares that you had to invest in for a minimum of five years. That’s why I got them cheaply,’ he said. ‘But after five years,’ he said, confidently giving himself extra time, ‘they’ll be yours with interest.’ He sensed that he was probably talking a lot of poppycock, but he could depend on her ignorance of stock market practices as being equal to his.
She sipped her tea, reasonably satisfied. She had obeyed the order at least, or rather, it had obeyed itself. But she wanted to ask the full name of the shares so that she could tell her bank manager. But she was afraid that Brian might suspect that she didn’t believe him and that she was making enquiries like a police woman.
‘What did you want to ask me?’ he said, now that he felt on safer ground. She hesitated and her eye caught the five pound note under the bottle. ‘I thought I’d ask for your services in the third category,’ she giggled, and blushed and spilt her tea, then added, ‘now that I know that I can afford it.’
When the tea was finished, she took a fortifying swig of port, then trade began. In view of his nagging conscience, he threw in a few services for free, but he worried about the poor lady’s greedy appetite knowing that her pocket would never stretch to her full satisfaction. ‘Who knows,’ she was saying dreamily, ‘if my ship comes home, I’ll be able to pay for everything you offer.’ Just saying it was a form of gratification and she was delighted with the idea that she had discovered all on her own a verbal
source of ecstasy that was entirely free. She said it again and trembled all over. She would try saying it to herself when Brian wasn’t there, or if that didn’t work, then to Maurice, who would have to listen because he had no alternative. She had a sudden surge of pity for her bank manager, who didn’t understand life at all.
Brian collected the money and decided to go home and change and take Violet out to dinner. As he was pocketing the change, she said generously, ‘That’s your New Year present. Don’t use it for the tin. Put it towards the cost of a new suit.’
He shuffled down the road knowing she was watching him from the window. It irritated him that he felt such a heel.
Miss Hawkins ticked off her diary’s order. She tried out her verbal discovery in the silence of her curtained sitting-room, and found to her dismay that it didn’t work. Maurice would have to come to dinner. But before that, she had to buy her wedding dress material. She was glad that she would draw another cheque to annoy the bank manager. She gave Brian time to leave the vicinity, then she put on her coat and left the house.
‘Tin,’ she said to herself, and again ‘Tin,’ regretting its syllabic shortage which seemed to reflect a lack of worth and returns. Yet it was an essential commodity even if not a luxury one. As she walked along she noted everything that required some form of tin in its making, and by the time she reached the shop, she concluded that the world would fall apart were it not for that monosyllabic piece of merchandise, and that Brian had made a very sensible investment indeed. ‘Tin,’ she said once again as she entered the shop, and already her shares had soared.
She was not going to skimp on the material, she decided. She was going to buy the very best. A heavy white satin, Mrs Church had said, and a length of silk net. She would not have to explain that it was for her wedding. The choice of materials made that abundantly clear, and she looked forward to showing off to the salesgirl that she, Miss Jean Hawkins, was a wanted woman.
A Five Year Sentence Page 14
