‘By a log fire,’ said Liz softly. ‘And the fir trees all around, and no other house for miles.’
I looked at her squarely. She was as excited as I was in her own settled way. I was tossing a coin in my head, teetering on a decision. Heads I tell her, tails I don't. Heads I tell her this last thing.
‘I want a room, in the house, with a green baize door,’ I began calmly. ‘It will be a big room, and when we pass into it, through the door, that's it, that's Ambrosia. No one else would be allowed in. No one else will have keys. They won't know where the room is. Only we will know. We'll make models of the principal cities, you know, out of cardboard, and we could use toy soldiers, painted, for the people. We could draw maps. It would be a place to go on a rainy afternoon. We could go there. No one would find us. I thought we would have a big sloping shelf running all the way down one wall, you know, like a big desk. And we'd have a lot of blank paper on it and design our own newspapers. We could even make uniforms, if we wanted to. It would be our country.' I stopped, suddenly aware of the cold and the black, peeling branches round about us and the ticking quiet of it all. I had talked myself right through the moment of contact. Liz, her old self, was grinning, pleased with life, seeing it all as our old fantasy, a kind of mental romp in the long grass. ‘And let's have a model train, that the kids won't be allowed to use,’ she said. ‘And a big trench in the garden.’
I sank back, spreadeagling my hands in the grass to rid them of the webbed sensation that was coming back into them like a nervous tic.
‘Liz,’ I said, all the thoughts exhausted in me. ‘Will you marry me?’
She leaned over me and whispered: ‘Tomorrow,’ in a throaty way. I pulled her down with a feeling of peace and misery, running my hands heavily down her back. She began to kiss me, not knowing that my eyes were open and staring. Her body was warm under the suéde jacket and I found some kind of comfort, losing myself, not allowing anything into my head, but sinking into a kind of numb passion. Soon the whole incident had passed into history, to be exhumed and dissected soon, but not now. I felt the black dusty skirt give way as she fumbled at the zipper. I brushed my fingers against the smooth surface of her stomach, feeling her contract gingerly under the touch of them. She rolled over on to her back and I fell on top of her, grateful and easy in my mind, lost in her soft ways.
In the moment of satisfaction I said: ‘There's somebody watching us.’ From the bushes there was the sharp crack of breaking twigs and a resounding: ‘Tskkkkkkkkk!’
I called: ‘Whoever's out there is going to get their bastard teeth knocked down their throat in a minute!’
I scrambled to my feet, gathering my clothes about me like an Arab. Three youths leaped up from behind the bushes and began to run out of the woods, shouting direc at each other. Two of them were the youths who had been turned away from the Roxy while I waited for Liz; the third was Stamp, I raced after them almost as far as the road. Stamp stumbling drunkenly through the ferns, called in falsetto voice: ‘Oh, darling –,’ repeating some words I happened to have used a few minutes earlier. I let them go. As if it were far away, I heard Stamp call: ‘Can I draw your maps for you, to play with?’
I walked back to the green grass, tucking my shirt into my trousers. Liz was sitting up and combing her hair. ‘We should've stayed on the dance floor and let everybody have a look,’ she said carelessly.
The idea, fanciful to her, made me go hot all over. Then I shivered. ‘Let's go,’ I said.
We began to walk back towards the Roxy. ‘I'll wrap his cowing posters round his neck, next time I see him,’ I said. But the idea of ever seeing Stamp again, or indeed anybody, filled me with horror.
12
THERE was no sense in going back into the Roxy, and so I waited outside while Liz went in to fetch her handbag. It was getting late now, anyway. The commissionaire had changed into civilian clothes and was taking in the sandwich-boards and propping them against the wall inside the foyer. I could hear the Rockets playing tinnily inside, underlined by a steady thump-thump like a ship's engine. After the music there was some announcement over the tannoy which I could not hear. Mist’ William Fisher, wanted on the telephone, no doubt; I wondered who had been ringing up for me at the Roxy and why. An inch of white ash fell from my cigarette. I began to walk up and down the parade of shops that lined the Roxy, staring at the gaunt, old-fashioned heads in the window of Molly, hair-stylist, and at the forlorn-looking estate agent's with its little cards buckling in their grained wooden slots. None of the shops looked as though anything had ever happened in them.
I had an instinct that I sometimes used, looking into the future and deciding whether an event would take place or not. I tried to project myself forward, to see whether Liz would come out again. I could not form any definite picture of her coming out and smiling at me, and I concluded that on the whole she would not. I decided to give her five more minutes, counting them off in sixties and folding a finger back for every minute gone. At the third finger I lost count over a commotion behind me. I turned round to see Stamp and his two idiot friends, reeling back from the Houghtondale Arms. Stamp was even drunker than he had been before, and was shouting at the top of his voice: ‘To the woods! No, no, not the woods, anything but the woods!’ I stepped back into the estate agent's doorway. The commissionaire had gone round the back of the building with a coke shovel in his hand, and the Roxy was unguarded. They dodged in, giggling and shoving each other. ‘Where's yer pass-outs, you two?’ yelled Stamp. ‘Hey, mister, they're getting in for nix!’
I was dog-tired and feeling gritty round the eyes, and hungry. I walked up to the entrance of the Roxy and looked down the length of the foyer, but I could not see Liz. She was probably already whooping it up with Man o' the Dales inside. At the door of the Ladies, Stamp was talking beerily to Rita, lending her a penny or something. I was hungry and cold and tired.
I walked away, dipping into my mind for a morsel of No. 1 thinking to get me home. Ambrosia was closed for the night, or seemed to be. I came up as chairman of the Stradhoughton Labour Party, in fact M.P. for the division, the youngest member in the House, writing letters to Councillor Duxbury. Dear Councillor Duxbury, As you know, the proposal to nationalize the undertaking business is already in the committee stage. You are well versed not only in this particular field but in public life also, and before concluding this piece of legislation we would greatly appreciate your comments. (You may remember me as a clerk in your employ, many years ago now….)
At the corner of Clogiron Lane was a fish shop, a small area of brightness among the discreet drawn blinds and the concrete lamps. I stepped almost automatically over the hollowed step into this tiled, light womb of warmth, and joined the small queue among the Tizer bottles, the stacked sheets of clean newspaper, and the advertisements for cinemas and jumble sales. I leaned in gratitude on the salty marble counter and savoured the high aroma of steam and vinegar and buxom sweat. Written in whitewash on the burnished battery of mirrors above the frying-range was the sign: ‘Under completely new management.’ The usual fat women were serving in their chip-stained white aprons, but the man at the range, tall and dour like all fishshop proprietors, was a new one. He turned half-round to the trough of batter by his side, and I recognized him instantly as the leading man in an old No. 2 daymare which even now I revived from time to time. Long ago, in a different neigh-bourhood, I had caused some consternation up and down the street by telling everybody that the man who ran the fish shop had hanged himself. This was undoubtedly the same man. He recognized me too, and gave me one of the keen, contemplative looks that were so much a feature of Stradhoughton life. I had a quick fancy that all my enemies had secretly taken office around Clogiron Lane and were hustling into position, preparing for the coup. I bought a bag of chips and walked out of the shop.
Dear Mr Shadrack, As you know, the nationalization of the undertaking business is imminent, and we are very keen to get someone knowledgeable in charge of casket production. I well reme
mber as an ‘old boy’ of Shadrack and Duxbury's (I was the wretch who forgot to post the calendars!!!) being shown some drawings of a fibre-glass casket which you thought could be produced very cheaply….
The chips lasted me all the way home to Hillcrest. I threw the greasy bag into our own privet hedge, wiped my hands, and lit a cigarette before going indoors. I felt a lot better.
The old man was in the lounge, straddling the fawn-tiled fireplace, the back of his balding head glimmering faintly through what little of the mirror you could see behind its crust of frosted bambis. His certificate of membership from the Ancient Order of Stags, thick with Gothic writing and seals and all the rest of it, was propped up on the mantelpiece. I was surprised to see the old man still up. He stood with his waistcoat open and eyed me as I went into the room.
I said: ‘Did you want some chips bringing in?’
The old man said: ‘I'm surprised t' bloody chip shop's still open, this time o' night.’ He nodded towards the cuckoo clock, swinging its lead weights against the sad wallpaper. He turned to chuck his cigarette end in the fire and said, tossing the remark casually across to me: ‘They're down at t' Infirmary.’
‘Who is?’
‘Your mother and your grandma, who the bloody hell do you think? Your grandma's been taken badly again. We've been trying to get word to you for t' last hour. Where've you been?’
I felt a twinge of alarm at the idea of Gran being carted off to the Infirmary. Normally, after one of her fits, she would sit ticking broodily in a chair until she was more or less normal again. If the fit recurred, it was supposed to be serious or something. I was glad that they had got her out of the house.
I said, harshening my voice to make it acceptable: ‘Why, what's up with her?’
‘What's up wi' you, that's what I want to know,’ the old man snarled, beginning to boil up into his slow rage. ‘I thought you were off to t' bloody dance hall when you'd been to t' pub. Why don't you go where you say you're going, we've been ringing up half the bloody night.’
‘I had a pass-out –’ I began.
‘Pass-out, you'll do more than pass out if you don't bloody frame! You'd better ring up for a taxi, your mother wants to see you down at t' Infirmary.’
‘Why, what's up wi' me grandma?’ I said.
‘What's allus up wi' your grandma, what do you think? Get ringing up t' taxi!’
Reluctantly, I went into the hall and rang up New Line Taxis. The old man was shouting: ‘And bloody come home on a night in future, not at this bloody time!’ but there was something oddly restrained and preoccupied about his abuse. I felt that he had something more to say. I put down the telephone and started to walk up the stairs. That was the trigger for it. With a bound of fury the old man reached the hall door.
‘You don't go up there!’
‘Why, I'm just waiting for t' taxi.’
‘I said you don't go up there!’
I leaned against the wall, trying to look resigned and reasonable. ‘Well ah've got to have a wash, haven't I?’
‘You can go mucky. You don't go upstairs. We've had enough of you up there, with your bloody hiding and meddling and I don't know what else.’
‘What, I don't know what you're talking about,’ I said, screwing my face up to look puzzled.
‘You know bloody well what I'm talking about.’ And then, sharply: ‘What have you done with that letter of your mother's?’
I stood, cold, on the stairs.
‘Do you hear me? I'm talking to you!’
‘What letter?’ I said.
‘What, what, what,’ the old man mimicked, his face cracking into an ugly sneer. ‘Don't keep saying bloody what! You know bloody well what letter! That what she gave you to post to t' “Housewives’ Choice”.’
I leaned back again, my face in a mask of panic, reviewing breakneck all the things they must know if they had found out about my mother's letter.
‘I've told her once, I posted it,’ I said.
‘You posted bloody nowt! You've had it in that box! It was given to you to post, you bloody, idle little sod!’
A small wave of relief touched me, at the hope that the old man would put it all down to nothing more than idleness. I said, with desperate nonchalance: ‘I did post it. That was just the rough copy.’
‘What yer talking about, rough copy? It's your mother's letter. How could you have posted it?’
I came down one stair to meet him, trying to talk in the patient, explanatory voice. ‘Look. The letter my mother wrote was full of mistakes, that's all. I just thought it would have a better chance if I wrote it out again, properly, that's all.’
‘Well who told you to write it out again? And who told you to open it? You keep your thieving hands off other people's things! And where did you get all them bloody calendars from, anall?’
‘What calendars?’ It was a purely automatic reflex, like kicking up the knee against a hammer. I was trapped without time to think or to stall or to rig the facts.
The old man took a deep breath and started fingering the shredding, concave belt around his trousers. ‘By bloody hell, I'll give you bloody what if you don't stop saying what, what, my lad! You know bloody well what! Don't think I've not been talking to Councillor Duxbury, cos I have! I've heard it all. You make me a bloody laughingstock, you can't keep your hands off owt. And where's that monkey-wrench out of my garage? I suppose you know nowt about that?’
‘No, course I don't. What do I want with a monkey-wrench?’
‘What do you want wi' two hundred bloody calendars? And what have you been doing wi' their bloody nameplates anall? You're not right in the bloody head!’
I had no refuge except in rage. ‘I'm not right, I'm not right,’ I shouted, coming down the stairs at him. ‘I didn't want to work for Shadrack and flaming Duxbury's. You put me there, now you can answer for it!’
‘Don't bloody shout at me, you gormless young get! Or I'll knock your bloody eyes out.’
‘God give me strength,’ I murmured, closing my eyes at the threat.
‘God give you strength, he wants to give you some bloody sense! You're like a bloody Mary Ann!’ He was slowing down, like a spent volcano. I sat down on the stairs with my head in my hands, trying to look defeated and hoping he would go away. He turned, muttering to himself. ‘Well I hope yer mother gets more sense out o' you. And don't go chelping back at her like you chelp at me, else you'll know about it.’ He stood at the hall door, fingering the lock, experimenting with the turning mechanism, and trying hard to effect the transition from shouting into normal speech. I tried to help him.
‘Well I told you I didn't want to work for Shadrack's when I first started, didn't I?’
‘You didn't want to work for nobody, if you ask me owt,’ the old man said. ‘You thought you'd live on me, didn't you?’
‘No, I didn't. I could have kept myself.’
‘How?’
‘Writing scripts,’ I said thickly.
‘Writing bloody scripts, you want to get a day's work done, never mind writing scripts. Who do you think's going to run this bloody business when I'm gone?’ He jerked his thumb in the direction of the garage outside, and it was so exactly like the trouble at t' mill routine that Arthur and I had between us that the response flicked immediately into my mind ‘But father, we all have our lives to lead, you yours and I mine!’
Aloud, I said: ‘You said you didn't want me in the business.’
‘Only because you were so bloody idle! Some bugger's got to carry on wi' it. Who's going to keep your mother?’
Father, the men! They're coming up the drive!
‘Why, you're not retiring, are you?’ I said with a forced jocularity. The old man turned away in disgust and walked into the lounge. I sat where I was for a minute or so, and then I started to go upstairs. ‘And keep out of your grandma's bedroom!’ he called venomously.
I tiptoed into my room and went straight over to the Guilt Chest, already convinced that the whole thing had been a gi
gantic hoax. But the chest had definitely been moved; it was lying slantwise across the linoleum, only half-under the bed, and the stamp edging was gone. It was almost a relief to know at last for certain that they had been into it. I knelt down and pulled the Guilt Chest clear of the bed and lifted the tinny lid. The calendars were still stacked in their heavy piles, though they had been disturbed. The ‘Housewives' Choice’ letter had gone. I felt under a pile of calendars for the stack of invoices the old man had once given me to post. They were still there. I grabbed them first, the calendars toppling over into the chest, and stuffed them into my inside pocket. Liz's postcards were still there, and so was the copy of Ritzy Stories. The letters from the Witch had been inter with. I ran rapidly through their contents and turned the repeater gun on the Witch and her silly, daft prose.
I sat on the bed, making a weak effort to translate the scene with the old man into No. 1 thinking, with my No. 1 father ushering me into the library for the manly talk. I tried again to project myself into the future. I could see myself, quite plainly see myself, sitting on the train, knocking on a peeling door in Earl's Court, sitting in Danny Boon's office, eating beans on toast in the A.B.C. I took out my wallet and counted the notes again, eight pounds ten now, and seventeen shillings in silver.
I dug out the letter from Danny Boon again and smoothed it out and read it. ‘Several of the boys do work for me, you might be interested in this.’ I jumped to my feet and grabbed the old suitcase from under the chest of drawers, throwing out the store of blankets and Polythene-wrapped cardigans my mother kept in it. Pulling open drawers, I began to assemble shirts and handkerchiefs and socks together. I took down my best suit and folded it in two, still on its hanger, inside the suitcase. Then I looked in the Guilt Chest, reckoning that there must be about a hundred and seventy calendars left. I got a great heap of calendars and put them, in three rows, in the suitcase. Then I began packing in earnest, putting a calendar in between each shirt and placing the calendars like lining all the way round the case. The lid would not close. I took out two shirts and one calendar. I tore the calendar out of its envelope and propped it up on the bedroom mantelpiece behind the Coronation tin. I pushed the envelope behind the sheet of newspaper in the fireplace, and got the case shut by pressing on it. There was a rubble of old letters and torn pieces of envelope left in the Guilt Chest. I put Liz's postcards and the letters from the Witch in my raincoat pocket, and left the rest.
Billy Liar Page 15
