by Ruth Rendell
Minty didn’t laugh. She was frightened of having God in the house, always telling Auntie He was training her to be the angel of the Lord and not to eat red meat. Auntie had always been a great one for the royal family and she could remember Edward VIII renouncing the throne for love of a woman, so it wasn’t surprising when his voice joined God’s. He told her he’d got a son, born in secret in Paris, and then he’d had a son and she was to tell the queen she’d no business being where she was and this King Edward X ought to wear the crown. Auntie was arrested trying to get into Buckingham Palace and they wanted to put her away, but Minty wasn’t having that. While she had her health and strength Auntie was staying put.
“She’s been like a mother to me,” she said to young Mr. Levy, who said she was a good girl and it was a shame there weren’t more like her.
In the end Auntie had to go, but she didn’t live long in the geriatric ward. She’d made a will a long time ago and left Minty the house in Syringa Road, and all the furniture and her savings, which amounted to £1,650. Minty didn’t tell anyone the amount but let it be known Auntie had left her money. It proved Auntie’d loved her. When she added it to her own savings the total came to £2,500. Any sum over a thousand pounds was real money, Minty thought, proud of what she’d amassed. It was after that that she collected Auntie’s ashes from the undertakers and buried them in Maisie Chepstow’s grave.
A long time passed before she went back to the pub. The following week Laf and Sonovia hadn’t wanted to see the film so she’d gone alone; she didn’t mind that, it wasn’t as though she wanted to talk in cinemas. Wisely, she went to the six-ten showing when hardly anyone else did. There were only eight people in the seats besides herself. She liked being alone with no one to whisper to her or pass her chocolates. On the way back she dropped into the Queen’s Head and bought an orange juice. Why, she couldn’t have said. The pub was half empty, it seemed less smoky than usual, and she found a table in the corner.
All her life Minty had never spoken to a man who wasn’t someone’s husband or her employer or the postman or bus conductor. Those sorts of people. She’d never seriously thought of having a boyfriend, still less of getting married. When she was younger Sonovia used to tease her a bit and ask her when she was going to get a man of her own, and Minty always said she wasn’t the marrying kind. Auntie’s mysterious but horrific account of her marital experience had put her off. Besides, she didn’t know any unattached men and none showed any signs of wanting to know her.
Until Jock. Not the first but the second time she went into the pub she saw him looking at her. She was sitting at that same corner table on her own, dressed as she always was in a clean pair of cotton trousers and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her hair newly washed and her nails scrubbed. The man she stole cautious glances at was tall and well built, long-legged in blue jeans and a dark-blue padded jacket. He had a handsome face and a nice tan; he looked clean and his brown hair was short and trim. Minty had almost finished her orange juice. She stared into the golden grainy dregs of it, to avoid looking at the man.
He came over, said, “Why so sad?”
Minty was too scared to look at him. “I’m not sad.”
“You could have fooled me.”
He sat down at her table, then asked her if she minded. Minty shook her head. “I’d like to buy you a real drink.”
Auntie sometimes had a gin and tonic, so Minty said she’d have one of those. While he was getting her gin and a half of lager for himself, Minty felt near to despair. She thought of getting up and running away but she’d have had to pass him to get to the door. What would Sonovia and Josephine say? What would Auntie have said? Have nothing to do with him. Do not trust him, gentle maiden, though his voice be low and sweet. He came back with the drinks, sat down, and said his name was Jock, Jock Lewis, and what was hers.
“Minty.”
“Yum, yum,” said Jock. “Sounds like something that comes with a shoulder of lamb.” He laughed, but not unkindly. “I can’t call you that.”
“It’s Araminta really.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Minty, Minty, the rick-stick Stinty, round tail, bobtail, well done, Minty.” He laughed into her incredulous face. “I shall call you Polo.”
She thought about it, understood. He didn’t have to explain. “I’m Jock. John, really, but everyone calls me Jock. Live round here, do you?”
“Syringa Road.”
He shook his head. “I’m a stranger here myself but I soon won’t be. I’ve got a place up in Queen’s Park, I moved in on Saturday.” He glanced at her hands. “You’re not married, are you, Polo? You’ve got a boyfriend though, I’m sure you have, just my luck as usual.”
She thought of Auntie who was dead and of Agnes going off to Australia. “I haven’t got anybody.”
He didn’t like that. She couldn’t tell why but he didn’t. She’d said it very seriously, of course she had, it was serious to her. To make it better she tried to smile. The gin had gone straight to her head, though she’d only sipped a few mouthfuls of it.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll make you laugh. Now listen. Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drownded. Who was saved?”
It was easy. “Pinch Me.”
He did so. Very gently on her upper arm. “Caught you out, Polo.”
She didn’t laugh. “I ought to be going.”
She thought he’d try to stop her but he didn’t. “Here, have one for the road.” He offered her not a drink but a Polo mint. “I’ll walk you home. I’ve not got my car with me.”
She didn’t believe in the car. Not then. Besides, if he’d had one and offered to drive her she’d have refused. She knew all about not taking lifts from strange men. Or sweets. They might be drugs. Wouldn’t being walked home be just as dangerous? She couldn’t refuse; she didn’t know how. He held the pub door open for her. The streets round here were deserted at night except for groups of young men, wandering, filling the width of the pavement, silent but occasionally letting out bestial yells. Or you’d meet just one, loping along to the deafening beat of a ghetto blaster. If she’d been alone, she wouldn’t have risked it; she’d have got the bus. He asked her what was behind the high wall.
“That’s the cemetery.” She didn’t know why she had to add, “My auntie’s ashes are in there.”
“Is that a fact?” He said it as if she’d told him something wonderful, like she’d won the lottery, and from that moment she started liking him. “Your auntie was very important to you, right?”
“Oh, yes. She was like my mother. She left me her house.”
“You deserved it. You were devoted to her and did all sorts of things for her, didn’t you?” She nodded, speechless. “You had a reward for your good services.”
Syringa Road didn’t turn directly out of Harrow Road but out of a turning off it. He read out the street name in the sort of tone you’d use to say Buckingham Palace or Millennium Dome. His voice was lovely, like something sweet and dark brown and smooth, chocolate mousse maybe. But she was afraid he’d want to come in and she wouldn’t know how to stop him. Suppose he tried to kiss her? Laf and Sonovia weren’t in. No lights were on next door. Old Mr. Kroot lived on the other side, but he was eighty-five and wouldn’t be much use.
Jock dispelled her fears. “I’ll wait here and watch you in.”
She took three steps up the path and turned round. Five would have brought her to the door. “Thank you,” she said.
“What for? It’s been a pleasure. Are you in the phone book, Polo?”
“Auntie was. Miss W. Knox.”
If she hadn’t wanted him to phone she should have said she wasn’t in the book, which was true. She wasn’t. But maybe she did want him to phone her. He went off whistling. The tune was “Walk On By,” the one about being strangers when we meet.
Jock wasted no time. He phoned her the next day. It was in the early evening, she’d just got home from Immacue and was having a wash. No good thinki
ng she could get to the phone when she was all wet and her hair dripping. She let it ring. It would only be Sonovia wanting to tell her something about what Corinne had done this time or the prize Julianna had won or where Florian had come in his exams. The phone rang again while she was arranging cold ham slices and cold boiled potatoes and cubes of cucumber on a plate for her supper, with a chocolate mousse she’d made herself to follow. The voice that was like the mousse said it was Jock and would she come to the cinema with him.
“I might,” Minty said, and then she said, “All right.”
That was how it began.
Josephine said, Had she found out if he was married? Sonovia said she knew nothing about him and would she like Laf to check on Jock’s antecedents, which he could easily do on the police computer. When she told him, Laf said was she joking, a guy with a name like John Lewis? There’d be thousands of them. Not to mention the department store. Minty didn’t much like any of this. It wasn’t their business. How would they like it if she started checking up on their friends? Laf and Sonovia thought a lot too much of themselves, just because he was the first black policeman in the UK to have been made a sergeant. It made her keener on Jock than she might have been without their interference.
She and Jock met in the pub and went to the cinema. After that he came in what he called the “boneshaker” to 39 Syringa Road to call for her. The car was about twenty years old but at least it was clean, he’d taken it into the car wash on the way. Sonovia was on the watch from behind her frilly lace curtains but had to go away two minutes before he arrived because Julianna was on the phone. One day he called for Minty at Immacue. Afterward Josephine went on and on about how good-looking he was, as if she was surprised at Minty finding anyone like that. Next time Jock came in Josephine happened to be sitting on the counter where she could show off her legs in her Wolford Neon Glanz tights. If Jock was impressed he didn’t show it. He took Minty to the dog races at Walthamstow and he took her bowling. She’d never been anywhere like that in her life before.
It was a long time before she plucked up her courage and asked him if he was married. At the time he was humming that song about walk on by, wait on the corner.
“Divorced,” he said. “Don’t mind, do you?”
She shook her head. “Why would I?”
He was in the building trade. His hands would have been in a terrible state if he’d done rough work and they weren’t, so she thought he must be a plumber or maybe an electrician. He never took her to his place in Queen’s Park. She didn’t know if it was a house or a flat or just a room, she knew only that it was in Harvist Road but not the number. He’d no brothers or sisters, no one except his old mother who lived in the West Country that he went to see every couple of weeks, traveling all the way down there by train. When he got divorced he had to let his ex-wife have his house. It was sad.
They’d been going out for six weeks before he kissed her. He put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her face to his. She liked it, which she hadn’t expected. She started washing herself even more. It was important to keep herself nice for Jock, especially now he’d started kissing her. He was clean himself, not so clean as she was, but no one could be. She was proud of that. On a Saturday evening, when they’d been to the Queen’s Head, they brought back Balti takeaway for supper. Well, Jock did. She had a sandwich she made herself and a banana. Jock said he hated bananas, it was like eating sweet soap, and Minty couldn’t help remembering what Auntie’d said about viewing someone who didn’t like them with the deepest suspicion. But what happened next drove all that out of her head. He said he’d like to stay the night. She knew what that meant. He wasn’t talking about dossing down on the front-room couch. He kissed her and she kissed him back but when they got upstairs she left him in the bedroom while she went to have a bath. It worried her that she couldn’t wash her hair but it was no good going to bed with it wet. And she wished the sheets hadn’t been on since Wednesday, she’d have changed them if she’d known what was coming.
What happened with Jock wasn’t the way Auntie hinted it would be. It hurt but somehow she knew it wouldn’t always. Jock was surprised she’d never done it before; he could hardly believe it just as he could hardly believe she was thirty-seven. He was younger but he never said how much.
“I’m yours now,” she said. “I’ll never do that with anyone else.”
“Good-oh,” he said.
She got up early in the morning because she’d had a bright idea before she went to sleep. She’d make a cup of tea and bring it up to him. And it would give her a chance to wash. When he woke up she was bathed and her hair washed, wearing clean trousers and T-shirt, standing meekly by the bed holding a mug of tea and the sugar basin.
“The first time,” he said. “No woman’s ever done that for me before.”
She wasn’t as pleased as he expected her to be. Who were these other women who hadn’t made him tea? Maybe only his mother and the one who’d been his wife. He drank the tea and got up, going off to work without having a proper wash, which shocked her. A week went by before she heard from him. She couldn’t understand it. She went up to Harvist Road on the bus and walked up and down the street, going up to some of the front doors to read the names on the bells. His wasn’t there. She looked along all the surrounding streets for the boneshaker but couldn’t find it. The phone rang twice that week. She touched three colors of wood before answering and prayed, Dear Auntie, let it be him. Please. But it was Corinne the first time, asking her to take a message to Sonovia because next door’s phone was out of order, and a salesman the next, wanting to double-glaze her house. By the time Jock phoned she’d given up hope.
“I didn’t know where you were,” she said. “I thought you’d died”-her voice full of tears.
“I didn’t die,” he said. “I went to the West Country to see my old mum.”
He was coming round. He’d be with her in half an hour. She had a bath, washed her hair, put on clean clothes, all this for the second time in three hours. When the half-hour was up and he hadn’t come, she prayed to Auntie and touched seven different colors of wood, the oak-stained living-room door, the cream front door, the pine table, the green-painted chair in the kitchen, upstairs for the white bath surround, the pink picture rail, and the yellow back brush handle. Ten minutes afterward he arrived. They went to bed, though it was the middle of Saturday afternoon. She liked it even more and wondered if there was something wrong with Auntie or was it with her? Jock took her to see Sliding Doors and then for a meal at the Café Uno in Edgware Road. Next day, because it was Sunday, she said she wanted him to see something special, and they went into the cemetery and she showed him Auntie’s grave.
“Who’s this Maisie Chepstow?” he said. “She’s been dead a long time.”
“She was my auntie’s grandma.” The fantasy seemed to come naturally. It might even be true. What did she know about Auntie’s ancestors? “I’m going to have a new gravestone done with her name on.”
“That’ll be expensive.”
“I can afford it,” Minty said airily. “She left me money. Quite a lot of money and the house.”
Jock didn’t go off to see his mother again for a month, and by the time he did they were engaged. They wouldn’t get married until he’d got a better job and was earning real money, he said. Meanwhile, he borrowed £250 from her to buy a ring. It was her idea. He kept saying, No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it, but when she insisted he gave in. He measured her finger and brought the ring round next day, three diamonds on a hoop of gold.
“I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,” Sonovia said to her husband, “but they can make diamonds in the lab these days and it’s no more costly than making glass. I read about it in the Mail on Sunday.”
Jock stayed the night of 30 June and in the morning he turned over in bed, gave Minty a little pinch on the shoulder and a little punch on the arm and said, “Pinch, punch, first of the month. No returns.”
Another pinch joke
. He said it brought you luck. But you had to be the first to do it. That was the point of the “no returns.” On 1 April, he said, it would be April Fools’ Day only till twelve noon and afterward Tailpike Day. You had to manage to pin a tail on someone without them knowing.
“What sort of tail?”
“Paper, string, anything, you name it.”
“So they get to walk about without knowing they’ve got a tail?”
“That’s the point, Polo. You’ve made a fool of them, right?”
It turned out that he was a general builder and could do anything. She asked him to see if he could do something to stop the bathroom window rattling and he promised he would, but he never did it any more than he mended the shaky leg on the kitchen table. If he had a bit of capital, he said, he could set up in business on his own and he knew he’d make a success of it. Five thousand in his pocket would make all the difference.
“I’ve only got two thousand and a half,” Minty said, “not five.”
“It’s our happiness at stake, Polo. You could take out a mortgage on the house.”
Minty didn’t know how. She didn’t understand business. Auntie had seen to all that, and since Auntie went she’d found it hard enough working out how to pay the council tax and the gas bill. She’d never had to do it, nobody’d shown her.
“Leave it to me,” Jock said. “All you’ll have to do is sign the forms.”
But first she handed over nearly all the money she had. She’d been going to give him a check, make it out the way she did the ones to the council but put “J. Lewis” instead of “London Borough of Brent,” but he said cash would be easier for him because he was in the process of changing his bank. The money would buy a secondhand van, an improvement on the boneshaker, and leave something over for advertising. She told no one, they wouldn’t understand. When he talked about the mortgage again he was sitting up in her bed at 39 Syringa Road, drinking the tea she’d brought him. He wanted her to come back to bed for a cuddle but she wouldn’t, she’d just had a bath. Her engagement ring had had a good clean, soaking in gin overnight. The house, he reckoned, was worth around eighty thousand. Laf had told her the same so she didn’t need convincing. The obvious thing to do was take out a mortgage on it of ten thousand pounds, one eighth of its value.
