When the door banged she quickly padded into the front room, and, standing to the side of the window, watched her son marching down the street. A big, well-dressed, prosperous-looking man, who had just been in this little box of a house talking about spending twenty-five thousand pounds as if they were shillings. Life was strange. Would he persuade Van to go and live in a house next to her parents? He persuaded her to do most things. It was always a mystery to her what Vanessa saw in her son; that she herself should know his worth was a different matter altogether. She knew him to be a good man, big-headed, bumptious, argumentative, all the qualities that went to make a rough northerner; he took after herself, and she knew what she was all right, nobody better, and him being the flesh of her flesh she could appreciate him; but how did it come that a girl like Vanessa could appreciate him? What did she see in him? She didn’t talk much ever, never opened up, and she didn’t seem to have any life of her own. She was his wife, the mother of his children; his secretary, aye, an’ his teacher, she had been learning him for years to speak properly, grammar an’ that. She had seen his efforts on his desk but she hadn’t remarked on them; she knew better. She didn’t want to spoil a good thing. Yet he showed no evidence of improvement when he was talking to her. No, he was the same old ha’-penny dodger. But that lass; everything she did was for him, and what did she get out of it? Damn little that she could see. He could have got her into a decent house long afore this but he had put it off and put it off, partly, she had thought, because he didn’t want to move away from herself. But now she saw the real reason for him staying put. He had been after big game all along, no modern bungalow or imitation Regency house for him; it had to be on Brampton Hill, and not only on Brampton Hill, it had to be one of the biggest houses; and not only one of the biggest, but the place that had the most land left. He was going too fast; he was rising too high; he’d blow himself up unless something, or somebody, put the brakes on him.
Three
It was in the afternoon that she went down the street to the end house. She knew Vanessa’s routine. It being after four o’clock Andrew and Annabella would be out with Mary Ridley in the park, and Vanessa would be preparing the evening meal.
She found her in the kitchen, a small, modern, well-equipped kitchen, and she said, ‘Oh, hello, lass. Isn’t it close? And it’s going to pour afore the day’s out; I can tell by me feet.’
‘Aren’t they any better?’ Vanessa looked down at the swollen ankles bulging over the top of black-laced shoes.
‘No, lass; an’ they won’t be until I’m in me coffin. And I bet you what you like, the swellin’ll go down immediately then. Enough to make you kick yourself.’
‘Oh, Emily!’ Vanessa was laughing. She always got a laugh and felt happy when Emily was about. It was a different kind of happiness from that which she experienced with Angus; that happiness was a taut, high-tensioned feeling. She said now, ‘Rosie popped in. She’s just gone along to Stodarts; she’ll be back in a short while. She was coming down to you.’
‘Stodarts! For more shoes? She’s always buyin’ shoes. How many pairs is that she’s got?’
‘At the last count,’ said Vanessa, breaking an egg into some flour, ‘eighteen.’
‘God above! Eighteen pairs of shoes. She would have to be a centipede to get her wear out of them.’
Vanessa was laughing again. ‘She likes shoes.’
‘She likes too many things, that one. The money’s gone to her head; she’s never done spendin’. Have they got owt in the bank? She won’t tell me; she says it’s none of my business.’
‘Oh, I think they’re all right, Emily. Stan’s sensible where money is concerned.’
‘It would take him to be. She’d have him on the rocks else…Van.’
‘Yes, Emily?’ Vanessa turned her head round, but still kept beating the egg and flour together.
‘Can you stop a minute? I want a word with you, serious like.’
‘Serious?’ Vanessa laid down the fork and wiped her hands and turned about, and Emily, going into the living room, said, ‘Come an’ sit down a minute; I want to get it over afore our Rosie comes in. This is atween you and me, understand?’
When they were seated Emily bent forward and repeated, ‘Mind, lass; this is just atween you and me. I want your word on it.’
‘Something’s wrong, Emily…Angus?’
‘Aye, Angus. Oh, it’s all right. Don’t look like that; it’s not that kind of wrong.’ She reached out and roughly pulled Vanessa’s hand away from her mouth and, holding onto it, she said, ‘Now listen, lass. Have you noticed any difference in him lately, the last week or so?’
Vanessa considered a minute, then said, ‘Well, yes. He’s not sleeping. He seems excited about something; bursting out singing one minute, and gloomy the next. Yes. Yes, I’ve noticed it.’
‘But you didn’t say nothing?’
‘No, Emily.’
‘Well, I can tell you he is excited an’ all, because he’s keeping somethin’ back from you. He’s done somethin’ an’ he’s not tellin’ you until the matter is clinched. An’ when it is it’ll be too late to alter things; or so he thinks. You know, he’s your husband, Van, but I don’t think he really knows you. I feel I know you a damn sight better than him; but then, of course, I’ve known you longer, haven’t I?’ she smiled.
‘What’s it all about, Emily?’ Vanessa’s voice was quiet; her whole demeanour was quiet. She had grown into a rather reserved young woman. She was very seldom gay, unless she was with her children, and then she had to be alone with them before she could let herself go. She added now, ‘Tell me. Tell me quickly, please, because Rosie might be back at any minute. And Angus himself will be in shortly.’
‘Well, hold on to your seat there, lass. Here it comes…He’s buying the Bretts’ place, The Larches.’
Emily watched the colour drain completely from Vanessa’s face. She thought for a moment she was going to collapse, and she said, ‘Now steady on, lass. Steady on. Don’t let go. This is not the time for lettin’ go; you’ve got to put your thinkin’ cap on.’
‘The Larches? He’s buying The Larches for us?’ Vanessa’s voice came as the smallest whisper.
‘For you. He’s goin’ to give you the surprise of your life. He gave me the surprise of mine when he out with it. He was bustin’ at the seams, like a bairn with a new toy. I’ve never stopped worryin’ since. I told him he was mad…You don’t want to go an’ live in The Larches, do you?’
‘Oh, Emily. Me! Live in The Larches? In Brett’s house? O-Oh!’ The last word came as a groan. ‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t live there even…even if it wasn’t next door to home.’ She still thought of Bower Place as home. ‘And just think what it would do to Mother and Father. They wouldn’t stand for it; they would leave.’
‘Aye, aye, I’d thought of that.’
‘And…and they love that place. Oh. Oh, how could he, Emily? How could he?’
‘He could because he’s barmy; he thinks that because you came from there you want to go back there. It’s no use tellin’ him. But that’s not the only reason he bought the place; the other is he’s wantin’ to get one back on your father. That’s at the bottom of it; he wants to show him.’
‘I’ll never go there, Emily.’
‘I know that, lass.’
‘He’ll just have to sell it again.’
‘An’ that’ll knock the spunk out of him if anythin’ will. And I’d hate to see it happen, ’cos he’s mine, and I know how he’ll feel. But as I see it there’s nothing else for it. I thought I’d better tell you because if he sprung it on you and you hadn’t time to think there might be a flare-up. And it’s like this.’ She smiled now. ‘Him an’ me, an’ our lot, we can flare up and threaten to murder each other one minute, an’ we’ll be shakin’ hands the next, but if you had a flare-up you wouldn’t get over it easily. Would you now?’
Vanessa looked from the dyed hair to the prematurely wrinkled face of her mother-in-law, and she though
t: She’s right. She’s always right. But what was she going to do about this, this latest venture, which must appear to him as the summit of his aims? This is what he had been waiting for, working for, striving for, wearing himself out for, to give her this. Her refusal must be made in such a way that a flare-up, when it came, would not burn him out, burn them both out. Their marriage, as she saw it, was a precarious union, resting as it were on a knife’s edge, and this in spite of love and two children.
At this moment they heard Rosie coming pitter-pattering up the stairs on her high heels and, after looking hard at each other, they went quickly out of the room, and Emily greeted her daughter with, ‘You want your lugs scudded, buying more shoes.’
‘Shoes are made for walking,’ Rosie sang, as she pranced round the table in her latest acquisition. Then stopping suddenly, she looked at Vanessa and said, ‘Oh, by the way, what’s going on with our Angus these days? Stan says he’s like a dog with two tails.’
Vanessa and Emily refrained from exchanging glances; then Rosie exclaimed, ‘You’re not,’ she shook her head before adding, ‘again?’
‘No, Rosie. I’m not again.’ Vanessa smiled.
‘Well; what is it?’
‘Oh,’ Vanessa turned towards the fireplace, ‘I suppose it’s because things are going well.’
‘Oh, it isn’t only that. Stan says they’ve been going well for a long time; and he wasn’t like this. Stan says he’s all keyed-up, just as if he was going to take off by parachute.’
‘Very likely is,’ said Emily now, going towards the door. ‘You never know what he’s goin’ to do next. The only thing is, I hope he doesn’t forget to pull the strings afore he hits the ground.’
On this enigmatic comment, enigmatic at least to Rosie, Emily left them.
Life seemed to follow the usual pattern until almost a week later. It was in the evening. Angus was late and Vanessa had just got the children to bed, promising them that their father would come and see them immediately he entered the house. But they were sound asleep by the time he did get in.
He looked tired tonight, and somewhat strained, and so she let him have his meal and cleared away before she said, ‘I want to talk to you, Angus.’
‘Talk?’ He cast a sidelong glance at her. ‘Well, fire ahead.’
She swallowed deeply and walked the length of the sitting room and back to him before she said, ‘I understand you are buying me a house?’
She watched his head turn from her and swing from side to side, and when his fist crashed onto the table she said, ‘She had to tell me.’
‘The big-mouthed old bitch!’ He spaced each word. ‘That’s all she is, a great big loose-mouthed old bitch.’ His head stopped its swinging, his fists relaxed, and then slowly he turned and looked at her and asked in an entirely different voice, in which she detected a plea, ‘Well, what do you think? Go on, tell me what you think?’
‘I…I think it’s wonderful that you could pay so much money for the place.’
‘Is that all?’ His shoulders stiffened. ‘Aren’t you excited? You know what place I’ve bought, don’t you? Brett’s. Now. Now.’ He thrust his hand swiftly out towards her and jerked it back and forwards. ‘Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t animosity; nothing like that; not against Brett; it’s just that I wanted you to be back on the Hill, where you belong.’
‘I—I understand, Angus.’
‘Do you? Aw,’ his head was swinging again, ‘I don’t think you do really.’
‘Yes, yes, I do; and I think it’s marvellous. There’s only one thing.’
‘Aye, one thing. Well, what is it?’ His face looked grim now, for he expected her answer to be, ‘I can’t live there.’ But it wasn’t. What she said was, ‘Would you do something more for me?’
‘Anything.’ His voice was full of relief. The tension went out of his body; he grabbed her hands, saying softly, ‘Anything in the wide world. You know that. I don’t have to tell you.’
‘But this is something big, different; you—mightn’t be able to understand why I’m asking it.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ he smiled at her, ‘not until you tell me.’
She dropped her eyes down to their joined hands, and then said softly, ‘Would you have the house put in my name, not jointly, in—in my name?’
This request was the last thing in the world he imagined her making. It sounded utterly preposterous. He wanted to think he hadn’t heard her aright, but he had. Put the house in her name? He wanted it for her but it was to be his property. He wanted to own The Larches, his name on the title deeds. That was one of the things he was living for, to see Angus Cotton written on the deeds of The Larches.
‘Why? Tell me why?’ he said flatly. ‘Jointly, aye; but why do you want it in your name?’
She raised her lashes but didn’t look at him; she looked beyond him as she said, ‘It’s—it’s just a whim, I suppose.’
He stared at her. Just a whim, she said. If he didn’t satisfy her whim what then? She’d think him mean. All his life she’d consider him mean, and it would raise a barrier between them. Another one to be broken down. He spent his life breaking down barriers. The one that stood between Brampton Hill and Ryder’s Row was about to fall, but if he didn’t comply with her wish in this, even when the barrier was down, wouldn’t she in some way, like a woman, hold it against him? He was always saying that everything he did was for her, now he’d have to prove it by giving her the house.
She was at the window looking down into the street. She was standing very still. She could do that, stand still with no muscle moving. He stared at her long, straight back. Even the lines of her could churn up his stomach any time of the day, and that after nearly six years. Aw, to hell! Who was to know whose name was on the deeds? The house would be known as Angus Cotton’s place, and Van wasn’t the kind of woman to go loud-mouthing it round the town that it was in her name. She wasn’t like his mother. Wait till he got his tongue around that one. She had knocked all the guts out of his plans. The excitement of driving Van up there when the thing was signed and sealed and saying, ‘This is yours. I’ve bought it for you. Didn’t I say I’d put you back where you belong?’
He said now, ‘Well, if that’s how you want it, that’s how you’ll have it. It’ll be in your name.’
She turned round. ‘Thanks, Angus,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
That was all, just, ‘Thanks, Angus.’ No throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him and telling him that he was the most generous man on earth, that it was wonderful the things he had achieved in so short a time. Nothing like that. Just, ‘Thanks, Angus.’ Aye, well; that’s how things went. Coolly. That was part of her make-up, coolness. If he ever could hate her it would be when she was cool.
‘How long will it be before everything is settled?’ She had her face averted as she asked the question, and he said, ‘Oh, a few weeks. The solicitor will have to make a few more alterations now, but the papers haven’t gone up to the Land Registry yet. It won’t be too long. A month; five weeks perhaps.’ His voice sounded flat as if he had lost interest in the whole project, and turning away, he added, ‘I think I’ll go down to the club.’
There was a pause before she answered, ‘Yes. Yes, I would do that; it will relax you.’
‘I don’t need relaxing.’ His voice was brittle as he turned and faced her again, and there was about his face an explosive look, and she combated it by saying quietly, ‘All right, you don’t need to relax. But you need a change. Go on; you’ll feel better when you get back.’
He stared at her. There was something here he couldn’t get to the bottom of. She should be a bit elated that she was having a twenty-three thousand pound house as a gift. She should be acting differently, not sending him out casually to a club, as if it was an ordinary night in an ordinary week—as if he was an ordinary bloke…Aye, as if he was just an ordinary bloke who hadn’t one penny to rub against another. He had a feeling inside that things weren’t right, the kind of feeling he had years
ago when everything was going against him. He wanted to talk, to get to the bottom of it, but he couldn’t do any probing with Van, not with the cool mood on her. But there was someone he could talk to, that loud-mouthed old bitch down there. He’d go down and blow her sky high.
He was in the street before he decided against visiting Emily; the mood he was in he’d want to bawl her down, and she didn’t seem able these days to stand up to him as she used to. He cursed deep in his throat, got into his car and drove to the club. It was coming to something when he had to go to Ransome’s to be appreciated.
When the house door banged Vanessa, sitting down suddenly on a chair, closed her eyes and thought, ‘This is just the beginning. He’ll want to kill me when he finds out.’
Four
The day was dull and chilly. It had started with rain, which had slowed to a drizzle, and this in turn had developed into a wet mist. The streets were greasy. The town traffic bustled through the heavy greyness as if making for more pleasant scenes beyond.
Vanessa made her way down to the main street to Tiller’s Garage and asked for a taxi, and when she was seated in it she held her large handbag upright on her knees and tightly between her hands. In her handbag were the deeds of The Larches. She’d had them in her possession since eleven o’clock when the solicitor had smilingly handed them to her and she had surprised both him and Angus by saying, ‘I want to keep them with me for today.’
‘Look; what’s up with you? They’re yours,’ Angus had said. ‘Let Mr Black hold them with all the other stuff.’
‘Just for today,’ she had repeated; and he had shaken his head and said, ‘All right, all right, have it your own way.’
He had an appointment at half-past eleven but he was coming back about one for her and they were going up to…their house. It was a blind date, he said, because he had never seen inside The Larches. Fancy that, buying a place without looking it over. Had she ever heard of anyone doing that?
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