Riley, page 3
‘And kicking, and well-to-do. We see each other whenever we can, and always in the best hotels, let me tell you, or at her flat; but I prefer not to go there because I don’t want to be the one to recognise Lord So-and-So, or Sir Somebody-else. Oh yes’—he nodded—‘You look surprised: there’s nothing but the best for Gwendoline They call them boyfriends or girlfriends today, but she’ll put the real name to her end of the bargain: mistress; and mind you, she’s forty-six. She was mistress to one particularly well-known man for ten years, and since he died three years ago I don’t probe.’
They now sat looking at each other in silence, and he may have been surprised if he could have read her thoughts because she was asking herself if she herself had ever lived. And the answer was no; and yet once she had thought she was about to start living in a month’s time. That was some years ago. How many? Eight, nine? Eight and a half. She was twenty-six then. They had been engaged for three years, and there was only a month to go before the wedding when he told her that he was uneasy inside about their future: he didn’t know if he was ready to settle down. And oh no! What a suggestion to make: he wouldn’t dream of asking her to live with him. What would their friends think, and his mother, not forgetting Father Ramshaw; and marriage, you know, in the Catholic Church, was not to be taken lightly. His mother hadn’t recognised divorce and he shared her opinion.
She could visualise him standing before her, and asking herself why she had ever loved him. Yes, she knew his mother did not believe in divorce, which was why his poor father had to continue to give her a generous allowance and as a result to work all hours that God sent to keep his new family going. And she remembered asking herself why she hadn’t before seen him as an image of his mother. She had realised at times that he was pi about so many things, but she had overlooked this side of his character. No-one was perfect; and so, on looking back, his jilting of her hadn’t been as painful as it might have been had she been passionately in love with him. So why was it that she had to act as she did and stupefy him into amazement by first slapping his face, both sides, then screaming at him as she hit him with a vase. After she had seen the blood pouring from his brow, her mind had gone into a state of confusion, and her father had held her in his arms and rocked her as if she were a child again, while her mother attended to her battered suitor. What had followed after, they said, had been a minor breakdown, followed by a number of temporary teaching jobs, until she had found a position in industry. But now here she was sitting in this cluttered room with this man, he who had altered out of all appearance from how she had seen him and viewed him over these past months.
He was holding her hand and saying, ‘Are you all right? I’m an absolute fool. I’ve disturbed you by talking as I have. I don’t know what came over me; I’m so sorry.’
‘Please…please, don’t say you’re sorry. You’ve done something for me.’
‘Yes?’
His face was close to hers now and she nodded, saying, ‘Yes, you’ve opened up an old sore and scraped it clean…Good Lord! Now I’m using some of your metaphors,’ and she smiled at him.
‘Oh, my metaphors. They must bore people to death.’
‘They’ve worked in my case.’
‘I won’t say I couldn’t imagine you having an old sore, because I think that you have and if I, as you say, have scraped it clean, I’m more than pleased; and so I say our drinking has not been in vain.’
He pulled the steps closer towards her and seating himself again, he said, ‘When are you off?’
‘Tomorrow some time.’
‘Same here.’
‘Have…have you anything planned?’
‘Not really, not booked. I usually travel, but this year I think I’ll keep to southern Europe. I’ve only myself to please, so sometimes I walk and sometimes I indulge in a good hotel near a nice beach and swim and do a bit of boating and such.’
They were looking straight into each other’s eyes now when he asked, ‘Have you ever been in love?’ and to this she answered, ‘Yes, at least I thought I was for four years.’
‘Were you married?’
‘No, but I was about to be.’
‘And you changed your mind?’
‘No, he did.’
‘The stupid bugger.’
It was she who first let out the peal of laughter; then, as if reluctantly, he joined her. She was wiping her eyes when he asked softly, ‘How long ago was this?’
‘Oh…seven, eight years ago. Something like that.’
‘And you’ve kept it buried all this time?’
She looked thoughtful for a moment before she said, ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’
‘Well, I know how that feels; I did the same.’
Her mouth fell into a slight gape before she said, ‘I can’t imagine you brooding.’
‘Well, no’—he smiled wryly now—‘I didn’t exactly brood, but I nearly went along the line for my reaction.’
‘You mean went to prison?’
‘Exactly. We were married for four years. We were said to be young and foolish. But I’ve never really felt young in my life, nor foolish. I had the example of my parents not to follow, so I went the other way: I was too considerate, too kind, too trusting; and, you know, I was only three hours earlier than she expected when I returned home from London, and there they were. I’d gone upstairs quietly. I had a special present for her and I thought she’d be resting. She had been off-colour, rather fragile, couldn’t be touched; waited on, and fussed about, yes, and she required a lot of sleep. But, to put it bluntly what they were doing at that moment needed a lot of energy.’
When her head went down he said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but she brought it up swiftly, saying, ‘Don’t be. Please don’t be. Go on.’
‘You know something? My heart actually stopped beating. Really stopped beating. I think if it had gone on for another few seconds like that I’d have had brain damage. Sure I would. Well, I must have had it for a time because what I did to that fellow and her was nobody’s business. Yes, and her. By the way, he wasn’t my best friend or anything, not even known to me in any way; I’d never seen him in my life before but he turned out to be an old flame of hers, one of her first. Well, my last act towards them was to get them by the hair—there was nothing else to get hold of—and drag them down the stairs and throw them out of the house.’
‘Oh, you didn’t!’ She was shaking her head.
‘Oh, I did. I did. I tell you, my heart had stopped and it must have affected my brain for a time, but yes, I threw them both outside. Fortunately for them there was a bit of a garden with an iron railing at the end and it was nearly dusk, but it wasn’t a warm day, and both Mrs Bradley on the one side and Mrs Newbank on the other apparently knew what had been going on under my nose: they had been behind the curtains and they got an eyeful and, being compassionate people, they covered them up and called for an ambulance.’
‘An ambulance?’
‘Yes, an ambulance. His jaw was broken, he had lost a number of teeth, and he was severely bruised about the body. I can’t remember whether they were done by my feet or my hands. As for her, well, poor dear, she couldn’t see out of her eyes for some days, and she had a broken wrist. Oh, it was a great sensation in the papers. It even made the nationals, third page, but it made them.’
‘What was the end result? I mean about you almost going to jail.’
‘Oh, the police were called, naturally, and I was charged with grievous bodily harm but given bail. Then the case was quashed. I think it was his people, his wife’s people…oh yes, he turned out to be married with four children and the family were pretty well off, being in the grocery business, and evidently they didn’t want any more scandal concerning their son; but later his wife divorced him.’
‘Were you living here at the time?’
‘Oh no, in York. I had come down from university when I was twenty-two and I married the following year, so when I was twenty-seven or so I was free again, by which time I had sold my house and my little bookshop.’ He was nodding again. ‘Yes, I had a bookshop that sold nothing but books, no newspapers, cigarettes, sweets or anything else, just books. There aren’t many such left today, not the small ones in side streets anyway, except for those dealing in rare volumes or antique or technical and science books. So the following six months to a year I spent the time abroad walking and seeing the places I had read about. I came back here’—he now pointed his forefinger towards the floor—‘as a master and that’s almost twenty years ago.’
Her words were slow and soft as she said, ‘You should have been headmaster, everyone seems to think that.’
‘Yes, plus me. I seem to think that too. If the old boy himself had not died but retired, I would’ve been.’
‘From what I understand you’ve helped a number of boys to get on.’
‘The academically inclined would have got on themselves: it’s quite easy to help the bright ones. It’s those like Riley that are the difficult cases; but in the end they give you more satisfaction when they come out on top in one way or another; except, of course, in the art of stealing cars.’ As they smiled at each other he said, ‘All this talk makes me feel old. Look at my hair: it’s going white.’
‘No, it isn’t, it’s just grizzled.’
‘Well, at forty-eight one can expect to be a bit grizzled—you’re trying to be nice to me.’
‘Yes, you could say that.’
They were again laughing together and, bending towards her, he said, ‘You know what I’d like above anything at this moment?’
She shook her head.
‘A cup of tea.’
‘Really?’ Her face was one bright smile. ‘So would I.’
‘Well, what are we sitting here for? We can either go along to the common room and make one—there’s bound to be some milk left—or we can go out and have it like civilised beings in a cafe. What d’you say?’
‘We wouldn’t be able to talk in a cafe.’
‘No, we wouldn’t; so come on.’
When he caught her hand and pulled her up her whole body resisted for a moment, not because she didn’t want to go with him, but because she wanted to laugh again …
They sat by an open window with a small table between them and sipped at their tea. She was looking down onto the playing fields in the silence that had fallen between them when he said, ‘How long is it since we bumped into each other in the corridor when you were coming out of your room?’
She looked at her watch. ‘About an hour, or just over.’
‘It can’t be.’
She looked at her watch again, saying, ‘Yes, yes I would say it’s exactly an hour.’
‘Your watch says that, the time says that, but to you, how long is it since we bumped into each other?’
She gazed at him, her head slightly to the side; but when she didn’t speak he said, ‘Does it not seem an expanse that cannot be accounted for, because during the time you call an hour I have talked to you as I’ve talked to nobody for years, and that’s the honest truth. You’re the only one in this town or anywhere else who knows what dear Gwendoline does for a living; you’re the only one who knows I still hate my father—his death three years ago didn’t lessen my hate; you’re the only one in this school to whom I have shown the other side of Grizzly Beardsley, as is my nickname. And you know, you yourself have explained the facade that you have held up like a shield, the words large-printed for all to read: this far and no further; and I think I must be the only one who has got behind the shield. Am I right?’
It was a long moment of exchanged glances before she muttered, ‘Yes, yes you are right.’
‘Well then, how do you really measure the time you have called an hour and in which I have come to know you, and you to know me and I’ve still not called you Louise and you have not called me Fred?’ He leant further towards where she was sitting with her forearms on the table, the cup and saucer between her hands, and said, ‘D’you know something? We’ll never be the same again, you and I, after this period of unaccountable time we’ve just passed through. Are you with me in this?’
She made a small motion with her head as she said softly, ‘Yes, yes I am with you, Fred.’
He drew in a long slow breath, then pulled his chair closer to the table so that he could lay his hands on hers, and he said, ‘I am going to ask you two questions. The second one will depend upon how you answer the first. This is quite simple: will your sister and family be very upset if you don’t join them for the holidays?’
She stared back into his eyes as she wondered: would they be very upset? Yes, in a way. Yes, they would be. But why? Because her presence in the house enabled them to socialise more, leaving her to keep an eye on the two younger children, nine and ten-year-olds. She didn’t mind them; it was fifteen-year-old Susan she couldn’t stand. No matter how she tried she couldn’t like her niece. She had never shown it, at least she hoped she hadn’t. Her sister was having a hard time with her, and her familiar response to Susan was, ‘Well, you may go if Aunt Louise will go with you.’ But then, which fifteen-year-old wants to go to a dance or such with an aunt as old as her mother? And so she said to him, ‘No, they just like me to look upon their house as home. They carry on the same as usual when I’m there and,’ she added without any touch of bitterness, ‘spare aunts are always pliable people, you know: they can be asked to do things that one wouldn’t ask of one’s friends.’
‘Oh, Louise. Your insight is over-keen. I think you have now already answered the second question: Will you miss going and joining them for the holidays?’
When she did not answer straight away he raised his eyebrows in enquiry, and then she said, ‘Well, in my case it all depends if I have something better to put in its place, something to fill up the time.’
She watched him bite on his lip, and when he said, ‘I’m about to suggest something that could help fill up the time; but even though I now know you better than anyone else does, and that I’ve had the urge to know you since I first saw you, the reason why wasn’t understandable even to me at first. I hadn’t dared put it into words to myself until I’d been through this time-lapse with you, for I know that nothing so enormous could have happened to me in just one hour. No, the seed was set a long time ago…well, months ago, in January of this year, and it dropped, I may tell you, on very hard and stony ground. Prepared ground, ground to resist the blossoming of any emotion. Oh yes. All emotion had to be covered by Beardsley’s long tirades on this or that subject and that he had not much use for women either inside or outside the school. He was always polite to them, charming in fact, at times, especially on parents’ nights, but they had been warned off by his cutting tongue. They knew just how far they could go and would warn others, as they did you, didn’t they, Louise?’
‘Yes, yes they did, Fred.’ She had stressed the Fred, and they both chuckled.
‘But you asked yourself, didn’t you, Louise, what they could see in that grizzled fellow? He must surely be in his forties, late forties, you would say.’
‘No, I didn’t. I never thought that. I thought late thirties.’
‘You were indeed kind. But for the moment that is going to mean all or nothing. Well, perhaps not all or nothing, but whether or not we can enter that time-lapse again. It’s just this. I’m going to get in my car tomorrow morning and drive down to Dover. I’m taking the car across on the ferry, and then driving down through France, all the while asking myself why I am alone; and so this time, I wonder if I could have a companion on that journey. It could be,’ he held up his hand now, like a policeman stopping traffic, and placed it just above her shoulder as he went on, ‘it could be utterly platonic or utterly not. It would be entirely up to you. And if you wanted it kept quiet, again it would be entirely up to you. I could pick you up anywhere in the morning and we’d be away. Otherwise things would be as they were before: Beardsley would go off on his own and Miss Barrington would go to her sister in Rye.’
She pressed her back tight against the chair and stared at him. He was offering her his company for six weeks. They would stop at hotels and laze on beaches. They would visit places she had never even dreamt of and, as he said, it could be platonic or otherwise. Platonic or otherwise. She would have to say…what would she have to say? She had never felt like this in her life before. She felt elated, different, so different, free. Perhaps that wasn’t the right word because that feeling of rejection she had carried with her for years was now no more. Somebody wanted her. They weren’t saying, ‘I’ve had four years with you and I can’t face a marriage to you.’ And when you are presented to yourself in that way you become as nothing, your emotions freeze, thawing only in the deep darkness of the night when the desire for love becomes overpowering.
Platonic or otherwise.
Her voice was as soft as the look in her eyes as she replied, ‘Why wait till morning? It’ll be light until ten o’clock or so.’
She watched his head droop onto his chest for a moment, and she heard him mutter, ‘Oh, Louise, my dear, dear Louise.’ Then he startled her by grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet and around the table, and into his arms. But although he held her tightly he did not kiss her, and his voice was thick as he said, ‘This is jumping the gun and going beyond platonic and you haven’t made up your mind yet.’ His arms dropping from around her, he gripped her hand again and was about to begin running when he turned and saw the used teacup and glass on the window sill; then he said, ‘Oh, to pot! I’ll see Robson as I’m going out and explain.’ Then as they hurried out of the room he added, ‘But I’d better not explain too much, had I?’
‘Where are we going?’ she gasped.
‘Back to my room to pick up the book that you came for, Miss Barrington, and the remainder of the port. It’ll only take us five minutes.’
