Brooding on the misery of William’s mother, I’d become tender enough to write to my own and let her know where I was and that I was well. A letter was pushed through the door with a Nottingham postmark and she said, to my surprise, how much she’d worried about me, and how much she missed me, and how much she loved me — love being a word I don’t think I’d heard her mention before. She told me the news of my grandmother’s death a month ago, which may have upset her because now, apart from me, she was alone in the world, though I thought she must be far from lonely if I knew my mother, who’d never been the person to let boyfriends grow under her feet, and I supposed she was still the same, not being too much above forty. My grandmother, she said, had left me a locked box, and nobody knew what was in it, but she thought it might contain family photos that hadn’t been seen for years. So I ought to go up and collect them some time, though if I was busy they’d be kept safe for me until I wasn’t, whenever that might be.
I wandered around town all day, reading the letter every time I stopped for a coffee or snack. I was touched by the fact that my mother missed me, and intrigued at the thought of what was in my grandmother’s box, so the next day I got on a train at St Pancras and steamed north for Nottingham.
Part Six
I lounged among a heap of newspapers and magazines in a first-class compartment, but soon got bored with them and went to the dining-car for lunch. I’d left it late, and the only remaining place was opposite two other people. I’d felt like being alone with my thoughts, didn’t even want to be asked to pass the salt or ashtray. The man’s hand was on the table, and the girl by his side touched it, then rested hers on it. I was looking at the window, fascinated by beads of rain breaking and multiplying on their way down the glass as the train rushed along. Then I heard my name spoken, and, being forced to look, I saw that the loving and handsome couple in front of me were none other than Gilbert Blaskin, and my old friend June. I couldn’t speak, and a wide smile came on to Gilbert’s already wide mouth: ‘Having a rest from the big city?’
I smiled back, but it nearly broke my face: ‘Where are you two going?’ I hadn’t seen June since our encounter in the taxi, for which I wasn’t exactly well disposed towards her. ‘June and I came down to London together in my car,’ I explained to him. ‘And now you two are travelling north together. My head’s beginning to spin.’
‘It’s a small world,’ said Gilbert. ‘We all know that. But she’s going back north with me now, aren’t you, darling?’
‘I gave up my job at the club,’ she told me. ‘Gilbert and I have known each other for months, and we’ve decided to stay together. You know, the old “man-and-wife” kick.’ They’d already had brandy, and we were served with scalding soup.
He toasted her: ‘Maybe we’ll even get married. We don’t talk about it, though it’s in the air we breathe. I’m divorced now, thank God.’
I couldn’t stand their brimming happiness. ‘What happened to Pearl Harby?’
He winced, but I waited for an answer. ‘She left me.’
‘You mean you threw her out.’
‘She left me, old son.’
When the next course came I asked June how Moggerhanger was these days, and she didn’t take it so welclass="underline" ‘You’re as rotten as your car. Why don’t you drop to bits?’
‘I’d like to, but I can’t.’
‘Not yet, you mean.’ Then she smiled, too happy for many hard feelings: ‘He came to the club and asked for Kenny Dukes. Moggerhanger said something about Kenny trying to get off with his daughter Polly, who’s a lecherous little bitch, I might say. But he told him not to phone her again. Kenny went all flustered and tried to deny it, and when a few more words flew Claud punched him, and had him thrown out of the club.’ I laughed, because that must have been the result of my casual phone call, but I didn’t tell her, merely tut-tutted at Moggerhanger’s vile temper and irrational suspicions. Her opinion of Polly seemed no more than a bit of feminine pique. And one good turn deserves another, I thought, remembering how Kenny Dukes had done me down in a similar way when I lost my chauffeuring job.
The meal ended amicably because we all got drunk. On the way back to the compartments Gilbert fell down, and I trampled on his hat. This made him truculent, but I told him to pack it in and not get so ratty over an accident. ‘I’ll scratch your eyes out,’ June said to me, ‘if you try anything.’ She picked up the hat and put it on Gilbert’s cock-head. ‘Come on, love.’
In spite of our differences we sat in the same compartment, much to the disgust of an elderly parson, who told Gilbert to stop using such foul un-Christian talk in front of a lady. ‘Don’t worry, your reverence,’ June said with a downbeat leer, ‘I’m not a lady, and he’s not a Christian. If he is I’m going to stop living with him,’ at which he got up and walked out.
‘I’ll have to take you everywhere,’ Gilbert said to her. ‘I like space, and you’ll clear every place I go into. We’re made for each other.’
I asked him if he was writing another book.
‘Not if I can help it,’ June said. ‘We’re too busy living, aren’t we, Gilbert my sweet?’
‘Almost,’ he said, standing up to do physical jerks on the luggage rack. ‘I’m doing a monumental non-fiction work at the moment called The History of Carnage. My publisher thinks there’s a market for it in these years of peace.’ He was out of breath, so sat down between us. ‘I should get good material living with dear June. The reason I’ve been so unsuccessful and unhappy with women so far in my life is because I’ve never found one that will stand up and fight with me. June is a real match. In a restaurant last night she threw an avocado pear, and it splattered beautifully, oil and all.’
‘He kicked me under the table.’
‘I wanted to see what you’d do.’ Gilbert smiled: ‘Whenever I did it in the past I just got a look of regret from the injured party.’
‘Next time,’ she said, ‘I’ll throw the table as well.’
‘Wonderful,’ he said, ‘and I’ll break your bloody neck.’ I marvelled at the way he seemed to have altered. I could only assume that Pearl had been driven into the looney-bin. I got off at Nottingham Midland and left the happy couple to their love and kisses.
I’d sent a telegram to my mother the day before and, as I hoped, she had got the afternoon off work so as to be in when I arrived. I took a taxi from the station, craning my neck to get a view of Castle Rock as I went by, caught in the swamp of memory, and loving every minute of it, so that I could get out of it blithely any second. Nobody can feed me the crap that you can’t go back, that you can’t go home again, because I never believed I was going anywhere, anyway. You do what the hell you like, and don’t need to believe in any such thing that ties you down and stops you moving. To go back or to go forward is better than standing still, that’s all I know, though the only final moving you do is in the skinbag of yourself.
She was cleaning out my room. ‘I’ll only stay tonight,’ I said, ‘because I’ve got to be back at work tomorrow.’
I stood in the scullery as she lit the gas.
‘What work?’
‘Travelling’ — adding the usual explanations.
She had her curlers in and wore a turban to cover them up: ‘You’ve landed a good job.’