When he went I typed a sheet giving full particulars of the house, but putting the price at three hundred pounds more than the four thousand asked for, so that I could show it to Wainfleet next day.
Mr Weekley came in and saw I was trembling and as white as clay. ‘My God, Cullen, what’s the matter with you?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Seem to have the flu.’
‘It’s a bit slack, so you’d better go home.’
‘I’ll be all right after lunch, Mr Weekley.’
‘Do as I tell you,’ he snapped. ‘Sleep it off.’
I sniffed: ‘Perhaps you’re right, sir.’
‘Of course I bloody-well am.’
They thought a lot of me at that firm, but I was crazy enough to imagine they’d go on doing so for ever. Not that I had any intention of being there all that long, but at least I expected to leave only when I was ready, under my own good steam. Instead of going home I took a bus to Farnsfield to see Mr Clegg, who owned the house that was for sale.
It was a long job getting round to my real business, because first of all Clegg showed me over the house because I said I was interested in it, thinking that I wanted to buy it. If I’d had the money I would have, since it had good flower and vegetable gardens at the back and a landing-ground lawn at the front, as well as an orchard and paddock. There was no better spot for Claudine and myself to sport in as man and wife, without troubles and for ever and ever, not even an amen necessary to see us into heaven. Maybe it was the accidental sight of this Georgian fairy-box house that set my thoughts bending at last towards hers.
After lots of argy-bargy it appeared that the man in the sports car had offered the full asking price, and Clegg had accepted it. He told me that the house was too big for him, since his wife and kids had left. All he wanted was a small flat in Leicester, where he had relations, not to mention a few friends.
‘You see, I’d been married twenty-eight years, and then my wife goes off with a man twenty years younger than she is, and I’m left high and dry with this house on my hands. I hate it so much I can’t wait to get out of it. I don’t suppose you’d understand, being so young, but after twenty-eight years it’s as if the world’s been pulled from under your feet. Too many memories. They’re like poisonous snakes. Every one kills me. We were so happy, you’ve no idea. Happiness unlimited. I was an engineer at the pit, and retired last month. A lifetime of hard work and married bliss. Do you think a man can ask for more than that? He can’t. You’re too young to understand. It must be wonderful, being too young to understand. If only we could stay that way! I suppose I did stay that way, because when she said she was leaving a year ago I was so shocked I knew she couldn’t be joking. At least she waited till my son and daughter were grown up and out of the happy home. I’ll say that for her. Funnily enough, no sooner had she gone than I saw how right she’d been to go. The next thing was, I wondered why she’d waited so long. Number three thought came when I got angry at not having gone myself, before she did. Then during the long nights number four came when I cursed at the fact that we’d ever got married at all. Number five was when I wished I’d never met her. Last of all, number six, was when I sat here and wished I’d never been born. But I’m over that now, and just want to get out of this bloody house — and get the best possible price for it.’
I heard his life story while he made us a cup of tea, then put my question to him: ‘How would you like to get three hundred more for your house? I have a buyer who’ll pay that, if it takes his fancy. There’ll have to be a little consideration in it for me, though.’
He didn’t like this, threatened to go back to Pitch and Blender’s and tell them, but I told him I didn’t care if he got me the sack or not because I was all set to work elsewhere. I was just putting another two hundred in his pocket.
‘Three hundred, you said,’ he said.
‘I did, but a hundred of it will be mine.’
After a bit more arguing he agreed, and I went away after saying that a Mr Wainfleet would come to view the place tomorrow afternoon.
I was so pleased that I walked half the road back to Nottingham. Next day I met Wainfleet in the pub, and over a glass of Youngers and a cheese cob, which he paid for, I told him to go and see the house. If he liked it he could get it for four thousand three hundred.
‘And it’s worth every penny of it,’ I said. He was so excited he ordered a double brandy, and went on to tell me how he’d spent twenty years in the Army, and that he’d lived the last five years at Wollaton with his elder sister, whom he couldn’t stand. I sympathized with him, and hoped he’d be able to straighten out his life soon, by finding the place that his heart was set on wanting. He said he wouldn’t forget the favour I was doing, and that if he liked the house and got it, he’d be certain to remember my help. I told him I was only doing it out of friendship, and that he wasn’t to mention my part in it to anyone at the estate agent’s, because they didn’t like me doing personal services such as this one, and this in his gratitude he agreed to. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘they’ll make fun of me if they know I’m soft-hearted.’
I went to Claudine’s house. Her mother was at a meeting and her father had gone to the pub, so we made a play for each other even while still in the kitchen, moaning for it after the week-long separation caused by her blood-rags. The clouds were shifting and her breath smelled sweet. There was an instant rise in me, as if by some magic all the blood she’d lost had gone into my backbone. Not that I needed it, but it was plain that something special was on its way to happening, because into my intense kisses kept floating the vision of the country house I’d seen the day before, and in this picture there was a rainbow showing towards the Trent, the building itself under a shed of eternal sunshine, so that I was attacked by the sweet-rat of sentimentality, so strongly in fact that I felt like fainting, as if actually getting the flu that I had shammed the day before to Weekley. I felt insane, but this view of that ideal love-house reduced me to tenderness. Her back was to the gas stove, and in my new-found consideration I saw that this wasn’t comfortable, so steered her gently round the corner by the living-room door, and on up the stairs. She seemed frightened at where I wanted to go, but my soft kisses on every other step so surprised her that she daren’t say anything.
‘Where’s your room?’ I asked, my throat so parched I had to repeat it. But I opened another door showing her parents’ double bed flanked by wardrobe and dressing-table, and we went in there.
‘No,’ she pleaded. ‘No, dearest, not in here.’ As if she hadn’t spoken I went on kissing her till I could close the door behind us. I caught at a bedside light, which shone dimly over the counterpane. She felt terrible, I realized, having it on the place where her mother and father had always done it, and I was sorry afterwards that she hadn’t enjoyed it as much as usual. But to me it was the greatest fuck of my life so far, tooling sweet Claudine on her parents’ well-worn platform, as if I were getting the power and sweetness from their first ten years together. It seemed we were all in the room at the same time, wrapped and crawling among each other. Claudine’s tense and tearful face had its eyes shut tight as if to get the full benefit of my kisses and tongue, as well as every other part of me. When she reluctantly came under my fingers, more tears and groans let out of her, as if it were the greatest disaster in the world, that we’d done it here — and would go on coming upstairs to the same place for it whenever we got the chance. When I lost myself in her at last, my backbone seemed to shift out of place.