She seemed to ignore him. He put a coat on saying, “You’re still a young woman. Why not try for a job?”
“What job? Nursing the sick? Wrapping biscuits in a factory?”
“Your trouble is you feel too good for the world so have to depend on people like me, who don’t.”
At the door he turned and said, “I still love you Mavis, as much as you let me nowadays. I’m still glad we met when you were tiring of Colin Kerr. Weeks may pass before you find a way to leave me. Let’s pass them as pleasantly as possible, eh? When I come back at eleven I’ll be a lot less ironical.”
He left and soon after she went to the phone and dialled. A voice said Colin Kerr here.
In a low voice she said, “Hullo Colin. Do you remember me?”
Mavis! How good to hear you! I was hoping you would call.
“You mean that?”
Of course.
“Would you like to see me?”
Of course. I’d have called you long ago but didn’t know where you were.
“Tonight?”
Definitely.
“Could you pick me up in the car?”
No, I’ve sold it.
“Then I’ll come by bus unless … Colin, is Gordon with you?”
No.
“Right, I’m leaving now. Are you sure you don’t hate me?”
I love you.
“I just want to see you tonight Colin.”
Fine. Do it.
19
At Saint Leonard’s Bank the Colin who opened the door to her was more fleshy, more relaxed, more like his father than the Colin she remembered. He led her into a living-room where a rolled carpet lay like a felled tree trunk on bare floorboards. Windows were curtainless. All furniture but the sofa was stacked in a corner.
“You’re leaving!” she said.
“That’s right.”
“So I’ve caught you on your last night in the old home?”
“O no. I’ll be here till Tuesday when the furniture will be removed. Then I’ll spend a week in Gordon’s place, then I’ll go to Zambia.”
“Why?”
“To lecture in a college there.”
“Why?”
“It might be more interesting. It might not, of course. Come with me and find out. But first of all, a coffee? I can also offer sherry. I still have a full bottle I bought for that disastrous party.”
“Coffee please,” she said smiling back at him. “I’m glad you didn’t drink all the booze in the house.”
He went to the kitchen. She walked to the sofa between books piled on the floor. Before she arrived he had obviously been tying his library in bundles. She sat and lit a cigarette. He returned with a loaded tray and sat beside her with the tray between them.
“Your health,” he said, raising a mug of tea.
“Yours!” she said, lifting a mug of coffee. They clinked mugs and sipped.
“Life with Evans hasn’t made you less beautiful Mavis.”
“That’s the first compliment you’ve ever paid to my looks, Colin Kerr! You used to take them for granted. I hated it.”
He smiled back and said, “I was maybe too shy to pay compliments, but I never took your looks for granted. Have an ashtray. How’s Bill?”
“He’s at a boarding school.”
He stared at her in horror. She said defensively, “It’s a very good boarding school. His father is paying for it.”
“You sent him to strangers? Maybe you’re a wicked woman after all. I think, Mavis,” said Colin firmly, “you had better come back to me.”
“I don’t recognize you, Colin.”
“It’s your fault…” (he looked down ruefully at the curve of his abdomen) “… whenever I feel lonely nowadays I eat. It helps.”
“I’m not talking about your figure.”
“I love you.”
“You don’t look unhappy.”
“I’m not. I’ve learned to love you without that. I’m grateful, Mavis!”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do! You’re responsible for it. Before we met my life was almost wholly shaped by my father and I didn’t even know. He’s such a decent man that I don’t think he knew either. Going to Cambridge changed nothing because Cambridge was a cosy patriarchy too. That’s why I needed you who hated everything that cramped me. So you drove Dad out and started shaping my life yourself. Thank God you weren’t a decent Scots woman who would have kept me at my pointless job in that dull college for the rest of my life! I’ve never been good at asserting myself. But you forced me to assert myself — before you cleared out.”
“So now you’re happy and free?” she asked sarcastically.
“I’m independent. I can be alone without going melancholy-mad. What others think no longer worries me much. I don’t need you, Mavis, but I want you because you’re bonny and reckless and clever and now I can love you like a man. It wasn’t a man who loved you three months ago. It was …” (he thought a little then smiled with amusement and distaste) “… a dog shaped like a man.”
Abruptly Mavis stubbed out her cigarette and said, “You’re a stranger to me Colin.”
“Good! Your life has been full of strangers. Try life with this one.”
“But you aren’t the sort of stranger I like.”
His smile faded. She stood up and said, “I suppose I’m glad you’re happy, Colin, but you’re the sort of man I most detest because the world is so full of you: all glib and grinning and damnably, damnably sure of themselves. You used to be … not like that. I loved you then.”
“And showed it!” he said bitterly.
With a cold little smile she said, “Goodbye Mr Kerr,”
and went too fast to the front door to be overtaken before he managed to open it for her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, passing through. When she was halfway down the garden path he cried on a note of pain, “Mavis!”
She paused and looked stonily back. He said wistfully, “Good luck, Mavis!” and meant it. She suddenly smiled back with what seemed affection, shrugged her shoulders and went away. He looked after her, a hand pressing part of his stomach where twelve years later an ulcer would develop after his African wife left him.
Closing the door he returned to the living-room, lifted Mavis’s quarter-smoked cigarette from the ashtray and looked at it for a long time. Then he threw it into
the hearth and went on tying up his books.
FIVE
OTHER
SOBER
STORIES
A Night Off
In 1986 the British government abolished physical punishment in the schools it controlled. This story is from the dark age before that happened.
1
One Friday afternoon at fifty-nine minutes and several seconds past three o’clock a no longer young, slightly plump teacher stood in an open doorway gazing at the dial of his wristwatch. He concentrated on the second hand to avoid facing a chattering queue of twelve-year-old boys who chattered and jostled each other in ways he despaired of preventing.
“Control yourselves, keep in line,” he told them, “no need for impatience. Every one stand still beside your neighbour. If you aren’t standing by your neighbour when the bell rings I’ll make you …”
An electric bell rang and the queue charged from the room. As the boys poured past he muttered, “All right, off you go,” then closed the door behind them.