‘Oh well,’ he said in a normal voice, standing up tall and straight, ‘it’s no use whisperin’ when all that racket’s going on.’
They stood between the table and firegrate, and Brenda put her arms around him. While kissing her he turned his head so that his own face stared back at him from an oval mirror above the shelf. His eyes grew large in looking at himself from such an angle, noticing his short disordered hair sticking out like the bristles of a blond porcupine, and the mark of an old pimple healing on his cheek.
‘Don’t let’s stay down here long, Arthur,’ she said softly.
He released her and, knowing every corner of the house and acting as if it belonged to him, stripped off his coat and shirt and went into the scullery to wash the tiredness from his eyes. Once in bed, they would not go to sleep at once: he wanted to be fresh for an hour before floating endlessly down into the warm bed beside Brenda’s soft body.
It was ten o’clock, and she was still asleep. The sun came through the window, carrying street-noises on its beams, a Sunday morning clash of bottles from milkmen on their rounds, newspaper boys shouting to each other as they clattered along the pavement and pushed folded newspapers into letter-boxes, each bearing crossword puzzles, sports news and forecasts, and interesting scandal that would be struggled through with a curious and salacious indolence over plates of bacon and tomatoes and mugs of strong sweet tea.
He turned to Brenda heaped beside him, sitting up to look at her. She was breathing gently; her hair straggled untidily over the pillow, her breasts bulged out over her slip, a thick smooth arm over them as if she were trying to protect herself from something that had frightened her in a dream. He heard the two children playing in their bedroom across the landing. One was saying: ‘It’s my Teddy-bear, our Jacky. Gi’ it me or else Is’ll tell our mam.’ Then a low threat from the boy who would not hand back his plunder.
He sank down contentedly into bed. ‘Brenda,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Come on, duck, waken up.’
She turned and pressed her face into his groin.
‘Nice,’ he muttered.
‘What’s time?’ she mumbled, her breath hot against his skin.
‘Half-past eleven,’ he lied.
She sprang up, showing the crease-marks of crumpled sheets down one side of her face, her brown eyes wide open. ‘You’re having me on again,’ she cried. ‘Of all the liars, you’re the biggest I’ve ever known.’
‘I allus was a liar,’ he said, laughing at his joke. ‘A good ‘un an’ all.’
‘Liars don’t prosper,’ she retorted.
‘It’s on’y ten o’clock,’ he admitted, lifting her hair and rolling it into a ball on top of her head.
‘What a time we had last night,’ she grinned, suddenly remembering.
It came back to him now. He had put away more swill than Loudmouth, had fallen down some stairs, had been sick over a man and a woman. He laughed. ‘It seems years.’ He took her by the shoulders and kissed her lips, then her neck and breasts, pressing his leg against her. ‘You’re lovely, Brenda. Let’s get down in bed.’
‘Mam,’ a small plaintive voice cried.
She pushed Arthur away. ‘Go back to bed, Jacky.’
‘It’s late,’ he crooned tearfully through the door. ‘I want some tea, our mam.’
‘Go back.’
They heard the shuffling of a small foot behind the door. ‘I want to see Uncle Arthur,’ Jacky pleaded.
‘Little bogger,’ Arthur muttered, resigning himself to the disturbance. ‘I can’t have a bit o’ peace on a Sunday morning.’
Brenda sat higher in the bed and straightened her slip. ‘Leave him alone,’ she said.
Jacky was insistent. He kicked the bottom of the door.
‘Can I come in, Uncle Arthur?’
‘You little bogger.’
He laughed, knowing now that it was all right.
‘Go down to the parlour,’ Arthur said, ‘and get the News of the World that’s just bin pushed in the letter-box. Then I’ll let yer come.’
His bare feet went thudding softly on the wooden stairs. They heard him hurrying through the parlour below, then running back and climbing the stairs with breathless haste. They drew apart as he burst in and threw the paper on the bed, jumping up and crushing it between his stomach and Arthur’s legs. Arthur pulled it free and held him high in the air with one hand, until he began to gag and choke with laughter and Brenda said he was to be put down or else he would go into a fit.
‘Young Jacky,’ Arthur said, looking up at his animated face, five years old, with pink skin and fair hair, fresh in his shirt and clean from bath-night. ‘You little bogger, young Jacky, you young jockey.’ He let him down, and the child burrowed up against him like a passionate rabbit.
‘Listen,’ Arthur said to him, blowing in his ear between each word, ‘go and get my trousers from that chair and I’ll gi’ yer a bob.’
‘You’ll spoil him,’ Brenda said, touching him under the blankets. ‘He gets enough money as it is.’ She lifted herself out of bed and picked up a skirt draped over the bottom rail. Both Arthur and Jacky watched her intently as she dressed, deeply interested by the various secrets of her that became hidden with the donning of each item of clothing.
‘What does it matter?’ Arthur demanded at being forced to justify his generosity. ‘I give ‘im money because I was lucky to get a ha’penny when I was a nipper.’
She was slovenly and easily dressed for Sunday morning: a white blouse open at the throat, a wide grey skirt, a slip-on pair of shoes, and hair pushed in strands to the back of her neck. ‘Come on, get up, Arthur. It’s nearly eleven o’clock. You’ve got to be out of the house before twelve. It wouldn’t do for Jack to see you here.’
‘That bastard,’ he said, holding Jacky at arms’ length and pulling a face at him. ‘Who do you love?’ he shouted with a laugh. ‘Who do you love, young Jack Blud-Tub?’
‘Yo’, yo’,’ he screamed. ‘Yo’, Uncle Arthur’ — and Arthur released him so that he fell with a thud on to the rumpled bed.
‘Come on, then,’ Brenda said impatiently, tired of watching, ‘let’s go downstairs.’
‘Yo’ goo down, duck,’ he grinned, ‘and cook me some breakfast. I’ll come when I can smell the bacon and egg.’
Jack’s head was turned and she bent over to kiss Arthur. He held her firmly by the neck, and was still kissing her when Jacky lifted his head and looked wonderingly at them.
At half-past eleven Arthur sat at the table with a plate of bacon-and-egg before him. He tore a piece of bread in half and dipped it in the fat around his plate, then took a long drink of tea. Jacky, already fed, stood on a nearby chair and followed every move with his blue eyes.
‘It’s thirsty work, fallin’ downstairs,’ Arthur said. ‘Pour me some more tea, duck.’
She held the newspaper against her midriff with one hand. ‘Plenty of sugar?’
He nodded and went on eating. ‘You’re good to me,’ he said after a while, ‘and don’t think I don’t appreciate it.’
‘Yes, but it’ll be your last breakfast in this house if you don’t hurry. Jack’ll be home soon.’
Tomorrow is work, and I’ll be hard at it, sweating my guts out until next weekend. It’s a hard life if you don’t weaken. He told her what was on his mind.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ she laughed.
He passed a choice piece of bacon to Jacky. ‘A present from Uncle Arthur.’
‘Ta!’ he said, relishing the honour before his mouth closed over the fork.
Brenda suddenly stiffened in her chair and half turned her ear to the window, silent like an animal waiting to spring, an alertness that transformed her face to temporary ugliness. Arthur noticed it, and swilled down the last of his tea. ‘He’s coming,’ she said. ‘I heard the gate open.’