‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Well, they’ve had practice.’
He hoped her assumption would turn out to be right.
‘You are married, aren’t you? That’s why I said it. I don’t know any other married men. I never have. I just supposed.’ She seemed upset, a blush showing the promise of some sensibility.
‘I feel as if I’ve known you a long time,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you take the rest of your kit off, then?’
With women more or less of his own sort he would have had them off in an instant, but because he had never known anyone like her he needed to take more care, to seem polished and reasonable in his behaviour. He couldn’t decide why. It would be easy to flash-fuck her, and leave it at that. ‘You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I mean it.’
‘Hold me, then. Nobody’s said that to me before. I thought you thought I was awful. I thought you thought I was a bucket of Aids or something. Anyway, I’m not, I’m clean. I’ve never been with anybody like that.’
He kissed her lips, not caring to be a lousy bastard who gave such an impression, and she gripped him as if never to let go, teeth pressing against his lips.
‘Your cigarette’s burning the table.’ He eased her away. ‘Put it in the ashtray, or’ — he conjured up something she would understand — ‘it’ll be another fifty pounds on my bill.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not that it would faze me.’ He wanted to make amends. ‘But it’s a pity to ruin the table.’ He was going to add: as gimcrack as it is, but he didn’t because to her it might seem the best of furniture. While she carefully pressed out her cigarette he took off his trousers and pants, drew the curtains. ‘To stop the snowmen peering in.’
‘You look good with no clothes on.’ She eyed him from across the room as if he were a specimen she hadn’t seen before either. ‘You aren’t fat, are you?’
‘I try not to be.’
‘I mean, at the belly.’
‘I take exercise.’
She smiled. ‘With dumb-bells?’
‘I jump up and down. I go swimming. I play squash.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘At my club.’
‘Just so’s you won’t get fat?’
‘I do it to keep healthy.’
She was staring again. ‘Your nose — it’s got a bend in the middle.’
He laughed. ‘So it has. I got it broken a few times at boxing.’
‘In the ring?’
‘No, at school. And in the army. I broke a few, as well.’
‘I’m sure you did.’ She drew him onto the bed. ‘It makes you more good-looking!’
FOURTEEN
Daniel’s mother had said that a watched pot never boiled. He had proved her wrong. The saucepan spilled over and the stew was ruined. When she said a clock hand didn’t move if you looked at it he spent the hour of her absence making sure that it did. Recalling such wayward experiments of childhood, the sustaining fire at his back and the soothing timemark of the grandfather clock demanded that he act instead of mindlessly waiting.
A glance through the window showed the snowstorm in a state of St Vitus’s dance, a growth in the all-enclosing drifts. His resolution was broken by knowing that to go into it meant death. Though patience beat the stew to the boil, and forced the minute-hand of the clock to move, living at such a slow rate if you wanted something to happen was tantamount to sloth.
His patience was born out of a rock, solidified early on after fire had come into collision with ice, indicating that he was in no way the same as other people. Anything which set him apart helped to make the disguise, to consolidate the split which enabled him to live as a schoolteacher while devoting his other half to the Cause. He distrusted anyone who assumed they had something in common with him, lest they divine his infinite capacity for patience and probe into what he was trying to conceal. Being two people allowed him to peer out through a facade that others assumed to be all of him. He spoke, but his real voice stayed silent, the voice he used being a cover to keep the other quiet. Such mechanism made plain hinted that his ability to dissimulate might be about to desert him.
‘The only thing to do on such a night,’ Parsons said, ‘is to get a few drinks inside you.’
The third whisky which had encouraged Daniel towards speculation also told him that they must know by now that he would not be delivering the van. He was lost, and they had no way of getting at him. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘Probably!’ Parsons said scornfully. ‘There’s not much else you can do. I wouldn’t mind a party, though. A real slap-up raving mad-night to shiver the floorboards and flip the roof off — no holds barred. What do you say, Jenny?’
‘Make your own party. I’m tired.’
‘Why don’t you go upstairs for a kip, then?’
‘I’ll go when I’m ready. I’m not your wife, poor thing.’
‘I ought to nobble you for that uncalled-for remark. I love my wife, and she loves me.’ He drained the rest of his jar and, when Fred showed at the door, asked for another. Fred came with alacrity, deciding that the best he could do was let them drink themselves sleepy (it was also good for business) and then go off to bed, so that he could put all lights off and turn in himself.
‘I’m a full-time trade union official,’ Parsons called to Aaron, ‘and she’s driving me back to nappies. She thinks I’m after her.’ A hiccup jerked his whole head, hand to his mouth while pulling the chair closer to Aaron. ‘Well, who wouldn’t be? I ask you. I’m only flesh and blood. Or I was last time I looked.’ A whisper, but clear enough for her, as he tapped his breast pocket. ‘I’ve still got near two thousand quid in union money, and I would give every last penny for ten minutes with her. But ten real minutes, you know. A handful of lovely fifty-pound notes with our dear Queen’s head printed on them — all ready for disbursement! Come on, my duck, lift your pretty finger and say yes.’
He had disturbed her desert heart, as most men did when they spoke to her. ‘Leave me alone.’
Percy appeared at the door, white hair wispy as if his head boiled and steam came out. His blank eyes took on a sudden glitter, cheeks putty-like, a scrap of pink paper resting on a small circle of blood from a shaving wound below the left ear. Lips pursed, as if about to whistle a tune out of bygone years that no one in the room could know, he walked erect and steady to the nearest chair, and held onto the back.
‘You should be in bed, Dad.’ Fred just avoided a wave of his arm, wondering whether the old codger wasn’t either drunk or mad.
‘I want a double whisky and a black-and-tan,’ Percy said. ‘And don’t call me Dad. I’m Mr.Stone to you, and never forget it.’
‘At least somebody knows how to knock back the booze,’ Parsons said, as if any recruit would be valid for his wild shindig.
Daniel also called for another whisky. ‘It’s rare to find someone who knows what he wants.’ And lets nothing block his way till he gets it.
‘I’ve always known what I want,’ Parsons said with drunken pride.
‘How about you?’ Aaron asked Jenny.