There was nothing to do but smile, except that he couldn’t. ‘Since I can’t get out in the next couple of hours it won’t much matter if I’m here for weeks.’
She gulped the sherry. ‘Crikey, it’s like that, is it?’
He had already had several whiskies and a few more would make him drunk, yet he was disappointed not to feel any clouding of the faculties, since that would be some relief from the horror which seemed to fill his stomach with cold water. ‘Would you like another?’
At least he was losing his look of frantic worry. ‘Please, but I ought to pay.’
Fred came in with another load of wood, the cane of the basket scratching his jacket as he set it by the fire. If he didn’t do it no one would, and he wondered how much fuel he would use before they took themselves off upstairs. Still, it was his job, what he was here for, though if this went on for several days he might yet show them who was the gaffer.
On the second load his arms straightened as he went forward. After the butt at his ankles he let the woodbasket shoot ahead to the floor. He swayed sideways and, with a few workings of the legs, grabbed a table and righted himself. ‘You bloody fool!’ he screamed.
Wayne straightened himself at the bar. ‘I hope you don’t mean me, because if you do we’ll use your swede-head for a game of soccer. Won’t we, lads?’
‘You bloody tripped me up.’ Fred gathered the logs. ‘And you know it.’
‘Did I?’ Wayne smoothed his beard. ‘You’re making a mistake. If I had, you’d still be on the floor.’
Aaron had seen only enough to make a definite accusation difficult. It could have been the sheet of coconut matting which had one of its corners turned up.
‘I’m not daft. I felt your toecap.’
‘Did you? I didn’t. My toe wanders off on its own, though, and gets me into all sorts of trouble. I give it a good talking to now and again, but it don’t make a blind bit of difference. Shall I get my left foot to apologize? It makes people feel better, after it’s been naughty.’
Fred stood at the fire, with his back to them. ‘Forget it. But I bloody well know what happened.’
‘Does he know he’s talking to the Wheelie Champion of the World?’ Garry said. ‘Somebody ought to tell him, in no uncertain terms.’
‘Not yet.’ Wayne gave a sinister, self-confident grin. ‘We’ve got all night to think about it.’
Nor did Sally like his smile, and wouldn’t trust him an inch. She turned to Daniel, thinking that the truly liberated woman (whatever that might be, because if ever it came about, she told herself, we would have the truly liberated man) would go straight for the man and get his trousers off, letting the devil take the hindmost. I suppose you would frighten most men, though not a real one — whatever that might mean as well.
Daniel saw laughter in her eyes, but they also had that slightly troubled look of the woman who is worried about her husband. He had learned a lot in his short but turbulent marriage. Strange how much part of the world he felt, but he was calm, almost grateful to her. Threatened by the biking hooligans, he had become more like his old self before enlisting for the Cause, no longer involved in damaging other people’s bodies from a distance with Semtex. The blue cold glow of snow outside, and talk with an attractive woman who so obviously saw things about him that she liked, took him from thoughts of the cataclysm nobody knew was on its way.
‘I think we’re both ready to burst out laughing,’ she said, ‘and I’ll bet neither of us can think why. Or if we are, we aren’t saying.’
He liked her, because she knew his thoughts, and didn’t unreasonably demand that he know hers, which promised a viable relationship, though one that had come too late.
Percy reamed out his pipe, black dust chuting into the ashtray. Better than nodding off, he thought. Well, I’ve got a right to nod, haven’t I? Prodding and scraping with a little silver penknife made for the job, he fought the oppressive snow by lingering on memories of summer weather, rich black elderberries over a glassy pond not far from the colliery, the sun so warm and mellow through the trees that he only wanted to lie down and sleep on the bank. Birds with their hot little hearts whistled among the leaves, and there was a smell of wood ash from a fire where kids had been playing. You couldn’t call them happy days. Happy wasn’t a good enough word. But God had been on your side a few moments now and again in your life, whatever other troubles you had. And then as an engineer he had overseen the drainage of that pond on Coal Board land, trees uprooted, declivity filled, and buildings put where none should be. He had taken many a sweetheart there as a youth, remembered it as vividly as in reality, and so it was, memory being everything, to judge by the smile on his face which he felt duly grateful for.
‘Why don’t you have another fag, Dad?’ Garry called. ‘That old pipe’ll choke you.’
He paused, smiling widely. ‘I’m up to your kids’ tricks. You’re trying to get me even more stoned than you are.’
Alfred had been glad to have his father off his hands for a while. ‘Don’t press him. He’s never been used to that drug sort of thing.’ We don’t want to turn him into a hophead at his age, though it might not be a hard way to go, which idea made his reprimand a mild one.
She put a hand on Daniel’s sleeve. ‘Have you ever indulged in hash?’
‘I have more respect for my consciousness’ (or my immortal soul, he was too shy to say) ‘though I can’t be that much of a prig, can I, if I drink and smoke?’
‘I’m wondering how much it would relax me if I took some.’
Garry wiped crumbs and turkey fat from his lips, flashed his Zippo, and passed her one. ‘The opium of the masses. Well, we’ve got to have something, haven’t we? What’s good enough for the middle classes is good enough for us.’
She coughed as the fibres lit. ‘It’s my first time.’
‘Let’s hope it isn’t the last.’ Wayne looked closer into her face than Daniel liked. ‘How did you manage then, up to now?’
She pushed him away, and took Daniel’s hand, his fingers warm and slender, acting so forwardly because she didn’t want him to imagine later — when she had gone further, which she fully intended to do — that smoking a bit of pot had been the cause. ‘Do you mind if I kiss you?’
He would like it more than anything. The back of his neck tingled, and his face went close enough to meet her lips halfway, the delightful pleasure of flesh on flesh causing him to smile.
His lips had been cold, but she would soon warm them. Warm hands — cold lips must mean something. ‘I never know how to act when I fancy someone. I rarely do, of course. I see very few men I could fall for. I mean, it’s not a normal thing with me.’
‘You have a lovely voice.’ It was the sort of upper-register English trill he had always loathed and distrusted, but he didn’t mind it now because he couldn’t care less what she said — he told himself. Just to hear her talk was enough, being already in love with her even if only because she had made the first move. Otherwise, how had it happened?
‘When I first saw you by the telephone I was attracted by your face.’ Such a wonderful face, she wanted to say. ‘The expression was so interesting.’ That didn’t seem right, either.
He winced, no longer in control of the situation, couldn’t stop the flicker in his cheek, swore to himself. She put down the half-smoked cigarette, which he thought was sensible, considering that she wasn’t used to it, and was probably talking in an uncharacteristic way. But she only relinquished it to free both hands for his shoulders, and drew him into a longer kiss.
Aaron turned away, as at a bride and bridegroom on their own after a wedding feast. ‘I wish I’d got my guitar,’ Lance said. ‘I’d play ’em a nice tune.’