Mrs Abigail did not reply. Two small red spots had developed in her face, high up on either cheek.
‘I’ve asked you a question, Edith.’ His head was poked out across the table at her, his shoulders aggressively hunched. ‘I’ve asked you a question,’ he repeated.
She indicated that she was aware she’d been asked a question. Speaking quietly, she said that in her opinion the fact that there were once chairs in grocers’ shops was hardly of historical interest. In Mock’s in Pretty Street, she pointed out, a chair was still put out for customers but nobody ever sat on it.
‘That’s not true.’ His voice was controlled, matching her calmness. ‘I sit on that chair myself.’
‘Then what are you on about, Gordon? One minute you’re talking about chairs in grocers’ shops as though they were a thing of the past, the next you’re saying you sit on one yourself when you go into Mock’s. Besides,’ she added quietly, ‘it’s all irrelevant.’
‘It’s hardly irrelevant that the country for which men were prepared to give their lives has become a rubbish dump.’
‘It’s irrelevant at this moment, Gordon.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake have sense, woman!’
He was losing his temper, which he loved doing. His eyes flashed, his lips quivered, causing the ginger moustache to quiver also.
‘That boy’s all part of it,’ he snapped. ‘D’you think he’d be the same, for God’s sake, if he was at Charterhouse or Rugby? Have a titter of sense, Edith.’
She sighed, vaguely moving her head about, shaking it at first and then nodding it. It was no time for arguing. There was the problem of an inebriated boy, and she was being as silly as anyone, making matters worse by pursuing a pointless disagreement.
She watched him drinking his tea with victory in the gesture of lifting the cup. The flare of temper had died away; he had inflicted the defeat he had wished to inflict without having to throw a milk-jug at the wall, as he’d had to do once, early on in their marriage. He would be complimenting himself on his restraint: she could even see a reflection of that in his gesture of victory with the teacup. It had often occurred to her that marriage was all defeat and victory, and worked better when women were the defeated ones since men apparently could not bear to be and had no philosophy for that condition.
‘What shall we do with Timothy, Gordon?’
He drew back his lips, displaying a small array of teeth that were appropriately tinged with gingery brown.
‘Leave Master Timothy to me,’ he said, his tone of voice confirming what she already knew: that he had created the situation in order to display his prowess by sorting it out, just as he had goaded her into an argument in order to experience the thrill of winning it. She was reflecting upon all that, and at the same time worrying about the condition of the child who was being such a long time in the lavatory, when the door opened and Timothy entered. To her astonishment, he was wearing one of Gordon’s suits.
‘My God !’ the Commander murmured.
He smiled at them, holding on to the back of a chair, swaying a bit. He said he wanted to show them the thing about the charades. He had invented a comic act, he said, which he was going to do at the Easter Fête. He had to dress up as three different brides. He had to dress up as George Joseph Smith as welclass="underline" he was trying the suit on for size. He’d chosen the dog’s-tooth one because he reckoned it was the kind the man would possess.
‘Stringer took us into Tussaud’s, down to the Horror Chamber. Did you ever see Miss Lofty, sir?’
‘You’ve had too much to drink, Timmy,’ she whispered.
He nodded at her, saying that once upon a time he’d searched high and low for her wedding-dress. When he couldn’t find it he’d remembered where there was another one. A wedding-dress wasn’t an easy garment to come by.
‘Get into your clothes immediately, boy. Cut along now.’ The Commander’s voice was sharp, like a splinter of something.
Timothy laughed because the voice sounded funny. Bloody ridiculous it was, going into the sea every day in bathing togs.
‘Could you make a pair of curtains, Mrs Abigail?’
She shook her head, not knowing what he was talking about.
‘I was saying it to Mr Feather and he said to ask you.’
‘We’ll talk about it another time, Timothy.’
‘Have you got a sewing-machine? Only you couldn’t make curtains without a machine.’
‘No, of course not –’
‘D’you think your sister has a sewing-machine?’ She nodded, trying to smile at him.
‘No problem then.’
‘I’ve made a request of you,’ the Commander said in the same splintery voice. ‘Take off my suit immediately.’
‘It would please us if you put on your own clothes again, dear.’
Children did dress up, she thought, trying to think calmly. It was a children’s thing, they enjoyed it. And yet it wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t a child dressing up just for the fun of it. It was a child made drunk, his mouth pulled down at the corners, his eyes glassily staring, sweat all over his neck and face. In the dog’s-tooth suit he was grotesque. What was happening was like something you’d read about in a cheap Sunday newspaper.
He mentioned Opportunity Knocks, and Hughie Green, who might be staying in the Queen Victoria Hotel, in Dynmouth for the golf. Nobody had ever done a show like that on Opportunity Knocks. There were acts with pigeons on Opportunity Knocks, and family acts, and trick cyclists and singers and kids of three who could dance, and dogs smoking pipes, but he’d never yet seen a show that was comic and also about death. You’d have each of the brides acting like she was struggling against George Joseph Smith and all the time George Joseph Smith would be winning, only you wouldn’t actually see him, you’d have to imagine him. And when she went under the water the lights would go black and George Joseph Smith would appear a few seconds later in the dog’s-tooth suit. He’d tell jokes, standing beside the bath with the bride in it. You’d know she was in it because a bit of her wedding-dress would be draped over the side, only of course she wouldn’t be there at all because it was a one-man act. ‘Ah well, best be getting back to work,’ George Joseph Smith would say when he had them bringing the house down. The lights would go black and the next thing you’d see would be another bride struggling against the murdering hands of the man. After he’d drowned each bride George Joseph Smith had gone out to buy the dead woman her supper, fish for Miss Munday, eggs for Mrs Burnham and Miss Lofty. It was a peculiarity with him, like his passion for death by the sea. George Joseph Smith had once stayed in Dynmouth, in the Castlerea boarding-house.
While she listened to all this, Mrs Abigail repeatedly believed she was dreaming. It was just like a dream, a nightmare that held you and held you, not letting you wake up. A child had perpetrated a comic act about three real and brutal murders. In a marquee on the lawn of a rectory he expected people to laugh. He appeared to believe that some television personality might by chance be there to see him.
‘D’you ever see Benny Hill, Mrs Abigail? Really funny, Benny Hill. And Bruce Forsyth. D’you like Bruce Forsyth when he gets going?’
‘Please.’ She still spoke softly, with a reasonableness that suggested the plea was being made for the first time.
‘Benny Hill was an ordinary milkman with pint bottles on a dray, cream and yoghurt and carrots, anything you wanted at the door. Opportunity knocked for Benny Hill. It could happen to you, Mrs Abigail. It could happen to anyone.’
‘Quickly now,’ the Commander limply ordered. ‘Get a move on, Gedge.’
But Timothy didn’t get a move on. He wagged his head, not attempting to rise from the chair he was sitting on. He mentioned the teacher called Brehon O’Hennessy and the drear landscape and how there were people like last year’s rhubarb walking about the streets. You had to smile, he said, but you could see the man’s point of view. Mad as a hatter he’d been, a real nutter, yet you couldn’t help getting the picture. He laughed. He spent a lot of time himself, he said, following people around, looking in windows.