Ruth would be a fiend of a housekeeper, I was sure of that. She would be pleased to have her place put back to rights, and I worked with some notion of carrying out her wishes and surpassing even her standards; I scrubbed with a desire for reparation and praise. Resting for a moment, I looked around, not with satisfaction-that was for Ruth to accord or deny me-but with a wish that she should see and judge. Quickly I told myself-no, I told her-that of course this was only a quick cleanup. After so many weeks’ neglect there would be, I explained, deeper layers of filth and chaos than I could erase in one go. By now there would be dirt settling in here, there, and everywhere, feeling its dark way into the house’s fabric rather than merely across its surfaces, and that would take more time and effort to penetrate and correct. As I measured out another capful of detergent, I assured Ruth that I had only just begun. I extinguished the light over the cooker and, starting at the conservatory door, I set about the washing of the kitchen floor in the manner of my grandmother, on my hands and knees with a coarse cloth and a bucket of soapy water, in darkness.
I worked my way across the floor to the door that led into the hall. I stood up and opened it, and borne in with the silence from the rest of the house came also another, even worse smell. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. If he had let the kitchen get into such a state, why would he have been any more careful about the bathroom? I shuddered, for Ruth. She would be mortified.
The hall was littered with papers and piles of rubbish but I didn’t take time to look at them closely. The downstairs lavatory was next to the front door. I didn’t need to see any more than I was shown by the glow of orange through the window from the street lamps of Cardigan Avenue. I felt rather sick before I had improved matters to an acceptable standard. It did not occur to me not to flush the lavatory as I was finishing with the bleach. So ordinary a sound in a daytime way, in the darkness it roared, and I was afraid it would bring Arthur hurrying down the stairs, calling out. But the torrent of noise had already begun to subside, and then it stopped altogether, and still from upstairs nothing stirred. I walked calmly back into the kitchen. I was surprised by how slippery the floor felt under my shoes, and how the newly clean smell sprang to my nose. I wanted to clap my hands but instead I put on the kettle, humming a tune.
I scraped a foot here and there across the floor as I waited for the water to boil. I like a task with visible results, achieved by straightforward means. I like not just the fruits of my labours but also evidence of the expenditure of that labour. Here was a lovely clean floor and not only that, a bucket of filthy water to show for it as well.
And soon the floor would need its next wash, and once it got it, all it would be was clean again, and that was alclass="underline" a floor neither more nor less clean than it always was after a good scrub. It was reassuring, this act of maintenance with no expectation of development. Nobody was waiting for the floor eventually to advance and blossom under my care, nobody hoped for any conceptual, breaking insight from me into the cleanliness of floors in general. I liked the certainty of the repetition that would never produce anything more surprising than a clean floor, a pleasing smell, and a gallon of water swooshing down the sink.
In that sense Arthur would be a bit like a floor; it would soothe me just to keep him nice, and judging by what I had so far seen, that would be a not entirely trivial achievement. And apart from any advantage to him, there was Ruth to consider. She was distressed by the state he had got himself into; she conveyed that loud and clear. I would henceforth enter Arthur’s house with ease. I had Ruth’s approval; more than that I was, quite possibly, acting under her instruction. All three of us would benefit.
Moreover, I had already found in myself a dedication to the task quite independent of any consideration for Arthur and Ruth, though I didn’t like to think of either of them knowing this.
But we would all see eye-to-eye. Already I detected something habitual and self-preserving in Arthur’s absence from the scene of any domestic operations. Once he was safely up in the attic, I sensed that by silent and mutual agreement he would stay there, leaving me to get on elsewhere in the house. And while we were both occupied we would be respectful of each other’s need for peace and quiet. Neither of us would make any unnecessary noise.
I made tea and drank mine in silence. Then I poured out a cup for Arthur and carried it upstairs. Shadows from the open hatch to the attic crossed the landing carpet like tiny patches of rapid, passing cloud. From the foot of the ladder I could hear, among the thudding of objects, Arthur’s voice rising in a muttering, plaintive monologue. I took the teaspoon from the saucer and tapped it against the cup, five times. The sounds from the attic stopped. I tapped another five times, and placed the cup and saucer gently on the floor. I went downstairs and into the conservatory. Already there was the merest threat of light in the sky and the garden walls and chimneys and roofs of Arthur’s neighbours’ houses were beginning to emerge out of darkness. Again it was time for me to go.
Dear Ruth
Been thinking and thinking.
It was you.
I know that doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t make sense that it wasn’t you, either.
Can’t have been anyone else, can it? Nobody else tings on the cup like that.
Tried to tell leg nurse about it-there’s a new one, foreign, name’s full of sounds like “brushes” or “shooshes’”all strung together. English not up to scratch, she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
Better kept to myself, anyway-to ourselves, rather.
Thank you, dear.
Arthur
Ps I’m leaving this where it’ll be easy to find. Hope you get it.
THE COLD AND THE BEAUTY AND THE DARK
Chapter 8: The Walk
The day following, Evelyn was up long before Stan’s Mam and was knocking on Daphne’s door at half past seven. She had popped into Woolworth’s on her way home from Daphne’s after their comfortable Saturday afternoon the day before and bought a bag of biscuits, her contribution to the picnic, even though Daphne had told her not to bother. On arrival, Evelyn could see why! There were enough sandwiches for a dozen, packed in an enormous basket.
“We’ll never eat all that! We’ll never carry all that!” she exclaimed, aghast.
Daphne hooted with laughter. “You don’t know Paul! Besides, everybody gets hungry out of doors. It’s the fresh air.”
But the basket was very heavy. Daphne’s mother sided with Evelyn and sent Daphne to fetch another basket. They unpacked the first and divided its contents between the two, while Daphne’s mother clucked around them.
“It’s a shame you’ve not got your pram yet,” she said to Evelyn,“or you could’ve pushed your picnic along in that and saved your arms.”
Evelyn nodded. She didn’t like to say that she couldn’t see how she was going to get a pram at all unless Stan started saving a bit more. At this rate she’d be carrying that baby in a shawl on her back until it was ready to walk.