One Hand Clapping

  We spent a couple of days in Miami, which is in Florida and still America, and it was really wonderful having all that sunshine and cool drinks clinking with ice and me in various glamorous bikinis reclining on the golden sands being admired by young men with very big muscles. But Howard looked as good as any of them, though he was slighter and had done nothing really about building himself up a big body. And then I thought of Red, who really looked nothing undressed, all pale and flabby, but I still found my heart turning over thinking about him. It wasn't what he was, it was what he could do. Sometimes it's no fun being a woman.

  Well, I'm not going to make too much of an account of it, for reading about other people's enjoyment is not much fun, really, and we really did absolutely nothing on the rest of our holiday except spend money. We were in the Bahamas in a posh hotel just lazing about, getting very brown, and the memory I seem to carry from it is the sound of ice in a long drink made out of rum. We paid a visit to Jamaica, and there we heard real calypsos sung and bands with all the instruments made out of old petrol cans. Sometimes I would just catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window when I went shopping, and wonder if that could really be me. I would see a glamorous sunburnt blonde in white linen with dark glasses on, like somebody out of a film. That was me, and it was very hard to believe. I loved the sun and the bathing, and I even went surf-riding, and there were rich-looking and rich-smelling people around, it made you wonder where they got the money from, but I wasn't sorry when January 18th came and it was time for us to fly back to cold England and dirty Bradcaster and get on with this story I'm trying to tell.

  Chapter 20

  I must be very very careful telling this part of the story, for it's not easy to tell, and my mind gets very confused still when I try to think about it. I remember the dates quite well, though, and those sort of show me that what happened really did happen and you could write it down in a diary, with dates, if you kept a diary. We left Kingston in Jamaica the morning of January 18th, and we were in London the following morning, or rather the middle of the night. I was dead beat and wanted to stay in bed all the next day, which was the 20th, but felt more rested by the afternoon. This was the posh hotel we'd been in before, by the way. We left London on the 20th, my birthday being the next day, and were actually back in Bradcaster, looking very brown and rich so that I felt a bit ashamed, in the evening. Then we got a taxi at the station and I began to feel wobbly, because Redvers Glass was supposed to be in our house. It was always possible that he was unreliable and had just gone, leaving dishes unwashed in the sink, but he'd got this job to do for Howard, whatever it was, and perhaps Howard was going to give him more money when he'd finished the job. I could actually feel my heart beating in my throat as the taxi turned into our street, and there was the house looking like it had always looked, with the TV aerial quite safe on the roof and even smoke coming from the chimney, which meant there was somebody there, and that would be Red. Howard got the driver to carry our bags up to the front door and he paid the driver and gave him a good tip. Then he opened the door and we walked in. The hall looked quite clean and tidy and I was quite surprised. There was the noise of talk coming from the living-room, and then the kitchen door suddenly opened and a young man with a beard came out. It seemed as though he'd been making toffee, to judge from the smell. When he saw us he looked a bit surprised, but then he said, 'Oh. You must be the ones,' which seemed a silly thing to say. Then he darted into the front room, not the living-room but the front room, and we could see there were other people in there, but this young bearded man closed the door quickly. 'What's going on?' said Howard, very grim, and I followed him into the living-room. There was Red, and my heart still beat fast, seeing him, though he looked uglier than before, and he was sitting at one end of the table, writing. At the other there was another young man with a typewriter, and he had very dark rings under his eyes, which I saw when he turned to look at us coming in. 'Well,' said Howard. 'What is all this, a colony or something?'

  'Just the right word,' said Redvers Glass, getting up and looking very cheerful. 'A colony. So you're back. Well, I must say you both look very well. But cold, yes, cold. Do sit down by the fire and get warm.' He spoke as if it was his house and not ours and I had this feeling that I wanted to giggle.

  'Who are these people?' said Howard. 'I don't recall inviting any of these people to come and stay in my house. Come on, who are they?' The young man with the typewriter said nothing, he just stared, but Red said:

  'This is Higgins the provincial novelist. And in the other room, which is a sort of studio, you have Bartram the provincial painter, complete with model.'

  'Nude?' I couldn't help saying.

  'You look really well and very very beautiful,' said Red to me. 'Your holiday seems to have done you all the good in the world.' And then he said, 'Yes, nude,' and smiled very sweetly with his lips closed. To Howard he said, 'We've been trying to found a sort of provincial artists' colony. Upstairs there's poor young Crosby, also a writer, who's sick most of the time. We said it was better if he could be near the bathroom, so he's actually in the bathroom, you see, working there. He writes essays, you know.'

  'I don't know,' said Howard. 'And I don't want to know. And now you've all got to get out.'

  'But you commissioned me,' said Red. He held up a lot of sheets of paper. 'You commissioned me to write this gloomy poem. It's finished, dead on schedule, but it hasn't been typed out yet.' He waved these sheets of paper, making them rustle.

  'Ah'd lark ter say,' said the young man with the typewriter, speaking with a very common accent, 'that it's bin a grairt elp, avin this plairce ter wark in.'

  'I'm very glad,' said Howard, sarcastic, 'and now do me the favour of getting out. You knew we were coming back today,' he told Red, 'so I can't understand why your bags aren't packed and you're not ready to go.'

  'Only a minute's job,' said Red. 'We none of us have very many possessions.' Howard turned to me with a face like thunder and said:

  'Go and turf those people out of the front room.'

  'That's not my job,' I said, 'is it? I mean, I'm not head of the household, am I?'

  'Nudes in my front room,' said Howard. And then I saw that he was probably shy. So I went, giggling still a bit to myself, to see what I could do. And in the front room this bearded young man was sitting in front of the electric fire, both bars on, eating what looked like warm home-made toffee, and next to him was a very dark untidy girl with all her clothes on, also eating toffee. On the floor lay another young man, flat on his back, his hands behind his head, smoking, looking up at the ceiling as if he was looking up at the clouds. When I came in he rolled his head round to look at me, still on the floor, and his voice came from the floor, saying, 'Who are you?'

  'I live here,' I said. 'This is my house. You're all to get out right away.' In the corner I saw a sort of easel with a picture on it, half-finished I supposed it to be, though it didn't look much like the sort of picture I like. It was a modern picture, I supposed it to be.

  'Oh, dear,' said the young bearded one, with his mouth full of toffee and licking his fingers. 'Just when we were settling down nicely, too. Ah, well.' And he got up from the couch, which was where he was sitting with this girl, and started to yawn and stretch. As for this girl, she just looked at me in a very intense sort of way, sort of brooding. She didn't seem to me to be very bright. I heard a loud noise, shouting and a bit of thumping, coming from the living-room, so I went back there. Howard and Red and the other man were having some sort of argument, Howard shouting, 'I don't want the outside world any longer, so get out, the lot of you, before I kill you.' Then he picked up the typewriter of this other man, Higgins I think Red said his name was, and tried to sort of shoo them out of the room, using the typewriter, which was a portable one, as a sort of weapon. Then there was a sort of tussle for this typewriter, the Higgins man saying, 'That's marn, that is, let go, yer bustard,' and Red was sort of on to both of them, saying, 'Come on, take it easy, there's no need
to be that way, is there?' Then there was sort of a bit of tumbling, and the typewriter fell on the floor and you could see that would do it no good. The Higgins man started to cry and curse, and got down on his knees to his typewriter as though it was a pet animal that had got hurt. Then this Higgins man got up in a great rage and planted a big kick at the TV screen, but for some reason or other it didn't break. But this time I was annoyed, seeing a stranger take liberties like that in our house, and I slapped Higgins on the face. Then Higgins called me a name he shouldn't have used and then Howard jumped on to him and had him on the floor and started to punch away at him. By this time the people from the next room had come in to see what was going on, but Red called to them, 'Out, out, quick,' and they just vanished, but not before I'd made a run at the little black-haired model or whatever she was and pulled at her hair for her. She made a big scream at that but then just ran away. Howard had this Higgins whimpering on the floor, lying there on his stomach, calling Howard a bloody bustard. Red said:

  'That was a dirty and swinish thing to do.'

  'I'm sick of the lot of you,' said Howard. 'So don't you start telling me what's dirty and swinish and what isn't. All I want from you is to see you out through that front door a bit sharpish.' He was panting all the time he was saying this, by the way. 'Never mind about getting that thing typed. It'll be all right as it is. Thank you very much for doing it.' Howard didn't say that as though he really meant it. 'I suppose you'll want some more money, a sort of fee.' And Howard pulled pound notes and dollar bills out of his pockets, a real lot of them, and put them all on the table. This man Higgins, who'd got up from the floor, stood looking at them sort of awe-struck. He said:

  'You brork mah tarprarter, yer bustard.' So Howard said:

  'All right, buy yourself a new one,' and put down on the table a lot of five-pound notes. 'Only get out, that's all I ask. Leave me and my wife alone.'

  'Oh, Howard,' I said, seeing all this money scooped up by these two. And I looked at Red and Red looked at me, sort of understanding and sympathetic. Then Red gave me what I could only think of as a sort of warning look, and I didn't understand that at all. Red said:

  'Right. I'll just go up and pack my few things and Higgins here will too.'

  'I'll go up,' I said, 'to see that everything's all right up there. The beds have got to be changed, I suppose.'

  'Yer needn't,' said Higgins in a sneering sort of way. 'Yer can chairnge beds when wiv gone. Am not going to be watched over while am packin to see ah dawn't pinch owt.'

  'Oh, idiot,' said Red, almost kicking Higgins.

  I followed them upstairs, and, really, things were in a bit of a mess. Red only had time to whisper to me, 'Come with me now. You'd better get out. I don't trust the man one little bit. He's mad, that's what he is.'

  'Who, Howard?' I whispered back. 'Oh, nonsense.' Then Howard was coming upstairs to the bathroom and in the bathroom another bit of a row started, because there was this other man Crosby actually sitting naked in the bath, which was full of hot water, writing on a sort of board he had spread across the bath. I poked my head round the door and that's what I saw. So there was a bit more trouble, but finally Howard got everybody out, Red still trying to give me these queer warnings of his, but I still couldn't understand. The house was in a bit of a mess, but there were no signs of wild parties or anything like that. It was just that the place needed a real good clean and the sheets were filthy. I said to Howard:

  'I'll have to give the house a real going-over tomorrow.'

  'Tomorrow,' said Howard, 'is your birthday. You're to do no work on your birthday. You're to do no work ever again, for that matter.'

  'I'd almost forgotten,' I said, as we changed the sheets on our bed, in which three people seemed to have been sleeping. 'What are you going to give me for my birthday?' I didn't really mean that, for I didn't want anything. But Howard said:

  'The finest present in the world. You just see.' And he smiled ever so lovingly.

  Chapter 21

  Funnily enough the kitchen was quite clean, except for a couple of saucepans that were burnt and the nylon pan cleaner was all tangled up with bits of stuff and couldn't be used again. The larder was not empty, as I'd expected, but had tins in it that I was sure I'd never bought, things like Beef Curry with Rice and Creamed Rice Pudding, as though somebody staying in our house had been very fond of rice. Then on the little side-table in the kitchen, the one by the wall under the pan-shelves, I saw bills from the grocer, and I saw that they'd been ordering things in our name and hadn't paid for them yet. They wouldn't now, either. That was a dirty trick, I thought. I was glad, though, in a way, because it helped me to turn against Redvers Glass, and I needed to do that, being home again with Howard and prepared to live a decent quiet life, having seen a bit of the world and not been all that taken with it. And tomorrow was my birthday, too. I remembered the birthdays I'd had before with Howard and how sweet he'd been, never forgetting, always buying me something that showed care and thought, even when we didn't have much money. And now he said he was going to give me the finest present in the world. I must really try, I thought, to stop this physical thing. Howard was very sweet, even though he really wasn't all that sexy, at least not in the way that would really thrill a woman so much that she'd almost want to die with the pain and joy of it. But that wasn't everything in life, was it? No, I didn't suppose it was.

  Howard was in the front room, tutting and swearing about the state it was left in, what with tubes of paint and so on on the carpet. Then I heard him say, 'Never mind, never mind,' and go into the living-room. They'd got a good fire going in there, I'll say that for them. It was quite a treat for me to cook something for us after these weeks and months of being a big lady, and I made spaghetti on toast, a good English meal after some of the foreign muck we'd had. I also made a nice big pot of tea, very strong. When I'd set the table and brought the food in I said to Howard, 'Well, it's good to be home, isn't it?' But Howard was still scribbling away on a bit of paper and frowning over a list of figures or something, so I had to say, 'Do come on, dear, your tea's getting cold.' So then he came and sat at the table.

  'I've been working things out,' said Howard. 'I make it that we've still got about fifty-five thousand pounds.'

  'Oh, that's marvellous, isn't it?' I said, forking in some of this spaghetti on toast. I'd had an idea for some time now, but this was the first time I'd said it aloud. I said, 'Why don't we buy our own house instead of living here in a council one? We could get a lovely one, just outside Bradcaster, almost country it is at Shawwell.' But this surprising Howard said:

  'We don't need the money any more. We're going to have a really big house and it won't cost a penny.'

  'Where?' I said. 'I do wish you'd take me into your confidence more, Howard. Have you won some other prize or something and kept it a secret? I don't think that a husband should have secrets from his wife. You've been keeping too many things from me. There's the business of this thing, whatever it is, that Red's supposed to have been doing for you. If he knows why shouldn't I know?'

  'Red?' he said, frowning.

  'Oh, Redvers Glass.'

  'I see. Well, you'll find out soon enough.' He smiled. 'Tomorrow's your birthday and then there'll be no more secrets. Tomorrow you'll know everything. I mean that. Tomorrow you'll know everything that can be known.'

  'You are mysterious,' I said. 'There are a few more bits of spaghetti in the pan. Will you have some more?' Because he was eating very hungrily. But he shook his head, his mouth being full. Then I said, 'Well, what are you going to do with the money?' When he'd stopped chewing he said:

  'I think I'll send it to the Daily Window.'

  'Oh, no,' I said. I was really shocked by that, and I just looked at him with my mouth open. 'Don't we get any of it at all? You mean you're just going to give it all away, just like that? You mean we just go back to where we were before and forget all about it?' For, you see, though I would be quite glad to be living a decent ordinary li
fe again, without being a lady bowed down to in posh hotels and so on, I didn't see why we shouldn't have our own house, say, and our own car, and one or two little comforts like that. I was really shocked at the idea of Howard just giving it all away like that. I said, 'You've always said you don't like the Daily Window, anyway. You've always said that it's corrupting or something and harmful or whatever it is you say it is. I just don't understand.'

  'They don't get it really,' said Howard. 'The idea is that they give it away to different charities. Things like the Guide Dogs and the Starving Chinese Children and the Cancer Research Fund and things like that. Then at the same time they could perhaps publish this thing that Redvers Glass wrote. Although it's a bit long, really. Perhaps they could publish bits of it.' And he frowned over the sheets of paper which he took out of his pocket and which I took to be this poem or whatever it was. I got really mad. I said:

  'Oh, I'm sick and tired of not knowing what's going on. You don't tell me anything. You don't treat me like a wife and a companion or whatever it is. You just keep things to yourself all the time and not tell me anything. I'm sick and tired. I tell you. Sick and tired.' Then I cried a bit. Howard came to me and said:

  'There, there, it's all for the best really, you'll see. I love you, I do love you, I don't want you to be unhappy, but one of us has to be in charge of our lives and it's better that it should be me. There, there.' And he was kissing my tears away and being sweet. 'Come over to the chair there,' he said, 'and sit on my knee.' So he sat down and I sat on his knee and he told me very gently and softly some of his ideas. 'You see,' he said, 'the idea was to see how much you could buy with money. There was a man who said that if we let ourselves worry about the state of the world we'd go mad and what we had to try and do was to live pleasant. Live pleasant, those are his very words. So it seemed to me the best thing we could do was to get some money, once we'd got the opportunity, and then to see how far money could help us to live pleasant. What I wanted to do really was to sort of prove to both of us that there wasn't all that much you could do with money and that business about living pleasant was really a load of nonsense. Because the world's a terrible place and getting worse and worse every day, and no matter how much you try to live pleasant you can't hide the fact that it's a rotten world and not worth living in. Well, we tried, didn't we? We spent as much money as we could in a very short space of time, and what did we get for it? Nothing, really. Food that was all mucked up and waiters sneering at you, and the bigger the tips you gave them the more they sneered. And a bit of travel, but the world's all the same, wherever you go. And a bit of sunshine in winter, but you can get that easy enough if you wait till summer, which is the moral and decent thing to do. And decent clothes and things. You've got to admit that we've had the best of everything.'