Page 15 of One Hand Clapping


  'Oh, yes,' I said, because it was true, we had had.

  'So really,' said Howard, 'there was nothing else we were missing, except the things that money can't buy.'

  'Love,' I said, 'we've had love, lots of love.'

  'I didn't mean love,' he said, with a bit of a smile to show that we had had love and he was glad of it. 'I meant things like knowledge and philosophy and music. I meant like being true to the great men who've gone before us and not spitting in their poor dead faces as we have been doing. Like that quiz.' I understood just a bit but not all of what he was saying. And it was a very funny thing, which perhaps only a woman can understand and even then not really understand, but I had a very strong desire all of a sudden to have a baby. I had a very powerful desire come sort of into my whole body to have a child of my own. That was very strange, but I said nothing about it to Howard. Howard said, 'It's too late now. There are certain things I know I could never have had, like being able to understand people like Einstein and Bertrand Russell and so on. Like having an education at Oxford or Cambridge. Like being able to really appreciate the great composers, Beethoven and Bach and so on. And books, too. And all I've had is this photographic brain, a sort of mockery, like having a machine fixed inside your skull.' He looked then as if he was going to cry. I said, stroking the back of his head:

  'Oh, come on now, love, there's nothing to get sad about. We may not have had much in the way of all those things you said, like education and whatnot, but we've had a good life and we've seen what money can buy and can't buy. And there's a lot in the world that's very good, really. I mean, there's the birds singing and the sunshine and the flowers, isn't there? And there's us and love, isn't there? There's a lot of good things, I'd say. And we're still young and we've got a lot of life in front of us.' And I went on stroking the back of his head. Howard said:

  'It's very hard to explain exactly what I mean. What I mean isn't just you and me and getting a bit of fun out of life before we snuff it. What I mean is a sort of betrayal. It's we who've betrayed things. We've betrayed the kind of world these men in the past had in mind, the kind of world they wanted to build. We've let them down, you and me and everybody. Do you understand what I'm getting at?'

  'No,' I said, because I didn't.

  'Oh, all right,' he said, sort of wearily.

  'Let's go to bed,' I said. 'I'll just wash up and then I'll put a hot water bottle in the bed and then we'll go to bed. O.K.?' And I gave him a tight squeeze just so that he'd know what I meant.

  All through our holiday we'd had twin beds. This was the first time for it seemed ages since we'd really slept together in a double bed, and there's nothing like a double bed. While we were in the middle of making love there was a terrific banging at the door downstairs. 'Take no notice,' I said. Howard didn't take any notice, either. I could just hear from downstairs the noise of this banging. It was Redvers Glass. He shouted:

  'Let me in. Let me talk to you both. Don't do it. Please don't do it. Let me in.' It was a good thing he'd been made to give his key back to Howard, otherwise he might have just barged in and up the stairs and into the bedroom. He was a man completely without shame. Howard and I weren't in a position to do anything about him shouting like that, and by the time we were he'd gone away. He was obviously drunk. The neighbours told him to shut up and he went away.

  Chapter 22

  Howard seemed to be awake a long time before I was, for when I opened my eyes there he was leaning over me, propped up on his elbow, sort of smiling with his eyes, and when I was awake and staring round as you do when you wake up then he gave me a very light kiss on my forehead and said, 'Happy birthday, darling.'

  'Oh,' I said. 'Oh.' And I realised it was my birthday. I wasn't old enough to be frightened or sad at birthdays, nowhere near, but it was another year gone and the years were going all the time. Howard said: 'You just lie there and I'll go down and make you a nice cup of tea.' And he got up and put on the lovely dressing-gown I'd bought him for Christmas in New York and went downstairs. He was being very sweet, and I wondered what presents he'd bring me up with the tea. But he'd said it was going to be a big special present or something. When he came up with the tea to wake me up, because I'd dropped off again, he'd brought nothing but the cup of tea and a few birthday cards, one from Mum and Pop, one from Myrtle and one from my auntie in St Leonards in Sussex. She never forgot to send me a card, but she never sent anything in the way of a present. Howard could see I was a bit disappointed about not getting anything from him. After all, it is the thought that counts, despite what they say, and me having practically everything a woman could want was neither here nor there. Anyway, Howard just smiled and said, 'Later on today. This afternoon. Wait. Be patient.' And he said he'd cook the breakfast and call me when it was ready. So I yawned and stretched a bit, hearing the fat spitting downstairs and the cutlery and plates rattling as Howard set the table. I'd better explain that we had an all-night fire in the living-room and that all you had to do in the morning, if you'd made the fire up properly the night before, was to open it up by turning knobs and get rid of the ash in a big tray underneath. I could hear Howard doing this and trying to get breakfast at the same time and that made me grin a bit. When I turned over on my back almost, feeling very lazy, I stretched my arm out of bed and my hand touched some kind of paper or other under the bed. I picked the paper up and looked at it. It was a piece of very bad typewriting and it seemed to be part of a story. Anyway, I read it. It went like this: 'Things weren't going to be like that for me, I can tell you. I'd heard my father tell of the old days down the mine, the sickening conditions, the daily death-risk, the owner's whip. A fine knotted body he'd had on him, striation of man-strength through the in-bitten blue, and he'd glowed with the old virtues, the pay-night's drunk with the boys his only vice, but too much of a ritual to be really that. But things weren't going to be like that for me. The mines had changed hands now. There was the empty egg-face of the Coal Board, now, instead of the drooling crafty leer of Lord Muck or Sir Shithouse Turdworthy, there were pithead baths and Prefects and Zodiacs parked near them, but I wasn't going to be taken in by that. I wanted the best, and the best doesn't go to a man with the knotty shoulders of a world's worker, the indelible ink of coaldust skinned over on his back and belly. I wanted the best - clothes, car, woman. I was going to get the--'

  It stopped there. That must be that Higgins, I thought, and I saw him quite clearly downstairs yesterday in my mind's eye, crying over his broken typewriter, with Red standing glaring at Howard. Then I wanted Red there in bed with me, really badly, and disliked myself for wanting that. If I'd been a man, I should have called that lust. I was glad when I heard Howard call up that breakfast was ready. I got out of bed as though it was haunted, and wrapped myself warm in my new gorgeous furry dressing-gown and put my warm toes into my mink mules. Then I went downstairs, still hoping that Howard might have been kidding and that there would be a lovely present waiting for me on the table. But there wasn't. There was only eggs and bacon, and my egg was a bit over-cooked, not runny at all. Still, he'd done his best, I supposed. I don't think Howard noticed I was feeling a bit hurt, for he was reading the Daily Window while he ate. Anyway, just to show Howard, and also because I didn't really have much appetite, I left most of my breakfast and just drank my tea out of the big cup, putting both hands on it and my elbows on the table. Howard said: 'The same old sort of news. Ten thousand people homeless in the floods, but the front page has all this about this teenage pop singer falling off the stage at Doncaster. Just a day like any other day.'

  'Why, is there supposed to be something special about today or something?' I said in a sulky sarky way.

  'Today's a very special day,' said Howard. 'More special than you think.' He had a sort of boyish smile as though he really had something up his sleeve, so I had to forgive him in my heart, so to speak, but I was still going to act sulky. 'When you get dressed,' said Howard, 'and I get dressed too, then I'll let you into one of the secrets.
'

  'Which one?'

  'The one about the thing that Glass was doing for me.' Well, of course that sort of intrigued me, and I got down to the washing-up, then went upstairs to make the bed and get ready. Howard had a shave and dressed and we were both downstairs again. It felt a bit queer, all this, like having a will read or something, and I was quite excited. We sat down in the living-room before the fire, which was going nicely, and we lit cigarettes, then Howard started smoothing out these sheets of paper. 'It's very good, this, really,' he said, 'though there's some of it I can't understand. Shall I start to read it?' I said all right and settled myself to listen to it. This is what it was: Not, of course, that either of us thought

  We were too good for this world. No such thought Had ever entered heads lacking in thought.

  But shall I say there was a sort of hopelessness, a sort of Sickness which further living could not cure, Aggravate rather. We started off with those certain loves Or desires for love which men have, such as,

  Being English, a desire to love England.

  But we saw England delivered over to the hands of The sneerers and sniggerers, the thugs and grinners, England become a feeble-lighted

  Moon of America, our very language defiled

  And become slick and gum-chewing.

  Oh, and the great unearthed and their heads

  Kicked about for footballs. We saw nastiness

  Proclaimed as though it were rich natural

  Cream and the fourth-rater exalted

  So long as her tits were big enough. Alas

  For England. England is not an England

  We would wish to stand and see defiled further -

  'That's not right for poetry, if that's what it is,' I said, 'putting that word in.'

  'What word?' asked Howard.

  'That rude word,' I said. 'You know what word I mean. That's not right at all.' But Howard took no notice and went on reading aloud: We've all betrayed our past, we've killed the dream Our fathers held. Look at us now, look at us: Shuddering waiting for the bomb to burst,

  The ultimate, but not with dignity, oh no.

  Grinning like apes in pointed shoes and grinning National Health teeth, clicking our off-beat fingers To juke-box cliches, waiting

  For death to overtake us, rejecting choice

  Because choice seems no longer there. But to two at least

  Choice shone, a sun, a gleam of Stoic death.

  Better to be out of it steak and kidney

  Steak meets kidney and asks to dance

  KNOCK KNOCK

  The band strikes up with a one-er two-er three It might as well be steak and kidney pie I can always Boil some potatoes no need for a second

  Vegetable

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  I woke up with a bit of start then. I must have sort of nodded off while Howard was reading this poem. It seemed to me to be a very boring poem, with no rhymes or rhythm in it either and I must have just dropped off. Then I realised that there was somebody knocking at the door and Howard was on his feet going to see who it was. I heard voices, three altogether, and the other one I knew was Redvers Glass's voice. I went out into the hall to see what was going on, wrapping my cardigan tight round me for there was a cold wind blowing through the hall. Howard was saying: 'This is all absolute nonsense.' And then I could see that Red had brought a policeman with him, the other way round from last time, when a policeman had brought Red, and I saw that it was the same policeman. I called out: 'Bring them in. Let's know what's going on.'

  'Oh,' said Howard, turning round to look at me, 'all this is dangerous nonsense. All right, then, come in.' And Red came in, looking very angry and excited, and the policeman followed, looking as if he wondered what was going on. As I did, too.

  'Look,' said Red to me, 'you've got to get out of here. It isn't safe. He's trying to kill you.'

  'Who is?' I said.

  'He is. Your husband. He's going to kill you and then he's going to kill himself. I know he is. It's in that poem. I didn't realise that properly till I'd finished it. But now I know it.'

  'Why is he going to kill me?' I said, a good deal astonished by all this.

  'Never mind. You've got to get out of here.'

  'I'm not going to stand this, officer,' said Howard in his very stern voice. 'This man is making a very serious accusation. I've helped this young man with gifts of money and with hospitality, as you well know, yourself having brought him here when he was dead drunk, and I'm not going to have this sort of thing.'

  The policeman didn't look a bit happy. 'Everything seems all raaaart ere,' he said. 'Nobody's murderin nobody. You'd best leave, lad, afore thur's a bit of a barney.'

  'It's true,' shouted Red. 'It's all in that poem.'

  'Oh, a porm,' said the policeman. 'Rart, lad, you'd best coom back to stairshun wi me. Narce ot strong cupper'll put yer rart as rairn.'

  'Honestly, constable,' smiled Howard, 'do I look like the sort of man who's going to murder his wife?' He put his arm round me.

  'That's right,' I said. 'Does he look like the sort of man who's going to murder his wife?' I honestly thought that Red was really a bit cracked and I was glad I hadn't got too much mixed up with him. 'Howard's a man,' I said, 'that wouldn't harm a fly. Would you, dear?' And that poem was a real disappointment. If that was the sort of poetry that Mister Redvers Glass wrote, then he was more than just a bit cracked.

  'I'm warning you,' said Red. 'I'll be round again. I'm not going to stand by and see murder done. I've still got some decent feelings left.'

  'You'd best coom along, lad,' said the policeman. 'We can't ave yer kip coomin ere an meckin a disturbance in folks' ouses.' And he made as to grab Red by his jacket.

  'All right,' said Howard. 'I won't prefer a charge or anything.' He couldn't, though, could he, really? 'I just don't want to be disturbed any more, that's all.'

  'I don't give a damn,' shouted Redvers Glass. 'There's something fishy going on here, and I don't like it.'

  'What tha larks,' said the policeman, getting very familiar now, 'is narther ere ner thur. Coom alonger me.' And he sort of got Red up on his tiptoes and marched him out, and Red was protesting all the time. I said to Howard: 'What did he mean? How did he get this idea you were going to kill me or something?'

  'He's a bit of a fool,' said Howard, 'even though he can write poetry.'

  'I don't think he can,' I said. 'I couldn't understand anything of it. A lot of nonsense it struck me as being.'

  Howard went out to see Redvers Glass being taken down the street, still going on about things. There were quite a few people looking on, too, because this was Saturday and there were plenty of people at home. Then he shut the front door and came back to me. He said: 'You trust me, don't you? In everything?'

  'Of course I do,' I said.

  'Really and truly?'

  'Of course I do,' I said.

  'And you do want to be with me? You do want us to be together for ever and ever?'

  'Of course I do. I wouldn't even start beginning to believe anything that Redvers Glass says. I trust you and love you.' That's what I really felt. I realised that I'd been silly to want anything to do with Red. A bit of a flirtation's all right, but you mustn't start trying to break up marriage. Marriage is a very serious thing.

  'That's all right, then,' said Howard.

  Chapter 23

  'That's all right, then,' said Howard. 'Now we'll just see to this business of sending a cheque to the Daily Window together with a letter and also this poem that Glass wrote.'

  'Oh, you are a fool, Howard,' I said.

  'Am I? Am I?' Howard said. 'You'll see whether I'm a fool or not.' And he sat down right away at the table and began writing away in his cheque-book. I turned from him in a bit of a huff, and then I thought, 'Ah, well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,' and 'Easy come, easy go.' Also I had pretty well what I wanted, including my lovely wonderful mink upstairs and my bits of jewellery and so on. The point was that we had far, far more t
han we'd had even three months ago, and Howard had proved to me that money didn't make for happiness, really. Also I saw in my mind's eye like a film all the stray dogs and the crying kids that Howard was helping in this way, also the sufferers from cancer and rheumatism and so on, screaming in agony, and there was Howard helping them all, being a hero. So I went round the house singing a bit, doing a bit of dusting, and all the tubes of paint and the unfinished picture in the front room I put in our coal bunker. Then I thought about tomorrow's dinner and what should we have. I called in to Howard:

  'What shall we have for Sunday dinner?'

  'Oh, anything,' he called back. 'Something in a tin or something. I'm not hungry.'

  Silly fool, not really listening. 'All right,' I thought, 'as it's my birthday today Howard shall take me out to lunch at the Green Man tomorrow.' He was the one who'd been saying that I was not to do any more cooking and so on. When I went back into the living-room Howard was just licking the big envelope. Then he said, 'There, that's done. Now get your hat and coat on and we're going round to see your mum and dad and also your sister Myrtle.'