Ralph hadn’t shed a tear for Boyce; if he let the floodgates open, it would be an admission that Boyce was dead. In the matter of his father he had practised the strictest self-control. He didn’t cry, not in front of his mother. He didn’t want to upset her, he had to be strong for her. He was the man of the family now.
Beside him raced the river – urgent, dun, swollen with the spring tide. Thunder rumbled in the bruised sky above St Paul’s. Ralph walked home, unaware of the storm clouds gathering within his own life. He was wondering what his classmates would be doing, now they had the afternoon off. He had seen four of them whispering together on the stairs. Perhaps they had been cooking up a plan, some sort of jaunt, and had been waiting for him to leave. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t made friends; he had always had to hurry off, on the dot of five, to his responsibilities at home.
Ralph left the river and took the short cut back, past the vinegar factory. Outside the gates two boys were punching each other. He moved to the other side of the road. They were a coarse bunch anyway, the fellows at the college, barging around the corridors and sniggering at the female students. He wouldn’t have gone on their outing even if they had begged him.
A few raindrops fell. Ralph thought: if Boycie had been with me, if they’d seen Boycie was my friend, they would have changed their tune.
Ralph walked home, through the alleys he knew so well that he could find his way with his eyes closed. Alwyne Flyte, of course, had no such choice. Sometimes Ralph met the man, his tap-tapping stick echoing in the narrow streets as he made his way to the public house by Southwark Bridge. It must be like living in a permanent black-out. People were always stumbling off the pavements and breaking their ankles, but for Alwyne the black-out never lifted. In the early days Ralph would touch his arm, tentatively, but Alwyne shook him off. ‘I can manage, young man.’ He was determined to stand on his own feet and Ralph had to admire the fellow’s pluck.
It started to rain. In the courtyards, women pulled their washing off the lines. The great tenements loomed up on either side, dank and greasy. Ralph walked up Back Lane, past the depots that were roofed by the railway overhead, where people had to shout over the noise of the trains. It was true: his fellow students were an uncouth crowd. Most of them had never read a book in their lives. Ralph’s father had slotted letters together all day, and he had given Ralph a love of interesting words. Ralph’s mother, too, had a cabinet of books and would certainly read more if she had the time. The trouble was, she was rushed off her feet. But now his class was cancelled he could help her. He pictured her pleasure when he arrived home early.
Ralph was thinking this when he emerged into the high street. To his surprise he saw Winnie sheltering outside the pawnshop. She stood under the awning, with the dog.
‘Your mum told me to take him out for a walk,’ she said. ‘Down to the park.’
‘But it’s raining.’
Winnie, too, looked mildly bemused. ‘We were going to get started on the brass. I’d got the polish out.’ She looked down at the dog. ‘He’s done his business.’
‘Let’s take him home then.’
‘I don’t know that I should.’
There was a pause. Outdoors a certain constraint fell upon the two of them. In the privacy of the house they were confidants, they were free with each other, but when they met like this Winnie somehow shrank back into being a servant. This made Ralph feel lonely.
Winnie seemed even more awkward than usual. Ralph had no idea of the reason, then, for her reluctance to return to the house.
‘Let’s not go back!’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s go down to the river, there might be a dead body washed up. You used to like that when you were little.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘I’ve just been beside the river. Come on.’
Winnie paused. Then she shrugged. They hurried off, bowing their heads against the rain.
By the time they reached Palmerston Road the rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Those people who had been sheltering under the railway bridge moved off. A man remounted his ladder and carried on pasting up an advertisment: DERRY AND TOM’S HALF-PRICE SALE STARTS MONDAY. Ralph’s house was the end building, the one sliced off from its long-lost neighbours, and its side was plastered with posters. BOVRIL GIVES STRENGTH TO WIN. When he was young Ralph thought these messages were just for him, renewed by men who had urgent news to impart to himself alone. MAINTAIN REGULARITY WITH FRIAR’S LAXATIVE: AVOID IMITATIONS!
The sun came out and Ralph was flooded with love – a warm, protective love for his home and the souls within it. For all their funny ways, the lodgers were like his family, and it was up to him to take care of them, and his mother. His childish self-absorption seemed laughable now – how foolish he had been about the posters, and how lucky he had told nobody at the time! And how silly to get steamed up about the chaps at the college. He was a man now, and soon he would have a proper man’s job, in an office. His father had been a typesetter. Ralph sensed that his mother thought this a lowly occupation, and that his father’s ambitions left something to be desired. Ralph would see to that. He would do her proud. He would do his father proud. And he would take care of her until she died.
‘I’ll be off,’ said Winnie, and scuttled down the area steps. Ralph opened the front door. Faint music wafted along the hallway.
He recognised the tune. It was The Massachusetts Foxtrot.
‘Boyce!’ yelled Ralph, and hurled himself down the corridor. The dog shot ahead of him.
Boyce was home! Ralph’s heart leapt with joy. Boyce had been pretending, he had known it all along. This was his best joke ever.
Brutus nosed open the door of the back parlour; music flooded out. Ralph followed the dog into the room and stopped dead.
His mother was dancing with a man. They stopped, startled, and jumped apart.
It wasn’t Boyce. It was the butcher, Mr Turk. Ralph stared at him.
‘What are you doing here?’ gasped his mother. Her face was shiny with perspiration.
‘That’s Boyce’s gramophone record,’ said Ralph.
Mr Turk lifted off the needle and sat down heavily. He too was sweating.
‘I just borrowed it,’ said his mother.
The man was sitting in Ralph’s father’s armchair. The dog was all over him, wagging his tail, trying to lick his face. Mr Turk lifted him off and sat there, his legs planted apart.
‘Why are you home early?’ asked his mother breathlessly.
‘Mrs Brand’s husband was killed.’ Ralph looked at Mr Turk’s thighs, in his tight trousers. Big thighs, as thick as tree-trunks. He caught sight of the bulge between them and turned away, as if he’d been stung. ‘There is a war on, you know.’
‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’ she snapped.
Ralph’s courage failed him. He said, weakly: ‘What if the lodgers came in?’
Mr Turk turned to her. ‘You let your lodgers come in this room?’
‘They can if they want,’ she said. ‘They hardly ever do.’
Mr Turk raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t have a room to yourself?’
Ralph glared at the man. What business was it of his?
‘Anyway,’ said his mother, ‘I don’t see what we were doing wrong.’
Mr Turk got to his feet. ‘I’ll be pushing off.’
‘Say hello to Mr Turk,’ she told Ralph, flustered.
‘Hello and goodbye, young man,’ said Mr Turk, extending his hand. Ralph shook it.
The butcher picked up his jacket and left. Brutus followed him. So did Ralph’s mother.
Ralph stood there, in the stuffy little room. A fire glowed in the grate; it was very warm. There was a sickly scent in the air – sweat, and perfume, and something else, a glandular smell. He had sniffed it in Flossie’s fur, when she was on heat. Ralph’s stomach heaved.
His mother dancing with the butcher. Ralph still couldn’t take it in. He felt numb. A vase of roses sat on the mantelpiece. Now that he though
t of it, flowers had recently been appearing in the house. Mrs O’Malley had remarked on it only the evening before, how mimosas brightened up a room.
Down the hallway he heard the murmur of voices. The front door closed. Ralph grabbed Boyce’s gramophone record, shoved it into its sleeve and ran upstairs.
*
Ralph lay in bed. His mother would come in soon, to kiss him good-night. He knew she must.
The double-doors, however, remained closed. It was late. The procession of footsteps on the stairs, as the lodgers trudged down to visit the bathroom, and queued, and finally trudged upstairs again – those had ceased. Within the wall, the pipes gurgled and were silent. Ralph hadn’t extinguished the lamp beside his bed; he lay there, waiting for her.
His mother had been polite all evening, but cool. It was as if she were punishing him. Not a word of explanation, but then they hadn’t had a moment alone together. There was the supper to cook – a flustered business, everything being knocked back by the events of the afternoon – the table to lay, the dishes to clear. Mrs O’Malley’s blind had broken, and Ralph had had to fix it with string; Mrs Spooner had been unusually loquacious – he had smelt alcohol on her breath – and when returning her tray had dawdled in the kitchen and told him a lengthy story about how a passenger had run amok on her bus. Even so, had his mother cared to speak to him she could have drawn him aside. She could even have joined him, as she sometimes did, when he took the dog around the block for his final walk before the house was locked up for the night.
Through the doors he heard his mother’s clock chime eleven – the silvery chime that punctuated their dreams as the two of them lay sleeping in their adjoining rooms. When he woke in the night Ralph had always found it reassuring. It had chimed the hour, on the hour, since he was born. It was echoed by the deeper strike of the grandfather clock downstairs and the distant sound of the church clock, two streets away, but it chimed first, and reminded him that she was near.
The floorboards creaked. What was his mother doing in there? Flossie lay on his stomach, a warm weight. At least the cat had remained loyal. How could Brutus slobber over that man? Ralph was brooding over this when he heard a tap at the door.
‘Are you awake?’ whispered his mother.
Ralph hastily sat up and grabbed the letter. The door opened and she came in. With her hair down, she looked like a young girl.
‘May I sit here?’ She removed the cat and sat down on his bed. The eiderdown sighed.
‘I was just reading Father’s letter,’ said Ralph.
‘Oh. Which one?’
‘With the poem in it.’ Ralph held the letter near the lamp. He cleared his throat and read:
‘When the War is over and the Kaiser’s out of print
I’m going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;
When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe
I’m going to keep a jellyfish and listen to it breathe.’
She took the letter from him and, tossing her hair back, inspected it. She couldn’t read the words, she was too far away from the lamp, but no doubt she knew it by heart. She was sitting on his feet but Ralph didn’t mind.
He said: ‘He was clever, wasn’t he?’
His mother gave him back the letter. She stood up and wrapped the shawl around herself, crossing her arms in front of her bosom. It was her silk shawl with birds on it; the sheen caught the light. Ralph cleared his throat again. He read:
‘When the War is over and the battle has been won
I’m going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run;
When the War is over and the German fleet we sink
I’m going to keep a silkworm’s egg and listen to it think.’
His mother, hunched up, was pacing round the room. Her shadow loomed on the wallpaper.
‘It’s very nice,’ she said.
‘It’s not just very nice. It’s extremely clever.’ His voice rose. ‘Listen to this!
‘When the War is over and we’ve done the Belgians proud
I’m going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud.’
His voice rose higher. He almost shouted:
‘When the War is over and we’ve finished up the show
I’m going to plant a lemon-pip and listen to it grow!’
Ralph folded the letter and replaced it on the table. His hand was trembling.
His mother stood at the window, her back to him. Her hair fell down to her waist. She addressed the curtains. ‘I’m thirty-eight years old, Ralph.’
Exactly, thought her son. You’re far too old to be behaving in this manner.
‘I’m only thirty-eight,’ she said. She still didn’t turn round. ‘There’s been precious little dancing in this house.’
‘I could have danced with you if you wanted,’ said Ralph. ‘Boycie taught me. He was the woman, too, so I know the man’s steps. That’s the sort of person he was.’
His mother’s shoulders twitched irritably, as if an insect had bitten her. She moved restlessly around the room, and stopped at the mantelpiece.
She said: ‘You’ve no idea how kind he’s been.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Turk. He’s been helping us. He’s been so kind.’
‘Nobody’s as kind as Father. He wouldn’t even kill slugs. He was the kindest man in the world! You can tell it in his poem! He listened to jellyfish!’
‘Stop it!’
‘He didn’t kill things like Mr Turk –’
‘Stop it!’
‘He liked them alive!’
His mother swung round, her hair swinging like whips. ‘Your father didn’t write the poem, Ralph!’ she cried. ‘He copied it out of a magazine! It was one of his favourite poems, that’s why he sent it to you! Oh God, Ralph!’
She rushed out of the room and slammed the door.
*
Winnie couldn’t sleep. The house reverberated with misery. She could feel it through the floorboards, through the pipes and ducts and the chimney flue that led down to her own little fireplace. Upstairs, the grandfather clock struck two. In four hours she had to get up and start work – riddle the stove and shovel in what remained of the coal, boil the water for tea and porridge and heat up the kettle for the three front bedrooms that had no wash-basins. The tasks ahead felt foreign to her, as if she were working in a hotel. Now Ralph knew the truth, a shift had taken place, nothing would be the same again. Mr Turk was a presence in the rooms now, she sensed him like a gas.
Her mistress was in his thrall. She had danced with him, as bold as anything. Winnie didn’t like the man, but it was not her place to have an opinion. It was for Ralph that she grieved; she felt his shock in the very fabric of the house. The poor love.
It was April, and still her feet hadn’t warmed up. Winnie lay on her side, curled up, her nightdress pulled down over her toes. The only way to avoid the clammy sheets was to remain in one position and cook up some body heat. Despite its damp, she loved her room. It was the only room she had ever had to herself. The back yard felt like her domain, too, and every morning Mr Boyce’s pigeons arrived and sat in a row on the wall, waiting for her to throw them crumbs.
What would happen if Mrs Clay married Mr Turk? Would he throw Winnie out? He probably thought she was a poor worker, the house being in such a deplorable state. He had no idea how hard it was to clean a place that had fallen into such disrepair, and her mistress so lovesick nowadays she was no help. Mr and Mrs Turk. They would move out; they would start a new life without her! Winnie squeezed her eyes shut. It was only in the small hours, alone in her bed, that she had the time to think about herself, and now she was frightening herself so much that she couldn’t get to sleep.
Besides, how could she clean the rooms when their inmates refused to budge? This was a long-standing problem. Winnie was fond of the lodgers but they had a barnacle-like determination to remain stuck where they were. For years now a thorough spring-clean had been out of the question. The rooms should be scrubbed and f
umigated, the curtains washed, the walls repapered. How could she do that when the boarders remained doggedly in their rooms, only moving their feet when she brushed under them? If Mr Turk poked around the house he would have a fit.
The clock struck three. What would Mr Clay have made of it all, his wife cavorting with the butcher as if she hadn’t a care in the world? Such a sweet man, so kind and gentle; would he recognise his wife now? The past years had coarsened Mrs Clay, there was something hard and reckless about her now. And scheming. What hurt Winnie most was how she had tricked her into taking out the dog; she had suspected something was up. And ordering her to lay a fire, too, when coal was so short. There was scarcely enough in the cellar to keep the range alight, let alone a fire in a room that was hardly used.
And yet her mistress looked magnificent! She glowed; her eyes blazed, she radiated such life that she crackled. Winnie could feel the heat off her, when she passed. How she envied her! She herself would never inspire passion, she had known that for a long time, ever since Archie had done that thing in the street. And yet it lay within her, folded up, like petals packed together inside a bud. At night, in bed, when she had herself to herself, she cupped her breasts in her hands. She drew up her legs to her chin, she pulled the neck of her nightdress over her nose and breathed in her warm, animal smell.
*
Winnie was woken by a frantic knocking. ‘Winnie!’ Mrs Clay opened the door. ‘It’s half-past eight!’
The two women stared at each other. Winnie stumbled out of bed.
Hastily tying her apron, she joined her mistress in the kitchen. Mrs Clay looked haggard; her hair still hung down her back. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘And then I must have dropped off.’