Blasted Things Read online

  Mostyn was expressing his sympathy. ‘Wretched business, wreaked havoc on family life one way and another. Still, you don’t have children, I believe?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  They chortled man to man, then there was a pause as Sir Mostyn picked up and perused Vince’s letter, lips working.

  ‘Sergeant, I see. Congratulations in order, Fortune’

  Vince nodded, heart swelling at the praise. Yes, it had been his finest hour. He had risen through the ranks and proved himself, and they could never take that away from him. Never. He’d proved himself, bettered himself. And was about to reap the reward. They talked about the war, almost on an equal level, Vince thought, Sir Mostyn bringing up his own last service at Mafeking. And then he returned to the letter.

  ‘I understand you’re hoping to return to your old position?’

  Vince nodded.

  ‘But surely . . .’ Mr Mostyn stuck out his bulbous underlip. ‘Surely you can see, Fortune, that a salesman, face to face with the public, well . . .’

  Vince counted to three. All right. Of course, he had half anticipated this; he wasn’t stupid.

  ‘As much for your sake as ours.’

  ‘Number One Salesman twice,’ Vince pointed out.

  ‘True, true, true,’ said Sir Mostyn. ‘Look, old chap, can I offer you a snifter?’ Mostyn pushed himself up with the flats of his hands and turned to pour two stingy measures of brandy.

  Vince sipped his drink. ‘I’ll take any other suitable position that’s more out of the public eye,’ he said, as rehearsed. ‘Something clerical, bookkeeping perhaps. I’m a dab hand with arithmetic.’ This was in fact preferable; it was where he’d been aiming, a quiet regular job in the office. The other staff would soon get used to his appearance. As an officer, he would be sure to rise; mustn’t set his hopes too high, not at first, but something managerial eventually. After all, it’s only what he deserved.

  Sir Mostyn had consumed his drink in one swallow and was now looking longingly at the pipe balanced on a cut-glass ashtray. ‘Here we arrive at the problem,’ he said. ‘You see, there are no clerical vacancies at present.’ His teeth and the ends of his drooping grey moustache were stained yellow-brown. ‘If there were something, old chap, I’d offer it to you like a shot, of course, goes without saying – man like you, loyal to the firm, to King and Country.’

  Vincent stared at the old man, his swimmy bloodshot eyes, swollen nose and drooping jowls. Ugly as sin, yet no one recoiled from his face, because it was all there. Because he was a sir who’d sat on his fat arse throughout the war making money while younger men, better men, were blown to smithereens.

  ‘So there’s nothing?’ said Vincent.

  ‘Ah.’ Mostyn smiled with a sort of relief. He picked up the pipe. ‘Now, I didn’t say that, did I? Good Lord, employee of mine back from serving King and Country, never let it be said that I would turn such a man away.’

  Vincent waited, but he knew before it was said what he was about to be offered. Mostyn knocked the dottle from his pipe before he continued: ‘There are no vacancies, times being what they are, but,’ he paused, expression munificent, ‘I’m sure I can conjure something up, something in the works, in the packaging line.’

  ‘In the factory,’ said Vincent. Snowstorm particles rose and swam.

  ‘The packing line, a good regular position.’

  ‘Manual work?’

  ‘A good position. I dare say we could up the wage a notch as befits.’

  Vince blinked, felt the tug of the scar, the twitch of muscles in the empty socket. ‘Number One Salesman, twice,’ he repeated.

  ‘Well aware, old chap.’ Mostyn had begun to fill his pipe now, rolling a bolus of dark shag in his palm.

  ‘Sergeant. Life on the line more than once.’

  Mostyn tamped the tobacco into the pipe’s bowl. ‘But with so many chaps returned,’ he said, ‘there simply isn’t anything else to offer you.’ He picked up an onyx lighter and lit a spill.

  That onyx lighter could split a man’s skull.

  Vincent rose and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him. He heard it open again. ‘Wait a moment, old chap,’ Sir Mostyn called, and the strawberry baby girl came swimming through the snow and tried to take his arm. ‘Mr Fortune?’ she said, heels dotting along behind him. ‘Mr Fortune?’

  ‘Let him go, poor fellow,’ came Sir Mostyn’s voice, and then Vince was out in the street where a brilliant yellow Mostyn’s Mustards van was parked. Pep up Your Ham, Chops and Sausages with Mostyn’s Mustards. His ‘s’. His fucking ‘s’. The road was busy with cabs and motors, horses, and an omnibus in front of which he stepped.

  He imagines the news, the headline: Tragic Death of Shunned War Hero. But the bus stopped in time, a horn blared after the fact and someone shouted, ‘Blithering idiot.’ And at any rate, no one would have known what had just transpired; Mostyn was hardly likely to own up.

  Vince felt calm on the surface but there was a roiling within him, like something happening in the earth, something geological. His head had begun to ache and more thickly the flakes tumbled across his vision. The specs were digging into the tops of his ears – twin, thin, insistent cuts. Lucky to have both ears to attach them to, that’s what they said. Thought he looked rather good in the specs, would’ve befitted a clerical position.

  He floated amidst the turmoil, found his way to a pub and drank till his money was gone. Another man might have gone under then, turned up begging, pathetic – plenty of them on the streets, tooting tin whistles, stretching out their palms – but not Vince. He had a bit of compensation coming to him, along with the money left by Mum when she went, and with it he bought himself some smart gear and the Norton. It’s all in how you present yourself; he knew this from sales. You persuade people you’re someone and they’ll treat you as such. And he is someone. His exploits in the war – bloody heroics, you can’t say less.

  And in this state of mind he’d stopped off at the Wild Man for a snifter and first clapped eyes on Doll.

  15

  ‘WHAT WE WANT’S a good spring clean in here,’ Doll says, bustling back into the bar. ‘Take a mop to the floor this afternoon, could you? Give it a proper going over.’

  ‘I’ll give you a proper going over,’ he says, but she frowns. He’s overstepped the mark.

  ‘Come and finish your drink, Dolly,’ he says.

  He feels a bit bleary, truth be told. He’s been supping all lunchtime, helping himself to a nip here and there, perk of the job – not that it is a job exactly. She lets him have the loft and in return he helps out behind the bar at busy times and does the man’s work, shifts the kegs and so on.

  He resolves there and then to take the bull by the horns, pop the question. She’s been sweet lately, all the little niceties you can’t take for granted: smiles, touches on the arm, little signs that haven’t been wasted on Vince, oh no. And giving him an eyeful up her skirt just then! Though she’s not let him in her bed again. Playing hard to get, that’s all that’ll be, saving herself . . . maybe marriage has crossed her mind as well. She won’t want him to think her loose.

  He lights her a ciggie, a cheroot for himself, and takes his time over it. No need to go at it like a bull in a china shop, the very bull he’s about to take by its horns. That makes him smile, so they chat for a bit about the weather, about the lunchtime trade today, laughing at something Amos said. He watches how she wriggles the tip of her tongue on her lip between puffs, an erotic little habit she doesn’t even know she has.

  ‘Well,’ she says at last, stretching her arms back. The stitching’s split under one of her sleeves and he can see a wisp of hair. ‘Reckon I’d better get on. If you’ll do the floor and the grate, I’ve vowed to get them skirtings over with this afternoon.’

  And it is the moment. Sunshine on the optics turns the brown drinks gold, the clear ones sparkle, the smoke in the air seems cosy, almost solid. He balances his cheroot on an ashtray and reaches for her hand.r />
  ‘Doll,’ he says.

  ‘Now then!’ She laughs. ‘You’re looking serious.’

  ‘I am serious,’ he says. ‘Doll, why don’t we make this a permanent arrangement?’

  ‘What?’ She looks genuinely dumbstruck.

  ‘You and me, dear. Doll, Dorothy, I’m asking you to marry me.’

  Her eyes flick to the clock behind the bar.

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Enough of your nonsense!’

  ‘You and me, we could make a go of it. Share the work. I’d be a father to Kenny – a boy needs a man about the place. You could have an afternoon off once in a while. Put your feet up while I take the strain.’

  ‘Get on with you,’ she says. ‘And don’t you go telling me that’s not the drink talking because I know what drink talking sounds like and it sounds exactly like that.’

  ‘You think about it,’ he says.

  She stands up, puts their glasses on the bar though they’re not empty, and begins to collect the ashtrays. ‘Filthy beasts,’ she remarks, as ashy beer slops onto the floor.

  ‘We could build up trade. Slap-up lunches for the travelling salesman – that was my line, remember; I’ve got the experience. Holidays by the sea. I could teach Kenny to swim.’

  She snorts, tipping an ashtray over the bin.

  ‘You were talking about decorating. We could close up for a day or two mid-week. Give it a lick of paint. Jazz the place right up.’ He likes that expression and gets the impression that she does too, senses a prickle of interest. ‘Get it jazzed up, keep up with the times.’

  Having emptied and wiped all the ashtrays, she sits down again suddenly. ‘Look, Vince,’ she begins, but he stops her. He uses the power he has with women (except Ethel), doesn’t know what it is but he’s always had it, still has, even with his tin eye. He leans over and kisses her smack on the lips and she only pulls away a bit, doesn’t really stop him. Her lips are full and cushiony, luxury lips, and he knows from experience they’re just a sample of her luxury body. If she were a liner she’d be a Cunard that’s for definite.

  ‘How about it, a coat of paint – something a bit lighter and brighter?’ he says.

  ‘Now that’s not such a bad idea,’ she says.

  He tries to kiss her again, but she shifts her head.

  ‘No, Vince.’ She sighs, but there’s a pliancy about her that he knows just what to do with, and he stands and pulls her to her feet.

  She gazes up at him, a frown between her dark brows, a tender boozy look. ‘You poor dear,’ she says, stroking his cheek just where the mask fits. He flinches away from her hand, then takes it and presses it against his groin, showing he means business. She gives a little laugh. ‘Fine figure of a man, I’ll give you that.’ Her voice against his chest is muffled. ‘Just a quickie, then. Better prospect than the skirtings at any rate.’

  She pours them a gin apiece and they go up to her room, and it’s a dream as per usual. You couldn’t find better if you scoured the land, if you were a million-bleedin’-aire.

  She goes and spoils it afterwards, though: ‘This can’t happen again, Vince. You understand? Vince?’ She keeps going on like that till he nods, but they both know she doesn’t mean it.

  And then she gets up and pulls on her housecoat, turfs him out of her room and goes down to do her blessed skirtings.

  From the kitchen where he’s filling in his pools coupon, he hears the door – second post – hears her chatting, then she calls, ‘Letter for you.’ He goes through. Her housecoat’s stained, hair covered in a kerchief, and neither do her any favours. Hard to believe this is the same body that he had stretched out, practically molten, not an hour ago. Of course she needs more help. When they’re married she won’t have to skivvy like this, they’ll get a little girl in.

  She hands him the letter, damp from her sudsy hands. ‘A billy-doo?’ she asks, jealous, he hopes.

  ‘You know there’s no one else for me,’ he says.

  She shakes her head at him. ‘Pull the other one.’

  ‘What other one?’ Her widens his eye at her.

  ‘You mucky blighter!’

  ‘Might be a lady though,’ he teases, sniffing the creamy envelope.

  ‘Well, good luck to you,’ she says, and kneels down to her skirtings – not the desired response.

  He goes back to the kitchen. The kettle’s coming to the boil and he empties the pot ready, then slides one finger under the flap to open the envelope – nice thick paper, quality; there’s money here.

  Dear Mr Fortune,

  Thank you for your letter.

  There is absolutely no need, let me assure you, to apologise. No harm done and my health is perfectly fine.

  Thank you for forwarding the bill for your repairs. I am of an uneasy mind about entrusting money to the post and would rather hand it to you in person if this would suit?

  I wonder if I might buy you tea in Seckford one afternoon and thus hand you the money in person? There is a tea shop in the High Street – the Copper Kettle. I could meet you there on almost any afternoon at 3 o’clock.

  I shall look forward to hearing from you with a suitable date.

  Sincerely yours,

  Mrs Everett (Clementine)

  Bingo! Better if she’d just sent the cash, of course. But bingo all the same. Promise, the promise of cash, it bucks a man right up. He can pay Sid back for fixing the bike – she’s good as new, more or less if you don’t look too hard – and have enough left to . . . He’ll do it! He’ll only bloody go and do it. Imagine Doll’s face when she sees the paint, the ladder, the brushes. Him in overalls, all tooled up for the job.

  In the dim back parlour, where they never go, he rifles through the sideboard for paper, pen and ink; pencil won’t do. He looks at the calendar. How about Saturday? They’re busy on a Saturday but Doll’ll have to excuse him. Other fish to fry, he’ll say, give her something to think about. She puts on a pose of not caring what he does but it’s just her way, he knows it. Two can play at that game. So passionate when she’s on her back, that’s when the truth comes out. Like tipping over a tortoise, he sniggers at the thought; tip her on her back and she’s helpless, defenceless – she’s his. This time next year they’ll be man and wife. He fingers the paper, looks at the elegant way Mrs Married writes – an educated hand, expensive paper. Didn’t bat an eyelid at the bill, chances are he could get a bit more out of her if he plays his cards right.

  Doll comes through with her bucket, tips the dirty water down the sink. She smells of Sunlight soap and sweat. He doesn’t look at her, not wanting to see her like that, not fair to see a woman at her worst. She’ll do herself up before opening – dab of scent, hair tidied, rouge and powder – and she’ll be back to her old self.

  She refills the bucket, grates soap into it. ‘You all right sitting there?’ she says. ‘That floor wasn’t doing itself last time I looked.’

  ‘No need for your cheek. I’ll see to it pronto.’

  Once she’s gone he uncovers his letter and checks it through. It’s all right, sets the proper tone. He’ll meet her on Saturday. Three o’clock, Copper Kettle, cash in – and see what else he can tap her for.

  16

  ASSIGNATION, ASSIGNATION, ASSIGNATION – her footsteps beat the syllables on the pavement. Thin blue shoes, sun hot on the crown of her blue felt hat. Assignation, a word with such associations . . . but this was nothing like that, nothing. This was an innocent meeting. After all, did one not owe the poor soul recompense for one’s carelessness?

  As far as Dennis was concerned she was still walking by the river with Harri. After lunch, on his way to the golf club, he’d driven her there. She’d hoped he’d simply drop her off, but he’d insisted, since the afternoon was so clement, on accompanying them – Harri, Clem, Mildred and the children – on the first leg of their river walk.

  There had been a breeze down there and the tide was in, the deep sludge-coloured water sliding along the muddy banks, moored boats nudging an
d scraping in the current.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be buzzing off, darling?’ Clem had been vibrating with frustration. ‘You don’t want to hold up the tee.’

  ‘No rush.’ He was maddeningly content to stroll, petting his nieces and wrangling with Harri. Mildred pushed the perambulator, Edgar waving and crowing, excited by the swooping gulls, and the girls pelting about in their muddy boots. It was fully a quarter of an hour before Dennis took out his pocket watch and declared it time to dash.

  ‘He’s in good form,’ Harri said as they watched him stride away. ‘What wonders have you been performing?’

  Clem made some sort of half-witted remark and hid her face by stopping to adjust Edgar’s sun bonnet. She waited as long as she could bear and then exclaimed, ‘Oh gosh, Harri, I must dash too! I’ve arranged to meet a friend – just remembered.’

  Oh, obvious, obvious tissue-thin lie.

  ‘Who is she?’ said Harri. Phyllis had ripped up a daffodil and was trying to reach her chin with it.

  ‘D’you like butter?’

  ‘That’s buttercups not daffodils, silly. Oh, all right then. Do I?’

  ‘Yes. Now Auntie Clem?’ Phyllis waved the daffodil at Clem and she stooped to feel the soft bat of the petals.

  ‘Auntie Clem don’t like butter,’ Phyllis declared.

  ‘Oh yes, I jolly well do!’