The Husband's Story (14 page)

At the station Beryl bought herself a copy of
Home Hairdressing
to read on the train. It was only a stray thought so far, a partially-formed fancy still locked in the away part of her mind that had prompted her. But if she wanted to, she didn't see why she shouldn't; just try it out like, she kept telling herself. And, with hair as raven black as hers, the effect should be quite something. Any day now, without saying a word about it first, she would tell M. Louis in Railway Approach to take two thick tresses on either side and bleach them pure snow white just for the contrast. She wished now that she had made her mind up sooner so that today's hair-do could have been like that for her lunch with Cliff.

Her mind was not entirely on hairdressing, however. It kept straying back to what Cliff had said when he had invited her. She found herself wondering if he had really meant it when he had suggested the Ritz. She would have liked casually, as a kind of throwaway line, to be able to say to Marleen's teacher: ‘When I was lunching at the Ritz the other day…' And now it would have to be: ‘There's a little place in Soho I go to sometimes when I'm in town…' Still good, but not so good. Either way, however, she was looking forward to saying it. And then, with a pang, she remembered: today's lunch was secret. If it had been in the House of Lords or Buckingham Palace she could never, so long as Stan was around, possibly refer to it.

She would have liked to take a taxi from Cannon Street, but it was the expense that stopped her. The fare to town had been more than she had expected, and she now had only fifteen shillings in her handbag. By the time she had collected Marleen's shoe-repair on the way home, she would be down practically to a handful of small change. It was humiliating.

Because she couldn't afford a taxi, the choice was between a bus and the Underground. And it was the Underground that she chose. This, as it turned out, was a mistake. When she asked for a ticket to Soho, the booking-clerk told her that there was no such station, Piccadilly Circus was the nearest, he said. There was humiliation in that, too: it was yet another painful reminder of how suburban, how much out of touch with things, she had allowed herself to become. She winced as she picked up the ticket.

Finding her way from Piccadilly Circus to Greek Street presented its
own special problem. Once she had turned off Shaftesbury Avenue she would have liked to ask the way, but the only people she could see were exactly the sort of people that she wouldn't have cared to be seen talking to. Foreigners mostly; and not very nice foreigners at that.

Usually, if you wanted to enquire about an address, you could just pop into the nearest shop. But here in Soho it was different. They were such extraordinary shops. So frank, so explicit, and so single-minded. She only hoped that Marleen would never get taken past any of them. Not until she was married at least. And even then only if she had found herself the right kind of husband.

In the end, it was a window-cleaner that she asked. He seemed respectable enough. And the El Morocco, when at last she found it, was distinctly reassuring; a piece of real old Marrakesh sprung up in W1. The proprietor had indulged his own hot Mediterranean taste. The front was painted deep ochre, and the shutters and jalousies were striped in yellow. On either side of the doorway hung twin baskets of fern and geraniums, and the glass panel of the door was decorated with the display cards of Diners' Club, American Express and the Société Gastronomique de France. Beryl had known it all the time: Cliff would never have dreamed of taking her anywhere that wasn't of the best.

Even so, it seemed dreadfully dark inside. The blinds were kept permanently drawn and the only light there was came from the little dangling lamps like incense-burners. The shirt-front of the waiter showed up all right but, when he turned to lead her to the table, she almost lost sight of him again. That was why it was wonderful to hear Cliff's voice saying ‘Hullo Beautiful', coming from somewhere in the blackness ahead of her.

The tables were set in small alcoves all round the room. Getting in was a bit of a scramble. The tables had to be pulled out first but, once they had been pushed back again, there was no denying that there was a wonderfully intimate, close-up kind of feeling. Beryl had never sat on a couch instead of on a chair in a restaurant before.

At first she said ‘no' she didn't want a drink, really she didn't, not at lunchtime like. But Cliff refused to listen. A drink was exactly what she needed, he told her, adding that this was something else they had in common. And he insisted on ordering for her. The wine waiter was smiling and dusky and wore a fez. He and Cliff appeared to be old friends, and Beryl found herself wondering who Cliff usually brought
with him into the alcove. It was the sort of place where even comparative strangers would get to know each other very quickly.

They were Vodkatinis that Cliff ordered, and in sign language he indicated that they should be large ones by separating his thumb and forefinger as wide as they would go. Whatever Cliff did always had style to it.

It was the same, too, with the meal. She let him choose. But there was really nothing else she could have done. The menu was written out in French on thick parchmenty paper and, in the thick twilight of the El Morocco, she couldn't make out a word of it. This saddened her because it meant that any day now she might need reading-glasses. But the prices stood out plainly enough; and she could hardly believe them. Just thinking of what Stan told her that he had to pay for lunch in the canteen at Frobisher House reminded her of the two different worlds that Stan and Cliff lived in. That was what was so marvellous about the way all three of them were able to go on being such good friends.

The Vodkatinis were not only large, they were powerful; like gin, only different. And more relaxing. And when Cliff suggested that a bottle of hock would go best with what they were having, she was ready to agree with him. She had finished the Vodkatini by then, and she felt better; happier and more secure. Just sitting there on the little semi-circular couch with Cliff's knee pressed up against hers, was enough. She knew that everything would be all right now, and even wondered what she had been worrying about.

Cliff made no attempt to rush things. He knew women. Those long silences were always the prelude, at any moment now she would break out and tell him everything. And once again he was proved right. Leaving the Parma ham only half-eaten, she turned to him.

‘Oh, Cliff,' she said. ‘I simply had to see you. You're the only one I can tell. You can't imagine what I've been going through. Really you can't.'

He put his large, strong hand with the big signet ring on the third finger over hers, and left it there.

‘That's what we're here for,' he told her. ‘We're not just friends.'

And, to show that he meant it, he gave her hand a little squeeze as well.

‘It's Stan,' she went on. ‘I'm sorry for him. Really I am. But, I
mean, it's no use pretending, is it? He just isn't up to it like. That's what's wrong with him.'

Cliff removed his hand for a moment because Beryl wanted to finish up her melon. It was the pink kind that came from Israel, and she was particularly fond of it.

‘And he knows it,' she resumed. ‘I mean, he must do, mustn't he? Stan's not stupid. He minds. You can tell that. It's what gets him down like.'

The wine waiter in the fez had removed the hock bottle from the ice-bucket and was uncorking it. Cliff was very particular about wine. When the waiter had poured a little, he first sniffed and then sipped. Next he raised his glass.

‘To both of us,' he said.

In the ordinary way, Beryl liked drinking out of long-stemmed glasses. They seemed somehow so much more festive than the other kind. But today she scarcely noticed.

‘That's why he's gone to pieces,' she said. ‘Like the night they told him he hadn't got it. You've never seen Stan when he's drunk. Well, I have. I've never been so ashamed in all my life. That's why I had to take little Marleen through to my room. So that
she
shouldn't see. That's the kind of time I've been having. Only of course I couldn't let on like, not even to Marleen.'

None of it was in the least what she had meant to say to Cliff. All that she had intended when she set out from Crocketts Green that morning had been a straightforward conversation about money. But she had not reckoned on the Vodkatini and the hock. And, in the event, if she had been lying out on a psychiatrist's couch she could not have been more confiding.

‘And you can imagine what I felt like next morning taking Marleen to school,' she went on. ‘It's a wonder I even dared show my face. Supposing someone we knew had seen him. Marleen's form-mistress like. That would have been nice for me, wouldn't it? I mean…'

It was the waiter who interrupted her. He was bringing the
kebab.
And one glance at him was enough to show that he was exactly the type that would go in for eavesdropping. A single indiscreet remark from her, she realized, and it would be all round the Arab world tomorrow. She sat on in silence until he had finished serving.

‘It isn't as though I'm demanding,' she explained, as soon as he had
gone away, ‘because that isn't the way I'm made. Not that it would make any difference if I was. Because, if it isn't there, you can't have it, can you? I've got used to going without. But it doesn't mean that you don't still want it.'

If Beryl had not taken up her knife and fork, Cliff would have put his hand over hers again. As it was, he pressed his knee in closer and rubbed it up and down a bit.

‘And all this time you never let on,' he said. ‘That's what I call loyalty. Real loyalty.'

‘Sometimes I think I'm going mad,' she told him. ‘I just lie in bed at night thinking about it. Because it'll never get better. Not married to Stan, it won't. That's why I thought of you.'

Cliff had put down his own knife and fork, and was sitting back watching her. She certainly looked cool enough; and he admired her for it. In all his experience he had never had anything quite like this happen to him before.

‘You know how I feel about you,' he said. ‘I always have. Always.'

What Cliff found strangely unnerving was that Beryl was so clearly enjoying her
kebab.
And it was worse with the salad. She was munching it.

‘So I decided I had to do something about it,' she told him between mouthfuls. ‘I'll repay you all right. You needn't worry about that. It's just that I've got to have it. And I've got to have it now.'

This time it was the waiter with the sweet trolley who made her break off. In the end it was the
gâteau
she chose. She knew when she asked for it that she shouldn't have done so. With a figure like hers she had to be on guard all the time. But she liked chocolate
gâteau
, and somehow it didn't seem to matter so much with Marleen not there to see her eating it.

Then she turned back to Cliff again.

‘There's one thing you've got to promise. You're not to let Stan know. If Stan gets to hear of it, he'll try to stop it. I know he will.'

Cliff promised.

‘And it can't go on any longer,' Beryl told him. ‘Because they won't cash any more cheques like. Mr Winters said so.'

‘Mr Winters?'

Cliff heard himself repeating the name. It meant nothing to him.

‘Well, it's not Mr Winters really,' Beryl went on. ‘It's the head office. At least he say it is. But he would, wouldn't he? And it comes to
the same thing, I mean. Not being able to write a cheque like.'

Cliff shifted further back into the couch and eased his knee away from hers.

‘Are you asking me for money?'

The question came as a surprise to Beryl. After all that she had been telling him, it seemed impossible that he shouldn't have understood. But she was ready to explain things more clearly if that was what was needed.

‘It's been going up, you see. That's the whole trouble. It didn't matter the way it was because it always had been. But it's more now. That's why I've got to do something. Stan can't. Not on his salary. Well, he couldn't, could he? He's not mean. He just hasn't got it.'

‘How much?'

There was, Beryl noted, something strangely flat-sounding about his voice as he asked her. She supposed it was something to do with his business life. After all, buying and selling things, he was probably talking about money all day.

‘It's a hundred and seven,' she told him. ‘Not counting the new covers, that is. And they've got to be paid for some time. I mean, if you don't pay you can't go there again, can you? It stands to reason. And they're cheaper than anywhere else. You've only got to look at…'

Cliff wasn't listening any longer. He had taken out his cheque book and was writing something with his thick gold-looking pen. He tore off the cheque and pushed it across to her.

‘Would this help?' he asked.

As soon as she looked down at it, she knew that she had been right to ask him. There was nothing small or mean-minded about Cliff. Whatever he did had his own distinctive gesture to it. The cheque was for one hundred pounds.

This time it was Beryl's hand that reached out and squeezed Cliff's.

‘You are sweet,' she told him. ‘I'll give it all back, like I said. Stan's bound to get a raise sometime, isn't he? I mean, they can't expect him to go on forever, not the way he is now. Not forever they can't.'

Cliff looked at his watch.

‘I've got to be getting back,' he told her.

In the end it was Mr Miller's feet that did it. By now they had become strangers to him; useless and unfeeling, they had no life left in them. Even resting on a hot water bottle they remained icy. In short, Mr Miller was bedridden. His doctor spoke of extended sick leave and wrote out a medical certificate. Not that Mr Miller minded very much. He'd done his bit. His sick leave entitlement carried him comfortably over his April retirement date.