The Likes of Us (2 page)

‘I'm goinna paddle,' she says. ‘Comin?'

Paddling's nothing in my line so I shake my head and stretch out on the bank while she goes in. I chew a grass stalk and watch her bounce about in the water like a young hippo, holding her skirt up and giving me a good view of her legs above the knee.

Before long she's overdoing the jumping about a bit and I tell her to be careful of the stones on the bottom: but she just laughs and jumps right up out of the water. Well, it's her funeral, I'm just thinking, when her face changes and she starts to sway about and throw her arms out to keep her balance. I don't take this in for a second, and then I see she's not acting any more, and I jump up. The next thing I know my right leg's in water up to the knee and my arm's round her holding her up. I shift my hand to get a better hold and feel my fingers sink into her soft bust.

When I have her safe on the bank I take a look at my sopping trouser leg and shoe. But I'm not bothering about them somehow. It's my hand. Something's wrong with it. It's still got the feel of Thelma's bust in the fingers.

I look at her sprawling on the grass with her knees up. ‘You've grazed your foot.' She's a bit short of wind and doesn't say anything, so I kneel down in front of her and dry her foot on my spare hankie and then tie the hankie round it in a makeshift bandage. ‘That'll stop your shoe rubbing it till you get home.'

When I lift my eyes I find I'm looking straight along her leg to her pink pants and what with this and that funny feeling in my hand I look away quick and feel myself coming up brick red.

She puts her leg down and leans forward to feel at the bandage. I stand up out of the way.

‘I don't know what I'd 've done if you hadn't been here, Arry,' she says.

‘You'd ha' got wet,' I say, and give a short laugh. And all the time I'm looking down at her big bust lolling about inside her frock. She's got nothing much else on besides the frock and it looks as though if she leans over a bit further the whole flipping lot might come flopping out, and I can't keep my eyes off it, wondering what I'll do if it does. I don't know what's come over me.

Then all at once a funny thing happens. As sharp as if it was yesterday I remember the time we went with the school to the Art Gallery. It's the only time I've ever been but I remember clear as daylight all them naked women, big strapping women, lolling about on red plush, as brazen as you please. And it comes to me that Thelma would have been just right in them days: they must all have been like Thelma then. I shut my eyes and imagine her and then I begin to get excited. It's like a great bubble filling all inside me and then it goes down and leaves me all loose and wobbly where my guts should be. God! But I've never felt like this before. I put my hand out and I can't keep it steady.

‘It's ever so nice havin' some'dy big an' strong to look after you,' Thelma's saying.

‘I like looking after you,' I say. My throat's all clogged up and I swallow hard to clear it. ‘I... I'd like to look after you all along.'

Thelma stares and goes as red as fire. ‘Would you, Arry? All along?'

I give her a nod because I can't talk any more, and sit down beside her. The way I'm feeling now I'd tell her anything.

‘I allus knew you was a nice lad, Arry,' she says, and hides her face as I slide my arm round her waist and try to pull her over.

‘Give us a kiss, then,' I say.

She doesn't move for a couple of seconds, then she turns her face round and turns it straight back again just as I'm making for her and I end up kissing her on the ear. We sit like that for a minute or two and then I try to touch her bust again. She gives a wriggle at this.

‘We'd best be gettin' back, Arry,' she says. ‘They'll be wonderin' where we've got to.'

She pulls her sandals on and we stand up. I grab her and plonk her one straight on the mouth. Her eyes flutter like bees' wings after that.

‘You'll have to let me lean on you, Arry,' she says, all soft and melting like.

We get back to the main path and make for the clearing. Thelma limps along the path and I charge along through the bracken with my arm round her waist. As we get near the place where we left Ma and Old Man Baynes I begin to notice she's leaning on me fit for a broken leg, let alone a scratched foot. And I can feel my trouser leg all sopping wet and my foot squelching away in my shoe. The next minute I see Ma and Old Man Baynes sitting there waiting for us and all the feeling I had by the beck's gone and I just feel like turning round and running for it.

Thelma tells her everything and a bit more besides, nearly falling over herself to get it all out.

‘An' guess what, Mam!' she says at the end. ‘Me an' Arry's engaged!'

Even Old Man Baynes lifts his eyebrows at this and I feel myself go all cold at the glitter that comes into Ma Baynes's eyes.

When we get home Thelma offers to press my trousers. I reckon it's the least she can do, so I go upstairs and change and bring them down to her. She spreads them out on the kitchen table and sets about them with her mother's electric iron.

‘That's right, love,' Ma Baynes says. ‘Get your hand in.'

She's settled down with a box of chocolates and a woman's paper, and there's a variety show on the wireless. Old Man Baynes chucks his sports final down and takes his glasses off. ‘Would you believe it?' he says. ‘Rain stopped play. An' we haven't had a drop all day!'

I make some excuse and go up to my room where I can be on my own and think a bit and try to sort it all out. I sit down on the bed and look at my shoes standing under a chair. I've already polished them with a rag and one's bright and shiny, but the other one's soggy and dull. I can't see that one ever polishing up again. I really can't. Anyway, they'll never do for best again. New on at that. I think now that I could have reckoned the radio was bust when Thelma first asked me. I don't think fast enough by half, that's my trouble. It's bust now, though, right enough. A fiver that'll cost me, if a penny. The shoes and the radio. And on top of all that I've gone and got myself engaged! Fifteen quid for a ring, and Ma Baynes for a mother-in-law. How I ever came to do it I'll never know. But I'll have to get out of it somehow, even if it means finding fresh digs; which is a pity because I've just nicely got settled here. I'll have to think about it. But not now. I can't concentrate now. I'll think about it later when I haven't got so much else on my mind. Just now I can't get over the shoes. I've had plenty of enjoyment out of the radio, but I've only worn the shoes today. A new pair of shoes like that; ruined first time on. A smashing pair of shoes, and they're done. It doesn't bear thinking about.

I sit there on the bed and I hear laughing coming up from the wireless in the kitchen. It sounds as though they're laughing at me. I begin to think what a nice life these hermit bods must have with nobody to bother them; and then I seem to go off into a sort of doze, because when I come to again it's dark and I can't see the shoes any more.

 

Freestone at the Fair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was only afterwards that it occurred to Freestone to wonder why the gipsy should have picked on him rather than Emily or Charlie, and the thought that he might have looked the most gullible of the three never entered his mind. For when, after pondering the matter for a moment or two, he seemed to recall the woman's saying he had an interesting face, he was instantly satisfied with that eminently reasonable explanation. For there were deeper aspects of the matter concerning him by this time: aspects which might have had grave effects on the mind and reason of a lesser man.

She had stood in the opening of the tent and fixed on him a dark and lustrous eye. Her sultry stare did not perturb him and his natural inclination, when she offered to read his hand, was to walk on, ignoring the rapid mumbled persuasions. But to his surprise he found himself being pressed into acceptance by his companions.

His surprise contained more than a little irritation, for this was the third time that day they had formed an alliance against him (but for them he would never have thought of visiting the fair in the first place, and only a few minutes ago they had failed to entice him to join them while they sampled the undignified thrills and delights of the Whip).

Mrs Freestone, her yellow-brown eyes and plump face shining with the unaccustomed excitement, urged him.

‘Go on, Percy,' she said. ‘See what she tells you.'

Since Emily was aware of his views on fortune-telling, as she was on most other subjects, Freestone considered this to be nothing less than wanton betrayal and his mind began instinctively to frame a future reprimand.

Charlie, fifteen stone of jovial, arrogant manhood, was, of course, all for it.

‘Ye-es, go on and have a bash, Perce,' he said, giving Freestone a playful thump on the upper arm.

Freestone frowned at the unwelcome familiarity of the blow and the detestable abbreviation of his Christian name. He had for some time past regretted the generous impulse which had prompted him to offer Charlie accommodation while he looked for suitable rooms. He regarded it now as a lapse, a temporary mental aberration; whereas it had seemed such a naturally kindly thing to do at the time the Manager had introduced them and intimated that Charlie was the son of an old friend of his and was learning the business in preparation for higher things. Now the few days originally specified had stretched into several weeks and Freestone was finding
Charlie's all-good-pals-together attitude to life simply too much at such close range. And the fact that he himself was manager of Soft Furnishings while Charlie, his supposed influence apparently not at all what it had at first seemed to be, was still a mere assistant in Hardware, loaded an already painful situation with an additional sting.

‘Well really,' Freestone said now, with the intention of killing the matter with a few scornful words. ‘There's absolutely no foundation to this fortune-telling business, you know. It's simply a catchpenny from first to last.'

But he seemed temporarily to have lost Emily, and Charlie was impervious to scorn in any shape or form.

‘Oh, come off it, Perce!' he said with dreadful joviality. ‘Let yourself go, man! Show a bit of holiday spirit! You'll get a laugh out of it if nothing else.'

And on to the camel's back of Freestone's resistance Charlie then blithely tossed the last straw.

‘You're not scared of what she might tell you, are you?

Thus challenged, Freestone had no choice.

‘Very well, then,' he said, with the lofty resignation of one who spends a large part of his life humouring the whims of the sub-intelligent. ‘But it's nothing but foolishness to encourage these charlatans.'

With an instinctive gesture he lifted his hand to adjust the rim of his bowler hit, only to encounter instead the unfamiliar peak of the tweed cap which he had always hitherto considered a sufficient concession to the ‘holiday spirit'. It was a psychological setback from which he recovered admirably, and with one hand resting lightly in the breast of his dirk blue blazer – rather in the manner of a certain deceased foreign dignitary of similar stature, but immeasurably greater significance – he marched with a firm and dignified tread into the dark interior of the tent.

There was a lot of what looked like black-out material draped about to add to the atmosphere of mystery, but a modern adjustable reading-lamp with a weak down shaded bulb occupied the place of the traditional crystal ball on the table in the middle of the tent. A voice from the shadows bade Freestone sit down and he obeyed, perching gingerly on the edge of a collapsible chair which sloped alarmingly in its stance on the uneven turf. A rather grubby hand appeared under the light. Freestone primed it with a two-shilling piece and replaced it with his own pink and well scrubbed palm.

The woman began by tracing Freestone's character, revealing all those sterling qualities, the possession of which he had never had occasion to doubt.

‘I am looking into the future now,' the gipsy said at length. ‘It is very hard. You are not responsive. You doubt my powers.'

Sighing at the waste of money, Freestone passed over another florin.

‘You are a family man,' the woman said.

‘Oh, but I'm not,' Freestone said.

‘You will be, very soon. I see a child. A boy, I think. And a time of rejoicing. You have waited a long time.'

‘And what after that?' Freestone said, smirking disbelievingly. ‘Why not make it twins?'

‘You are not sympathetic,' the woman said. ‘You do not believe. It is not safe to scoff at those who have the power to pierce the dark mystery of the future.'

‘Make me believe,' Freestone challenged her. ‘Tell me more.

‘I see,' the woman said. ‘I see –' and with a gasp she thrust Freestone's hand from her.

He was immediately interested. ‘What?' he said. ‘What do you see?'

‘It is nothing. I cannot tell.'

Recklessly, Freestone took a ten-shilling note from his wallet and laid it on the table. He extended his hand over it.

‘Tell me what you see.'

The brown forefinger crawled over his palm and despite himself Freestone felt his spine chill as the woman said:

‘Death. I see death.'

She set up a queer soft moaning under her breath and Freestone's flesh crawled.

‘Is it the child's death you see?'

‘No, not the child. The child is well, three months old. It is the father I can see –'

Freestone snatched his hand away. ‘Are you trying to frighten me?' he said harshly. The woman grabbed the ten-shilling note from the table.

‘You are unsympathetic.'

‘You trek about the countryside,' Freestone said.

‘Never do an honest day's work from one year to the next; preying on gullible people... Well let me tell you you've picked on the wrong man this time. I've half a mind to report you to the police.'

‘I have said nothing,' the woman said. ‘Please go.'

Freestone went out, bristling. He admitted to himself that she had given him quite a turn; but he was all right again when he had been out in the light and the fresh air for a few minutes: and he took pleasure in exacting a small revenge on Emily and Charlie by refusing to disclose anything but the few generalities from the beginning of the session.

Charlie felt for his loose silver. ‘Here, let me have a go.' He disappeared into the tent and the Freestones stood and waited in silence. Ten minutes passed before he came out again.

‘Well?' said Emily eagerly.

‘Oh, the usual things,' Charlie said, dismissing it with a shrug. ‘I'm to watch out for a tall dark man on a sea voyage.' He laughed. ‘Come on, let's go knock coconuts down.'

‘Pure poppycock,' Freestone said, enjoying the disappointment on Emily's face. He was thinking that there was at least one serious flaw in the gipsy's prophecy. Emily was a barren wife, which was the sole reason for their present childless state. It had rankled with him for years, and thinking of the gipsy's words renewed the irritation. He looked about him as they strolled along at the parents and children thronging the fairground and reflected bitterly on the unkind Providence which had given him such a colourless and useless mate. He stared irritably at the lock of mouse-brown hair which had come untidily astray from Emily's bun, and when she spoke to him he snapped her into a miserable silence.

In his constant pre-occupation with the smooth functioning of Soft Furnishings the incident became dismissed from Freestone's mind and he thought no more of it until some seven or eight months later.

He had just passed through a trying period culminating in the departure for fresh pastures of Charlie Lofthouse, when it had been made clear even to his thick-skinned self that his stay could not be indefinitely prolonged. No sooner, it seemed, had the Freestones resumed their placid and dignified pre-Charlie mode of living than Emily blushingly informed her husband that she was with child. Freestone was amazed and delighted, and it was not until the initial excitement had faded slightly that he remembered the incident at the fair. Resolutely he pushed it back into oblivion and managed to keep it there until after the birth of the child.

He was a boy, and the Freestones lavished on it all the obsessive affection of the middle-aged for their first-born. Congratulations were showered on them from all sides, not least from the staff of Soft Furnishings, who hoped with the coming of this new interest into his life for a mellowing of Freestone's personality and a relaxation of his iron rule.

It became obvious by the time the child was two months old that so far as physical resemblances were concerned Freestone ran a poor second to Emil
y
. And there were those who, not knowing him well, were tactless enough to point this out. But Freestone dismissed physical likenesses as being of little importance and did not hesitate to assure the people concerned of his faith in the child's revealing, all in good time, its inheritance of his own intellect and general strength of character.

And then one day Freestone woke from his intoxicated state and remembered the child's age. No
w
,
despite all his scepticism, he could not entirely erase the gipsy's words from his mind, and on the night the boy was three months old he slept badly, imagining strange pains in his chest and disturbed by unusual dreams. But he was at the store as usual the next morning and at five minutes to nine, after tidying himself up in the cloakroom, he took his usual stance in the middle of his domain in preparation for the first of the day's customers.

It was at half-past ten that the Manager summoned Freestone to his office, thinking that as he had known him best he should be the first to hear of the sad and sudden end of Charlie Lofthouse.

As the full significance of what his superior was saying smote Freestone he blanched visibly and put his hand on the desk as though for support.

‘Did you know he had heart disease?' the Manager asked.

Freestone shook his head. ‘He was such an athletic-looking chap,' he said weakly.

The Manager tut-tutted and pursed his lips. ‘You never can tell,' he said profoundly. He looked up into Freestone's pasty face. ‘It must have come as a bit of a shock to you,' he said. ‘Perhaps you'd better go and sit down for a while.'

Freestone took the Manager at his word and for the next twenty minutes Soft Furnishings rubbed along without his guiding hand, while he sat locked in one of the cubicles in the cloakroom, alone with his thoughts. Nor did he show any of his usual sparkle and grip for the rest of the morning. His staff were quick to notice this and, though he was far from popular, sympathise once the news had got about.

At lunch, Freestone sat opposite Cartwright, who managed Men's Tailoring. Inevitably the conversation turned to the sudden end of Charlie, with added observations on the odd tricks of life in general.

Now Cartwright was a hard-headed, worldly type, Freestone thought.

‘What do you know about fortune-telling?' he asked over coffee.

‘You mean the crystal ball, playing cards, and all that?'

‘Yes, reading the future in general. In a person's hand, for instance. I was reading something last night which set me wondering. Do you think a fortune-teller could read what would happen to one person in the hand of another?'

Cartwright stirred his coffee and thought about Freestone's question. ‘If the prophecy were to have an effect on the life of the person whose hand was being read, I suppose it's feasible.' He tasted his coffee, added enough sugar to cover a sixpence, and tasted it again. ‘Always allowing you believe in the business in the first place, that is,' he said. ‘And ninety per cent of it's pure charlatanism, of course.'

‘My own opinion exactly,' Freestone said. There was nothing like talking to somebody sensible for getting things into perspective.

‘Though there are more things in heaven and earth...' Cartwright said. ‘For instance, I have a cousin who once received a communication from a dead friend.'

‘Spiritualism?' Freestone said disbelievingly.

‘That's one name for it. Very interesting, you know, when you come to look into it…'

Freestone stood up. ‘I'm sorry. I've just remembered something I must attend to.'

Well, well. Cartwright of all people. Who would have thought it? It shook him. And he remained shaken until towards the end of the afternoon when, at last, he seemed to come to a decision. At six o'clock, when he stepped from the store on his way home, he had the air of a man who has spent a long period looking deep inside himself and has emerged satisfied with what he has seen.