Loving, Living, Party Going (17 page)

'What d'you keep writin' in those notebooks then?' she asked.

'I have to make up my accounts I put before Mrs Tennant each month,' he replied in an educated voice.

'Oh yeah?' she said.

'You've got to understand,' he said.

'It'll take a lot of understandin', Charley.'

'Listen I'm not makin' out I can be accurate down to the last cork or that when someone comes to stay they don't forget to put back a pencil they've taken off one of the tables.'

'You're telling me,' she said.

'But there's no place for valuables like this object,' he went on. 'You've got to see that dear. Why you'd gum up the whole works.'

'I can't fathom you,' she said. 'Here's a ring may be worth hundreds. It's been missed. It's lost and you want me to hand it back. There's no sense in a thing like that.'

'What would you do then?'

'I'd sell it an' save the money for a rainy day,' and she gave him a look as if to say the sky always rained at weddings.

'You're crazy,' he said.

'I'm crazy am I,' she cried, 'right then I'll act like I was,' and snatching that ring from his fingers she threw it in the fire.

'Now look what you've done,' he said going down on his knees. He fished it out with a pair of tongs. 'That'll need cleanin' that will. You leave me.'

'Leave what to you not very likely,' she said as though beside herself. 'I wouldn't trust you no further than that fender. Give here.' She grabbed the ring back again.

'Ouch it's hot,' she said dropping the thing on the rug. They stood looking down and from the droop of her shoulders it could be assumed that her rage had subsided.

'For land's sake I do feel awful,' she brought out.

'Now honey you don't want to take things so awkward,' he said putting an arm round her shoulders. 'There's nothing to get wrought up over,' he explained. 'I was only goin' to give it a rub so that when you gave it back to Mrs T. she wouldn't notice the difference. And look,' he said, 'you've no sense of proportion. If I make me a few shillings each week fiddlin' the monthly books that don't mean I can go and knock off valuables. That's dangerous that is. Besides what I'm on to is steady, ducks, get me? While I hold down this job I can put by something all the time.'

'What do you put by?' she asked not looking at him. There was a short silence during which she seemed to listen intently.

'Why a bit here and a bit there,' he said.

'And I don't suppose it's worth the small risk there is in it,' she broke out sudden.

'I don't know love but maybe there's two or three hundred a year one way or another all told.'

'Pounds?' she asked making her eyes big.

'Lovely British Bradbury's,' he answered.

'Oh Charley,' she said in admiration, 'so that's what you're on to?'

'And that's a sight less than old Eldon drew. But he was at the receiving end of some very special money.'

'What d'you mean?'

'He'd kept his eyes open. He wasn't so slow. Tell you the truth I never did give him credit till I come upon it the other day. He'd got your Captain weighed up.'

'The Captain?' she asked eyes shining.

'Those were my words.'

'But I mean that's worse than takin' a ring ain't it Charley?'

'Depends how you mean worse,' he replied. 'All I know is it's secure.'

'D'you stand there an' tell me Mr Eldon had come upon them some time? Just as I did? That she sat up in bed with her fronts bobblin' at him like a pair of geese the way she did to me? Is that what you're sayin'?' She was so excited again that she fairly danced before him.

'Oh I don't know,' he replied cautious and as if he was shy.

'There she sits up at me...' Edith ran on, eyes sparkling. And he had to listen to the whole thing again, and with embellishments that he had never heard, that even he must have doubted.

Raunce's Albert, Edith, Kate, the little girls and Mrs Welch's lad chose for their picnic a place just off the beach. While those children ran screaming down to where great rollers diminished to fans of milk new from the udder upon pressed sand, Albert laid himself under a hedge all over which red fuchsia bells swung without a note in the wind the sure travelling sea brought with its low heavy swell. He could watch the light blue heave between their donkey Peter's legs and his ears were crowded with the thunder of the ocean.

'Fat lot of use you are,' Kate shouted to him as she began to unstow the panniers on Peter's back.

'Ain't there a glare,' he called.

'For land's sake you're not goin' sick on me surely like Charley did when I brought him out?'

'Don't he look pale?' Kate echoed Edith.

'Never mind let him be,' Edith went on, 'and we'll allow he may light the Primus.' She laughed, probably because it would never start up without a deal of coaxing.

'Did you remember your matches?' Kate yelled. On which he got to his feet to bring out a packet of cigarettes.

'Lawks we've took a man along,' Kate mocked. He offered them round. As he cupped his hands to shield the flame and Edith bent her lovely head he lowered his yellow one over hers. She giggled which blew the match out. 'One thing at a time thank you,' she remarked looking him in the eye from close. He blushed painfully. Then the wind sent her hair over her vast double-surfaced eyes with their two depths. As she watched him thus, he might have felt this was how she could wear herself in bed for him, screened but open, open terribly.

'Come on,' she said, 'snap out of it.'

Then all three huddled round as if over a live bird sat between his palms till their fags were lit. He collapsed back onto the ground.

'You wouldn't be looking up our legs by any chance now would you?' Kate enquired in an educated voice. For answer he rolled over onto his stomach and faced inland, all Ireland flat on a level with his clouded eyes.

'Let him be,' Edith said again. The wind blew a sickle of black hair down the opening of her dress.

'It tickles,' she said giggling, and swung her head back to let that breeze carry the curls off. 'Oh this wind,' she added. And it drove the girls' dresses onto them like statues as they lifted rectangles of white cartridge paper tied in string out of the panniers to lay these where sand joined that moss short grass. Then Edith stopped to gently pull Peter's ears.

'Aw come on,' Kate called to Albert, 'you don't want to go sulking away there. Why I daresay she'd never've minded if you had of 'ad a peep.'

'Now Kate,' Edith repeated, 'why can't you let him alone.'

'I never,' the lad cried turning over to face them, 'honest I never.'

'Well then don't act like you wished you did?'

'Katie,' Edith said and bent down to kiss the donkey's nose. She seemed altogether indifferent. At this moment little Albert interrupted.

'Can I take the shrimpin' net'm. There's 'undreds down there in that pool we're at.'

And so the long afternoon started. Then when they had had cup after cup of tea Albert in lighting Kate another cigarette set fire to a thin curl of her fair hair. She took this in good part, did no more than exclaim at the smell.

' 'Er peacock didn't half cause a stink,' he told them. The wind had dropped. They no longer had to shout. But the roar of that Atlantic swell was heavy.

'What peacock?' she asked.

'Why the one old Charley put back in the outside larder. Mrs Welch must've bided her time when there was nobody in the pantry so as to slip down and stuff 'im in my boiler.'

'In your boiler?' Edith shrieked. 'Whoever's heard?'

'Didn't you smell it at that?' the lad enquired.

'It's the first I've known,' Kate said.

'He created something alarming Charley did,' his lad continued. 'He said there was enough to give us asthma and 'e went about coughin' for two days.'

'She's up to a lark then,' Edith said seemingly delighted. 'Bless us,' she added, 'look what he's after now,' she exclaimed. All three saw little Albert hopping round and round with a fair-sized crab
fastened onto a toe of his sandshoes. The excited shrieks that came back from the children blanketed a screaming from gulls fighting over the waste food which they had thrown away although Raunce's Albert still had some scraps in a paper bag.

'Let 'em,' Kate said and closed her eyes again. 'I've got what I've had to digest yet,' she added. Then just as Edith was about to get up to help that crab fell off. The children began to stone it, driving it blow upon blow into a grave its own shape in the sand. At which Peter put his ears back and snatched the scraps out of Albert's hand, swallowed them bag and all.

'Why you ugly bastard,' Albert said scrambling out of the way.

'Now Albert,' Edith remarked indifferent.

'I thought 'e was asleep,' the boy explained.

'Which is what I would be if you'd only shut down,' Kate said from behind closed eyes. Her eyelids were pink. The sun warm.

As he was about to settle again Edith invited him to use part of the mackintosh on which she was seated adding that he would only spoil his indoor suit. He was dressed in the blue serge double-breasted outfit a livery tailor had made him on Mrs Tennant's instructions.

'You do look a sight,' was her comment, 'got up as you are like you were goin' in Hyde Park.'

He lay down at her side while she sat bolt upright to keep an eye on the children.

'I got a sister over at home,' he said low.

'What's that?' she asked careless. 'I can't hear you with the sea.'

'I got a sister works in an airplane factory,' he began. If she heard him she gave no indication. 'Madge we call her. They's terrible the hours she puts in.'

He lay on his stomach facing inland while Edith watched the ocean.

'I've only her and mum left now,' he went on. 'Dad, 'e died a month or two afore I came here. He worked in a fruiterer's in Albany Place. It was a cancer took 'im.'

When he broke off the heavy Atlantic reverberated in their ears.

'Now Mr Raunce writes to his,' he continued, 'and can't never get a reply. And there's me writes to mine, every week I do since this terrible bombing started but I don't ever seem to receive no answers though every time 'e comes over I'm afeared mum an' sis must've
got theirs. To read the papers you wouldn't think there, was anything left of the old town.'

'That young Albert,' Edith yelled against the sea, 'I regret we took him along.'

Raunce's Albert looked over his shoulder on the side away from Edith but could not see how his namesake was misbehaving.

'You see with dad gone I feel responsible,' he tried again loud. 'I know I'm only young but I'm earnin' and there's times I consider I ought to be back to look after them. Not that I don't send the best part of me wages each week. I do that of course.'

A silence fell.

'What did you say your sister's name was?' Edith asked.

'Mum had her christened Madge,' the lad replied. He tried a glance at Edith but she was not regarding him. 'To tell you the truth,' he continued, 'I did wonder what's the right thing? I thought maybe you could advise me?' He looked at her again. This time she was indeed contemplating him though he could not make out the expression in her enormous eyes behind the black yew branch of windblown hair.

He turned away once more. He spoke in what seemed to be bitterness.

'Of course I'm only young I know,' he said.

'Well it's not as if they'd written for you is it?' she announced, on which he turned over and lay on his side to face her. She was looking out to sea again.

'No but then they're like that. Mum always reckoned she'd rather scrub the house out than take a pen. Madge's the same. It's 'ard to know what's for the best,' he ended.

'I should stay put,' she said, speaking impartially. 'You're learnin' a trade after all. If they should ever come for you into the Army you could be an officer's servant. We're all right here.'

'Then you don't reckon there's much in what they say about this invasion? If there's one thing I don't aim at it's being interned by the Jerries.'

'Oh that's all a lot of talk in my opinion,' she answered. 'You don't want to pay no attention. Oh me oh my,' she said, 'but isn't it slow for a picnic. Here,' and at this she leant over him, 'let's see if we can't set old Kate goin'.'

She picked up a stray bit of spent straw which was lying on his
other side then lowered all the upper part of her body down onto his, resting her elbow between him and the sleeping girl. Her mouth was open in a soundless laugh so that he could see the wet scarlet roof as she reached over to tickle Kate's sand-coloured eyebrows.

Kate's face twitched. Her arm that was stretched white palm upwards along deep green moss struggled to lift itself as though caught on the surface of a morass. Then still asleep she turned away abrupt till the other cheek showed dented with what she was lain on. She muttered once out loud 'Paddy.'

At this Edith burst into giggles bringing her hand still with its bit of straw up to her mouth as, eyes welling, she looked direct into Albert's below her. He lay quiet and yellow in a simper. This brought her up sharp.

'Can't you even have a joke?' she asked.

'Well you're a pretty pair no mistake,' Kate said and yawned. They found she was sitting to rearrange her tow locks.

'Not so comical as you, you believe me,' Edith answered removing herself from off Albert. He turned over onto his stomach again, facing Ireland.

'What have I done now then?' Kate wanted to know. 'Can't a girl treat herself a nap?'

'Forget it dear,' Edith told her.

'I don't know as I want to forget,' Kate replied. 'It's not nice finding people makin' fun of you when you're asleep.'

'It's only what you brought out love,' Edith sweetly said.

'What was that then?'

'You called a name.'

'Is that all,' Kate announced and blushed, which was unusual with her. 'Why from the fuss you two made lain right in each other's arms you'd imagine it might be something serious.'

'We wasn't,' Albert said sharp, twisting his head towards her. His eyes did not seem to see.

'Oh all right let it pass,' Kate replied. Her blush had gone. 'But you can take it from me what I witnessed was sufficient to make them precious children look twice if they'd noticed.'