All the Way Home and All the Night Through (20 page)

“But she's staying at Jenny's. Besides, I mean, you'll think I'm crackers, but, well, she's not like that.”

“Don't be bloody silly. They're all like that, sooner or later. Hell, you've been going out with her, what, nearly three months?”

“I know, but honestly, Jerry, she wouldn't, and anyway...”

I wanted to tell him I respected her and I didn't want to sleep with her. But I couldn't.

“Besides,” said Jerry, “how can she stay with Jenny, if Jenny isn't here?”

Janet was sitting on a chair in the reception hall. She got up and walked toward us as soon as we came through the door. I held up my bandaged hand and smiled ruefully.

“How do you feel now? Does your hand feel any better?”

“Yes, thanks. Much. Except I feel very, very tired.”

She slipped an arm through mine. We went out into the night.

The snow was falling heavier than ever. Already a thin carpet of it was beginning to take on the road and on the pavements.

We found ourselves walking in the direction of Jerry's place.

“Janet, what about Jenny?”

“Well, I can't really stay with her now, can I with her not being here?”

“No, I know, but your mother—”

“I want to be with you, Vic. You look ill.”

“But you'll get into trouble.”

“No, I won't. My mother won't know. I'll ring Jenny first thing in the morning and explain.”

“I just want you to know—”

“What do you want me to know, Vic?”

“Nothing. Just—thanks.”

We tramped on through the snow --- Jerry on one arm, Janet on the other. Everywhere was as still as a cathedral. No sound could be heard but the whining of the wind and the soft crunch of our shoes in the thin snow. I was numb to everything: the events of the evening, my hand, the cold. All I could think was I'm tired; I am very tired.

Jerry's pregnant wife put the blankets, a pillow and an eiderdown in a neat pile on the settee.

“You should be all right. There's coal in the scuttle if the fire dies down. I'm off to bed now. See you in the daylight.”

“Thanks very much, Rose. Thanks a lot.”

Rose went out.

Janet made a bed up out of the blankets and the eiderdown. I watched her from the armchair near the fire. When she had finished, she looked round her, saw nothing else for her to do, and sat down on the edge of the settee.

“Janet, I hope you don't think ... I mean like the others. I mean, nothing'll happen.”

Concentration was a great effort for me. My mind weighed a ton and my eyelids even more. In the soft light from the table lamp, Janet looked lovelier than ever. She didn't answer, but looked into the fire burning brightly in the grate. I let my head fall against the back of the armchair. I felt no sense of remorse, no sense of guilt, no sense of apprehension about the events of the evening, just this great purging lethargy, happily numbing. I closed my eyes. I heard the table lamp click off. I felt Janet's presence crossing the floor from the settee to the armchair. She sat down on the arm of the chair. I heard her arm rest itself on the back of the chair just above my head. Her hand began to stroke my forehead, slowly and softly. My right hand reached out a little until her other hand found it. Our fingers intertwined, gently exploring each other's warm and sensitive skin. The minutes passed as slowly as any minutes which had ever passed before. I could hear the fire burbling and spluttering to itself and the silence outside being sometimes stirred by the snowy wind. I felt her breath regularly and gently disturbing the hair on the top of my head. I felt closer to her than I ever had done before. More minutes passed. We thought our thoughts and the fire began to die a little.

“I'm tired,” I said. “I'm really tired.”

A piece of burnt-out coal slid to the front of the grate.

“Yes, so am I. I think I'm going to get into the bed.”

She waited for a moment and then got up from the arm of the chair. I stayed where I was, not opening my eyes. I heard her slip out of her shoes. Then for a moment there was no sound until I heard her take off her dress. Then I heard her pull back the covers and get into the make-shift bed. I opened my eyes and got up from the chair and undressed down to my vest and pants. I went over to the settee. I knelt down by its side. Janet looked at me. I took her hand and rested my head against it. I stayed like that for a few minutes and then I pulled back the covers and got in.

We lay together, facing each other, parts of our separate bodies touching, trembling slightly underneath the non-committal control. We held hands, both hands, the hands resting against my chest. Her head moved slightly on the pillow. My knee shifted slightly and touched hers. I kissed her. We moved closer and I put my arms round her. It was a moment I had never thought would be possible. We must have fallen asleep a few minutes later because we woke up in the same position the next morning.

The next morning. I felt Janet get out of the bed. She went out of the room and I heard her telephoning in the hall. I looked at my watch. It was ten past nine. She came back into the room.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“My mother. What can we say?”

She just stood there, looking out of the window.

“What's the matter?”

She turned to me. She looked frightened.

“My mother. I just rang Jenny. My mother telephoned her about twenty minutes ago. Jenny tried to cover up but finally she had to admit I wasn't there.”

“My God. Did she tell her where you were?”

“She didn't know.”

“Why did she ring up?”

“She wanted me to go home earlier than I'd arranged. She wanted us to go shopping together.”

“Hell. What are we going to do?”

“I'll have to phone her. I can't do anything else.”

“Thank God you didn't ring her first. What are you going to tell her?”

“I don't know. The truth, I suppose.”

“You can't tell her that. She'd never let you see me again.”

“Nothing happened.”

“She won't believe that. Will she?”

“No.”

“Well.”

“I'll tell her—I'll say that you were hurt and that we had to take you home to your place because you were so bad, and I lost Jenny and that Jerry and his wife offered to put me up. How's that?”

“I don't know. She's bound to think you've been with me. But I suppose we'll have to chance it.”

“I'll go and telephone now.”

She went slowly out of the room.

Bloody hell, I thought. Then the events of the previous evening reminded me of the extra feelings of doom that were intent on making me a nervous wreck.

Janet came back into the room.

“What did she say?”

“I began explaining and she said, ‘Where are you' and I told her the address and she said, ‘I'll be there in a quarter of an hour' and put the phone down.”

“Oh no. What about me? She'll know I'm here.”

“I don't know. She sounded furious.”

“I'll have to hide somewhere. Bloody hell, she'll be here any minute.”

I got out of bed and dashed through into Jerry's room. He was alone in bed.

“Where's Rose?”

“At work. What's up?”

“Oh hell. Look, Janet's mother's on her way down.”

Jerry laughed.

“Hell though,” he said.

“You'll have to meet her. You'll have to explain.”

“What about you?”

“I'll have to hide. Where can I hide?”

Jerry got out of bed and began dressing.

“Upstairs. In the box room.”

“What'll you do when she comes?”

“Give her that chat. Smooth her over. You haven't been here, have you?”

“Thanks, Jerry.”

“It's a giggle, isn't it?”

I went back into the front room. Janet was sitting on the edge of the settee, looking into the fireplace.

“Come on,” I said.

“She won't let me see you again. I know she won't.”

“She'll be here any minute. I've got to go.”

A car drew up outside. It was Janet's mother.

“Bloody hell. I'm off.”

Janet stood up.

“Telephone me this afternoon,” she said anxiously.

“At three o'clock.”

I hurtled up the stairs. The box room was small and narrow and overlooked the street. I squatted down, holding my clothes against me, dressed only in my vest and pants. The room was crowded with clutter. A pram, some cardboard boxes, a clotheshorse, some old boxing gloves, everything that no one wanted anymore. I shivered with cold. The sun streamed in through the curtainless window. My hand throbbed and twitched in the bandage.

I heard the front door open and then the door of the car open and slam. Jerry's voice drifted up from the street.

“Good morning, Mrs Walker. I hope everything's all right. We had to put Janet up on the settee but I think she'll get over it in time.”

His voice was easily assuring, full of an apparently natural politeness.

Good old Jerry, I thought.

“Mummy, this is Mr Coward. He and Mrs Coward—(That's right, I thought, play up the Mr and Mrs)—were kind enough to look after me when I—”

“Come along Janet.” Her voice was so polite. So polite and so deadly. “I'm certain Mr Coward did everything he thought to be right. Thank you, Mr Coward.”

“Oh, it wasn't anything, Mrs Walker,” he said. I could picture the accompanying smile. “Anybody'd have done the same.”

“I'm not sure that they would, Mr Coward. You've done more than enough. Come along, Janet.”

Ice, sheer ice.

“Mummy, I—”

The car door opened.

“Get in.” There was almost a pleasant smile in her voice.

The car door slammed and then the other one followed and almost immediately the engine belched into life and the tires crackled on the frosty street. The car accelerated viciously and then the sound of it disappeared and left the street empty in the pleasant sunlight. I heard the front door close a minute later. I wished I was dead.

I stood on the stairs, still holding my clothes against me. Jerry leant with his back against the front door. A patch of sunlight fell gently on the hall floor. Jerry let out a soft breath and accompanied it with a quiet laugh. He closed his eyes and didn't move.

“What was she like?”

“Whey-hey,” he said.

“Oh, Christ.”

“Do you know, Vic, there are just two people I wouldn't like to be at this minute and you're one of them.”

“Oh dear me. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Jerry laughed again, just as softly.

I got into my fancy dress and borrowed Rose's bike and cycled down Allenby Road toward the city center. The day was cold but the bright winter sun gave the day the quality of early spring. I cycled along, filled with a great depression. My head and mouth were suffering from the retribution of alcohol. The area directly behind my eyes and my lower forehead felt like an overworked punch bag and my mouth had the tactile quality of a piece of rusty cast iron. My stomach housed approximately fifty lead cannon balls, and beneath the skin of my legs there was nothing but distilled water. My injured hand was pressed against my chest inside my coat. It was really hurting now. I hardly noticed the glances of pedestrians and I cared less about them than about any other entities in the whole world.

I was in one of those states of mind in which you can (or you think you can) view yourself objectively in relation to the rest of the world. I saw clearly all the actions of the previous evening and the effect they would have on everyone from the principal to Mrs Walker. It was clear that I would be, at the least, suspended from college. It was clear that Mrs Walker would forbid my seeing Janet again. Of course, I would see her at college (if I were ever to be allowed in again) but it was clear that, owing to the tenuous nature of the bond that was just beginning to grow between us, Janet would see the wisdom in her mother's action and sever relationships completely. She would realize the advantages of Tony Jensen and of everybody else and bye-bye Victor. That's what I thought riding a bike along Allenby Road at ten o'clock on a bright Friday morning not long before Christmas when I was nineteen years old.

I got off the bike in front of the college. I had to go in and see if I could find the top hat. I couldn't afford to pay the hire firm for the loss of it. I walked up the steps not caring whether or not I might run into anybody. I was too involved in my hangover and in the terrible potential of everything between Janet and myself going wrong, but at the top of the steps, I noticed that one of the columns was decorated by two long narrow streaks and some random spots of blood. I stared at them, feeling nothing. I went into the college.

I found the hat but it was completely ruined by the bloodstains inside the crown. I also found Rudge, or rather he found me. I was standing gazing into the top hat, apathetically toiling over what to do with it. He strode over. He had been telling the President of the Union how much disgust he felt for all students. The President followed him across.

“And you,” said Rudge. “You. I don't know how you dare show your bloody face, you rotten bleeder.”

I looked up from my hat.

“What?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Bloody ashamed. I've got to clear this bleeding place up today, do you know? You and your rotten students. But you. You're the worst. You're for the chop, that's what you're for.”

The President was grinning at me from behind Rudge.

“I've got to clear this stinkin' place up by myself. Do you know? Do you hear me?”

He moved toward me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Here y'are then. Clear this up for a bloody start.”

I gave him the hat and walked out.