All the Way Home and All the Night Through (21 page)

That afternoon at the Steam Packet. In the upstairs room at two thirty. Jerry, Hilary, Hamish and myself.

We were putting up the Christmas decorations. We had bought hundreds of feet of coloured streamers and were making a false ceiling out of them below the level of the lights which we had fitted out with bulbs of different colours. The making of the ceiling was a long and tedious job. It meant passing the streamers between the picture rails on each side of the room and securing the streamers with drawing pin after drawing pin. Jerry was in command of the situation, travelling from one side of the room to the other at minute intervals, stepping onto a chair, then down, back across the room, up onto a chair and so on. Hilary was doing the same at the opposite end of the long narrow room. I was passing Jerry drawing pins whenever he ran out. Hamish was spending more energy than any of us in generally getting in the way, bashing his weight-lifter's torso into unwitting tables or putting his feet on the streamers or laughing and jumping up and down in his extrovert manner.

“What time did you say you had to ring her, Vic?” asked Hamish.

“About three.”

For the present I was sitting on a cane-backed chair, looking at my black and tan.

“Want to borrow a spare pair of trousers?”

He bellowed with laughter, then his laughter died down, began to rise again so that his laughter engaged me in laughing, too, in spite of myself. That kind of remark had been going on most of the afternoon from Jerry or from Hamish. I found most of the remarks funny, but I couldn't forget the frightening imminence of the phone call and all that it meant. I was scared to death in case Mrs Walker should answer the phone. Supposing she telephoned my mother? I tried to put the idea out of my mind.

Hilary came down to our end of the room and took a sip from her half of hitter. She pushed back her hair from the side of her face. She sat down in a chair a few feet away from me. She stretched her legs in front of her, flicking some cigarette ash from her jeans as she did so. Jerry and Hamish were engaged in some noisy repartee.

“Do you love Janet, Vic?” she asked, surprising me out of my despondence a little.

“Yes, I think so, Hilary. Why?”

She looked slightly embarrassed.

“Well, I know my opinion doesn't count for much, with you I mean, but if you do and you mean it, well, then I think everything'll be all right. Between the two of you, providing you're right to her.” She paused. “I don't know her really to speak to, but—well, I think she's ever so nice, Vic.”

She looked at me. She was so sincere it hurt.

“I wish I was like her.”

She meant it. She wasn't saying it for me to feel sorry for her. She really meant it.

“That's how I'd like to be if I could.” She paused. “But I'm not.”

She looked morosely at the floor, not seeing anything but the image in her mind of how it would be if she were Janet.

I took a drink of beer.

“Thanks, Hilary,” I said. “You make me feel better.”

“Yeah.” She continued staring at the floor.

Her expression didn't change.

“Come on,” I said, “don't be a bloody misery.” I laughed. “It'll soon be Christmas. Time for some nuts.”

She raised a dead smile.

“Yeah, roll on Christmas.”

She got up, smoothed her jeans over her bottom and wandered back down to the other end of the room.

I picked up the phone and dialed Janet's number. After a couple of minutes, the receiver lifted at the other end.

“Hello, Isobel Walker?”

“Oh, hello Mrs Walker, it's—it's Victor speaking.”

“Yes?”

She had obviously been sitting in the deep freeze to get into the mood.

“Er, could I speak to Janet, please?”

“I'm not sure that I think that that would be altogether a good thing, Victor, do you?”

“Oh. I don't know. Look, if it's about last night—”

“Yes, Victor, it's about last night.”

“Look. I mean, it was my fault entirely. What I mean is, I got in this mess and Janet was good enough to make sure I got home safely. She lost Jenny and there was nothing else she could do.”

“If I were to believe that, Victor, which really I have to as I haven't any choice
but
to believe it, the main point is that Janet was in your charge. You were responsible for her. I trusted you and put her in your hands. It's a thing I don't do readily. By the time she met you, you must have been badly drunk. I understand you met her in a pub. Janet is underage. I like a drink, Victor, but Janet is too young to go into public houses, and when she is old enough she won't make a habit of it. Janet is only seventeen, Victor. I trusted you with her. I'm afraid you've rather let me down.”

I couldn't say anything very much. She had been successful in making me feel the guilt she intended I should feel.

“I'm terribly sorry, Mrs Walker. You mustn't blame Janet. It was completely my fault. I don't really know what I can say except apologize. I know it wouldn't happen again. Believe me, it wouldn't.”

“You let me down, Victor. How can I know it won't happen again? You must understand that Janet is very valuable to us.”

“I know. I realize that. I can only repeat what I said. It won't happen again. Mr and Mrs Coward would have looked after her properly, I'm sure.”

“Mr Coward, judging by his appearance, is not exactly the type with whom I relish the thought of Janet spending the night. I thought you would have realized that, Victor.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, there's nothing else I can say, I suppose. Can I—can I speak to Janet?”

“Victor, I think it would be best if you weren't to see Janet for a while. For the time being, at least. I have to make up my mind about last night.”

“Oh, I see.”

There was silence.

“You can talk to Janet for a minute if you like.”

“Thanks.”

Janet came on to the line. Her voice was soft. She was controlling anything she might be feeling.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello, Janet. I imagine it's not too good.”

“My mother refuses to let me see you again. She's terribly annoyed, Vic. She means it.”

“Everything will turn out. Don't worry. It'll be all right. You want it to, don't you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Janet, so do I. So do I. You've no idea.”

“If my mother insists...”

“Listen, you mustn't admit to my being there. That would be the end.”

“My God, I know. She would kill me. She even mentioned having me examined by a doctor to see—Vic, I can't talk now. She's listening. I'll have to go.”

“Janet, listen. I'll ring tomorrow. Can I?”

“I don't know. Look, I must go. Yes, telephone tomorrow, whatever happens.”

“Whatever happens, tomorrow morning.”

“Yes.”

“Janet, I can't say how sorry I am about last night.”

“I know. I know how you must feel, but—”

“But what?”

“I must go. I really must.”

Mrs Walker came on the line again.

“Janet has things to do now, Victor.”

“Oh, right. Well, I hope things—I mean...”

“I know what you mean, Victor. I'll have to think things over. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mrs Walker.”

“Coming back to my place, Vic?” asked Jerry that evening. It was interval-time at the Steam Packet.

“Why, what's going on?”

“Oh, I thought I might as well have a small do. There's nothing else going on. Anyway it's Christmas.”

“I suppose so. I'm not really in the mood, though.”

“Come on, Vic. Don't be so bloody daft. You've nowt to worry about. Everything'll clear up. It's just a gesture on her mother's part.”

“It's not just her mother.”

“Well, there's nothing you can do if the bird changes her mind.

So you might as well have a good time and a few drinks.”

It was strange and depressing to be back at Jerry's so soon.

Stella dawdled up to me.

“I heard about last night, Vic. You must feel pretty bad.”

“I'm always pretty bad, Stella.”

I leered at her. Her concern was immediately replaced by a knowing, teasing attitude.

“That's what they say, Vic, but I wouldn't know, would I?”

“No, you wouldn't. No, I don't suppose you would.”

“Not to say, though, that I've never wondered.”

“You've wondered, have you?”

“Now and then.”

I lurched slightly and propped myself against the wall.

“Heard from Paul lately?” I asked.

“Paul?” She pretended to try and remember if she knew anyone called Paul. We both laughed.

“Let's have a dance.”

A Nat King Cole record was on the turntable. We danced close together. Stella's fingers began massaging my shoulder blades. My hands gripped her waist, my fingers scraping the small of her back. We kissed. Her tongue danced all over the place. My leg slipped between hers. I felt her nails slowly trailing down my back.

I stepped back from her. She looked at me, wondering what the action meant. I took her hand and we went into the bedroom.

I left Jerry's at a quarter to one. It was snowing heavily, almost a blizzard. The ground was thickly covered. I could hear the music growing fainter through the snow. I was completely sober now.

It was an hour's walk from Jerry's place to mine.

I was nineteen and betrayal was as stark as the white snow. I knew that I loved Janet more than I could love anyone else. To think of her in comparison to others made the thought of anyone else ludicrous. She would never know how much so. And yet, Stella. How could I? Stella was nothing. Stella was like all the rest. But it hadn't been her fault. She had begun by sympathizing. I encouraged everything. Everything that had happened had stemmed from me. Why? Reason hadn't wanted it. All the time it was happening, the wish for it not to be had been uppermost in my mind.

I trudged on through the snow. Trolley bus wires whipped about in the wind above my head. The snow sped across the open expanses of Princes Park on my right. I walked in the middle of the road, the night swirling and rushing, its noise partly muffled by the countless snowflakes.

Janet. I didn't mean it and you know I didn't but I mustn't tell you.

The snow began falling even heavier than before, but the wind dropped suddenly.

I felt so bad about what had happened that it affected me physically. My body ached and the effort involved in putting one foot before the other was almost too much. At one point, I had to sit down on a bench for a while.

I sat there for about half an hour. The snow stopped falling. I wanted to do nothing but remain sitting on the bench. I was so numb I didn't notice the cold. I couldn't even cry.

I got up from the bench. I began walking. Then I broke into a run. I ran and ran, faster and faster, snow flurrying up in the silence of my wake.

“Oh, Victor! What
have
you done?” said my mother. “Your hand? What's it all bandaged like that for?”

“Let me put my cases down first, Mother, for hell's sake.”

“What on earth have you done?”

“I fell down a grating at the college dance. The grating covered the basement windows. I put my hand through one of them. That's all.”

“Are you all right?”

“I'm all right
now
.”

“Had you been—”

“I'd been outside for a breath of fresh air. I fell down the grating because I couldn't see it in the dark. I was quite sober because I was with Janet. That's all.”

“I see.”

I sat down at the kitchen table.

“Anyway, you don't act very pleased to see me. How about a cup of tea?”

“Of course, I'm pleased to see you, Victor,” she said filling the kettle. “We're always pleased to see you, you know that. Seeing your hand like that made me feel—ugh!—it makes me cringe to think of it.”

“Anyway,” I said, lighting a cigarette, “I'm all right now.”

I shook the match out. “Where's Dad?”

“He's not come home from work yet.”

“Where's the cat?”

“Out.”

“How's Nanna?”

“Oh, she's all right. The same as ever. Amazes me how she keeps on.”

“Is Philip home from London yet?”

“He got home a week ago. He came round the other day to see when you were coming home. He's been studying since he got back. Apparently he's decided for surgery. You know, as against GP work.”

“I think I'll pop round and see him afterward.”

“I should, Victor. He likes you, does Philip. I think he understands you.”

“Oh heck, Mother.”

“Anyway, here's your tea. Drink it while it's hot.”

“Ta.” I took a sip. “Boy, that's good. Ooh. That's better. There's no one can make a cup of tea like you, Mother.” I took another drink. “Or cook bacon and eggs.”

“I see.”

I laughed.

“Have you got any in?”

“Well, what do you think? You've come home, haven't you?”

I walked into the furniture shop. The shop bell rang. There was no one in the shop so I walked across the floor space, round the counter, up the stone steps and into the high, wide, dark Georgian hallway. I was half-way across the tiled floor when the door into the living room opened and Philip's mother appeared.

“Noo!” she said, parodying a greeting of the lads.

“Noo!” I said. “I expect I'm too early for his Lordship. Still in bed?”

“No! Would you believe it? He's been up since, oh, at least half-past twelve.”

“Sakes. I'll have to see this with my own e'en.”

We walked through into the big modern-fitted kitchen. Philip, my doc friend, was at the table eating from a bowl of Weetabix. His younger brother Pete, youngest of all the lads, was sitting in a rocking chair in front of the kitchen range reading the strips in the
Daily Sketch
.