Collected Short Fiction (33 page)

‘Another drink, darling?’ the Knitmaster whispered to his wife.

‘Yes, yes,’ Mrs Dakin cried.

The Knitmistress smiled malevolently at Mrs Dakin.

‘Whisky?’ said Mr Cooksey. ‘Beer? Sherry? Guinness?’

‘Give her the cocktail,’ Mrs Cooksey said.

Mr Cooksey’s cocktails were well known to his older tenants. He had a responsible position in an important public corporation – he said he had thirty-four cleaners under him – and the origin and blend of his cocktails were suspect.

The Knitmistress took the cocktail and sipped without enthusiasm.

‘And you?’ Mr Cooksey asked.

‘Guinness,’ I said.

‘Guinness!’ Mr Dakin exclaimed, looking at me for the first time with interest and kindliness. ‘Where did you learn to drink Guinness?’

We drew closer and talked about Guinness.

‘Of course it’s best in Ireland,’ he said. ‘Thick and creamy. What’s it like where you come from?’

‘I can’t drink it there. It’s too warm.’

Mr Dakin shook his head. ‘It isn’t the climate. It’s the Guinness. It can’t travel. It gets sick.’

Soon it was time to sing Auld Lang Syne.

The next day the Dakins reverted to their exemplary behaviour, but now when we met we stopped to have a word about the weather.

One evening, about four weeks later, I heard something like a commotion in the flat above. Footsteps pounded down the stairs, there was a banging on my door, and Mrs Dakin rushed in and cried, ‘It’s my ’usband! ’E’s rollin’ in agony.’

Before I could say anything she ran out and raced down to the Knitmasters.

‘My husband’s rollin’ in agony.’

The whirring of the Knitmaster machine stopped and I heard the Knitmistress making sympathetic sounds.

The Knitmaster said, ‘Telephone for the doctor.’

I went and stood on the landing as a sympathetic gesture. Mrs Dakin roused the Cookseys, there were more exclamations, then I heard the telephone being dialled. I went back to my room. After some thought I left my door wide open: another gesture of sympathy.

Mrs Dakin, Mrs Cooksey and Mr Cooksey hurried up the stairs.

The Knitmaster machine was whirring again.

Presently there was a knock on my door and Mr Cooksey came in. ‘
Pop-pop
. It’s as hot as a bloomin’ oven up there.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘No wonder he’s ill.’

I asked after Mr Dakin.

‘A touch of indigestion, if you ask me.’ Then, like a man used to more momentous events, he added, ‘One of my cleaners took ill sudden last week. Brain tumour.’

The doctor came and the Dakins’ flat was full of footsteps and conversation. Mr Cooksey ran up and down the steps, panting and pop-popping. Mrs Dakin was sobbing and Mrs Cooksey was comforting her. An ambulance bell rang in the street and soon Mr Dakin, Mrs Dakin and the doctor left.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey told me.

The Knitmaster opened his door.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey shouted down. ‘It was like an oven up there.’

‘He was cold,’ Mrs Cooksey said.

‘Pah!’

Mrs Cooksey looked anxious.

‘Nothing to it, Bess,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘’Itler had the appendix took out of all his soldiers.’

The Knitmaster said, ‘I had mine out two years ago. Small scar.’ He measured off the top of his forefinger. ‘About that long. It’s a nervous thing really. You get it when you are depressed or worried. My wife had to have hers out just before we went to France.’

The Knitmistress came out and smiled her terrible smile, baring short square teeth and tall gums, and screwing up her small eyes. She said, ‘Hallo,’ and pulled on woollen gloves, which perhaps she had just knitted on her machine. She wore a tweed skirt, a red sweater, a brown velveteen jacket and a red-and-white beret.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey said.

The Knitmistress only smiled again, and followed her husband downstairs to the 1946 Anglia.

‘A terrible thing,’ I said to Mrs Cooksey tentatively.

‘Pop-pop.’
Mr Cooksey looked at his wife.

‘Terrible thing,’ Mrs Cooksey said.

Our quarrel over the milk bottles was over.

Mr Cooksey became animated. ‘Nothing to it, Bess. Just a lot of fuss for nothing at all. Gosh, they kept that room like an oven.’

Mrs Dakin came back at about eleven. Her eyes were red but she was composed. She spoke about the kindness of the nurses. And then, to round off an unusual evening, I heard – at midnight on a weekday – the sound of the carpet-sweeper upstairs. The Knitmistress complained in her usual way. She opened her door and talked loudly to her husband about the nuisance.

Next morning Mrs Dakin went again to the hospital. She returned just before midday and as soon as she got into the hall she began to sob so loudly that I heard her on the second floor.

I found her in Mrs Cooksey’s arms when I went down. Mrs Cooksey was pale and her eyes were moist.

‘What’s happened?’ I whispered.

Mrs Cooksey shook her head.

Mrs Dakin leaned against Mrs Cooksey, who was much smaller.

‘And my brother is getting married tomorrow!’ Mrs Dakin burst out.

‘Come now, Eva,’ Mrs Cooksey said firmly. ‘Tell me what happened at the hospital.’

‘They’re feeding him through a glass tube. They’ve put him on the danger list. And – his bed is near the door!’

‘That doesn’t mean anything, Eva.’

‘It does! It does!’

‘Nonsense, Eva.’

‘They’ve got him screened round.’

‘You must be brave, Eva.’

We led Mrs Dakin to Mrs Cooksey’s sitting-room, made her sit down and watched her cry.

‘It burst inside ’im.’ Mrs Dakin made a wild gesture across her body. ‘They had to cut him clean open, and –
scrape
it out.’ Having uttered this terrible word, she abandoned herself to her despair.

‘Come now, Eva,’ Mrs Cooksey said. ‘He wouldn’t like you to behave like this.’

We all took turns to look after Mrs Dakin between her trips to the hospital. The news didn’t get better. Mrs Dakin had tea with the Cookseys. She had tea with the Knitmistress. She had tea with me. We talked gaily about everything except the sick man, and Mrs Dakin was very brave. She even related some of her adventures in the police force. She also complained.

‘The first thing Mr Cooksey said when he came up that evening was that the room was like an oven. But I couldn’t help that. My husband was cold. Fancy coming up and saying a thing like that!’

I gave Mrs Dakin many of the magazines which had been piling up on the enormous Victorian dresser in my kitchen. The Knitmistress, I noticed, was doing the same thing.

Mr Cooksey allowed himself to grow a little grave. He discussed the operation in a sad but clinical way. ‘When it bursts inside ’em, you see, it poisons the whole system. That’s why they had to cut ’im open. Clean it out. They hardly ever live afterwards.’

Mrs Cooksey said, ‘He was such a nice man. I am so glad now we enjoyed ourselves on New Year’s Eve. It’s her I’m really sorry for. He was her second, you know.’

‘Aah,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘There are women like that.’

I told the Knitmistress, ‘And he was such a nice man.’

‘Wasn’t he?’

I heard Mrs Dakin sobbing in everybody’s rooms. I heard her sobbing on the staircase.

Mrs Cooksey said, ‘It’s all so terrible. Her brother got married yesterday, but she couldn’t go to the wedding. She had to send a telegram. They are coming up to see Mr Dakin. What a thing to happen on anybody’s honeymoon!’

Mrs Dakin’s brother and his bride came up from Wales on a motorbike. Mrs Dakin was at the hospital when they came and Mrs Cooksey gave them tea.

I didn’t see Mrs Dakin that evening, but late that night I saw the honeymoon couple running upstairs with bottles wrapped in tissue paper. He was a huge man – a footballer, Mrs Cooksey said – and when he ran up the steps you heard it all over the
house. His bride was small, countrified and gay. They stayed awake for some time.

Next morning, when I went down to get the paper, I saw the footballer’s motorbike on the doorstep. It had leaked a lot of oil.

Again that day Mrs Dakin didn’t come to our rooms. And that evening there was another party in the flat above. We heard the footballer’s heavy footsteps, his shouts, his wife’s giggles, Mrs Dakin’s whine.

Mrs Dakin had ceased to need our solace. It was left to us to ask how Mr Dakin was getting on, whether he had liked the magazines we had sent, whether he wanted any more. Then, as though reminded of some sadness bravely forgotten, Mrs Dakin would say yes, Mr Dakin thanked us.

Mrs Cooksey didn’t like the new reticence. Nor did the rest of us. For some time, though, the Knitmaster persevered and he had his reward when two days later Mrs Dakin said, ‘I told ’im what you said about the nervousness, and he wondered how you ever knew.’ And she repeated the story about the fall from the defective ladder, the bent arm, the foreman burning the ladder.

We were astonished. It was our first indication that the Dakins were taking an interest in the world outside the hospital.

‘Well, really!’ Mrs Cooksey said.

The Knitmistress began to complain about the noise in the evenings.

‘Pah!’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘It
couldn’t
’ave burst inside him. Feeding through a glass tube!’

We heard the honeymoon couple bounding down the stairs. The front door slammed, then we heard the thunderous stutter of the motorbike.

‘He could be had up,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘No silencer.’

‘Well!’ Mrs Cooksey said. ‘I am glad
somebody’s
having a nice time. So cheap too. Where do you think they’re off to?’

‘Not the hospital,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘Football, more likely.’

This reminded him. The curtains were drawn, the tiny television set turned on. We watched horse-racing, then part of the football match. Mrs Cooksey gave me tea. Mr Cooksey offered me a cigarette. I was back in favour.

The next day, eight days after Mr Dakin had gone to the hospital, I met Mrs Dakin outside the tobacconist’s. She was shopping and her bulging bag reflected the gaiety on her face.

‘He’s coming back tomorrow,’ she said.

I hadn’t expected such a rapid recovery.

‘Everybody at the hospital was surprised,’ Mrs Dakin said. ‘But it’s because he’s so strong, you see.’ She opened her shopping bag. ‘I’ve got some sherry and whisky and’ – she laughed – ‘some Guinness of course. And I’m buying a duck, to have with apple sauce. He loves apple sauce. He says the apple sauce helps the duck to go down.’

I smiled at the little family joke. Then Mrs Dakin asked me, ‘Guess who went to the hospital yesterday.’

‘Your brother and his wife.’

She shook her head. ‘The foreman!’

‘The one who burned the ladder?’

‘Oh, and he was ever so nice. He brought grapes and magazines and told my husband he wasn’t to worry about anything. They’re frightened now all right. As soon as my husband went to hospital my solicitor wrote them a letter. And my solicitor says we stand a good chance of getting more than three hundred pounds now.’

I saw the Knitmaster on the landing that evening and told him about Mr Dakin’s recovery.

‘Complications couldn’t have been serious,’ he said. ‘But it’s a nervous thing. A nervous thing.’

The Knitmistress opened the kitchen door.

‘He’s coming back tomorrow,’ the Knitmaster said.

The Knitmistress gave me one of her terrible smiles.

‘Five hundred pounds for falling off a ladder,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘Ha! It’s as easy as falling off a log, ain’t it, Bess?’

Mrs Cooksey sighed. ‘That’s what the Labour has done to this country. They didn’t do a thing for the middle class.’

‘Bent arm! Can’t go to the seaside! Pamperin’, that’s what it is. You wouldn’t’ve found ’Itler pampering that lot.’

A motorbike lacerated the silence.

‘Our happy honeymooners,’ Mr Cooksey said.

‘They’ll soon be leaving,’ Mrs Cooksey said, and went out to meet them in the hall.

‘Whose key are you using?’

‘Eva’s,’ the footballer said, running up the stairs.

‘We’ll see about that,’ Mrs Cooksey called.

*    *    *

Mrs Dakin said: ‘I went down to Mrs Cooksey and I said, “Mrs Cooksey, what do you mean by insulting my guests? It’s bad enough for them having their honeymoon spoilt without being insulted.” And she said she’d let the flat to me and my ’usband and not to my brother and his wife and they’d have to go. And I told her that they were leaving tomorrow anyway because my husband’s coming back tomorrow. And I told her I hoped she was satisfied that she’d spoiled their honeymoon, which comes only once in a lifetime. And she said some people managed to have two, which I took as a reference to myself because, as you know, my first husband died during the war. And then I told her that if that was the way she was going to behave then I could have nothing more to say to her. And she said she hoped I would have the oil from my brother’s bike cleaned up. And I said that if it wasn’t for my husband being so ill I would’ve given notice then and there. And she said it was
because
my husband was ill that she didn’t give me notice, which any other landlady would’ve done.’

Three things happened the next day. The footballer and his wife left. Mrs Dakin told me that the firm had given her husband four hundred pounds. And Mr Dakin returned from hospital, no more noticed by the rest of the house than if he had returned from a day’s work. No sounds came from the Dakins’ flat that evening except for the whine and rumble of conversation.

Two days later I heard Mrs Dakin racing down to my flat. She knocked and entered at the same time. ‘The telly’s coming today,’ she said.

Mr Dakin was going to put up the aerial himself. I wondered whether he was as yet strong enough to go climbing about the roof.

‘They wanted ten pounds to do it. But my husband’s an electrician and he can do it himself. You must come up tonight. We’re going to celebrate.’

I went up. A chromium-plated aeroplane and a white doily had been placed on the television set. It looked startlingly new.

Mrs Dakin emptied a bottle of Tio Pepe into three tumblers.

‘To good ’ealth,’ she said, and we drank to that.