England's Lane (28 page)

Milly was flustered, there was no point in denying it—though neither, she knew, must she ever let it show. Everything this evening must appear to be perfectly normal: already I've blithely explained away to him, I think, the essential core of the thing with a light and easy touch, yes I feel sure I have accomplished that—for it is, after all, only Jim we are talking about here, whose instinct at the best of times may hardly be said to be acute: he is quite devoid of nuance or suspicion—he sees only that which is plainly before him. But treading with care and treating the man—a womanly approach that is bred in the bone and will make it certain, I am sure, that all now is well. But I have little excuse—none at all. It was perfectly stupid of me to do what I did, and ultimately so very terribly demeaning: the work of a madwoman, really—but passion, you see: this is what passion will do to you.

At first I simply was sitting in the shop, and feeling rather ridiculous. Here is not my place: everything here is utterly alien. This is
Jim's domain, and the Lord knows he is welcome to it. It smells of him—or he smells of it: I think by now the two are thoroughly interchangeable. This so old and flattened frayed chintz cushion on his stool appears over the passing of centuries to have molded itself into the inverse form of his buttocks. And beneath it is a mottled and dusty collection of old and creased thick paper carrier bags with knotted string handles from an assortment of places in the Lane, one or two of them long closed down. Why would you keep such uselessness beneath the cushion of a stool? And how many years had they resided there? The jagged teeth on the tin of string are wholly corroded: they would never cut the twine, which is why so very often in his efforts the whole thing would be upset on to the floor, the string unraveling, and Jim there cursing; Paul complaining later on that it was he, once more, who had been charged with balling it all up again. Next to the tin on the counter lay half a pair of scissors: not an operative and complete pair of scissors, no, for this would of course function immediately and efficiently, no no—just this one blade of a pair, the bent-over rivet still rattling at its center. And so he would wield this blunted piece of uselessness, would he, as a cumbersome alternative to a straightforward knife, and all because the jagged teeth of the string dispenser are wholly corroded. Such a method, in Jim's world, I can see would pass muster: in this, he imagines, he has come up with a canny and coping system, a more than ingenious solution. All of this I instinctively know, while still remaining, oh … simply miles away from any sort of understanding. And then there are the odors—this mingled sweetness of distant rot, the veil of mustiness—the throat-tightening tang of paraffin, the rasp of choking bleach: all these fumes which he professes not to notice. And then on the perch in his rusted cage … there is Cyril, the light of my husband's life—and look: his tiny black eyes are seemingly angry: he is cocking his head as if eager
to shout out at me “Here! Here! What's going on? You're not Jim! You're not Jim! You're not Jim!” Well no—thankfully I am not.

And I was hoping that no one would come in. Not least because aside from all these piles of the more obvious commodities, I have not a clue where anything is. So if anyone wants something even vaguely obscure, I shall just have to ask them politely to call again when once more the king sees fit to resume the throne at the heart of his castle; or anyway this stool, with its old and flattened frayed chintz cushion, its substratum of carrier bags. Another reason I was hoping for no sort of disturbance was that I now had so much thinking to do. I'd closed my mind to a good deal of what has been happening lately by convincing myself that I had simply not a jot of time to dwell … yes but here now is time, hanging thick in the dead air of this dank and silent, fossilized cavern. I should love to first be able to deal with what I suppose I have to think of as the minor things—to evaluate their impact, and then to judge how best to handle the inevitable consequence. Yes, that would indeed be a rewarding luxury … but of course it is the black and gigantic shadow of Jonathan that swoopingly obliterates every trace of that, as it threatens to engulf me. Because I am now quite totally persuaded that that so very brief but telling hesitation in Jonathan's stride could mean only that he had indeed heard the calling out of his name—further, that he had registered its source, and yet was immediately determined to affect a total unawareness, and press on with purpose. Why? Why would he do that? A reluctance, fear even, to be seen to address me in the street? Hardly. Such a thing, after all, would be perfectly in keeping—we were in England's Lane, for heaven's sake, where both of us live and conduct our business. Not that, then. So what …? A disinclination to speak to me for some other reason. Yes. And of course I do know what that is: what else, after all, could it possibly be? For I can no longer blind myself so very
willfully … because that is surely what up until now I have been doing. Though still … even at this very moment, just to think of, to see again, that so brief vignette—to simply recall it, that just-glimpsed and easy conviviality that he was sharing with Fiona in his office, when I had so much needed to talk to him, to be with him … still I am astounded by how very powerfully that has wounded me. That, and the drinking of what I am now quite decided simply had to be Benedictine. Though I chastise myself for it, for my vain and girlish naïvety. I mean to say—what on earth did I imagine? That because he and I will occasionally encounter, that all manner of relations with his wife would immediately cease? It simply isn't logical. Yes but logic, of course, now is the po-faced, so starchy and irrelevant intruder—that so cold would-be annihilator of all that throbs inside of me. Logic, it is bloodless—and what I am feeling is raw and dripping, consuming me from without, while still so very hard and deep within me. Even now my gullet is tight, my stomach bunched and my pink-rimmed eyes are smarting. I can, though, justify without guilt or question my own behavior, solely by means of regarding Jim. I can look at Jim quite wholly dispassionately, knowing that then my mind will be gorgeously flooded by wave after wave—a hot and unstoppable deluge of Jonathan: so of course then I must rush to him. How could I not? But … for him, clearly, all is much different. His … wife … is a lady. An educated and handsome woman, and together, it would certainly appear, they still share a great deal in common. So what, then, am I? What does this make me? Am I just that so terribly casual a thing, then? Merely a matter of convenience? Painful, horrifyingly painful though it is to acknowledge … this recently, quite gradually and so very reluctantly arrived-at deduction is cruelly emerging as the one distinct and very lowering likelihood. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What, then, shall I do …? About it. Well, this is
hardly the moment for irresolution of any sort at all: end it, Milly. Yes. If I have to my name even one tattered streamer of honor intact, I must end it. Yes. But then … were I to do that … I should be without him. Would I not? And I do not want to be without him. You see. I cannot bear the possibility of being without him. You see. The very thought of even one more tomorrow, and Jonathan quite excised from my existence … is simply intolerable.

I must defer my decision. Clearly, I am far too tender—I am in no sort of proper condition to go hurtling into the casting of so irrevocable a die, whose outcome would effectively paralyze my entire state of being. And why is it, I wonder …? Why is it that unions, liaisons, dalliances, relationships and marriages … why must each of them be tinged with an always secret kind of dull and muted agony? I mean—just look at Stan … as now, and eventually, I rather fear I must. Whatever now can Stan be thinking? And at the very moment when he did that to me—when, so utterly out of the blue, that kiss, it fell upon me … what great tangle can have been alive in his mind? Or alternatively, was it maybe just wiped clean? I actually do think that that is quite entirely possible, you know—because recalling now the wide-eyed blankness of his expression, he could so very easily have been quite as astonished as I was. Nevertheless, though—it has got to be said that here was no fleeting and neighborly gesture of affection, no simple peck of amicable gratitude. There was both spirit and intention behind it—that much, I think, was rather horribly and immediately clear to the two of us. Well to me it was, anyway. But then … oh, poor Stan: just look at all he has to cope with. Bad enough, you would think, having a boy so sorely afflicted—but a wife like that who treats him in such a way … yes, and over how many years …? Poor Stan. Poor Stan. But Jane, though—can one utterly blame her? Is she any more a responsible person? Well I think it would truly take a professional
to tell you for sure—but one thing I will say with conviction: whatever she is, it is not insane. Troubled, clearly—and with highly disturbed, not to say highly disturbing, outlooks and attitudes toward … well, her very own son, to begin with. How could she possibly have said such awful things? And to a perfect stranger. Is she even aware that Anthony is so very friendly with my Paul? I don't really see how she can be. And that diary—that curious journal she said she was writing. What can be in it? Didn't she tell me she attends to it daily? And she never leaving the house. Eating only all those chocolate bars purloined from her husband who is visibly at the end of his wits in his consistent and perfectly tragic determination to persuade her to swallow just anything at all. Well. Poor Stan. Well. Maybe we must all of us snatch at even the most slender possibility of comfort when and where we come to sense its tentative touch, no matter how unlikely or unpromising the source.

And then … there is Mrs. Goodrich. Always there seems to be Mrs. Goodrich. Oh … it was already so thoroughly confusing a moment. The noise—oh yes of course, I remember now: all those terrible noises that Sally was making from behind the window screen. Then, yes, there was the kiss itself … and following that, something, something else, now what could it have been …? There was I am sure this further distraction of some sort—something rolling about on the floor, could that have been it? Well whatever it was, immediately after, and so very suddenly, there she was: looming. But at what precise point in all of this had she actually entered, Mrs. Goodrich? What exactly had she seen? Yes well, there is the question—but whatever she had witnessed, it would most certainly be more than enough for her to have gleefully fabricated the most fantastic tale, and one that even now and with each successive retelling would be gathering close to it, like a clutch of gripping burrs, such increasingly gaudy decoration and lurid embellishment. And just
imagine her joyous amazement were she ever to come into possession of the one and true big story: an intensely sexual relationship between the happily married and gallantly handsome butcher of England's Lane, and the low and salacious wife of the grubby little ironmonger.

So I continued to sit in the shop. After a very tedious while, I extremely half-heartedly began to jot down on a scrap of paper some names and skeletal ideas for the dread Christmas party. To be held the Sunday before the actual day, that's what we've all agreed upon. Possibly in our little local library, just around the corner in Antrim Grove. It used to be the custom to just have it in one of our front rooms or shops, but there really isn't enough space, you know. It can become really quite boisterous, once the children start playing with balloons and the men get a drink inside of them—Jim especially. And this year there will also be the two negroes to contend with, of course—and nobody is at all sure how they will behave, quite what they might get up to: different customs, you see—not even convinced that they know what Christmas is. And by no means everyone was in favor of their being included, wholly predictably, but I'm pleased to say they were after quite a lot of argument firmly voted down by the more level-headed and equable among us: no color bar in England's Lane, I very much hope. Mr. Lawrence in particular, I remember—he was most vehemently against them, and Jim would have been too, if ever he could stir himself and actually turn up to one of our meetings. Last year we had the party at Mr. Lawrence's, actually in his newsagent's shop—he had very kindly pushed back the counters for us and so on—though he made it perfectly clear that he wasn't intending to do that again. I don't at all mind because the whole thing, it didn't really strike me as being over-merry: the lighting was so terribly gloomy, and somebody quite early on knocked over the tree. It was only artificial and
ridiculously small: more akin to a lavatory brush than any sort of a Norwegian pine, to my eyes. So this year the library has been mooted—I forget who came up with the idea, but it's really not a bad one. The ceiling, though, is so terribly lofty—I simply can't imagine how we'd get the paper chains up there. And another thing—so very little money has been raised: I've just been rattling our box here on the counter: sounded like no more than a couple of pennies. Awful, really. Can't think how I'll manage. It'll be like the rationing during the war: how to make do with very little indeed. And there's no question at all of my being able to supplement whatever we eventually do manage to gather—this ever-increasing debt of mine to that blasted tallyman, whom I rather wish now I had never set eyes upon, is, I admit, becoming something of a worry. And I shan't for a very long while be able to buy any more little fripperies in John Barnes or Selfridge's, that's for certain. Oh dear—I so don't want to be part of any of all of this, you know. Christmas—it's the very last thing on my mind. I wish I could just escape to some warm and magical island. Yes well—precious little chance of that happening: you can Milly, I think, safely put all thoughts of that sort quite out of your mind. Yes but how at this party, please will someone tell me, am I expected to conduct myself? And how will Jonathan be behaving? Oh … wonderfully well, I suppose: chinking glasses with his wife. Oh … it's really all just too too awful even to contemplate. Yes and right at that miserable moment in my very downcast ruminations, there came a sudden interruption—I had such a shock I just can't tell you, when that cracked little bell above the door was emitting its discordant clanking, and here now was someone coming in to the shop. Quite hauled me back down to earth, I can tell you that. And who should it be but Edie from the Dairies: she was so very surprised to see me there, that was more than clear. Because I never am, you see: I never am.