Holiday (15 page)

‘Don’t get lost, now.’ Hollies beamed. ‘We don’t want you coming home with the milk.’

‘We shall be back before you, I expect,’ Sandra said tartly.

In the yard outside, it blew cooler and scuffs of cloud darkened the sky.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it rained,’ Fisher said, walking in the middle. Sandra had immediately taken his arm leaning heavily on him. Mrs Hollies advanced with small brisk steps on his left side, unaffected by the drink. They laughed, began to quicken their pace, until still in step they ran together, charging the length of a treed street. Sandra stopped them, breathlessly, panting, shamelessly leaning on to Fisher who put his arm round the waists of both women.

‘That’s improved matters,’ Fisher said.

Mrs Hollies hung on to him now as desperately as Sandra, her hat askew, her diminutive face on the cloth of his sleeve.

‘Steady,’ he called. ‘You’ll have me over.’ He briefly fondled Sandra’s small left breast, then straightened, before they set off with greater restraint.

‘I bet they’re still talking about football,’ Sandra ventured as they reached the promenade. They climbed separately down the steps, but Sandra jumped the final three, landed on the sand, arms upthrust.

The march along the sands was slower, feet dragging. The cold chop of the wind buffeted faces and hair. They stood on the sea’s edge where the waves were small, oily in dim light, in spite of the breeze.

‘The weather’s turned.’ Fisher.

Both women had arms about his waist.

‘It’s lovely here,’ Sandra said.

‘I don’t know what those men can be thinking about wanting to stop in that stifling atmosphere.’ Mrs Hollies, Lena. ‘It’s fresh.’

‘Terry will be drunk when he comes home.’ She put her head on Fisher’s shoulder. He dropped an exploratory hand to her right buttock.

‘As long as he’s nice,’ Lena said.

‘Oh, tonight. It’s tomorrow I’m thinking about.’

Fisher stroked; Sandra writhed minutely in appreciation.

‘I know what my husband’ll want,’ Lena said.

‘What’s that?’ Sandra whispering.

‘A bit o’ sex. He doesn’t drink a lot usually, but when he gets in with somebody he likes, such as your husband, he’ll have one or two above the odds. And then it’s always the same.’

The woman spoke with the same timidity, and yet with perfect certainty as if she knew the exact effect of her words.

‘He’s fifty-six,’ she said. ‘Eleven years older than me and he’s still not lost his appetite for it. In strange bedrooms, you can be heard. Some of these walls are that thin. I keep telling him, but he won’t be said.’

Fisher stood hot with excitement; the small voice at confession on his left, the strong delicacy of the girl’s answering body on his right. He massaged; she moved with him. Nobody else about, they stood in the low swish of the sea, the darts of wind. Fisher, split with frustration, stared about, like a hare. If he could get rid of this Hollies woman – but she had tempted them, brought them out here, encouraged his groping with her sentences. He wished he could read Sandra’s mind, or could swing her up in his arms, then flatten her stripped to the beach, cool his violence in her body, to the sound of sea-whispers.

‘Let’s have another race,’ Sandra demanded.

‘You young ones’ Lena said. ‘Not me.’

‘You’d beat us both.’

‘I’ll say “Go.” One, two, three, off.’

They set out in a diagonal towards the promenade first on the hard sand by the edge, soon on the softer, kicking up, filling shoes. Fisher allowed the girl to run ahead, trotting with no difficulty. After fifty, sixty yards, he could not judge easily, they swerved behind a beach hut and he put out a hand to her shoulder. She squealed, stopped, turned, put her mouth to his. They kissed hard so that he thought they’d tumble.

‘Where’s Lena?’ she asked in the end.

He stood now behind her, his hands under her short anorak. Her midriff was bare below the jumper.

‘Can’t see her,’ he said, in shadow.

She stood breathless as he stroked her, thrust his hand down into the front of her slacks, along the belly, touching the pubic bush.

‘Don’t,’ she said pathetically. ‘I feel drunk.’

He withdrew his hand, but not at once, squeezed her hard, then allowed her to wheel, to kiss him again, her arms enthusiastically awkward round his neck.

‘That’s nice,’ she said.

‘She’s coming.’

Sandra untwined, took his arm primly as they waited. Fisher bowed as Mrs Hollies pushed towards them, knocking on the hut’s side with her fist.

‘Ten o’clock,’ she said. ‘We’ll make for home. Before you two do something as you shouldn’t.’

She leaked her small laugh, slipped a hand into Fisher’s and jerked.

‘I bet it’s still football,’ Sandra said. She spoke coolly, recovered.

‘No. Smut now,’ Lena said. ‘And boasting how many times a night they could do it. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Fisher?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Men. It’s all they think about.’

As Sandra squeezed his hand, Fisher concentrated now on Mrs Hollies, who walked proudly, swinging along. The timid animal of the pub had altered herself, not radically, but from a silent figure to a commentator. Her husband by no means had his own way. The three took the last streets pleased with themselves so that Fisher, breast clasping, kissed them both.

‘Oh, if I were only a bit younger,’ Lena said. ‘I’d shake you.’

‘Naughty, naughty.’ Sandra.

‘I’d be naughty all right.’

The men had not returned. Fisher, making from the lavatory, heard nothing from the other rooms. Despondent now, condemning himself for half-action, he undressed, lay reading on his bed. He heard the door downstairs, the ascent of the husbands who, subdued, oozed in whispers.

‘Good night, Terry boy.’

‘Goo’ night.’

‘Sleep tight.’

Again the small thud of doors, a mumur of conversation, the traipse for the toilet. Silence. Fisher dropped his book, walked to the window. Cars swept by; the pad of footsteps; in bedrooms lights sketched the drawn curtains; some man whistled his dog. Wednesday ended itself by the North Sea.

Fisher, Fisher.

By his plate at breakfast was a picture postcard. Wollaton Hall.

Turning it, he read. ‘I daren’t. Sorry. Meg.’

He considered this, wondering how she knew his address; perhaps she’s ferreted it out of her father; more probably he’d dictated it with an order to write an apology. She’d complied thus ironically. In green ink, untidy letters. Mr E. A. Fisher. Words level with the address, for the postman to read. His mother and father turned their messages at right-angles. He laughed when he considered the inanities they had confided to the cards. Weather. Distance from the sea. Meals. X marks our room. Hope Edna had a good time at Filey. Abbreviations. Hd. gd. time. ‘Don’t forget to take a pen out today, Arthur. We’ll send the cards off. Wednesday at the latest. Tuesday better so since they’ll land before we’re back.’

The Smiths arrived with vigour, the boys scrupulously scrubbed, their fair hair shining, little fists ready to bunch round cereal spoons. Terry, none the worse, waved; Sandra in short sun-frock concentrated on the children and the exact position of their chairs, but she smiled, paused to inform Fisher that the transistor set had announced another sunny day.

Five minutes, last of the guests, the Hollies trundled in, Lena to the front. She wore a two-piece costume which emphasized her smallness, reduced her legs to matchsticks. The husband in a navy-blue suit looked more unbuttoned, as if he appeared in shirt-sleeves and braces. He’d plastered his hair flat with tap-water, and his broad face reeked with after-shave lotion. His greetings were effusive, but jovial so that Fisher grinned, delighted.

‘We’ll dispense with the preliminaries this morning,’ he told the hovering waitress. ‘Straight into the hard stuff. Bacon, egg, tomatoes, sausage, chips, spinach, the whole issue.’

‘We haven’t got any spinach,’ the girl giggled.

‘Where am I going to get my vitamins from, my lass?’

The pronunciation of lass, home counties, ‘less’ amused Fisher; northern phlegm, cockney spirit. The Smith boys paused from their leisurely eating to enjoy this loud performance. Sandra encouraged them back to their plates. Mrs Hollies did not speak, squinted down, not displeased, at her dish. Fisher decided he’d buy a card and reply to Meg. He began to compose his answer. ‘Thank you for your card. Dared not what?’ No, on this morning he could afford more generosity. ‘I enjoyed seeing your writing again.’ Better. He’d ring Vernon, and report communication.

He had a few minutes’ conversation on the landing to Terry while Sandra supervised the final toilet-drill with the boys.

‘Very pleasant, last evening.’ Fisher’s gambit. Had Sandra said anything? It was odd, he decided, that he could not trust her to keep her mouth shut. Just to rile her husband, or to pass the time, or compensate for a mild indigestion or a sleepless hour, she might have let slip some hint, or even a plain statement. That nice Mr Fisher groped me on the sands, while you were swilling beer.

‘Yes, for a change. We don’t go out much at night, you know. Can’t with the boys.’

‘Your wife enjoyed herself?’

‘Yes.’ Terry laughed. ‘She said you had a run together. Reckoned that Mrs Hollies couldn’t half get a move on.’

‘She surprised me. Quite a talker, too. Never says a word while her husband’s there.’

‘Oh, there’s plenty to her. I had a chat with her one day. Broad, y’know. Bit near the bone, I thought, some of it. Well, to somebody she hardly knew.’ He frowned. ‘Not that I mind. Can say what she likes.’

‘Seemed such a mouse.’

‘They’re the sort to watch.’

‘Didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Tried to be quiet. Didn’t want to wake the boys. Sandra wasn’t asleep.’

‘You didn’t get into hot water, then?’

‘Oh, no. Far from it.’ He wiped his mouth, like a man after a satisfying drink, appearing so naively, openly self-satisfied that Fisher envied him. Such simplicity ought not to exist. And Sandra? Excited by her husband’s caresses, the rare breath of his drink, or the stranger on the shore? Or nothing of the kind. She emerged, chamber-pot in hand, ordered her husband without embarrassment to empty it, and asked Fisher what he’d arranged for the day.

‘To tell you the truth I haven’t decided. I ought to write the odd card.’

‘I suppose we ought. I don’t know though. Waste of money. You don’t ever read them when you get them, do you?

Fisher inquired her plans.

‘Oh the usual. Down on the beach. Sand-pies and paddle.’

‘And you like that?’

She wrinkled her nose as if she knew her attractions.

‘On a fine day. I like sun bathing, so that people can see you’ve been on holiday. And they’re not too bad, the boys, not too troublesome.’

‘Your husband’s very good with them.’

‘Oh, Terry. Yes. He is.’

‘Enjoy it last night?’ he asked, looking her straight in the eye.

‘Yes, I did.’ She spoke with emphasis, defying him.

‘We’ll try it again, then.’

This time she turned, moved into her bedroom calling her family to order. Fisher knew a momentary qualm as he stood, but on her immediate reappearance she showed him her teeth in a full smile, reassuring him.

He allowed the Smiths a minute, then made off secretively for the nearest call-box, to ring Vernon. The connection was rapidly established. He reported the postcard.

‘Thass a good sign, now, inn it?’ Father-in-law’s comedian from the valleys.

They talked desultorily until Fisher grew angry.

‘Haven’t you heard from her, then?’ he demanded.

‘Now, why should I?’

‘She must have got my address from you, yesterday, so presumably you spoke to her.’

‘I may just have telegraphed it.’

‘Balls.’

‘Or her mother talked to her on the ’phone.’

‘She’d report it,’ Fisher snapped.

‘That doesn’t mean I’d pass it on to you, though. No, Edwin, I’m thinking. It’s a good sign that she’s bothered. I phoned her; I left her your address. She actually started. Got as far as Grantham, and turned tail.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s your wife. You should know better than I do. She’s volatile, now.’

‘Would she speak to me?’

‘Last person in the world, I’m sorry to say. We’ve finished breakfast. Walk over, if you will, and see us. I was most upset.’

Fisher heading for the Frankland Towers wondered what dramatic performance Meg had staged for her father. Usually at some trivial instance she whipped herself into histrionics; when her son had died she had been silent, pushing about small chores in the house as if concentration on these only could redeem her. Then he’d not got near her; unapprehended as the little corpse, she’d dusted and cooked with her pale mouth shut.

He remembered how one evening early in the marriage he’d come home late from his London comprehensive school. He’d forgotten to make a note of a parents’ evening and thus had not told Meg. They had no ’phone, but he sent a message by a colleague who lived nearby. He, finding no one in, had torn the back off an envelope, had scribbled. ‘Edwin has meeting. Home about ten,’ shoved it through the door.

At ten-thirty, Fisher, fagged out, arrived to find his wife in dressing-gown waiting wild-eyed. For a moment he thought Preston had not delivered the message.

‘You’ve come then?’ she asked.

He threw himself into a chair, began to unlace his shoes, then wrench his tie loose.

‘They’d keep me gasssing all night,’ he grumbled.

‘Have you been at school?’ Flat.

‘I sent a message with Adrian Preston.’

‘I’ve not had it.’

He rummaged for his slippers, collapsed back into the chair. She stood exactly as before, taut, breathing fast.

‘Shall I make a drink?’ he’d asked.

‘You think more of that bloody school than you think of me.’

‘That’s silly talk, Meg. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

He got up but when she refused him an answer he shrugged, turned for the kitchen. Just before he reached the door, a vase exploded on it. He jumped back, in surprise, shielding his face with an arm. A fragment hit his coat, gently, fell to the ground. He turned.