The Husband's Story (18 page)

To show that, so far as she was concerned, the conversation was over, she picked up the magazine and began searching for page seventy-seven. It was somewhere near the end. By then, the stories were simply little panels of print wedged in between the advertisements.

But Stan hadn't finished.

‘Did you get it from Cliff?' he asked.

Beryl had just found what she had been searching for.

The screech of the air-brakes rose above the roar of the Tornado. Joe struggled with the steering-wheel, heaving his twenty-ton chariot into a devastating arc. Below him in the searchlight glare of his headlamps he glimpsed two ghost-like, terrified faces staring up helplessly into the black interior of the cab.

‘I asked you if you got it from Cliff,' Stan repeated.

The strain of being in two places at once, in the doomed Mustang and sitting there on the couch with Stan looking at her, was too much. She threw
20th Century Romances
down onto the floor.

‘Well, what if I did?' she demanded.

‘Then you've got to give it back.'

Beryl pulled in the corners of her mouth.

‘Listen to Mr Millionaire talking.'

‘I mean it.'

‘Well, I can't, can I?' she snapped back at him. ‘Mr Winters wouldn't let me. You know that as well as I do.'

This was the moment for which Stan had been waiting. And it had been touch-and-go: any instant now, and they might have been right back in the middle of one of the old-fashioned rows of the kind they used to have.

‘I paid in some money myself this morning,' he told her.

‘You never.'

‘Hundred pounds, as a matter of fact,' he said quietly.

‘And where did you get a hundred pounds from, I'd like to know?'

Beryl was rather disappointed in herself. She had simply blurted the words out the way Marleen might have done.

‘Been up-graded,' he replied. ‘Back pay. Annual bonus. That kind of thing.'

It was his innocent white lie, and he had come out with it. He still looked forward to the day when he would be able to tell her the truth; and, the way things were going, it needn't be so very far away. By then
he wouldn't be just an ordinary Civil Service filing clerk. He'd be Stanley Pitts, the photographer, a name to conjure with in professional matt-finish circles.

Beryl took the news very calmly. She was pleased about it, but she was also indignant. That was why she did not congratulate him so much as raise further questions.

‘Well, it's about time too, isn't it? I mean they couldn't have kept you waiting much longer, could they? Not after all those years. It wouldn't have been right like, would it?'

Stan started to get up.

‘So I'll ring Cliff, and tell him,' he said.

Already Beryl had been bending over to pick up her copy of
20th Century Romances
as he said it, but she straightened herself immediately.

‘Oh, I wouldn't do that,' she told him. ‘Not right away, I wouldn't. It'll only upset him.'

‘Why should it?'

‘Well, I mean it wouldn't seem polite like, would it? Not after he's only just given it to me. It would look like I didn't really need it, wouldn't it?'

‘You don't need it,' Stan said firmly. ‘Not any longer, you don't.'

Upstairs in her bedroom, Beryl was still reading. She had at last re-found her place on page seventy-seven, and thereafter it was like riding in a steeple-chase to keep up with the story. It kept disappearing only to turn up again on a still later page among a whole different lot of advertisements.

But it had all worked out for the best. At the last moment, she had managed to kick Ed's foot off the accelerator, and stamp her own small one down firmly on the brake pedal. That was what had saved them both. Even so, the baseball coach was paralysed from the waist down. But that didn't matter so much because Beryl was there to look after him. Her whole life was devoted to him now.

Towards midnight, she dropped off to sleep, still thinking about their miraculous escape. Her last waking thoughts were of wondering what it would be like looking after Cliff if, by some chance, anything of the sort should happen to him, and how much the up-grading would mean in terms of Stan's salary.

She found both lots of thoughts strangely consoling.

Beryl had been quite wrong about it: Cliff wasn't in the least upset. But then very few men would be when it comes to recovering a hundred pounds that had looked like being lost and gone forever.

All the same, he was surprised. Stan sounded normal enough on the phone. There were no signs of drink and violent temper that Cliff could detect. It even occurred to him that perhaps Beryl had been exaggerating, because Stan seemed so sure of himself. He spoke of returning the money as though it would be no trouble at all to him. And, when he suggested that Cliff should drop in for supper one night next week, Cliff accepted. It could be either a cheque or cash, just as he pleased, Stan told him.

As it happened, Stan had good reason to be sure of himself. He had just spoken to Mr Karlin, and Mr Karlin had invited him to go along to the Hotel Brava again. There was a new scheme that he had worked out, and he wanted to explain to Stan in person. It was something important that he felt would be right up Stan's street, he said.

On the whole, the Brava seemed to have gone down rather than come up since his last visit. Tomorrow morning's milk bottles were already ranged alongside the doorstep; and, as usual, there was nobody on duty at the reception desk. Stan made his way past the unlit sign, straight through to the bar.

This time, Mr Karlin was there before him. He was sitting up on one of the chromium stools, talking to a girl who was beside him. When he saw Stan he came over.

‘That's what I like about you,' he said. ‘Always punctual. Who says artists are unbusinesslike?'

Stan found it rather pleasant to be called an artist. It showed that Mr Karlin really appreciated his work. And Mr Karlin certainly could not have been more welcoming. He brought his hand down on Stan's shoulder and left it there. It was funny: Stan couldn't bear it when Mr Parker did that but, with Mr Karlin, it was different. Stan liked the feel of Mr Karlin's hand.

‘Come here and meet Mr Pitts.'

It was the girl at the bar that he was summoning. And the way he called her over was in itself rather flattering. It made him the important one, the one for whom they had both been waiting.

‘This is Helga,' Mr Karlin announced. ‘She works for the agency.'

Helga had brought her glass with her. She raised it to her lips in a kind of toast, and smiled at him over it. Stan noticed that she had very pretty teeth.

‘Happy to meet you,' she said. ‘I feel already that I know you well.'

‘She means your work,' Mr Karlin explained. ‘She's mad about it.'

Stan smiled back at her. He was equally happy to meet Helga. She was small and dark and good-looking and, like Mr Karlin, very friendly.

‘Let me get you a drink,' she said to him. ‘Whisky?'

‘With water, please,' he told her, remembering that whisky and water was what he always drank with Mr Karlin.

There wasn't room for all three of them at the bar, and Mr Karlin moved across to one of the couches.

‘Make yourself comfortable,' he said, and took the armchair opposite.

When Helga came back, she sat down next to Stan. He was immediately aware of the scent that she was using. It was a strange, heady scent; close and jungly. Little feelers of it kept reaching out towards him. He wondered whether any traces of it would still be clinging to his clothes when he got back to Kendal Terrace and, to be on the safe side, he edged away a little.

‘Well, I expect you want to know how things have been going,' Mr Karlin began.

Stan nodded. He was deliberately cool and off-hand about it. An artist of his standing could afford to be.

‘Then ask Helga,' Mr Karlin told him. ‘She's looking after your side.'

Helga turned her big brown eyes towards him.

‘Slow. Very slow,' she said.

‘You mean they're not selling?'

‘Not yet, they're not. The editors are interested, but no sales.'

Mr Karlin reached out his hand towards Stan as though he were going to pat him.

‘Give her time,' he advised. ‘She's the best in Fleet Street.'

‘It is not the treatment. That's very good. It is the subjects,' Helga went on. ‘They are no longer fashionable. The readers do not require them.'

Mr Karlin nodded.

‘State of the market,' he said. ‘It's her job. Knows it backwards.'

‘You mean you don't think there's a future in it?' Stan asked.

He had allowed just the wrong note of disappointment to creep into his voice as he was speaking.

‘Not in them, there isn't,' Mr Karlin told him. ‘There's a future in you, though. Start in right away, can't he, Helga?'

‘Right away.' Helga's brown eyes were still on him. They were deep admiring eyes and, at the moment, they were smiling at him. ‘Give me the right subjects, and I can place them.'

‘What sort of subjects?'

They were both looking at him now. Mr Karlin was smiling, too.

‘Nudes,' he said. ‘Good, high-class, figure work.'

Stan shook his head.

‘Not me,' he said. ‘Don't go in for that kind of thing. Never have.'

The note of disapproval in his voice was obvious. He regretted that Mr Karlin should even have suggested it. In Stan's view, nude photography was something that had given the whole profession a bad name; had they been alone together, he would have told him so. But, with Helga on the couch beside him, all that he wanted to do was to change the subject.

Mr Karlin sounded disappointed.

‘Pity,' he replied. ‘Lots of money in it. That's so, isn't it, Helga?'

Helga put out her small white hand, and rested it on Stan's arm.

‘A great deal,' she said. ‘All the time a great deal.'

Because she was being so serious about it, she was frowning. Stan thought that she looked prettier than ever with her forehead wrinkled up like that. Then her face brightened, and she was smiling at him again.

‘It would make me very happy to sell pictures like that for you,' she told him. ‘Then you can be happy, too. We can all be happy.'

But Mr Karlin seemed to have gone stale about the whole idea. He sounded almost impatient.

‘If Mr Pitts doesn't want to, we can't make him,' he reminded her. ‘It's a free country.'

Helga removed her hand.

‘I am sorry,' she said.

She sounded so upset about it that Stan felt that he ought somehow to put things right. He could see that she had her difficulties, too.

‘No need to be sorry,' he assured her. ‘Just doesn't happen to be my line.'

He heard Helga give a little laugh.

‘How can you know if you have never tried?' she asked, ‘Perhaps it is what you would be most good at.'

Her forehead was wrinkled up again, and she was leaning forward. The hot, close, jungly scent was all round him.

‘Too late to take it up now,' he told her.

Helga was already shaking her head.

‘For an artist, it is never too late.'

This time when she reached out it was simply to touch him. The pressure was there one moment and gone again the next. All the same, it was unsettling. Stan wasn't used to having a girl put her hands on him like that.

‘It's no use,' he said. ‘I don't even know any models.'

Mr Karlin raised his eyebrows.

‘Helga knows models. Don't you, Helga?'

Helga nodded.

‘I know many models. And there are always new ones. Tell me what type you want and I will find her for you. It is not difficult.' She sighed. ‘They are like all of us. They need money, too.'

It was a deep sigh that Helga had given.

Mr Karlin jerked his thumb in Helga's direction.

‘She knows,' he said. ‘Used to be a model herself.'

But it was clear that Helga did not wish to be reminded. She shook her head sadly.

‘That was a long time ago. I was young then. The body gets old so quickly. Mine would be no good now.'

‘I bet it would.'

The words, uninvited, had suddenly formed inside Stan's mind, and he found himself blushing: what was worse was that he had so nearly said them out loud.

Mr Karlin did not seem to have noticed.

‘Mr Pitts isn't interested,' he reminded her, ‘It's not his line. He told you so.'

Helga did not reply to Mr Karlin. Instead, she put her hand back on Stan's arm again.

‘Would you like another whisky, Mr Pitts?' she asked.

Stan was firm with himself.

‘Not now, thank you. Time I was off.'

He looked down at his watch as he said it. But it was no use. The watch had stopped exactly where he had set it when he left Frobisher House an hour ago. It was always stopping nowadays.

This seemed to amuse Mr Karlin. He slapped his hand down hard onto his side-pocket.

‘Nearly forgot,' he said. ‘Present for you.'

It was a long, thin, imitation leather case that he brought out. The clasp was heavy, and looked convincingly like gold. He thrust the case into Stan's hand, and pressed Stan's fingers down onto it.

‘See if you like it,' he told him. ‘All automatic. No winding.'

Stan paused. He wanted a new watch very much indeed, but he didn't want to accept anything else from Mr Karlin until he had earned it.

‘No, I couldn't. Really, I couldn't.'

He tried to hand it back, but Mr Karlin stopped him. He might have been reading Stan's mind all the time.

‘Didn't cost me anything,' he said. ‘Trade sample. Just try it on. Wear it for a bit, and see how you like it.'

The watch looked even more expensive than the case. For a start, it was large; a real grandfather-watch. Not that any space had been wasted. It wasn't only the time and the day of the month in Bayswater that it showed. By turning the bezel you could tell the time anywhere else in the world. It was the same, too, if you had other interests. There was a knob on the side for timing sports events. And, in case you tended to be a late sleeper, there was a little button just beside it for setting the alarm. With a watch like that on your wrist, you could go through life practically without having to call on outside assistance.