The Husband's Story (8 page)

‘Now tell us about your pleasures, Mr Pitts.'

‘My pleasures?'

‘The things you enjoy. What you get out of life.'

Stan hesitated. Not that it mattered. To Dr Aynsworth, hesitation was every bit as significant as a reply; very often more so, in fact. He counted six, and helped Stan out again.

‘You are married, are you not?'

The picture of Beryl rose up sharp and clear in Stan's mind; Beryl,
in her Mexican housecoat with the big Sun-God buttons, and with her hair piled high on top. He only wished that she could have been there to show them.

‘Oh, yes,' he said, ‘I'm married all right.'

Dr Aynsworth awarded Stan one more tick as soon as he heard the words, ‘all right'. They might not have conveyed very much to other people; indeed, they would probably have passed entirely unnoticed. But, to a properly skilled psychologist, they said a lot. They meant that the little fellow with the blue tie and the crew haircut was one of the lucky ones. Unquestionably he was living in the security of a marriage that was cloudless.

‘And have you any children?'

It was all down in black-and-white in the staff file in front of Mr Hunter-Smith. But Dr Aynsworth was careful never to read any of the personal particulars before an interview. The answers to questions, even the apparently aimless ones, were always so much more revealing.

‘Just one. A girl. Marleen. She's eleven.'

Even though Stan did not know it, he had just come up with another winner. Dr Aynsworth always gave half a point whenever the candidate confided in them by mentioning the name of a child. It was all part of the same secure family pattern.

‘And now about yourself, Mr Pitts. Have you any hobbies?'

This was the point at which Mr Hunter-Smith found that he could stand it no longer. He disapproved of all psychologists, and had been against having this one. The man had simply been forced on him from above and, in his opinion, he had wasted quite enough of the board's time already.

‘Mr Pitts is our prize photographer,' he explained. ‘You win the competition nearly every year, don't you, Mr Pitts? Three Firsts and two Special Mentions, I believe it is…'

But the intervention had been fatal. The whole train of Dr Ayns-worth's questioning had been destroyed. It had ruined everything. The light inside him flickered and went out. Pushing his pad away from him, he sulked.

‘No more questions, thank you, Mr Chairman,' he said.

The sun had come out while he was speaking and was now shining full into Stan's face. He screwed up his eyes again. Dr Aynsworth started. He had just remembered his real role at interviews like this. It
was, with his trained mind, to spot things that ordinary laymen might otherwise miss.

‘One supplementary, Mr Chairman, please,' he asked. ‘Do you ever feel the need to wear glasses, Mr Pitts?'

That was all there was to it. A moment later Stan was back in the corridor, and it was all over. Fifteen minutes flat, he made it. And those fifteen minutes had taken it out of him more than he had expected. He felt all drained and empty; like a blood donor coming away from a transfusion station. And depressed. Depressed by the very thought that, in Room 737, they would have restarted the stop-watch, and the race would be on again. By now, Mr Hunter-Smith would be remembering all about the man from Chatham, and Dr Aynsworth would be getting ready to ask more unanswerable questions in that Little Bo-Peep voice of his.

It was eight floors down to the sub-basement where Stan worked. But, when he got to the lift, he pressed the button to go up. It was the canteen that he was making for. He needed a cup of tea just to revive himself; and, by way of a little comfort, he picked up a chocolate cupcake at the service counter. Then, sipping and munching, he thought about all the things that he would have liked to say to Dr Aynsworth if only he had been given the opportunity.

Stan sat on in the canteen longer than usual. That was because he knew just how it would be. As soon as he got back to Records they would all start asking him about it. He was right, too. Even Miss Mancroft, a temporary from the typing pool who couldn't have cared less about what happened to him, looked up from her machine as soon as he came in.

‘They kept you long enough, didn't they?' she said. ‘Was it third degree, or something?'

But Stan took no notice of her. Just shrugged his shoulders, and walked past. Stan's desk was over in the corner by the radiator. It occupied the best position in the open office. Stan remembered envying it when he had first joined the department; and now it was his through sheer seniority. What's more, with Mr Miller still up in the interview room, Stan was exactly where he wanted to be. He was in charge.

It was nearly quarter to six when Mr Miller came down and went through to his private cubicle for his hat and coat and scarf and gloves
and umbrella. Mr Miller was a conscientious dresser, and believed in being well-protected. He was clearly tired, and a bit surprised to find Stan still sitting there. Stan usually left at five-thirty exactly.

But he could guess how Stan must be feeling. And, with the office empty, he could speak freely.

‘I shouldn't worry if I were you,' he said. ‘No one else suitable in that lot. Not the right experience. But there it is: once they've applied you've got to see them. It's staff regulations.'

The words comforted him. Stan was glad then that he had waited.

Even with so much going on, there had been no difficulty about getting time off to go and see the bank manager. It was simply that Stan had been reluctant to ask. He didn't like to think of what might be happening in the department if he wasn't there to keep an eye on the place.

Ten o'clock was when Mr Winters had said that he could see them; and that was one comfort. It meant that, with any luck, he'd be able to get back to Frobisher House before midday; it was in the afternoons when people were beginning to slack off a bit that things mostly went wrong.

In the end it was her medium-length black dress with the high collar, the almost new one, that Beryl chose, because that meant that she could wear her long black coat with the big cuffs. Admittedly, gloves and shoes were a bit of a problem. Black was, she felt, quite out of the question because the whole effect would have been too dismal, too funereal. Pale beige was what she finally settled on. And, though she had never liked beige with black, particularly when it was one of those warm, rather biscuity shades of beige, she knew instinctively that they would serve to brighten things up. And her beige handbag with the zip. Beige earrings were something that she hadn't got. But that didn't really matter. Because she had her large flat white ones that showed up so strikingly against the sheer blackness of her hair.

Then, at the last moment, she remembered Cliff's headscarf with the huge red peony. She didn't actually wear it; just carried it loosely festooned across her forearm as a decorative afterthought. And, standing in front of the long mirror in the bedroom, edging further and further back so that she could see more of herself, she felt satisfied.

On the way round to the bank, Beryl decided to have a word with Stan.

‘And when we get there,' she told him, ‘you'd better let me do the
talking like. I want you to be with me because it'll look nicer that way. But I'm the one to tell him. About the job, I mean. I can say things you can't.'

Because Beryl didn't want there to be any possible doubt about the outcome, she decided to make her announcement straight away. As soon as she had sat down and put her handbag on the floor beside her, she gave Mr Winters one of her fullest, most confidential smiles.

‘I expect my husband will soon be having a piece of news for you,' she said. ‘Good news for all of us like. It's about his promotion.' And, just to show that she had remembered that she had brought him with her, she added: ‘Won't you, Stan?'

Mr Winters was smiling, too, by now. He swung round in his swivel chair so that Stan could tell him all about it. He had always had rather a liking for Stan. There was something so modest, so unassuming about him. And it was gratifying to think that he should have chosen one of the professions where diligence and hard work were properly rewarded. Somehow, Mr Winters couldn't have seen him surviving for very long in the cut-price, short-measure, stab-in-the-back world so many of his business customers seemed to live in.

‘Ah, is that so, Mr Pitts?' he began.

But he had turned his chair too soon.

‘Of course, there's nothing definite yet,' Beryl was saying. ‘Not yet, there isn't. But it's as good as. You know what the Civil Service is like. Always keep you waiting. It's Head of the Department, you know. And he's earned it. He's been there eighteen years. Haven't you, Stan?'

‘And when do you expect to hear?'

This time, Mr Winters looked for a moment at Stan. Then back to Beryl again. And he was right to have done so.

‘Well, I mean it's got to be soon, hasn't it. I mean they can't keep you hanging about for ever like. Stan's boss goes in April. They'll have to announce it before then, won't they?' She paused and stroked her gloved finger thoughtfully across the crimson peony on her arm. ‘Of course, it'll mean more money. Like I said, it's Head of the Department. It's a different Grade, and everything.'

Mr Winters smiled back at her.

‘Then you and your husband have every reason to be pleased,' he said. ‘You must be very proud of him.'

‘Oh, I am,' she told him. ‘Aren't I, Stan?'

Mr Winters had taken out his gold, presentation pen and was fiddling
with it, twisting it round and round in his fingers, as though he were winding it.

‘Now about this overdraft,' he said. ‘I wonder what we'd better do. Because we can't let it go on like this, can we? It'll just mount up and up if we don't keep a check on it. That's what we're all here for, isn't it?'

It was a speech that he had made many times before, smooth, considered and unvarying.

‘Just look at those heavy withdrawals,' he went on. ‘I'm afraid we can't have any more of those. Not for the time being, that is.'

Beryl found herself getting indignant. It showed that Mr Winters just didn't understand.

‘Well, I mean like there won't be any more, will there?' she replied.

‘Not just now, there won't. We don't want to go on putting new carpeting down all the time like, do we, Stan?'

‘And this one,' Mr Winters pointed out to her, tapping the entry with his pen as he did so. ‘Seventeen pounds, four shillings.'

‘Well, they're new, too,' Beryl told him. ‘The curtains, I mean. With the pelmets, that is. We shan't be needing new curtains again. Not for years and years, we shan't.'

She had, she felt, satisfactorily disposed of that. The last thing she wanted was for him to imagine that she wasn't careful. She cared every bit as much about money as he did. More, probably.

Even so, he wasn't satisfied.

‘Then what do you suggest we should do?' he asked, keeping carefully to the plural to make it clear that they were shoulder-to-shoulder in the matter.

‘Well, we can't send them back like, can we?' Beryl reminded him. ‘They wouldn't take them. Not now they've been fitted, they wouldn't.'

The toe of her pale beige shoe began twitching. She could feel herself getting upset, just the way she always did whenever Marleen was being difficult.

Mr Winters turned again towards Stan. He was perched right on the edge of his chair as though he hadn't yet had time to sit down properly.

‘I take it you don't want to clear things up with a single deposit?' he asked.

Stan wondered why Mr Winters had even suggested it. He must have known perfectly well that it was out of the question. Mr Winters was Stan's bank manager, too. He had only to press the bell for his statement
to be brought in and laid down alongside Beryl's.

‘I couldn't do it,' he said. ‘Not possibly.'

‘Then shall we say something every month?' Mr Winters enquired. ‘What about ten pounds a month? Then it'll be out of the way by…' Mr Winters had put down his pen and was drumming out the months with his fingers, ‘… by Christmas.'

Stan shook his head.

‘It wouldn't leave us enough to get along on,' he told him. ‘We can only just manage as it is. Sometimes I don't know where…'

Mr Winters was still being kind, still smiling.

‘Then what about eight pounds? That's only two pounds a week, remember. I'm afraid the Inspectors wouldn't like it to be less than that.'

‘Does it have to start now?'

The words had been blurted out. He had started saying them almost before Mr Winters had finished.

But there was no rush about it, Mr Winters explained. No one was putting any pressure on him. Just a transfer from next month's pay cheque into his wife's account. That's all it was. If Stan would simply sign the form, the three of them could then forget about it.

It was evidently the way Mr Winters had expected the interview to end because he had one of the forms lying there ready in the folder. All that he had to do was to take the cap off his pen and fill in the amount.

‘Eight pounds a month it is, then?' he asked.

Stan merely nodded. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. It was Beryl who spoke for him.

‘It won't make any difference really, will it?' she said. ‘Not with the promotion, I mean. Not with Stan's salary going up like at the same time.'

As soon as Stan had signed the form and handed it back, Mr Winters turned again to Beryl.

‘There you are,' he told her. ‘That's all settled then. It didn't take long, did it? And it'll all be cleared off by next year.' He paused. ‘No more cheques, of course, in the meantime please. Not till the account's in the black again. Otherwise we'll just be back where we started.'