The Pritchett Century (42 page)

“Well,” said I. “If they’re like that half-wit at the garage, they’re nothing to be stuck on. And you’ve met me.”

I said it to her like that.

“Oh,” says she. “It isn’t as bad as that yet.”

It was cold in the office. She used to sit all day in her overcoat. She was a smart girl with a big friendly chin and a second one coming and her forehead and nose were covered with freckles. She had copper-coloured hair too. She got her shoes through the trade from Duke’s traveller and her clothes, too, off the Hollenborough mantle man. I told her I could do her better stockings than the ones she’d got on. She got a good reduction on everything. Twenty-five or thirty-three and a third. She had her expenses cut right back. I took her to the pictures that night in the car. I made Colin get the car out for me.

“That boy wanted me to go on the back of his bike. On a night like this,” she said.

“Oh,” she said, when we got to the pictures. “Two shilling’s too much. Let’s go into the one-and-sixes at the side and we can nip across into the two-shillings when the lights go down.”

“Fancy your father being an undertaker,” she said in the middle of the show. And she started laughing as she had laughed before.

She had her head screwed on all right. She said:

“Some girls have no pride once the lights go down.”

Every time I went to that town I took a box of something. Samples, mostly, they didn’t cost me anything.

“Don’t thank me,” I said. “Thank the firm.”

Every time I took her out I pulled the blinds in the back seat of the car to hide the samples. That chap Colin used to give us oil and petrol. He used to give me a funny look. Fishy sort of small eyes he’d got. Always looking miserable. Then we would go off. Sunday was her free day. Not that driving’s any holiday for me. And, of course, the firm paid. She used to take me down to see her family for the day. Start in the morning, and taking it you had dinner and tea there, a day’s outing cost us nothing. Her father was something on the railway, retired. He had a long stocking, somewhere, but her sister, the one that was married, had had her share already.

He had a tumour after his wife died and they just played upon the old man’s feelings. It wasn’t right. She wouldn’t go near her sister and I don’t blame her, taking the money like that. Just played upon the old man’s feelings.

Every time I was up there Colin used to come in looking for her.

“Oh Colin,” I used to say. “Done my car yet?” He knew where he got off with me.

“No, now, I can’t Colin. I tell you I’m going out with Mr Humphrey,” she used to say to him. I heard her.

“He keeps on badgering me,” she said to me.

“You leave him to me,” I said.

“No, he’s all right,” she said.

“You let me know if there’s any trouble with Colin,” I said. “Seems to be a harum-scarum sort of half-wit to me,” I said.

“And he spends every penny he makes,” she said.

Well, we know that sort of thing is all right while it lasts, I told her, but the trouble is that it doesn’t last.

We were always meeting Colin on the road. I took no notice of it first of all and then I grew suspicious and awkward at always meeting him. He had a new motor bicycle. It was an Indian, a scarlet thing that he used to fly over the moor with, flat out. Muriel and I used to go out over the moor to Ingley Wood in the firm’s Morris—I had a customer out that way.

“May as well do a bit of business while you’re about it,” I said.

“About what?” she said.

“Ah ha!” I said.

“That’s what Colin wants to know,” I said.

Sure enough, coming back we’d hear him popping and backfiring close behind us, and I put out my hand to stop him and keep him following us, biting our dirt.

“I see his little game,” I said. “Following us.”

So I saw to it that he did follow. We could hear him banging away behind us and the traffic is thick on the Ingley road in the afternoon.

“Oh let him pass,” Muriel said. “I can’t stand those dirty things banging in my ears.”

I waved him on and past he flew with his scarf flying out, blazing
red into the traffic. “We’re doing 58 ourselves,” she said, leaning across to look.

“Powerful buses those,” I said. “Any fool can do it if he’s got the power. Watch me step on it.”

But we did not catch Colin. Half an hour later he passed us coming back. Cut right in between us and a lorry—I had to brake hard. I damn nearly killed him. His ears were red with the wind. He didn’t wear a hat. I got after him as soon as I could but I couldn’t touch him.

Nearly every weekend I was in that town seeing my girl, that fellow was hanging around. He came into the bar on Saturday nights, he poked his head into the office on Sunday mornings. It was a sure bet that if we went out in the car he would pass us on the road. Every time we would hear that scarlet thing roar by like a horse-stinger. It didn’t matter where we were. He passed us on the main road, he met us down the side roads. There was a little cliff under oak trees at May Ponds, she said, where the view was pretty. And there, soon after we got there, was Colin on the other side of the water, watching us. Once we found him sitting on his bike, just as though he were waiting for us.

“You been here in a car?” I said.

“No, motor bike,” she said and blushed. “Cars can’t follow in these tracks.”

She knew a lot of places in that country. Some of the roads weren’t roads at all and were bad for tyres and I didn’t want the firm’s car scratched by bushes, but you would have thought Colin could read what was in her mind. For nine times out of ten he was there. It got on my nerves. It was a red, roaring, powerful thing and he opened it full out.

“I’m going to speak to Colin,” I said. “I won’t have him annoying you.”

“He’s not annoying me,” she said. “I’ve got a sense of humour.”

“Here Colin,” I said one evening when I put the car away. “What’s the idea?”

He was taking off his overalls. He pretended he did not know what I was talking about. He had a way of rolling his eyeballs, as if they had got wet and loose in his head, while he was speaking to me and you
never knew if it was sweat or oil on his face. It was always pale with high colour on his cheeks and very red lips.

“Miss MacFarlane doesn’t like being followed,” I said.

He dropped his jaw and gaped at me. I could not tell whether he was being very surprised or very sly. I used to call him “Marbles” because when he spoke he seemed to have a lot of marbles in his mouth.

Then he said he never went to the places we went to, except by accident. He wasn’t following us, he said, but we were following him. We never let him alone, he said. Everywhere he went, he said, we were there. Take last Saturday, he said, we were following him for miles down the by-pass, he said. But you passed us first and then sat down in front, I said. I went to Ingley Wood, he said. And you followed me there. No, we didn’t, I said, Miss MacFarlane decided to go there.

He said he did not want to complain but fair was fair. I suppose you know, he said, that you have taken my girl off me. Well, you can leave
me
alone, can’t you?

“Here,” I said. “One minute! Not so fast! You said I’ve taken Miss MacFarlane from you. Well, she was never your girl. She only knew you in a friendly way.”

“She was my girl,” was all he said.

He was pouring oil into my engine. He had some cotton wool in one hand and the can in the other. He wiped up the green oil that had overflowed, screwed on the cap, pulled down the bonnet and whistled to himself.

I went back to Muriel and told her what Colin had said.

“I don’t like trouble,” I said.

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I had to have someone to go to all these places with before you came. Couldn’t stick in here all day Sunday.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’s it, is it? You’ve been to all these places with him?”

“Yes,” she said. “And he keeps on going to them. He’s sloppy about me.”

“Good God,” I said. “Sentimental memories.”

I felt sorry for that fellow. He knew it was hopeless, but he loved her. I suppose he couldn’t help himself. Well, it takes all sorts to make a
world, as my old mother used to say. If we were all alike it wouldn’t do. Some men can’t save money. It just runs through their fingers. He couldn’t save money so he lost her. I suppose all he thought of was love.

I could have been friends with that fellow. As it was I put a lot of business his way. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about me. We’re all human after all.

We didn’t have any more trouble with Colin after this until Bank Holiday. I was going to take her down to see my family. The old man’s getting a bit past it now and has given up living over the shop. He’s living out on the Barnum Road, beyond the tram stop. We were going down in the firm’s car, as per usual, but something went wrong with the mag. and Colin had not got it right for the holiday. I was wild about this. What’s the use of a garage who can’t do a rush job for the holidays! What’s the use of being an old customer if they’re going to let you down! I went for Colin bald-headed.

“You knew I wanted it,” I said. “It’s no use trying to put me off with a tale about the stuff not coming down from the works. I’ve heard that one before.”

I told him he’d got to let me have another car, because he’d let me down. I told him I wouldn’t pay his account. I said I’d take my business away from him. But there wasn’t a car to be had in the town because of the holiday. I could have knocked the fellow down. After the way I’d sent business to him.

Then I saw through his little game. He knew Muriel and I were going to my people and he had done this to stop it. The moment I saw this I let him know that it would take more than him to stop me doing what I wanted.

I said:

“Right. I shall take the amount of Miss MacFarlane’s train fare and my own from the account at the end of the month.”

I said:

“You may run a garage, but you don’t run the railway service.”

I was damned angry going by train. I felt quite lost on the railway after having a car. It was crowded with trippers too. It was slow—stopping at all the stations. The people come in, they tread all over
your feet, they make you squeeze up till you’re crammed against the window, and the women stick out their elbows and fidget. And then the expense! A return for two runs you into just over a couple of quid. I could have murdered Colin.

We got there at last. We walked up from the tram stop. Mother was at the window and let us in.

“This is Miss MacFarlane,” I said.

And mother said:

“Oh, pleased to meet you. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh,” mother said to me, giving me a kiss, “Are you tired? You haven’t had your tea, have you? Sit down. Have this chair, dear. It’s more comfortable.”

“Well, my boy,” my father said.

“Want a wash?” my father said. “We’ve got a wash basin downstairs,” he said. “I used not to mind about washing upstairs before. Now I couldn’t do without it. Funny how your ideas change as you get older.”

“How’s business?” he said.

“Mustn’t grumble,” I said. “How’s yours?”

“You knew,” he said, “we took off the horses: except for one or two of the older families we have got motors now.”

But he’d told me that the last time I was there. I’d been at him for years about motor hearses.

“You’ve forgotten I used to drive them,” I said.

“Bless me, so you did,” he said.

He took me up to my room. He showed me everything he had done to the house. “Your mother likes it,” he said. “The traffic’s company for her. You know what your mother is for company.”

Then he gives me a funny look.

“Who’s the girl?” he says.

My mother came in then and said:

“She’s pretty, Arthur.”

“Of course she’s pretty,” I said. “She’s Irish.”

“Oh,” said the old man. “Irish! Got a sense of humour, eh?”

“She wouldn’t be marrying me if she hadn’t,” I said. And then I gave
them
a look.

“Marrying her, did you say?” exclaimed my father.

“Any objection?” I said.

“Now Ernest dear,” said my mother. “Leave the boy alone. Come down while I pop the kettle on.”

She was terribly excited.

“Miss MacFarlane,” the old man said.

“No sugar, thank you, Mrs Humphrey. I beg your pardon, Mr Humphrey?”

“The Glen Hotel at Swansea, I don’t suppose you know that?” my father said.

“I wondered if you did being in the catering line,” he said.

“It doesn’t follow she knows every hotel,” my mother said.

“Forty years ago,” the old man said. “I was staying at the Glen in Swansea and the head waiter …”

“Oh no, not that one. I’m sure Miss MacFarlane doesn’t want to hear that one,” my mother said.

“How’s business with you, Mr Humphrey?” said Muriel. “We passed a large cemetery near the station.”

“Dad’s Ledger,” I said.

“The whole business has changed so that you wouldn’t know it, in my lifetime,” said my father. “Silver fittings have gone clean out. Everyone wants simplicity nowadays. Restraint. Dignity,” my father said.

“Prices did it,” my father said.

“The war,” he said.

“You couldn’t get the wood,” he said.

“Take ordinary mahogany, just an ordinary piece of mahogany. Or teak,” he said. “Take teak. Or walnut.”

“You can certainly see the world go by in this room,” I said to my mother.

“It never stops,” she said.

Now it was all bicycles over the new concrete road from the gun factory. Then traction engines and cars. They came up over the hill where the AA man stands and choked up round the tram stop. It was mostly holiday traffic. Everything with a wheel on it was out.

“On this stretch,” my father told me, “they get three accidents a week.” There was an ambulance station at the crossroads.

We had hardly finished talking about this, in fact the old man was
still saying that something ought to be done when the telephone rang.

“Name of MacFarlane?” the voice said on the wire.

“No. Humphrey,” my father said. “There is a Miss MacFarlane here.”

“There’s a man named Colin Mitchell lying seriously injured in an accident at the Cottage Hospital, gave me the name of MacFarlane as his nearest relative.”