The Watchers on the Shore (17 page)

Authors: Stan Barstow

BOOK: The Watchers on the Shore

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'Bloody hell fire!'I say, once we're out of the house, and Jim grins. 'Why do people have to get so stupid as they grow older?'

We stand and wait for David and the Old Feller. When they
come out we walk on ahead again.

'How's your stock just now?'

Jim shrugs. 'Not bad. She disapproves because I don't come home as much as she'd like me to.'

'She disapproves, full stop.'

'Oh, she's not as bad as all that.'

'No, I suppose not. Nice to know it's not your everyday lot, though.'

Jim's just turned twenty now. He used to be a gangling lad who grew too fast for his strength, but now he's broadening out nicely.
A good-looking lad too, though he's a bit sloppy about his
appearance.

'You know,'he says in a minute, 'I don't want to be one of these blokes who grows away from his parents, who finds he's got nothing to say to them.'

'I expect you meet a lot like that now.'

'Yes, I do. And you can feel it happening to yourself all the
time.'

'Well, I wouldn't go around blaming myself for it. It's their
fault as much as yours, if you can call it your fault at all. They're the ones who are hanging behind. It's when they try to hold you
back the trouble starts. Not that my mother does it deliberately.
She's kind-hearted, means well, and she'd be hurt if anybody told
her she was a drag, because she's proud to see you get on. But they
don't realize all that it involves. They somehow expect you to get on and stay just like them. There's a whole world outside that she
just doesn't begin to understand.'

'Education ...'Jim says, shaking his head.

'It doesn't need much education, Jim. Intelligence and a bit of
perception will do it as well.'

'Course,'he says, 'she's convinced it's a girl who's keeping me away. I mean, she always goes for
the obvious solution.'

'And is there a girl?'

Jim laughs. 'As a matter of fact, there is.'

I have to laugh with him.'Well, I mean, they're not all that daft, Jim. They do know
something
about what makes people tick... Is it serious?'

'I suppose it is. Oh, she's sweet, though, Jacqueline. You'd like
her, Vic. She's got everything. I mean, it's not just a question of
bed; I like to be with her all the time.'

And there, if you want one, I think a bit sourly, is an echo of me
at his age, only he seems to have hit the jackpot and I wonder if
I'm supposed to interpret what he's said in the way I do.

'You mean you have been to bed with her?'

'Well, it's not all that easy to set up, but we do sometimes
manage it.'

'You won't go and do what I did, will you?'

'I'm not stupid, Vic.'

'Thanks very much,'I say and he shoots me a quick embarrassed look.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Only we have sense enough
to take the usual precautions.'

Usual, I think. It's usual to take your girl friend to bed and when
you've got her there you take the usual precautions. And I'm
where I am now because I hadn't the nerve to go into a shop and ask for what I wanted. Do the generations change so quickly, I
wonder, or is it something wrong with me?

David and the Old Man catch us up outside the Bunch of Grapes
and we can't say any more. We go into the best room where there's
a fire as good as the one we've left and a fair gathering of men
keeping out of the way while their wives cook whatever it is they've
got to look forward to. The Old Man insists on buying the first round and asks us what we want.

'D'you mind if I have a whisky, Dad?'David asks.

'I don't mind at all, lad. What about you two?'

'A pint of bitter for me, please,'I tell him, and Jim says, 'Same for me, Dad.'

'Well,'the Old Man says, 'I was going to have a half meself but I'd better make it a pint. Can't let the younger generation show me up.'

Jim and I smile at each other and move over to the fire as David
and the Old Feller go to the bar counter.

'Don't say anything to my mother or anybody, will you?'Jim says. He looks at me as I laugh. 'You know, I'll tell 'em myself when I want 'em to know.'

I'm still smiling. 'Sorry, only you sound just like me talking to our Christine.'I see them turning from the bar and I take the last moment to get serious. I'm looking Jim straight in the eye and the laughter's gone from my face as I say to him:

'Only, listen to this, Jim. It's your life. You do what you want to
do and don't let any of 'em push you around. Just remember.'

And that's the last chance I get to say anything to him. Which is
perhaps just as well. There's not much more I could say without
telling him things I don't want him to know; and there's a limit to
the advice anybody can take. They've got to experience things for themselves. No two cases are
alike and once they begin to find out
a bit of what it's all about it's probably too late for them to do
much more than start handing out advice to somebody else.

We're back home on time so there's nothing my mother can
grumble about, though her face doesn't slip as she sets the dinner
out and we all gather round to shift it. I wonder sometimes what sort of bloke I'd be if the Old Lady had been a merry, laughing
woman.

After dinner the women tackle the washing-up then join the men in the front-room, which is warm now, and we sit round
making chit-chat about this and that: young Bobby, my new job
and what it's like living in the south; David's new job (which he's
got) and what it'll be like living in Leicester (of course, the Old
Man knew somebody from Leicester in the first world war and he's
played in one or two brass-band concerts there, so he's an expert
on it), and a few guarded references to Mrs Rothwell's forth
coming operation.

After a while the Old Man slips off to sleep with his head back
and his mouth open and I - always drowsy after beer at lunchtime -shut my eyes, and though it seems to me that I'm hearing voices all the time, I must go under as well because the next thing I know the
women are moving about laying the table for tea.

On Boxing Day morning Ingrid and I sleep in, waking to come
together in the after-night warmth of the bed in a way that needs no words, nor even conscious signs; only a knowledge of wanting that
more often than riot matches a similar need.

Brown, the great lover, boosts his ego in the rests in the rhythm
of desire:

'Do you miss me?'

'Mmmmm.'

'Do you miss this?'

'You know I do.'

'You're a proper little sex-pot.'

'And aren't you glad.'

'I don't know. I go back with bags under my eyes after a week
end at home.'

'I expect everybody feels sorry for you.'

'Oh, they do, they do. The men think I've left home because I can't cope with it on a full-time basis.'

'I never know when you're kidding and when you're not.'

'Don't you?'

'You don't... you don't talk about it, do you?'

'What?'

'I mean this.'

'Not as far as you and I are concerned. Men don't, y'know.'

'Don't they?'

'Only about the subject in general, sometimes.'

'I see... You don't think, I mean deep down, that it's not very nice, do you?'

'What isn't nice?'

'Me ... well, me liking it so much.'

'I don't think it's nice, I think it's bloody marvellous.'

'Do you really, Vic?'

'Well, don't you know?'

'Oh, I know it's all right for you that I do, but I wonder some
times ...'

'Look, I don't despise it in a woman, I admire it.'

'Do you?'

'Yes, I do. Proper bloody order.'

'Well, I just-'

'Shut up.'

Her mouth is laughing as I put mine over it. For a second. Then
it's serious and responding, taking and giving back, driving us on
into that private frenzy where what's said and done is nobody's business but ours, belonging here in the dark arid the warmth
away from cold sober daylight.

Which always comes ...

'Are you going back to sleep now?'

'Mmm. It's lovely and warm.'

'What time have you to get away?'

'Two o'clock.'

'That's all right, then. We'll have time for a little chat.'

'What about?'

'Never mind. It'll do after.'

'No, go on, I'm listening.'

'Well... you know you once said I could always move in with
Mother if it was necessary?'

'Mmm.'

'I think I ought to do that for a while. Till she's had her operation and got back on her feet... I mean, we'd keep this place on and live here when you came home.'

I think about it for a minute and can't see any real snags.

'That's all right. I don't mind.'

'You're not busy looking for a place down there, are you?'

'I'm weighing the situation up.'

'But you won't come home some week-end and expect me to
pack up and go back with you?'

'There's no hurry yet.'

'No. You might fall out with the job, or something.'

'Oh, I think that'll be all right. You ought to come
down
and
look things over, though.'

'I will, in a while.'

'Well, do what you think's best and we'll talk about it again later
on.'

'Righto. I'll tell her. I'm sure she'll be easier in her mind.*

'But you're coming eventually, and on your own.'