The Watchers on the Shore (2 page)

'I can't bear to listen to it,'Ingrid says. 'It's been nothing but news all week and all the regular programmes either changed or pushed back.'

She's talking about television and I can't resist saying, 'She's
thinking of writing to President
Kennedy to tell him she nearly
missed "Tell your Partners Quiz" because of him messing about
with his blockade,'

'Oh, shut up, sarcy,'Ingrid says.

'I thought we might be over the hump,'David says, 'but I'm worried now that the Americans will go the whole hog and invade.'

Just for a second I feel fear squeezing my heart like a clammy
hand, as I did earlier in the week when it all blew up, and this puts
an extra savage edge to my voice when Ingrid says:

'I don't see why they can't settle it between them. What's it got to do with us?'

I turn on her and it's all there, the fear, the irritation at her
stupidity and knowing I could laugh it off if I wasn't married to her.

'Don't you know anything about
anything!'

'I don't see what you've got to be clever about,'she says. 'I'm sure other people think like me. Mother was saying the other day -'

'Yes,'I butt in, 'tell us what she said. Let's hear what bloody world-shaking pronouncement
she's
been coming out with.'

Ingrid blushes scarlet and looks away and I see David shoot a
quick glance at Chris and both of them start to act as though they
haven't noticed anything amiss.

The radio warms up and the newsreader's voice comes through.
It's better news. The Russians have offered to bargain: the Cuban
bases for the American ones in Turkey.

'Well, that's an improvement,'David says. 'And I'm having a drink on the strength of it. Join me, Vic?'

I tell him all right, I'll have a glass of beer now.

'Ingrid?'

'Oh, I don't know. Have you got any orange squash?'

'I think so. Sure you wouldn't like a drop of gin to liven it up?'

'No, just squash, please.'

He gives Ingrid her squash, me my beer, passes a gin and tonic
to Chris, then lifts his own glass of pale ale.

'Well, here's to the future. Now that it looks as if there might be one after all.'

Which sinks me in a bit more gloom, as talking about the future always does. I'm already a bit irritated with myself for snapping at
Ingrid like I did. A bit of peevish bickering is nothing new to us,
but doing it when we're by ourselves is one thing and it's only lately
I've started letting it show through when other people are there.
And I don't like it, because being stuck with something you don't
like is bad enough without showing it off to everybody. It hurts the
pride. Especially when I'm with Chris and David, or thinking about them. They never bicker. Not when anybody's there and
I'm sure not when they're on their own either. You can tell. You can tell from the way one of them might now and again get a bit
impatient and the other turn it away with a soft answer instead of
feeling the need to strike back. The thing that's missing from their marriage is resentment and it's a thing every marriage is better off
without. With some couples it's as though one or the other is
always trying to show what he's got to put up with; what sacrifices
he's making in being married at all. And it's all wrong, because
resentment in a marriage is like a drop of water falling all the time
on a stone,
weakening and weakening it till some outside blow can
crack it apart. Then you either leave it in pieces or try a cement
job. And one thing Chris and David will never need is a cement job,
because they seem happier now, if anything, than they did when they got married nearly five years ago.

'Has Chris said anything about the job I'm after?'David says as he settles in his chair.

'I didn't know you wanted anybody to know about it yet,'Chris says.

'It's all right in the family,'David says. 'I've applied for a headmastership at a secondary modern school in Leicestershire,'he tells us. 'I had a letter this week to say I'm on a short list.'

'So you might be moving away?'

'If it comes off, yes. I don't see much prospect of early advancement where I am and this could be a move
in the right direction.'

'You'll have to go for an interview next?'

'Yes, in ten days' time.'

'When will you be moving, if you get the job?'Ingrid asks.

'Probably not till Easter. I should have to give a full term's notice here.'; 'We shall miss you,'I say.

'Oh, I might not get it yet. I've a long way to go. I don't know
what qualifications and experience the other runners have.'

'Well I don't know; but my money's on you.'

'Thank you very much. I hope your confidence is justified.'

'It will be. You're a bright lad.'

He throws his head back and laughs at my cheek. 'No, you're the bright lad. I'm the once-promising young man, and at nearly forty I should be showing something more than promise.'

So he says. But he seems to be doing all right to me. I envy him. I always have. He seems happy in his career and he's got a wife who can keep up in anything he does and spur him on to better things. I don't see my sister as the kind of fount of all wisdom that I used to - she gave me some answers when I left Ingrid that I didn't expect then, and I'm still wondering if they were right - but she still ranks high with me as a woman and the main thing is that she loves David and he loves her. There are odd times when you see them shoot a glance at each other across a room, the sort of glance that seems to say as clear as words: You and me, and then the rest; and it's a thing I know I'll never have with Ingrid if we live together for a thousand years.

We talk for some time and have a few more beers before Chris makes coffee and serves it with crackers and cheese. Then about eleven, after Bobby's wandered out of his room complaining that
he can't sleep and been taken firmly back again, Ingrid and I go
downstairs to our own place on the ground floor. Our flat is one of
the four that this old Victorian house was converted into after the
war, and Chris and David got it for us at the time we were living
with Ingrid's mother and I got drunk one night, had a stand-up
row with Mrs Rothwell - finishing with me being sick on her
carpet - and walked out. By now we've got it pretty comfortable, though I always feel it somehow lacks character compared with
Chris's and David's place, only I can't just put my finger on where it falls down.

'Don't forget to put your clocks back,'David says as we leave them.

'No, we won't. Good night.'

I've got a tune from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony going
through my head for no reason at all as we go down the stairs and
once inside the living-room I go to the radiogram and lift the lid. Ingrid looks at me as I take the record out of its sleeve.

'You're not going to put that thing on at this time of night, are
you?'

'I thought it'd be nice to go to bed on.'

'You'll have the neighbours complaining.'

'You mean you don't want to listen to it, don't you? Is there any time at all when you don't mind me playing the gramophone?'

'I just said it was too late and it is. You don't have to make a thing out of it. I think you've been clever enough for one night.'

I say 'Oh, how's that?'though I know very well what she means.

'The way you snapped at me earlier on. Trying to show me up in front of Chris and David. I didn't answer back then because I don't like rows in front of other people, but I hope you didn't think you were getting away with it. Didn't you notice how embarrassed they were?'

'Not particularly.'

'No, you don't when you're showing off. Well it might seem clever to you but it doesn't to people listening.'

'All right then, I'm sorry.'

'I wish I thought it'd stop you doing it the next time you feel like it.'

'Well, I shan't feel like it if you don't make stupid remarks, shall
I?'

'It must be really awful for you having a wife who's always saying stupid things.'

'We've all got a cross to carry.'

'Oh, what a clever devil you are! Too clever to live.'

With this she begins to move out of the room.

'Are you going to bed?'

'I'm going to have a bath.'

I sit down for a minute or two and leaf through the new
Radio Times
as the light snaps on in the bathroom and the water begins
to gurgle in the pipes. I smoke a cigarette all through, marking up a few concerts I wouldn't mind hearing but don't expect I will, before
going to drop the latch on the door and turning the hands of the mantelshelf clock back one hour. The end of summertime.
Officially. Remembering the dreary mixed weather we've had all
through the middle months of the year it strikes me somebody
should be sued for misrepresentation. I adjust my wrist-watch as
I'm undressing in the bedroom and wonder if Ingrid's mad enough
to have locked me out of the bathroom. But the door opens to my
push and I walk into the thin steamy atmosphere and take brush
and toothpaste out of the wail cabinet, my back to Ingrid, hearing
the whoosh of the water as she finishes soaping herself and slips down to lie full length.

Knowing what she looks like and already wanting her, I de
liberately stop myself from turning round till I've rinsed my mouth
and spat into the basin. Then I sit down on the little cork-topped
chest and cut my toenails, trying to judge from her expression if she's in the mood to get her own back for tonight in the best way
she can. But she gives nothing away: her eyes are half closed, her
thoughts, from the look of her, on nothing more important than
the heat of the water round her body. Her breasts, buoyant in the
water, are a lovely shape and I think no, she wouldn't have bathed
like this, knowing I'd see her, if she was going to turn me down.
She'd have locked the door.

As I'm sitting there, the scissors idle in my hand, her eyes flick
up to my face for a second.

'Are you staring at me?'

'Well, I'm looking,'I tell her.'I was just thinking you're better-looking now than when I first knew you.'

'Oh, it's compliments now, is it?'she says, but I know she's pleased.

I go back to cutting my toenails.

'Early night tonight.'

'What time is it?'

I look at my watch. 'Well, it's twenty to twelve now, but at three
o'clock it'll be twenty to eleven.'

'What on earth are you talking about?*

'Summertime. It ends at three o'clock.'

'I'd like to spend the extra hour in here, but I don't think there's
any more hot water. I just love warm baths.'

'I just love warm beds, and that's where I'm going now.'

'Pass me the towel, will you?
^?

I unfold the big blue bath towel and hold it up as she cleans the
tidemark off the sides of the bath, pulls the plug out and stands up.
She steps out into the towel and I wrap it right round her, keeping
her trapped against me in my arms.