The Watchers on the Shore (23 page)

She gives me no reason to throw off the feeling all through
Saturday and into evening. It could be my imagination, I think at
one point; she's just feeling quiet. But somehow I'm sure there's
something else.

Saturday night we go to the pictures in town and when we come
out I suggest going for a drink. She's not enthusiastic.

'Oh, do you really want to?'

'Well, just an odd one,' I say.' Come on, we've just got nice time.'

She lets me take her into a decent pub I know near the cinema.
We hardly ever go into pubs together. In fact, I can't remember the
last time and I don't even know what she'll want to drink until she
hesitates for a second then asks for a lime and lemon.

I try to chivvy her a bit. 'You'll not get going on that.'

'I don't like beer or spirits,' she says.

I get the drinks and she watches me take the top off my pint.

'You were ready for that.'

'Aye. It's a drop of good stuff. Puts hair on your chest and lead
in your pencil.'

'You seem to be getting a proper taste for it.'

'Oh, come on, Ingrid. I'm not a soak.'

'But you drink more than you used to, don't you?'

'I suppose I do. There's not much to do down there except go
out for a pint.'

Who do you go with?'

'Oh, Albert mostly. He was always partial to his ale.'

'Haven't you made any other friends?'

'I've met a few people through Albert,' I tell her, thinking:
careful now, watch it. 'A few of the local rep., the theatre crowd,
come into the pub sometimes. They're a nice lively lot.'

Isn't that Ken Rawlinson over there, trying to catch your eye?'

I half turn my head, then hold it. 'You're sure he's seen me?'

'He keeps looking over here. I think it's him. He's got a mous
tache.'

'I'm not surprised. Who's he with?'

'A girl. I don't know her. Why don't you turn round and look?'

I don't feel like getting involved. I never did care much for him.'

'You can't be rude. He knows I've seen him.'

'Has he acknowledged you?'

'Yes, just now. He nodded and smiled.'

'Ah, well ...'

I twist my head round and see Rawly sitting on the far side of the
room, with a smart-looking fair-haired bit. I don't know if she's
the bird he once brought to Whittaker's Staff Dance but she's the
same type, Rawly's type: blonde, middle-class, snooty-looking. He
sees me looking and we exchange little waves and grimaces that
pass for smiles, but there's no compulsion on either side to rush over and start swapping notes. Rawly the culture-vulture, given
to superior name-dropping about books and music, when he
didn't know the difference between a piano concerto and a sonata
for one-string fiddle, or his arse from his elbow, if it came right down to it. I haven't seen him in years. He belongs to the days at
Dawson Whittaker's, along with Miller and Hassop, Althorpe,
Whymper, young Laisterdyke and the rest. The days when I was free, white and not yet twenty-one; when Ingrid was a tempting little bit in the typing-pool who I could see or leave alone as the
fancy took me. The town you were brought up in is full of associa
tions like this; with all your past life lying in wait for you in the streets you walk along and the people you run into.
, ' I think the moustache suits him,' Ingrid says.

'Do you find him attractive?'

'Well, he's not really my type.'

'I don't see how anybody could really go for him. He's such a bloody phoney I've all on just talking to him.'

'What was it you used to say about him?'

'I've said a few things.'

'Something about him having ten bob each way on himself.'

'Aye. It'll be a quid now, though. The cost of living's gone up.'

We laugh together.

Oh, she's all right, I think. It was just my imagination. If only
she'd have a proper drink, that would really relax her.

'What about a sherry or something? That stuff'll chill your insides this weather.'

She shakes her head. 'No, thanks. I'm ready to go when you are. You have another drink, though, if you want one.'

'No. I'm not bothered.'

Going up out of town on the bus I feel this strange gap widen
between us again, but I make up my mind not to mention it; to act
as though I haven't noticed anything. There's a light on in Chris's and David's window and as we go into the hall I ask Ingrid if she
fancies going upstairs to have half an hour with them, but she says
no, she'd rather go straight in.

I break the fire up, getting a good blaze going, and take my over
coat off. Then I find the morning paper and look to see what's on television. I'm just going across to the set when Ingrid, who's put
her coat over a chair and is standing gazing into the fire, says over her shoulder :

'Don't switch that on just now.'

I stop in my tracks and look at her gone out.

'Why, what's up?'

She says nothing.

'Ingrid .. .' I try a laugh. What the hell
is
up with her? 'Look, there's a programme I want to see.'

'It can wait.' She reaches out for her handbag. 'There's something I want to show you.'

I watch her as she opens her bag and takes an envelope out.

'Here.'

I take it from her and turn it over. It's addressed to Mrs V.
Brown, in typewriting, and there's a London postmark.

'What is it?'

'Look at it and see.'

I take the single sheet of notepaper out and unfold it.

Typewritten again, and no sender's address. My guts suddenly con
tract as a name jumps out at me from the page.

'Dear Mrs Brown, You should keep an eye on your husband.
Ask him about a woman called Donna Pennyman he knows in Longford. She is an actress. You do not know me but I thought you should know about this. A friend.'

I just look at it, reading it quickly, over and over
again,
my guts
churning and my heart pounding.

Ingrid's turned to face me, a curious almost defiant glitter in
her eyes and two spots of colour on her cheekbones.

'Well?'

'Christ! How can anybody? ...'

'What have you got to say about it?'

'The filthy bastard ... or bitch ... Isn't it women who usually write anonymous letters?'

'I'm not bothered about who wrote it just now. I want to know
if it's true.'

I don't like her tone - straight, blunt, ready to believe the worst
on the strength of this.

'How d'you mean, is it true? If you mean do I know somebody
called Donna Pennyman, yes I do.'

'Who is she?'

'She's one of the theatre crowd I was telling you about.'

'How well do you know her?'

'Now just a minute, Ingrid. You can't bloody court martial me
on the strength of this mucky thing.'

I'm not court martialling you and I'm not taking what it says as gospel truth. But I've had three days to think about it while you were two hundred miles away, out of my sight. I just want to know what's made whoever it is write it.'

'Well, malice. Somebody's out to get me- or her.'

'Why should they do that?'

'How the hell should I know?'

'You don't have to shout, Vic. And there's no need to get mad if everything's all right.'

'Look, don't you understand why I'm mad? What if somebody
wrote to me about you? How would you feel?'

'Nobody's got any reason to.'

'They don't need reasons, people like this. They could accuse
you of anything. Nobody writes a letter like this to be friendly.
They're out to cause trouble.'

'You still haven't told me how well you know this woman- or
girl, whoever she is.'

'I know her as well as I know two or three other women in the
company. They're all in a crowd. Why, they could just as well have
picked on one of the others.'

'Why should they pick on her, then?'

'The luck of the draw,' I say, laying the contempt and anger on thick, which isn't hard, because contempt and anger are just what
I'm feeling, with a funny underlayer of fear. I find my fags and
light one and my hands are trembling.

'Christ!'

She says nothing for a moment, until:

'Vic... look at me.'

I force myself to.

'Tell me it's all right.'

'Don't start cross-examining me, Ingrid.'

'I'm not cross-examining you. I just want to know.'

'What do you want to know?'

'You do like this girl, don't you?'

'I like lots of people. If I can't talk to a woman because I'm
married, it's coming to something.'

'There's nothing in it, then?'

She's disintegrating now, the defiance gone from her eyes in the face of mine, which I shoot across at her in a furious glare.

'Nobody had any reason to write this.'

'All right.'

She turns away.

'Well, you do believe me, don't you?'

'I've got no choice, have I?'

'Well, that's a bloody fine thing ...'

Look, all I know is you're miles away for most of the time and I've no way of knowing what you're doing. And I get a letter like that.'

'From "A Friend".'

'You can be sarcastic.'

'Oh, I can; and bloody mad.'

'You've got to admit, it's not very nice.'

'That's putting it mildly.'

'I've been thinking about it for days.'

'I hadn't been home ten minutes before I knew something was
up.'

'I wasn't going to say anything. Then I thought why should I
carry it on my own.'

'You did right to tell me. If there's somebody gunning for me I
want to know about it.'

'Why should anybody want to do you a bad turn?'

'I don't know. It's something I shall have to think about ...
How did they know your address? That's one thing.'

There's a silence, then she says:

'It's all right, then?'

'I've told you.'

And this is where the tenderness should come in, with my arms
round her, reassuring her. But I can't do it. Partly because that
would really be barefaced lying and partly because I'm mad that she was so ready to think there was something in it. All right - if
wishful thinking is guilt, then I'm partly guilty. But she doesn't know this, and neither does whoever wrote the letter.