A Five Year Sentence (20 page)

He wanted to get Miss Hawkins off his mind so that he could concentrate on Violet and the bonuses he could reap from a lifelong partnership. He liked her sitting-room very much. It was the first advantage that occurred to him. He saw himself lounging on her velvet settee, sipping sherry, and with no obligation to exert himself in any capacity. In time, the uniformed George would quietly and decently quit his silver frame to make room for his replacement. The conservatory that adjoined the sitting-room, he would turn into a studio, and get back to painting again. Bugger Miss Hawkins. He would propose to Violet this very day.

He put on his best suit, the pin-stripe that was her favourite, and set out to offer her his gratis hand. On the way to her house, he bought a large bunch of red roses, and holding it before him like a shield, he rang her bell. She was surprised to see him, but there was no question of her delight. He had caught her off-guard. Her hair was loose and she was without make-up. He was rather surprised at the change in her and he donated a split-second to a second thought. But the lure of the cosy sitting-room won the day.

‘I wasn't expecting you, Felix,' she said.

Over the years, he had become used to his alias. He was known to all his clients as Felix, all but Miss Hawkins, who simpered ‘Brian' at every turn. His name was the only truth he had given her. He would stick to ‘Felix', he decided. It had a ring of sophistication far more in tune with his present mode of living than the pedestrian ‘Brian'. Yet sooner or later, and on some pretext, he would have to unveil ‘Watts,' for it concerned Violet, and he wanted his marriage document at least to be legally above board.

He pushed the flowers forward as she urged him inside. ‘It's not my birthday,' she said.

‘But it's a special day anyway. I've got something to say to you.'

The red roses and the pin-striped suit already shrieked what he had in mind, and though she had expected it for many months, it now took her by surprise. She wished she were properly dressed. ‘Have a sherry,' she said, pouring him one. ‘And give me a few minutes. I want to change.'

He was glad she had left the room, for that gave him an opportunity to view in detail his new estate. He took an overall view of it, and decided that little needed changing. The conservatory though would need a thorough overhaul. At the moment it was full of crates and suitcases. She would have to store those somewhere else. He looked at the sideboard and noticed a gap in the picture gallery. George, silver frame and all, had disappeared. Was Violet expecting his proposal, or had George simply melted away in the natural passage of time? He hoped Violet had held on to the frame. He rather fancied himself in a silver lining. He heard her coming down the stairs and he sipped at his sherry.

She was wearing a dress he had never seen before. It was tightly fitting, and outlined a surprisingly youthful figure. Usually on his visits, she wore a loose-fitting housecoat, her ‘service wear,' he called it, a comfortable garment that oiled the wheels of his trade. This present apparel seemed to declare a lack of service need, and would he state whatever other business he had in mind. He was glad that she was smiling, else he might have been wary of his proposal. She sat next to him on the settee, but at a distance. ‘Now, what is it you have to say?' she said.

‘I've come to offer you a lifetime of free service,' he said.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly. She thought she might have understood him, but she was not quite sure. ‘Why me?' she said. ‘And can you afford it?'

‘I've other clients, as you know,' he said, slightly put out by her lack of enthusiasm. ‘We'd have enough to live on.'

Then she understood fully. ‘We?' she said.

‘I'm asking you to marry me.'

She took his hand and laid it on her forbidding skirt. ‘Oh, Felix,' she said, ‘I can't say I wasn't expecting it. I've been hoping for it for a long time.'

‘Then you will?' he said.

‘I'd be honoured to change my name to Hawkins.'

He began to sweat a little.

‘Is there anything the matter?' she said. ‘You're suddenly very pale.'

‘It's about Hawkins,' he said. ‘There isn't any tin.'

‘Pardon?'

Then he realised he was pleading guilty in the wrong court. ‘Oh nothing,' he said, ‘it's just a line of a song I remembered.' He was rather pleased with his quick cover-up, and it gave him confidence to bury his alias handle, and to offer her the poor but honest substitute of Watts. She understood the necessity for his pseudonym, but she was glad he'd been straight with Felix, she told him. It was such an exotic name. And he didn't have the heart to disabuse her.

‘Mrs Violet Watts,' she tried.

‘Will that suit,' he said.

She smiled. ‘I'll get used to it, I suppose. There's one thing though. About our marriage, I mean.'

‘Anything you ask for, dear.'

‘I want to go on paying,' she said.

‘But why? I shall be your husband. You'll have your conjugal rights.'

‘I want to pay,' she said stubbornly. ‘Don't you see, that's half the fun.'

No, he didn't see, but he was not displeased. His marriage would mean no drop in income. Violet was a woman in a million. ‘If that's how you want it,' he said. ‘But I think it should go into a joint account.'

‘No,' she said. ‘It will all be for you. Don't you see, dear,' she said patiently, ‘I
need
to pay.'

She's crackers, he thought, but as a profitable lunacy, he was more than prepared to accept it.

They decided on an Easter wedding. At least, that was Violet's decision. She said it would be advantageous as far as tax was concerned. He explained that his was hardly a declarable income, and that since he never paid any tax, he didn't see how he personally could reap any advantage from her timing. And then Violet put her fiscal cards on the table. She had a tidy little income of her own. The terraced house next door belonged to her as well as the one on the other side, and lettings from both, together with her army pension, gave her a handsome income. ‘I had no idea,' Brian said, wishing to make it clear that he had not proposed for her money. Though it certainly was a happy bonus, he thought, and might even allow him to retire completely. Again he thought of Miss Hawkins and the tempting idea of dropping her entirely. The prospect of never having to enter that dingy sitting-room, never again to have to sip that sickly port, was distinctly appealing. He wondered what she would do if he never showed up again. She would go to his house of course, and seek him out. He couldn't drop her until after he was married. Then he would move and leave no forwarding address. And she could never find him. For a few weeks she would go to the library and hang around the fiction shelves. She would go to her angry, lonely bed each night and dream of tin, and the thought would cross her mind on waking that she must go to the police. Brian shivered at that possibility. All she knew about him was his name, old address, and description. It would be enough to start an investigation. But she dare not do it, he thought. She would have to tell the authorities all about the nature of their exchange, and poor and prim Miss Hawkins would shrink from such a terrible confession. He could rely on her fear and her prudery. He worked out the number of weeks until Easter. About twelve, he reckoned. Twelve more miserable Hawkins visits. But sixty pounds' worth of service. It would go towards the honeymoon.

‘I would like to stay in this house,' Violet was saying, as if Brian would voice an objection. ‘It would be silly to buy another house at today's prices.'

‘But I must pay the running expenses,' Brian said. ‘I insist on that.'

‘Of course,' she said, ‘otherwise you might feel like a lodger. Would you like to see the house? After all these years all you know is this room. And the bathroom. Shall we have a tour?' She gave him her arm and led him up the hall stairs to her bedroom. On his first visit to the house, he had peeked into the room, but he couldn't remember its dimensions or furnishings. It was smaller than he imagined, and the double bed took up most of its space.

‘It's a single room really,' she said, as if by way of apology. ‘But I've always found it very cosy.'

He would sleep on the right side of the bed, he thought, since that's how he always slept at home. Close to the door, and a means of escape. Besides, the lamp was on that side, and he liked to read in bed sometimes. And while he was dwelling on such nuptial thoughts, Violet interrupted him.

‘I'll show you your room,' she said shyly.

She led him out on to the landing into an even smaller room. In it was a single bed, a tallboy, and a small desk. ‘George used to like to have his private quarters,' she said.

He was surprised that they were to be separated, but it rather pleased him. When occasionally he had fallen asleep in his own living-room, as a defence against his mother's constant harangue, she would often prod him into waking because his snoring got on her nerves. The distance between their two rooms, Brian gauged, was large enough to muffle his nocturnal music. Perhaps Violet too, had a similar problem, and had arranged for a carpeted no-man's land to separate their private symphonies.

‘It's very comfortable,' he said.

She opened a drawer in the tallboy and took out two keys. ‘This is yours,' she said, giving him one of them, ‘and this one is mine. I shall use it whenever I need your services.'

‘I'm a very lucky man,' he said, and he meant it sincerely, but on his own account, without any complimentary reference to his future wife. And she, misunderstanding, was flattered, and declared herself likewise for having had the good fortune to
meet him in the first place. ‘You know, Felix,' she said, ‘you don't have to go on working. There'll be enough for both of us.'

‘A man has his pride, Violet,' he said.

‘Of course. But you could work part-time, and do a bit more painting.' It was an appropriate time to discuss the conversion of the conservatory.

‘But where would I paint?' he said.

‘In here. There's room for an easel and it's a very bright room. It faces south, and has the sun all day.'

‘I need a north light,' he said, with the chill conservatory in mind. ‘Something on the other side of the house. Why not the conservatory? That would be ideal.'

He saw her stiffen. The suggestion had plainly not pleased her.

‘No, I'm afraid not,' and there was a distinct distance in her voice. ‘Not the conservatory. That was George's favourite room. He used to sit there often, reading or playing patience. All his bits and pieces are there.'

‘Then I wouldn't dream of it,' Brian said, knowing his place, but making a mental note to discover the meaning of her dear departed which she'd so graphically spelt out in his bits and pieces.

They were downstairs again. Brian felt that he had to make a solid contribution to their future partnership, and he asked her where she would like to go for the honeymoon. He had enough spare money for a week's extravagant fling, and if she was going to pay her service-way, it might stretch to a fortnight.

‘Somewhere warm,' she said. ‘I love the sun.'

Warm at Easter was more costly. He hadn't reckoned on airfares.

‘We could go to Morocco,' she was saying. ‘I've got a cousin who runs package holidays there. He might give us a free flight as a wedding present.'

The woman had everything, Brian thought. He could hardly believe his good luck, and as a check on his good fortune, he felt bound to give a thought to die irritating Miss Hawkins. At such times, he really hated her. He had after all, given her good value
for her money. She couldn't expect that and an investment too. There was no way he could pay it back. Except perhaps by telling her the truth, and offering her his services free until the debt was paid. But at the prudish rate she was spending it would take him years to wipe the slate clean. And even if she were to buy such a proposition, he had little appetite for it. His heart would not be in his work, and as a result, his service would be slovenly. Not that poor Miss Hawkins would recognise a lack of skill, since she had no scale of comparison. He pitied her, and the more he pitied the more he was irritated. No, he decided, he would drop her totally as soon as he was married.

‘Morocco would be wonderful,' he said. And as he looked at her in her tight-fitting dress, her eager face full of promise for the future, he had an overwhelming urge to make love to her. ‘Could I be of service to you?' he said, taking her hand.

‘I don't need anything at present,' she said.

‘But
I
do,' and he throbbed with a yearning he had never felt before.

She looked him squarely in the face. ‘Then the tables are turned,' she said with a smile. ‘And when that happens,
you
are the customer.'

He was delighted. It was a logical extension of their trading. ‘Are your prices competitive?' he said.

‘They're the same as yours,' she laughed.

Thus Mrs Violet Makins, soon to be Mrs Watts, made her first deal, and as a result of this turn of events, Brian saw his income reduced by at least half, and he resolved henceforward to curb his appetite, or he would end in bankruptcy.

But when Violet set about to serve him, Brian suddenly understood the power of paying for one's pleasure, and he, unobliged to raise a single finger, experienced for the first time the joys that lay on the other side of the counter.

When the deal was completed, he said, ‘I suppose I'd better have a key to your room too.'

She smiled. ‘I'll give it to you on our wedding night,' she said.

And so their marital future was put on a firm financial footing
and its eventfulness or otherwise, depended on the generosity or meanness of spirit of each partner. Both of them were aware of the dangers of such a contract, and the possibility that thrift might drive them into mutual abstinence.