Getting It Right (40 page)

‘Shall I help you with the supper things?’

‘Don’t bother.’

She was very quiet in the car, and he began to wonder whether the whole thing had been a failure, but it hadn’t seemed to be that at the time. Perhaps she was still sulking over being
given a children’s book? Well, the only way to find out was to ask her.

‘Jenny! About that book – ’

‘Actually, I like children’s books. I get them from the library for Andrew, but . . . but sometimes I get one that’s too grown up for him and just read it. I felt funny when
you said it was a book you’d got for your niece; as though you’d found me out. Felt on my dignity a bit.’ She gave a husky little chuckle. ‘Not that I’ve got much of
that. Andrew’s the one with dignity in our family.’ Then she fell silent again for such a long time that, while still thinking about whether to do it, he heard himself asking:
‘Jenny! Is something worrying you?’

After a bit, she said: ‘Something’s worrying me all right.’

A minute later, she said: ‘I suppose that’s another thing about Art. It takes your mind off your troubles. I didn’t think about . . . anything this evening till now.’

‘Is it something you want to talk about?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, of course I
do
want to – but it seems . . . kind of disloyal.’

‘Well – I’ll have to leave that to you. But if it’s about a new job I might be able to help a bit.’

‘It isn’t about a new job in the way
you
might think it would be. It’s more about everything. I think something awful is happening, and if it is, everything would be
different.’

He waited, realizing she was going to tell him.

‘I think my mum is falling in love.’

‘With that soldier?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I just guessed. Why is that awful?’

‘He doesn’t live in London. He doesn’t live anywhere; he’s in the Army. She’d – well, she might go off with him!’

‘And you’d miss her,’ he said. He still didn’t see why the idea upset her so much.

‘I’d miss her all right! My whole life would change! There wouldn’t be anyone to mind Andrew while I was at work. I’d have to stop – stay home, at least until he
starts going to school and even then I’d never get a part-time job in hairdressing. I’d just have to do anything I could. I’d probably have to live on Assistance,’ she
finished miserably. ‘One thing I said I’d never do.

‘And don’t think I don’t mind about my mum because I do. I love her. She’s been wonderful to me all through everything. I don’t suppose it’s been much of a
life for her this last four years – my dad dying so suddenly, and having to look after me. And then Andrew. Of course she loves him.
He’ll
miss her something awful.’

She was crying now – discreetly, snuffling, wiping her face with her hand. He slowed down. He was appalled for her.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘you might be wrong. Perhaps she’s just having a bit of a walk-out, and his leave will be up and he’ll be off. You don’t
know
!’

‘I’ve got a good idea, though.’

‘Couldn’t you talk to her about it? Ask her?’

‘He’s there all the time! He’s living with us. Got the rooms the lodger had. What with Andrew and work and him being there, I never see her alone.’

He did not know what to say. It was a problem of a kind and size that had never come his way.

‘Does the house belong to your mother?’

‘Yes. She sold the one we had when Dad was alive and bought this one.
She
wouldn’t turn me out, or anything. Would she?’

‘Of course she wouldn’t. Look, Jenny, you don’t even know for certain that she’s going. I still think you should talk to her and find out.’

‘I think
she
should be the one to do the talking.’

‘Well, maybe she should, but if she isn’t, then you’ll have to do it.’

‘You’re probably right,’ she said, in the tone of voice that showed she clearly didn’t want him to be.

‘It’s not that I don’t sympathize with you; I just don’t know what else to say.’

‘There’s nothing
to
say, really. I didn’t mean to spoil the evening, Gavin. I truly enjoyed it, Chopin and Dig – what was his name?’

‘Degas.’

‘Him. Did Chopin do a lot more music?’

‘Oh, yes. A lot more. What you heard tonight was music he wrote for the piano. It was orchestrated for the ballet . . . I’ll play you the piano music next time, if you like. And,
when the ballet is on, I’ll take you to it.’

‘Will you really?’

‘Yes. It might not be on for some time, though,’ he added truthfully. He was also faintly worried by the glib way he was making these promises.

‘Oh. Oh well.’

‘But we might go to another ballet.’ (There he went
again.
)

When they arrived at her home, the hall light was on, but the rest of the windows were dark.

‘It must be late!’ she said; ‘I’ll just go in quietly. Thanks again for the evening. It was great.’ She put out her hand, so he shook it. He watched her into the
house, she turned and waved at the open doorway. Then he drove home.

By the time he got back to his room and started to clear it up, he’d given up trying to solve her problem. Some problems – even other people’s – were quite simply
insoluble, in the sense that whatever was done about them, or happened if nothing was done, the status quo dissolved into something else. In fact, perhaps a great many problems consisted of people
trying to hang on to the status quo, whatever it was like, and in spite of it having had its natural life.

He took all the supper things down to the kitchen, put the food away and decided to do the washing-up tomorrow evening. He had a lot on his mind. His mother would have a fit if she knew, but she
couldn’t know, so
that
was all right. None the less, some household habits prevailed, and he laid his breakfast.

Clearing up the records from his bed, he reflected that perhaps next time Jenny came, he needn’t bother to lay them all out. After all, they had sort of cleared up Jenny’s anxiety
about his being the sort of person who asked girls into his bedroom in order to take advantage of them. ‘Take advantage’! What an awful phrase! It was the kind of thing his mother would
say: it implied that there was not the slightest chance of Jenny enjoying his making love to her. Which was a bit unfair, because if he
did
make love to her – or anyone, of course,
it didn’t have to be Jenny – obviously he wouldn’t do it, if they didn’t want to. It probably wouldn’t even be possible, if you come to think of it. He thought about
it for a bit – drawing heavily upon his recent experience with Joan – and decided that whereas with Joan it
wouldn’t
be, or have been, possible, with Jenny, who was
physically completely the opposite – a tiny little creature in comparison – things might be different. She might start by resisting him, but probably, if he went the right way about it,
she could be got to change her mind. The moment when she might stop wanting him not to and start wanting him
to
would actually be rather wonderful. In a way, it would be more wonderful
than if she started by feeling exactly the same as he did. It would be amazing in a quite different way to the way that Joan had been amazing. It was fairly exciting even thinking about it. It
would, of course, be exciting with any girl; he was only using Jenny as an example because she happened to have been here – but
any
girl, provided she moved him in the first place,
would do. But when he said ‘any girl’ he was back to the now oddly anonymous girls of his dreams: who never seemed to materialize in real life and who also maintained a kind of passive
serenity that no longer seemed to him to be ideal. And, as he had always made them perfect to start with, there was no way of affecting them deeply – or even at all. Anyway, he’d never
actually
fucked
any of them – never even got their Rossetti-like garments off – never
even
kissed them. There was the girl on the beach, of course; the one with
streaming red hair and only half her bikini, but he’d never actually reached her; by the time he took the plunge over the cliff the sun had set and it was dark, or else she had gone back into
the sea – out of his depth. The only reason that Jenny came into this picture was because he had been so struck by
her
being afraid of him.

Perhaps that was the reason why she didn’t go out with people; she was too scared of them. After all, when he came to think of it, it must be pretty staggering if you went together one
time, as Jenny had said, and got Andrew out of it. However much she loved Andrew – and there was no doubt about that, her voice changed whenever she even mentioned him – it would be
likely that she would feel pretty wary of men. It was up to him to show her she needn’t be afraid of that sort of thing – as
well
as showing her about Art.

By this time he was ready for bed and very tired. Just before he fell heavily to sleep, the thought drifted into his mind that he hadn’t made it very clear to himself whether it was up to
him to show her that she needn’t be afraid of that sort of thing by that sort of thing not happening – or not . . .

He felt faintly embarrassed meeting Jenny at work the next morning in case she thought that something was going on between them and would behave differently towards him because
of getting such an idea into her head. But she stomped about on her cork wedge sandals, doing what she was told, occasionally rolling her eyes whenever there were awkward moments – her
customary way of saying that things were awful, but there you were . . . They were bad that morning. Daphne had double-booked him, and Mr Adrian emerged from his racing paper to tell all of them
just what a mistake this was and how easy it was not to make such a mistake if one took any trouble at all. Gavin could not stay for the whole homily – he had two clients waiting for him, but
Daphne was nearly in tears. Mrs Wagstaffe’s dog managed to nip him: ‘It’s amazing, Gavin, how he
always
remembers you!’ And Miss Wilming told him, at painful
stuttering length, so much about the
Raj Quartet
that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to face reading it. Mrs Silkin ran out of nearly everything for the clients’
sandwiches, and Sharon had to be dispatched to go and buy salami and cheese from the nearest sandwich bar, and this, as it was Mandy’s day at college, meant that they were short of juniors
for shampooing. The day, which had started bright, darkened, and by mid-morning it had begun to rain quite heavily and they had to put all the lights on in the salon. That would put paid to a
peaceful sandwich in St James’s Park. The only piece of luck he had was that Harry rang him five minutes
after
Mr Adrian had gone to his lunch.

‘Have you settled your little problem?’

‘What?’

‘That girl you were so worried about.’

‘Oh, her. No, I haven’t.’ Something craven in him made him add: ‘I’m going to see her this evening, as a matter of fact.’

‘Ah. I was going to ask you if you felt like a movie. Winthrop’s going out.’

‘I could manage the second show. Well, it depends where it is, but if it’s not too far from Chalk Farm, I could.’

‘I haven’t decided on a movie, I just thought I’d like to go to one.’

He then agreed, most obligingly, to meet Gavin at Marine Ices.

After he had rung off, Gavin thought what a shallow and heartless person he must be. He hadn’t even
thought
of Minnie since Saturday with Harry. He’d given Harry the
impression that he was really anxious about her; indeed, he had
felt
anxiety for her on Saturday. Where had it all gone to? Or hadn’t he really been feeling it at the time?

At least he’d do what he had said he would do. Tell her she needed help and encourage her to get it. The thought of going to see her and saying that sort of thing to her was depressing.
And she might not even
be
in her sister’s basement. She might still be in Weybridge with her awful parents. Somehow this didn’t seem very likely; he was pretty sure that,
because he was dreading the visit, she would be there to receive it.

She was. The shutters were shielding the ground floor windows, but he could see a light on in the basement. There was only one bell at the front door and after he had rung it
twice – with a longish wait in between – it occurred to him that the basement might have a separate entrance. So he went down the steps: it was still raining and the area had an
enormous puddle as though a drain was blocked and the water had nowhere to run to. Facing him was a dingy black door. There were bars on the basement window, and a pair of thin red curtains were
drawn across it but there was certainly a light on inside. He pressed a rusty bell that looked as though it was never used, and heard it ringing shrilly. After a moment or two, the light went out.
That was somehow just like her; to try and pretend that she wasn’t there when it was much too late. He rang again, tapped on the window and said: ‘It’s me – Gavin. You might
as well let me in; I know you’re there.’

There was another pause, and then he heard some shuffling sounds; by now, he was listening intently; had a faint prickling at the back of his neck, warning him – of something. He knocked
again on the window and called to her. ‘What’s the matter? Are you ill? Let me in, Minnie, it’s raining and I’ve come a long way to see you.’

With startling suddenness and without a sound, the door swung open: she must have been the other side of it, listening to him, but he could not see her. He stepped inside, took a couple of
uncertain steps in the gloom – aware of a sour and very unpleasant smell. Before he could say or do anything, the lights came on, and he swung round, aware that she was standing at the door
behind him. Seeing her, he got his first shock. She was wearing the red cheesecloth dress in which he had first seen her, now filthy with what looked like food stains, but, what was somehow more
frightening, her belly was strained against the dirty thin cotton like a football. Her legs were bare except for a pair of thick, dirty woollen socks; her hair was matted, her face puffy and like
pale, sweating cheese. She was holding a half-empty packet of Jaffa Cakes which she was eating continuously, without a single pause, her fingers pulling the next one out while she was swallowing
the one before – as though it was a mechanical process. For a second he stared at her, then she moved past him into the room, still eating, but moving this time to a carton in which he saw
there were dozens of packets like the one she had in her hand. She reeked of the sour smell – vomit, he recognized, as he retched himself.