The Ballad of Peckham Rye (6 page)

‘Pleasant evening, though a bit wet,’ Dougal said.

Nelly looked round after him.

Up in his room Dougal poured Algerian wine and remarked as he passed a glass to
Humphrey,

‘The cupboards run the whole length of the attic floor.’ Humphrey put the
glass on the floor at his feet and looked up at Dougal.

‘There was a noise in the cupboard,’ Dougal said, ‘the night before
last. It went creak-oop, creak-oop. I thought it came from my cupboard here, but I think
maybe it didn’t. I think maybe it came from your cupboard through the wall.
Creak-oop.’ Dougal bent his knees apart, then sprang up in the air. He repeated
this several times. ‘Creak-oop,’ he said.

Humphrey said, ‘It’s only on wet Saturday nights when we can’t go up on
the Rye.’

‘Isn’t she heavy to carry upstairs?’ Dougal said.

Humphrey looked alarmed. ‘Did it sound as if I was carrying her
upstairs?’

‘Yes. Better to let her walk up in her stockinged feet.’

‘No, she did that once. The old woman came out and nearly caught us.’

‘Better to lie in the bed than in the creaky cupboard,’ Dougal said.
‘The chap in the room below will hear it.’

‘No, the old woman came up one night when we were in the bed. We were nearly
caught. Dixie had to run and hide in the cupboard.’

Humphrey lifted his glass of wine from the floor by his feet and drank it in one
gulp.

‘Don’t worry yourself,’ Dougal said.

‘It’s a worry what to do. All right on fine Saturday nights; we can go up on
the Rye and Dixie gets home about half past eleven. But if it starts to rain we come
back here. I don’t see why not, I pay for the room. But there’s the
difficulty of getting her up, then down again in the morning while the old woman’s
at early church. Then she has to pay her brother Leslie five shillings a time to let her
in quietly. And she worries about that, does Dixie. She’s a great saver, is
Dixie.’

‘It’s a tiring occupation, is saving,’ Dougal said.
‘Dixie’s looking tired.’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact she does lie awake worrying. And there’s no need to
worry. Terrible at seventeen. I said, “What you think you’ll be like in ten
years’ time?”’

‘When are you getting married?’ Dougal said.

‘September. Could do before. But Dixie wants a certain sum. She has her mind set to
a certain sum. It keeps her awake at night.’

‘I advised her to take Monday morning off,’ Dougal said. ‘Everyone
should take Mondays off.’

‘Now I don’t agree to that,’ Humphrey said. ‘It’s immoral.
Once you start absenting yourself you lose your self-respect.
And
you lose the
support of your unions; they won’t back you. Of course the typists haven’t
got a union. As yet.’

‘No?’ said Dougal.

‘No,’ Humphrey said, ‘but it’s a question of
principle.’

Dougal bent his knees apart as before and leapt into the air. ‘Creak-oop,
creak-oop,’ he said.

Humphrey laughed deeply with his head thrown back. He stopped when a series of knocks
started up from the floor.

‘Chap downstairs,’ Dougal said, ‘knocks on his ceiling with a broom
handle. He doesn’t like my wee dances.’ He performed his antic three times
more, shouting, ‘Creak-oop.’

Humphrey cast his head back and laughed, so that Dougal could see the whole inside of his
mouth.

‘I have a dream at nights,’ Dougal said, pouring the wine, ‘of girls in
factories doing a dance with only the movements of their breasts, bottoms, and arms as
they sort, stack, pack, check, cone-wind, gum, uptwist, assemble, seam, and set. I see
the Devil in the guise of a chap from Cambridge who does motion-study, and he’s
the choreographer. He sings a song that goes, “We study in detail the movements
requisite for any given task and we work out the simplest pattern of movement involving
the least loss of energy and time.” While he sings this song, the girls are
waggling and winding, like this —’ and Dougal waggled his body and wove his
arms intricately. ‘Like Indian dancing, you know,’ he said.

‘And,’ said Dougal, ‘of course this choreographer is a projection of
me. I was at the University of Edinburgh myself, but in the dream I’m the Devil
and Cambridge.’

Humphrey smiled, looked wise, and said, ‘Inhuman’; which three things he
sometimes did when slightly at a loss.

M
ISS
M
ERLE
C
OVERDALE
opened the
door of her flat on Denmark Hill, and admitted Mr Druce in the early evening of
midsummer’s day. He took off his hat and hung it on a peg in her entrance-hall
which was the shape and size of a small kitchen table, and from the ceiling of which
hung a crystal chandelier. Mr Druce followed Merle into the sitting-room. So far he had
not spoken, and still without a word, while Merle took up her knitting by the two-bar
electric heater, he opened the door of a small sideboard and extracted a bottle of
whisky which he lifted up to the light. Opening another compartment of the sideboard he
took out a glass. He poured some whisky into it and from a syphon which stood on a tray
on the sideboard splashed soda-water into his drink. Then, ‘Want some?’ he
said.

‘No, thanks.’

He sighed and brought his drink to a large chair opposite Merle’s smaller one.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I think I feel like a
whisky and ginger.’

He sighed and went to the sideboard, where, opening a drawer he extracted a
bottle-opener. He stooped to the cupboard and found a bottle of ginger ale.

‘No, I’ll have gin and tonic. I think I feel like a gin and tonic.’

He turned, with the bottle-opener in his hand, and looked at her.

‘Yes, I feel like a gin and tonic.’

And so he prepared the mixture and brought it to her. Then, sitting down, he took off his
shoes and put on a pair of slippers which lay beside the chair.

Presently he looked at his watch. At which Merle put down her knitting and switched on
the television. A documentary travel film was in progress, and in accompaniment to this
they talked.

‘Drover Willis’s,’ he said, ‘have started on their new
extension.’

‘Yes, you told me the other day.’

‘I see,’ he said, ‘they are advertising for automatic weaver
instructors and hands. They are going to do made-up goods as well. They are advertising
for ten twin-needle flat-bed machinists, also flat-lock machinists and instructors. They
must be expanding.’

‘Four, five, six,’ she said, ‘purl two, seven, eight.’

‘I see,’ he said, ‘they are advertising for an Arts man.’

‘Well, what do you expect? It was recommended at the Conference, wasn’t
it?’

‘Yes, but remember, Merle, we were the first in the area to adopt that
recommendation. Did he come into the office today?’

‘No.’

‘Tell him I want to see him, it’s time we had a report. I’ve only seen
him three times since we had a report. I’ve only seen him three times since he
started. Weedin wants a report.’

‘Remind me in the morning on the business premises, Vincent,’ she said.
‘I don’t bring the office into my home, as you know.’

‘Weedin hasn’t seen him for a week. Neither Welfare nor Personnel can get
word of him.’

She went to clatter dishes in the scullery. Mr Druce got up and began to lay the table
with mats, knives, and forks which he took out of the sideboard. Then he went out into
the hall and from his coat pocket took a bottle of stomach tablets which he placed on
the table together with the pepper and salt.

Merle brought in some bread. Mr Druce took a bread-knife from the drawer and looked at
her. Then he placed the knife beside the bread on the board.

‘The brussels are not quite ready,’ she said, and she sat in her chair and
took up her knitting. He perched on the arm. She pushed him with her elbow in the same
movement as she was using for her knitting. He tickled the back of her neck, which she
put up with for a while. But suddenly he pinched the skin of her neck. She screamed.

‘Sh-sh,’ he said.

‘You hurt me,’ she said.

‘No, I was only doing this.’ And he pinched her neck again.

She screamed and jumped from the chair.

‘The brussels are ready,’ she said.

He turned off the television when she brought in the meal. ‘Bad for the digestion
while you’re eating,’ he said.

They did not speak throughout the meal.

Afterwards he stood with her in the red-and-white scullery, and looked on while she
washed up. She placed the dishes in a red drying-rack while he dried the knives and
forks. These he carried into the living-room and put away in their separate compartments
in the drawer of the sideboard. As he put away the last fork he watched Merle bring in a
tray with coffee cups.

Merle switched on the television and found a play far advanced. They watched the fragment
of the play as they drank their coffee. Then they went into the bedroom and took off
their clothes in a steady rhythm. Merle took off her cardigan and Mr Druce took off his
coat. Merle went to the wardrobe and brought out a green quilted silk dressing-gown. Mr
Druce went to the wardrobe and found his blue dressing-gown with white spots. Merle took
off her blouse and Mr Druce his waistcoat. Merle put the dressing-gown over her
shoulders and, concealed by it, took off the rest of her clothes, with modest gestures.
Mr Druce slid his braces and emerged from his trousers. These he folded carefully and,
padding across the room to the window, laid them on a chair. He made another trip
bearing his waistcoat and jacket which he placed over the back of the chair.

They stayed in bed for an hour, in the course of which Merle twice screamed because Mr
Druce had once pinched and once bit her. ‘I’m covered with marks as it
is,’ she said.

Mr Druce rose first and put on his dressing-gown. He went to wash and returned very soon,
putting a wet irritable hand round the bedroom door. Merle said, ‘Oh, isn’t
there a towel?’ and taking a towel from a drawer, placed it in his hand.

When he returned she was dressed.

She went into the scullery and put on the kettle while he put on his trousers and went
home to his wife.

A western breeze blew over the Rye and it was midsummer night, a Saturday. Humphrey
carried the two tartan rugs from his car while Dixie walked by his side, looking to left
and right and sometimes turning to see if the path was clear of policemen.

Dixie said, ‘I’m cold.’

He said, ‘It’s a warm night.’

She said, ‘I’m cold.’

He said, ‘We’ve got two rugs.’

She walked on beside him until they came to their usual spot under a tree behind the
hedge of the Old English garden.

Humphrey spread a rug and she sat down upon it. She lifted the fringe and started to pull
at it, separating the matted threads.

He spread the other rug over her legs and lay leaning on his elbow beside her.

‘My mum got suspicious the other night,’ she said. ‘Leslie told her I
was stopping over Camberwell after the dance with Connie Weedin, but she got suspicious.
And when I got in she asked me all sorts of questions about the dance. I had to make
them up.’

‘Sure you can trust Leslie?’

‘Well, I give him five shillings a week. I think it should be three shillings weeks
when I don’t stop out all night. But he’s greedy, Leslie is.’

Humphrey pulled her towards him, and started to unbutton her coat. She buttoned it up
again. ‘I’m cold,’ she said.

‘Oh, come on, Dixie,’ he said.

‘Connie Weedin got an increment,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to wait for
my increment till August. I only found out through the girl that does the copy die-stamp
operation and had the staff salaries’ balance sheet to do. Connie Weedin does the
same job as what I do and she’s only been there six months longer. It’s only
because her father’s Personnel. I’m going to take it up with Miss
Coverdale.’

Humphrey pulled her down towards him again and kissed her face.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘There’s something the matter
with you.’

I’m going to take Monday off,’ she said. ‘They appreciate you more if
you stop away now and again.’

‘Well, frankly and personally,’ Humphrey said, ‘I think it’s an
immoral thing to do.’

‘Fifteen shillings rise, less tax, nine and six in Connie Weedin’s
packet,’ she said, ‘and I’ve got to wait to August. And they’re
all in it together. And if I don’t get satisfaction from Miss Coverdale, who is
there to go to? Only Personnel, and that’s Mr Weedin. Naturally he’s going
to cover up for his daughter. And if I go above him to Mr Druce he’ll only send me
back to Miss Coverdale, because you know what’s between
them.
’

‘When we’re married you won’t have to worry about any of them. We can
get married Saturday week if you like.’

‘No, I don’t like. What about the house? There’s got to be money down
for the house.’

‘There’s money down for the house,’ he said.

‘What about my spin-dryer?’

‘Oh, to hell with your spin-dryer.’

‘That fifteen shillings less tax that’s due to me,’ she said
‘could have gone in the bank. If it’s due to her it’s due to me.
Fair’s fair.’

He pulled the top rug up to her chin and under it started to unbutton her coat.

She sat up.

‘There’s something wrong with you,’ he said. ‘We should have gone
dancing instead. It wouldn’t have cost much.’

‘You’re getting too sexy,’ she said. “It’s through you
having to do with Dougal Douglas. He’s a sex maniac. I was told. He’s
immoral.’

‘He isn’t,’ Humphrey said.

‘Yes he is, he talks about sex quite open, any time of the day. Girls and
sex.’

‘Why don’t you relax like you used to do?’ he said.

‘Not unless you give up that man. He’s putting ideas in your head.’

‘You’ve done plenty yourself to put ideas in my head,’ he said.
‘I didn’t used to need to look far to get ideas, when you were around.
Especially up in the cupboard.’