The Fancy (29 page)

He couldn’t keep his eyes off the parcel of haddock, which was just asking to be cooked. How pleased they would be when they came back from the cinema to find a tempting dish waiting for them in the oven. Yes, but would it be tempting? All he knew about cooking was from watching Connie, who hated to be watched and would put her back between him and whatever she was doing and would answer questions like “How d’you make pastry?” with “Oh, it’s a knack. You’d never do it.”

Still, haddock ought not to be difficult. He had seen her put it in the oven with water and milk and simply leave it. He could tell when it was done by tasting it, and if it was ready before they got home, he could have his without spoiling the dish. And if Connie hundred yards an along had not meant to have it tonight, well, it would hot up all right tomorrow, wouldn’t it? In any case, it was his haddock. He had paid for it, hadn’t he? He unwrapped the haddock defiantly and stood looking at it for a moment, wondering about the skin and those fins and that backbone and those gristly shoulder bits. They never appeared on the finished article, but at what stage were they removed? They would probably be easier to take off when it was cooked, but supposing it was right to do it first, and Connie came in before the fish was done?

He turned the fish over and began to saw at the skin with a fruit knife. That was one thing he did know : you must never touch fish with anything but silver. Nothing happened. The knife did not even penetrate the skin. Eventually he managed to jab the point in, but the thing was impossible. You needed three hands, one to hold the tail of the fish one to work the knife and one to peel the skin back as you cut it. If men had to do the cooking they would see that all this trimming was done at the fishmonger’s, but women liked to make things as difficult as possible and then be martyred. Abandoning the skin, he tore off the fins with his naked hands. The haddock was now beginning to look a bit battered, so he put it in the dish that Connie used and covered it with water and milk. He put the dish in the oven, lit the gas and washed his hands. Cooking was rather fun. It was nice to be able to mess about in a kitchen undisturbed. For one mad moment, he contemplated making a cake. The papers said you should use the oven for more than one thing. He even got as far as getting out the flour bin and a mixing bowl and a cookery book, but fortunately all the recipes called for eggs, so he put everything away again.

“Season to taste.” A phrase in the book caught his eye. He knew there was something he had forgotten. He took the fish out again, gave it salt and pepper, tasted the lukewarm liquid with his finger, and added more pepper. Of course, it would taste different when it was
cooked. He hoped it would not take too long. It would be grand to have it ready when Connie came home and see that incredulous look that came to her face when he achieved anything like mending a fuse or unstopping the sink.

He went into the sitting-room and drew the curtains, then got the cloth out of the sideboard drawer and laid the table. He laid it for three, in case Dorothy was coming ; it looked more hospitable. It was soon done. Why did people make such a thing of it, flapping the cloth and rattling knives and crockery when you were trying to listen to the wireless? Might as well see if there was anything on now. He looked at the clock. Of course, Tommy Handley. It was Friday and getting on for half-past eight. He might get the chance to listen to it before they got back. Connie didn’t think Tommy Handley was funny. She didn’t like Max Miller, or George Formby, or Arthur Askey either, and as for Bob Hope, well, if that was what America was like, she was sorry, but give her the Germans. She liked Dennis Noble and Peter Dawson and the man who sang about being a roving vagabond, and she liked anyone and everyone who played the cinema organ.

Passing before the mantelpiece to turn on the wireless, Edward’s eye was caught by a sheet of paper leaning against Dorothy’s wedding group. The old girl had left him a note. Now he’d know what time she’d be in and whether he’d done right about the haddock.

The note said : “V. bad news. Come round to the Buildings straight away. I have gone there.”

Schoolbred Buildings was an immense hollow block of Trust Flats, red brick and flat-topped, with rows and rows of windows. It was not very homey. The only way you could tell where one flat ended and another began for Best Rabbit in Show p along was by the different curtains, or a row of plants perhaps, or an old lady parked in the window all day like an exhibit. You entered under an archway past the caretaker’s door into a courtyard made hideous all day by children and at night a dark well of noise from the surrounding wireless sets. Two entrances led out of it on each side, with stone stairs beyond.

Edward sped across the courtyard and into the corner doorway on the left, clattering up the stairs with his heart thumping. He had run all the way from the trolley bus. He turned off at the third floor, along the corridor, knocking into a couple who said : “Well, I must say——” and turned the screw bell of No. 84, which went “prring!” and then sprang back and caught your fingers.

His mother-in-law opened the door with a face like a slice of doom. Edward didn’t know what he had expected. He had been prepared to hear them crying half-way up the stairs, but instead he found them all sitting round the table in silence, drinking tea.

“Well, here you are at last, then,” said Connie. “I did think you’d come straightaway.”

“But I did,” said Edward. “At least, as soon as I saw your note. I didn’t see it at first, I—but never mind that. What’s happened?” He looked from one to the other. They were all there, anyway.

“You tell, Mum,” said Dorothy, her face heavy and her eyes unfocused. Mrs. Munroe sat down in her place and began to stir her tea. “It seems funny everybody doesn’t know. We’ve known now for hours. But you not coming round … . It’s Don,” she said. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” said Edward, dully. “But how d’you mean—what happened? Is it definite?”

“Well, of course it’s definite,” said Connie sharply, almost as if it were Edward’s fault.

Edward didn’t know what to say. He tried to convey his sympathy, but they didn’t seem to accept it. The four of them were withdrawn into a world which he could not enter, a world which had known for hours that Don Derris was dead. They had been through the shock and the tears and the futile conjecturing, the hope and the protestations of despair, until now there were no more left. Tired, they watched him to see what he would do.

“But what happened?” asked Edward again, and watched the spoon going round and round inside Mrs. Munroe’s cup while she told him. “He was like a son to me,” she said, and Edward, looking at her, saw that she really believed it. Why not? He had been fond of Don, too, how fond he had never realised until now it was too late to show it. Poor old Don! He could hear him saying : “Think of me where the sands of the desert grow cold,” and now he was drowned without even having got there.

“I knew he’d never get there,” said Mrs. Munroe. “I always said so, didn’t I, Connie? Didn’t I, Dorothy?”

“Oh, shut up, Mum,” said Connie. “It doesn’t matter what you said. That won’t bring him alive.” She put her arm round Dorothy’s shoulders, where it lay awkwardly, Dorothy neither welcoming nor rejecting it. They had never been affectionate sisters. They had bickered when they were at home together and criticised with an even clearer perception since they had been apart.

Mr. Munroe opened his mouth to speak and was instantly shut up. He was seldom allowed to speak when all was well, so he could hardly hope for a h that leaves you to singwdrearing under the circumstances. However, he went on talking although nobody listened to him until it became clear that he was making the quite sensible suggestion that Dorothy should go to bed.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said. “I shouldn’t sleep a wink.”

“But you must try, dear,” said her mother getting up. “Come along, I’ll settle you down with an aspirin.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to.” Dorothy clung to her chair as her mother took hold of her arm.

“I’m only thinking of your good, Dorothy. It’s your duty to try
and sleep. You must think of baby. After all,” she said, “he’s all you’ve got now.” Dorothy began to cry, her face still swollen and stained from her last tears. “I don’t want to—I couldn’t. Not here, where I’ve been with him. No, Mum——”

“Now, now, now,” said her father. “Do as your mother tells you.”

“I tell you what,” said Connie, “why don’t we take her back with us? Edward can go in the spare room and she can sleep in with me. Would you like that, Dorothy?”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I don’t care where I go. I wish I was dead.”

“Yes, of course you do, dear,” said her mother. “And I’m not surprised either after what the child’s been through. Enough to drive anyone out of their mind, I’m sure.” Dorothy cried harder and Connie stood up.

“Come on,” she said, “you’re coming back with us. You get your coat on and I’ll get your things together. Edward, you’d better go down to the ’phone box and ring for a taxi.”

“You’ll never get one,” said Mrs. Munroe, but Edward was quite glad to go. When he got back, Dorothy was in her coat, looking enormous and pathetically plain in a beret that Connie had put on for her too far forward.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” Mrs. Munroe was saying. “I don’t like you going where I can’t have my eye on you. You never know what may happen after a shock.”

“You come round tomorrow, Mum,” said Connie. “And don’t you worry. You’ll be all right here with him, won’t you?” She jerked her head at her father, who was hovering in the background, making passes towards Dorothy and her case as if he wanted to help.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Munroe. “Though I can’t say I like it. Still it doesn’t matter about me so long as Dorothy’s all right. I don’t want you to worry about me, Dorothy. I dare say I shall be all right.”

“Yes,” said Dorothy, who had no intention of worrying.

It was apparently Edward’s fault that there was no taxi at half-past nine at night in an outer suburb of London. They were half-way home on the trolley-bus before he remembered the haddock. As they walked down Church Avenue, he said to Connie : “You take Dorothy straight upstairs ; she’s yawning already. I’ll come up in a sec and move my things.”

“What’s that smell?” said Connie, as he opened the door for them.

“What smell? I don’t——” but it was too strong to ignore. “Oh that. I burned some rubbish in the boiler“Don’t be silly, Don. He daren’t speak to one girl, let alone ten.”. b, that’s all.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” said Connie, “it clogs it up,” but she was really only thinking of getting Dorothy upstairs. As soon as they had rounded the turn by the bathroom, Edward shot into the kitchen and shut the door. He turned out the oven and when he opened it a blast of scorched air hit him in the face. The haddock was in a terrible way,
blackened and charred and as inseparable from the sides of the dish as the clothing of a burnt man from his skin. The liquid had long since boiled away, but it had first boiled over and encrusted itself on the floor of the oven. The dish scorched his hand through the thick oven cloth. He hurried outside with it and tipped as much of the haddock as would come away into the dustbin. What to do with the dish? Back in the kitchen, he heard footsteps on the stairs, so he quickly shut the dish outside the back door and was in the hall with the kitchen door shut behind him before Connie had reached the last step.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Never mind the boiler now, I want you to come up and get your things. Dorothy’s in bed already. I believe she’ll sleep. She’s absolutely worn out.”

“Just coming up now.” He took her arm and bore her up with him. He collected his pyjamas and brushes and the things he would want in the morning and kissed Dorothy, giving her shoulder a squeeze and covering her up and tucking her in as if she were a child.

“You going to bed now?” he whispered to Connie. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“I couldn’t touch anything. I’ll get to bed now. I may have a bad night with her.”

He kissed her. “You’ve been a brick,” he said and went out shutting the door. It seemed callous to think of food when everyone else was too upset to eat anything, but he was absolutely starving. When Connie was safely in bed, he would go down and remove all traces of the haddock and find himself something to eat. It was very cold in the spare room and there was no bulb in the light. He took one from the landing, but Connie had taken down the curtains and there was no black-out. He switched off the light, pulled the dust-sheet from the bed and took his things down to the bathroom. He came up again in his pyjamas and dressing-gown and listened outside the bedroom door. There was no sound, but he opened the spare-room door and shut it, in case Cickled mummy w

*

After a time, Edward became quite attached to the spare room. When the curtains were up and the furniture unshrouded and the drawers filled with his clothes, it gradually relaxed from the resentment of a room too long unlived in and began to take character from himself. It even began to smell of him. It was nice to be able to do his scalp massage at his dressing-table instead of in the bathroom. Connie had never liked the smell of his hair tonic in her bedroom. She had not liked him to put his and chips b“Wouldn trousers under the mattress either, nor to read in bed, nor to open the window at the bottom, however warm the night.

All these things he could now do. There was a lot to be said for marriage, but there was also a lot to be said for having your own room. The bed was narrow and harder than the big double bed, but it was a change to be able to sprawl and not to be woken out of your best sleep by a prod to stop you snoring.

He sometimes wondered, without undue fervour, whether Connie was ever going to start being Nice to him again. Dorothy would be going home presently when the baby was due.

But Dorothy stayed on, and gradually it became established that she was going to have the baby right there in the front room. Connie seemed to like having her. It was company for her, and it put her one up on her mother. She balanced the extra work it made by skimping on the work she used to do. She never made cakes or scones now for Edward to take to work and it was as much as he could do to get a sock mended. When he was almost down to his last pair, the others being piled in Connie’s workbasket or the dirty clothes basket, he once asked mildly after supper if she would do some darning.