The Red Door (72 page)

‘Remember to clean the tray tomorrow,’ she said. He walked back with the tray fighting back the anger that swept over him carrying the rubbish and debris of his mind in its wake. He
turned back to the bed. His mind was in a turmoil of hate, so that he wanted to smash the cup, smash the furniture, smash the house. He kept his hands clenched, he the puny and unimaginative. He
would show her, avenge her insults with his unintelligent hands. There was the bed, there was his mother. He walked over.

She was asleep, curled up in the warmth with the bitter, bitter smile upon her face. He stood there for a long moment while an equally bitter smile curled up the edge of his lips. Then he walked
to the door, opened it, and stood listening to the rain.

‘I really must tell you about the stockings!’

‘The stockings?’

‘Yes . . . Willie, would you mind cleaning the spoon and putting it away. You’ve had enough of that now. Well, as I was saying. You know that woman who goes round the houses asking
for things, old clothes and things like that, I don’t really know her name. I just know that she comes to the house every week.’

‘You mean old Barbara?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. She’s not really old. I’d say she was in her forties, but she looks older than that.’

‘Yes, her husband’s a drunk?’

‘Is he? Willie, will you clean that spoon. That boy’s incredible. She comes around here every Thursday morning. She’s quite well mannered too. Quiet.’

‘Yes, it’s tragic. Her husband doesn’t do any work . . . ’

‘Well, she was round last Thursday. I give her old clothes, you know. One ought to help these people and after all it isn’t their fault.’

‘No. Indeed. I believe she really looks after her children.’

* * *

‘So she came to the house on Thursday as usual. That was a week yesterday. I was in the kitchen baking. I remember quite clearly, it was a fine day too. You know we
haven’t been having good weather lately, that’s why I remember. She’s really quite clean you know. Willie put the jar away now. Are you putting it away? Boys are growing so greedy
nowadays and so big. Do you know I can hardly keep him in shirts. Will . . . ’

‘She came round on Thursday?’

‘Yes, and she looks quite clean you know.’

‘Yes, I can believe that. Her house . . .’

‘So she knocked on the door. She didn’t know I had seen her coming. She was patting her hair and straightening her dress all the way to the house. It was really quite comical. As if
I was going to notice that! She was wearing some sort of white blouse. I wonder how long she’s had it. She knocked on the door and I went to open it. It’s interesting to study her, you
know. She’ll never take anything to eat. I always offer her but she never accepts. I sometimes look at her eyes too: they’re very restless, they keep moving over the house. I suppose
they’ll get a council house. When she started to come first, I thought she was going to burgle me, but, of course, she’s so honest . . . Sit down on that stool, Willie. No, not that
one, the one nearest the fire, and do your lessons. He’s just got a new teacher and well . . . Of course, I’m quite tactful with her now.’

‘Yes, one learns to be.’

‘Yes, of course. So I take out all the old clothes I have and she can take what she wants. I lay them out on the floor for her. It looks funny like salesmanship in reverse, except that one
doesn’t take money. At first she chooses only one thing. She says, “Did you knit this yourself?” Of course, she’s flattering me. Then she says: “Could I have
this?” And of course I say: “Yes.” But I ask her to take other things too. Oh, we really have a conversation. I say: “But I really don’t need it. Really I
don’t.” And she says: “But it’s so . . . No, I couldn’t.” And I say (it’s really comical, you’d think I was selling it to her), “Oh, but you
must. It would really be thrown out anyway. And you might as well have it.” And she’ll say: “Would it really?” and I’ll say – “Of course,” and it
goes on like that. Eventually she’ll take it. It’s quite a battle. I feel in a sweat after I have finished giving her something.’

* * *

‘You were saying about the . . . ’

‘Yes, of course, the stockings. Well, last Thursday she chose these stockings. They were green stockings with yellow diamonds at the tops. Oh, they were quite beautiful, but quite faded
now, you understand. Willie, are you sure you’re doing your lessons? Remember it’s a new teacher and you must make a good impression on him. Well, she chooses these stockings –
she really admired them – for one of her boys. I suppose he must be the same age as Willie though he’s not in the same class. I believe he’s rather backward. She really took a
fancy to these stockings; she admired them tremendously; John bought them for Willie. She kept saying: “No, no, they’re too pretty. I can’t take them.” And that’s how
you know she likes them when she says that.’

* * *

‘So she took them and went away quite happy. Well, on Monday – not on the Friday, she must have been washing them and there were some holes in them too and she would
have been darning them – well, on Monday the really comic thing happened. I’m sorry, would you care for some more tea? I’d forgotten. No? Willie, move your chair a little farther
from the fire.

‘Well, one of her sons . . . what’s his name, Willie?’

‘Harold.’

‘Well, Harold wore them to school. There he was. You can imagine him, so proud of his new stockings with the yellow diamonds, strutting up to the school gate. Was that how it was,
Willie?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he goes into the classroom. You can imagine him stretching out his legs so the teacher can see his “new” stockings. He’s really very pleased with them.’

‘And?’

‘Yes . . . All goes well till the interval when what do you think happened?’

‘I can’t . . . wait. Somebody spilt water on them?’

‘No! You’ll never guess. Who would see the stockings but our friend here?’

‘No!’

‘Yes! Willie! And do you know he really tore into Harold. He began shouting out: “These are my stockings,” and he started pummelling Harold for dear life. I admit it was bad
– Willie, you must never do that again, do you hear me? – but you must see it was comical, these two gladiators. And you know what happened. He took off poor Harold’s shoes and
then the stockings. Imagine it! And he put them on over his own. Wasn’t it uproarious?’

* * *

‘He had no right to them. They were my stockings. You shouldn’t have given them to him.’

‘I gave them to his mother, Willie, not to him.’

‘I suppose she won’t come back now?’

‘Well, that’s the funny part of it. I intended to send her a message to say I was sorry and the . . . ’

‘She won’t get my stockings again.’

‘Well, of course, I didn’t want to send the stockings back again. You see that?’

‘Yes.’

‘It wouldn’t do. They would be fighting each other all the time. No, it wouldn’t do.’

‘No.’

‘So I was going to send her this message. But then yesterday, Thursday, you see, she came again. She always comes on Thursday.’

‘Her husband goes into town that day.’

‘Is that the reason? I was going to say something but she talked to me and looked at me as if nothing had happened. Really, it was quite astonishing, quite astonishing. So I took my cue
from her. I went and brought out some old clothes the same as usual. You see she never takes more than one thing at a time and there always seems to be something. Willie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go outside a moment, will you? You need some fresh air. Hurry up. Leave these books and mind and be back here in fifteen minutes. And don’t slam the door. Well, she was examining
the old clothes you see. She’s down on her knees looking them over.’

‘Well . . . ?’

‘You’d never guess. She chose . . . What do you think she chose?’

‘Really, I . . . ’

* * *

‘No, don’t guess . . . she chose . . . a vest! A vest! You see the point, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘A vest! It was really . . . And then just as usual she went away. It was extraordinary, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, quite extraordinary. Well, I’m afraid I must be going.’

‘Now? But surely . . . Oh, you must stay. Surely a little while longer. John won’t be home for ages yet.’

‘No truly, I couldn’t.’

‘Well, if you must you must. But it was rich wasn’t it? Really.’

The older boys used to play cards in her house (it wasn’t really much of a house, just two rooms, a kitchen and bedroom) and have song sessions there with an accordion.
She was very old even when I first remember her, with skin unlike other people’s skin, so unlike that it didn’t seem to be skin at all. It wasn’t red or pink or white, it was like
something ancient and unmentionable gone curdled and sour, like very very old cream petrified and hideous. She would sit on a stool by the fire wearing a black shawl and a black dress. She had been
widowed many years before and lived on the Old Age Pension. I can still remember some of the boys who used to be there. One was Cob. He was a wonderful footballer who was drowned in the war. I was
half asleep in bed when he came to say goodbye on what turned out to be his last leave. I could hear him talking through a haze of sleep but I was too tired to raise the lids of my eyes and say
goodbye to him. His destroyer was torpedoed shortly afterwards. Then there was Gammy. There was something wrong with one of his legs – no one exactly knew what. He was a first-rate card
player. He’s still alive, married now. There was also Peddie who was a fine rollicking singer, virile and boisterous. He married about ten years ago and has seven or eight children. And there
were many others.

I don’t know why they all met in that house – and being much younger than they I never questioned them about it, had I even consciously thought of it then. Nor did my friend Clocky.
To us they were simply The Older Boys: great football players, accordion players, singers, card players. We always thought of Her – Minnie – as of some old crazy witch wrecked over the
fading fire while all round her surged speech, music and smoke. We were only allowed to stay till ten but even by ten things were getting rough, for example they often used to have girls there. It
gave me an extraordinary sensation once to see my own brother with his arm round a giggling redhead who appeared to me disgusting and stupid. She seemed to leer at me as I watched. There was almost
a fight once over solo: Cob accused Peddie of reneging on diamonds:

‘You —— well did. The hand before last you trumped my diamond.’

‘I —— well didn’t.’

‘You —— well did.’

‘I’m —— telling you I didn’t.’

‘Look here you ——.’

‘Aw shut your —— mouth. Look up the cards and find out.’

‘I won’t —— look up the —— cards.’

‘You’re getting too —— big for your —— boots.’

Then voices would join in: ‘Give it up, boys, go on give it up,’ but the two would continue:

‘I don’t need to look up the —— cards. You trumped that —— diamond and you —— well know it.’ All this time Minnie would be sitting on her
stool, mechanically knitting some trailing shapeless object for some unnamed recipient. She would knit jerseys for some of the boys. They were always clumsy and ill-fitting. I think the habit of
going to her house must have begun either in her husband’s lifetime or because it was the only place where the boys could do practically as they liked. When some of the more considerate ones
said about 11 o’clock that it was time to go she would look at the small white-faced clock with the trembling hands and say:

‘You aren’t thinking of going away yet are you?’

And sometimes she would make tea for them even at that hour and bring out from the heavy dresser hard round biscuits. She herself would dip them in the tea to soften them for her toothless jaws.
Sometimes if she was in a particularly good mood she would take a seat at the table and they would make fun of her.

‘Minnie’s best friends are trumps tonight.’

And there would be similar jokes about night clubs, spades, last trumps and so on. I think that on the whole they liked her. Her husband had been a sailor. She had been older than him by about
seven years. People said she had trapped him into marrying her. She was the only daughter of a sour-faced half-mad woman who had tried to keep her for herself. This half-mad mother of hers used to
have fits, particularly at the full moon, when she would crawl under the bed and jump out, in the middle of the night, with horrifying screams. Minnie herself never told anyone this but I heard it
from others. She had no children. It was no secret that her husband used to go with other women and that he didn’t care whether she knew it or not. However he had been a pleasant enough man
and people said they didn’t blame him for she was a bit queer.

Some nights even before ten I would see the boys and girls wrestling on the hard bench in the kitchen and she would look at them with her fixed smile. More often however she would pretend not to
see them.

They would even insult her:

‘Where did you get these biscuits from, Minnie? No wonder you haven’t any teeth left.’

or someone would say:

‘To hell with it. I’m fed up coming here. Why don’t we go somewhere else for a change?’

or:

‘Is that your picture on the wall, Minnie? You looked better then, almost human.’

‘When do you read the Bible, Minnie? I bet you don’t read it at all.’ There was a huge black Bible on the shelf above her bed. We didn’t know whether it was put there for
show or not.

No matter what they did she wouldn’t put them out. They would sometimes bring bottles in and drink. Sometimes they would offer her a drink but she would never touch it. Perhaps it reminded
her of her husband. One night two of them came in masked and nearly frightened her to death. But she would always say ‘Boys will be boys’ and smile her sickly smile. She must have spent
hours tidying up the house after they had left. Of course I think of all this as I look back on it now. Then I simply saw her as an unlikeable old woman who would have been better out of the house
when we were in it.