Morag Joss - The Night Following

Mam didn’t seem to notice that Evelyn ate very little. Stan was meant to be coming down after tea, so after she’d washed up, Evelyn went to her room to change. Although she didn’t much feel like going out, she made the effort, rearranging her hair and putting on a fresh blouse and some lipstick. She had just dabbed some “Nuits de Mimosa” on her wrists and was wondering if real mimosa smelled anything like the cloudy, flowery scent from the bottle, when the knocker clacked against the door. She dashed downstairs, pulling on her coat as she went.

She might have guessed the minute she opened the door and saw him, she thought later. Stan stayed astride his bike instead of fiddling to get his padlock and chain around the downpipe against the house wall, which he would do if he’d had any intention of getting the bus with her down to the Roxy Palace. Added to that, his head was hanging forward the way it did when he had a drink or two in him. Still, he was wearing the bright red scarf she had knitted him for Christmas (with the fancy cable pattern in it, though all he cared about was the colour). But maybe she was seeing what she’d wanted to see. Maybe he really meant it when he said the wearing of red was a political act and who knitted it wasn’t important. Maybe his hair wasn’t done nice and careful for her. More like it was only plastered down with the rain and the back of his hand.

On top of that he was late. Then she realized he wasn’t on his own. A sudden tiny flare drew her gaze past Stan and she made out the shape of his crony Alan O’Reilly lurking over at the kerb on his bike, lighting up under the street lamp. She crossed her arms and gave Stan a look.

“Oh, so you’ve got Alan O’Reilly in tow. Coming up the Roxy, too, is he?” she said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. Stan didn’t go in for sarcasm. “Who’s he stepping out with tonight, then?”

Stan didn’t reply. Evelyn turned back into the tiny hall and set about getting her hat on, a nice little maroon toque.

“It’s gone quarter past already. Remember main picture starts at twenty to, Stan,” she reminded him, turning to smile so he couldn’t say she was nagging. Brightening her smile even more, she called past him, “Evening, Alan! Who’s the lucky one tonight, then?”

She was hoping Alan had just met up with Stan on the street and biked along with him. It was possible, just about. Hat fixed, handbag on her arm, Evelyn stepped onto the pavement. Stan wheeled back a little.

“Can’t stop, sorry. Roxy’s off. Change of plan,” he said. Alan O’Reilly was glowering over his cigarette. He had a way of screwing up his eyes when he inhaled. Mean-looking, Evelyn thought.

“Where’d you say we’ve to be tonight, Comrade?” Stan said.

“Told you.” Alan pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket, and read aloud, “Extraordinary meeting called under Clause 7, right of Ordinary Members to call special or emergency meeting for any purpose including but not limited to those listed under Article 14 of Constitution.”

He dragged again on his cigarette and stared at Evelyn, smoke leaking down his nose. Stan was smirking now, in the way that told her he definitely had already had a few.

Another of your ruddy meetings? No, don’t tell me,” she said, “planning the revolution again, is it? You and the ruddy comrades? We had arrangements for this evening, Stanley Ashworth.”

Alan O’Reilly threw his cigarette end into the gutter. “Come on, Stan, it’s gone five.”

“Nobody asked you, Alan O’Reilly,” Evelyn said. She crossed her arms.“So, this meeting of yours’ll be at the pub, I suppose? Stan?”

“I’ve got to go,” Stan muttered. “I’m seconding him for Secretary, we’re ousting Percy Johnson. And for your information it’s in the Co-op Rooms.”

Evelyn fought back tears. That Alan O’Reilly was a bad-tempered so-and-so and he was getting Stan the same way.

“Very well, then. Go to your ruddy meeting. You’re welcome. But if you think you can make a fool out of your fiancée, you’d better think again!”

“If a meeting’s called, a meeting’s called. There’s no point maithering on,” Stan said, rolling his eyes in Alan O’Reilly’s direction.“Come on, Evie.”

“Don’t you ‘Evie’ me! We’ve got certain matters to discuss, Stanley Ashworth, may I remind you?”

“There’s time enough for that,” Stan groaned. “I won’t be nagged, woman!”

Alan O’Reilly chimed in, “Got a temper on her, ain’t she? You want to watch yourself, Comrade. Come on.”

“Good riddance,” Evelyn muttered through her tears. She went upstairs to her room. Stan knew tonight was her last evening off before next week when she changed shifts. He knew they needed to set the date.

But she wasn’t one to mope. Once she’d washed her face she came back downstairs. Mam had dozed off in her chair, her knitting on her lap. Evelyn took it up and finished the row, then worked one or two more. She was in no mood tonight to get on with her own knitting, which was a pullover for Stan in the same red as the scarf. Mam was making socks in dark green and the light was poor but the needles flew swiftly and smoothly in Evelyn’s hands. She didn’t need to see what she was doing, only to count the stitches. They were all good knitters on Mam’s side, and they all had the same dimples, too. Knitting came as easy as smiling to the Leigh girls, people said.

Later, she washed through some stockings in the scullery and then she got Mam up to bed with a cup of tea. Afterward she sat on in front of the fire. Some evening out, she thought. I should go to bed myself.

But then, she reflected, Stan might just call in late on his way back from the meeting if he saw a light on. So Evelyn waited, yawning from time to time and half-listening to the voice on the wireless introducing a dance band from somewhere or other. The rain came on again, harder than ever. She went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Even the lamp right in front of number 58 on the other side of the street was hard to make out. Surely it was unusual for it to rain so hard you couldn’t even see a street lamp? Raining ink, she thought. Evelyn watched it pour down the window till the glass looked as if it were melting. Then she drew the curtain back, put out the light, and returned to her chair, thinking of Stan pushing his bike past, glancing at the window, and thinking she’d gone to bed. In the dark, she began to cry again.

He’d be out there, caught in the rain. He could catch his death, and serve him right. But then her baby would never know its father. So in that respect the little mite would be like her, although not quite; Evelyn had been twelve years old when the telegram had come about her Da, “Missing in action, presumed killed,” so she always felt that she should have kept hold of something more of her father to remember than the slow-moving, silent figure she hardly dared speak to. Over the years she tried to forget how the rasp of his boots in the yard and the click of the back door latch struck terror into her. She tried to forget his cruelties, a savage clip round the head or a snarled remark, and also his drunken rages when it was positively dangerous to be around him. She preferred to imagine that he might have come back from the War changed somehow, kind and smiling. She was careful to remember him only from the telegram, a few photos, and four postcards sent from the Belgian front.

She leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed. Suppose Stan did die and their baby grew up without him. There wouldn’t be much difference, in the end. It didn’t matter whether your Da got a chill on the lungs after a soaking, or laid down his life in the Great War, he was dead and gone just the same. You wouldn’t know his voice. You wouldn’t be able to tell the back of his head in a crowd. You’d never know if he might have been the best father in the world. Whether his name was among The Fallen on the War Memorial or not, you’d just go without.