Henry Green - Back

“Is that so?” Charley said.

“You aren’t John, are you?” Mrs Grant objected, between her fingers. But Mr Grant saw fit to let this pass.

“Yes, if I was to tell, you’d never believe,” he said to the young man. “This, that, and the other,” he said.

“Then who are you, then?” Mrs Grant asked quietly.

“Now, dear, don’t take on so,” Mr Grant said. “You’ve forgotten, you don’t remember, that’s all it is. Yes,” he continued to Charley, “men I wouldn’t have engaged as office boys when I was in charge of the department, lording it over us now, heads I win, tails you lose.”

“What are you doing here?” Mrs Grant demanded, looking at Charley between her fingers, and cringing.

“He’s come to take a cup of tea with us, dear,” the husband said. This time he glared. She did not notice because she never took her eyes off Charley.

“I don’t like it,” she muttered.

“I’m very sorry,” Charley Summers said to Mr Grant.

“Just pay no attention,” this man replied. But it was not to be as easy as all that, for Mrs Grant took control by throwing herself back into the sofa to thrust her head into one of its soft corners, from which she began to shriek, muffled by upholstery.

“Amy, stop that this minute,” Mr Grant said firm. “You’re not a child after all. It’s just the habits she’s been getting,” he explained to Charles. “It’ll pass in a moment, you’ll see.” Upon which Mrs Grant took her nose out of the arm and the back, and screamed, not very loud. Charley saw his chance.

“I really must be getting on,” he said.

Mr Grant was remonstrating, “Now Amy,” as though with an awkward child. He had gone to sit beside his wife, who had hidden her face again, and he was patting a shoulder. Charley thought she moaned something, but he could not be certain. In any case he was on his way. And Mr Grant called to him,

“But wait for me, Charley boy,” he begged, “I won’t be a minute. Now mother, there. By the road, out of sight. I’ve something I must tell you,” he ended, to Charley’s back. And Charley waited behind a tree, dreading a renewal of those small shrieks and cries. He heard no more however, and, after ten minutes, he saw Mr Grant hurrying down the path.

He was very sorry, he told Charles, and it had not been much of a welcome back after his experiences abroad, he said. But he knew Charley would not mind, the doctor had decided they ought to try it. Now that they’d made the attempt there was nothing to be done. Perhaps rest and quiet would put her right. Charley said he was not to worry. Mr Grant said it was white of him, to which Charley, marvelling at his own falseness, replied that it was the least he could do.

“Well, matters are like this,” Mr Grant made an end. “I never was one to saddle another with my troubles, but there was just the chance everything might come back to her, in which case she could’ve had a good cry on your shoulder, and you wouldn’t have known the difference. But I’d never have brought you all this way for nothing,” he said. “I’ve a surprise for you. Go to this address,” and he gave Charley a number in a street, “and you’ll find someone who knew Rose. She’s just the age Rose was, maybe a month or two younger. She wants to meet you. She’s a widow.”

Charley did not even consider it. He thanked Mr Grant, and made off fast for the District Railway.

When he got out at the other end he followed a strange girl with red hair the best part of three miles, back to what may have been her home, without trying to strike up an acquaintance.

Another morning, in London, in which he worked, Charley ran across a man by the name of Middlewitch, whom he had met, in July, at the Centre where he had been to have his new leg fitted.

“Why,” this gentleman said, “it’s Summers, isn’t it, my companion in arms and legs? I’m just off to get me a bite of lunch. D’you know that place across the street? Funny,” he remarked, as he piloted him through the traffic with a chromium plated arm under his black jacket, while Charley dragged the aluminium leg in a pin striped trouser. “Before the old war we’d be going to have a coffee about this time. Now we’ve to dash into some place before all the grub is gone. ‘ Les grands mutilés ,’ that’s the name the French have for us, and it’s good enough to get to the head of any queue out there. But not in this old country. Not on your life.” He laughed with real pleasure. All this time Charley had not said a word. “Here we are,” Mr Middlewitch explained, diving into a gap before the bar. “What’s yours?” he asked. And, before he could expect an answer, this man was getting hold of John, the head waiter, to keep a table for two, as well as greeting acquaintances in the crowd. In this way he had ordered a couple of double whiskies before enquiring what Charley might like better. Summers hardly ever touched spirits.

“Here’s luck,” Charley said, to speak for the first time.

“All the best,” Mr Middlewitch replied. He offered a cigarette with his good hand, then went into an elaborate drill to light a match. “I can’t bother with lighters,” this man explained. He put the box up under an armpit, to dab with a match at the millimetre of sand paper that was left exposed. But the barmaid dropped everything she was doing to give him a light. “Thanks Rose,” he said.

It gave Charley a jolt. He had not been paying attention. He looked, but the girl was fair haired.

“Well,” Mr Middlewitch said, as he turned this way and that. “And how’s the world been treating you? You know I wish they wouldn’t do what she did. Light matches for one, I mean. But it can be a sight awkwarder at more intimate moments, eh? Lord yes. Mine squeaked the other day, just when I was putting it round her fattest bit. And a bloody sight more awkward for you I shouldn’t wonder. Never fear though, they like it.”

Mr Summers quacked a laugh.

“Women are extraordinary,” Middlewitch went on, in a loud voice. “There’s my sister in law, now. So quiet she makes you ask yourself if by any chance she knows what’s what, but then, as they say, still waters run profound. But to get on with what I was saying, I remember the time they were married, and the usual jokes got flying. It’s seven years back now. She sat there as though she had no idea in a million what it was all about. And afterwards the same, mind you. You know how things have a way of cropping up. In the ordinary run, I mean. Well whenever there’s anything the least bit rude, not dirty, mind, but a trifle on the risky side, she sits there like she was miles away. Yet the moment I got back repatriated, and they had a little do in my honour, she was on at me the whole evening. I thought at first she had changed, for with all respect to Ted (that’s my old lady’s other boy), she never seemed to be what I’d call a passionate woman. Now I’ve seen more of her, I’m dead certain she’s just the same as ever. No, it’s women’s curiosity, Summers, there you are. Wanted to know what we did about girls all that time behind the wire. Kept on coming back to it, too. Did I feel embarrassed, and I’m not a man who colours easily! Then Ted, when he saw I was getting a bit hot under the collar, he chipped in as well. Gave me an insight into their married life for the first time, I can tell you. If you follow me, there was something in how they backed each other up, so as to make me speak out.”

Charley cleared his throat. He had a faint glow from the whisky, was beginning to enjoy himself. He was thinking that, in another quarter of an hour, he would be liberated, free to talk. Because he had something, a sort of block in his stomach, which, in the ordinary way, seemed to stand between him and free speech. He looked at his empty glass. “Have another,” he said.