Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

“Yes. It’s rather good.”

“Ma, have you thought any more about what Hope and I told you about Dad?”

“About his changing his name, do you mean?”

“Not just his name. His identity. His whole life.”

“I can’t see much point in my thinking about it, Sarah. I didn’t know about it. If it happened, it was before we met.”

“That’s all very well, but it’s your name, too, you know.”

Ursula sighed. It was one of those sighs that often precede “speaking out.” “Not any longer. I am reverting to my maiden name. I’m calling myself Ursula Wick.”

Sarah was shocked. “But why?”

“As you said yourself, it wasn’t really his name, so I’m under no obligation to go on using it myself. He took it. I am dropping it.” That wasn’t the real reason, but it would do. She said, “I think I might have a drink, too.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

This was an offer Ursula couldn’t remember either of her daughters ever making to her before. Sarah had remembered, too, that she drank only white wine and had poured her a glass from the fridge.

“Ma, does the name Ryan mean anything to you?”

“I don’t think so. It’s an Irish name and quite common, I would say. Why?”

“I wondered if Dad had ever mentioned the name or ever wrote to a Ryan or had letters from a Ryan.”

“I’m sure not, Sarah. Why?”

Sarah told her. Trying to look interested, Ursula found herself rather repelled, unwilling to know.

“The family moved to London in 1939,” Sarah said.

“The year the war started. Most people would have moved away from London if they could have.”

“They couldn’t. They were poor. Ryan’s widow had this offer from a relative and she took it; I suppose she didn’t have a choice. Anyway, I think they went to London a few months before the war. It started in September, didn’t it? They may have gone in the summer. After the sweep died, Ryan, Dad’s father.”

“If he was his father.”

“Oh, I think he was. Because of the book and the story he used to tell us. If anything about a Ryan comes back to you, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Instead of the pub, they were meeting in Greens, and the meeting time was later, nine o’clock. According to their unexpressed rule, she was prevented from speaking to Adam Foley, so she was quite unprepared for what happened. On her arrival, she went straight to the ladies’ room and was joined there after two or three minutes by Rosie. During those minutes, Sarah made adjustments to her appearance she wouldn’t normally have thought of: put more gel on her artfully tangled hair, painted her mouth a richer, darker red, and pulled in her stomach as hard as she could so that the waistband of her black leather trousers fitted more smoothly.

In some doubt about it, she had taken off the black velvet choker with the gold spikes and, having second thoughts, was putting it back on again when Rosie came in. Rosie looked over her shoulder, waited till the door closed, and said she was delighted to see her, had thought that after what had happened last time, she wouldn’t come, but that she need not worry, because Adam Foley wouldn’t be there. That was the point of meeting at Greens. He didn’t know—no one had told him—so Sarah could relax and enjoy herself.

Wild thoughts of going to the pub ran through Sarah’s mind, to be almost immediately driven out again. They had gone too far last time; they should have realized. She wondered how she was going to get through the evening.

Upstairs, in the small stuffy room, dimly lit as an American bar and smelling of air freshener with an undertone of cannabis, Tyger told her in a confidential tone that they had all been disgusted by Adam Foley’s behavior. Alexander said he had been offended and even more appalled that he had refused to apologize. With an air of someone imparting a piece of entirely original information, Vicky said that Adam Foley was the rudest guy she had met in all her life.

They went on like that for some time. Sarah wondered if it would have helped if one of them had told her beforehand that Adam didn’t know the change of venue. But what could she have done about it if they had? It then occurred to her that she would have to take some care, a moderate amount of care, as to how much she drank, because she would have to drive home at midnight instead of the next morning. And what she now wanted was to get very drunk indeed.

There was some dancing and a female impersonator—Rosie swore it was a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman—came on and told transvestite jokes. Sarah was casting caution aside and drinking one of the club’s champagne cocktails when Adam Foley came down the steps and walked up to their table. It was a cold night and he was wearing a greatcoat that reached almost to his feet.

He said, to Sarah’s consternation, “I’ve come to apologize.”

There was an expectant and somewhat excited silence.

“I’m sorry. I apologize. I bitterly regret my behavior. Will you forgive me?” He didn’t wait for her to speak. “That’s all right, then. Scene over. Fight unnecessary. Now can I sit down and have a drink?”

No one said anything. Adam Foley took a glass and helped himself from the red wine on the table. Sarah, who had long abandoned her evening as a waste of time, now felt herself beginning to tremble. His presence—he had sat down next to her—made her feel almost faint. The silence was broken by Alexander’s asking if anyone wanted to eat. Either at the Scarlet Angel or a curry house somewhere.

This led to a discussion of food and eating places. Adam Foley turned his back on Sarah. She had been sitting next to one of the cuboid Art Deco pillars that held up, or appeared to hold up, the black-and-gilt ceiling, and by moving as he had, still inside his voluminous big-shouldered coat, he managed to force her back into an alcove and exclude her from the company.

Her position was made worse by his sliding his chair back so that it pressed against her knees. She was actually squashed against the wall, in a certain amount of pain. For a while, she didn’t know what to do. And no one else—from what she could see of them—seemed to have noticed. That she had no idea what particular game he was playing this evening added to her excitement, but all that would be lost if she was actually made ridiculous. If she was squeezed out of her corner onto the floor or forced to call for help. If he crushed her so that she was physically injured.

Then he stood up. The coat swept against her face, a thick muffling mass of tweed. She let out a cry and pushed at him. He stepped aside, looked at her, and said, “Good God, how long have you been there?”

As if he had been totally unaware of her. As if she were insignificant, not a woman, not a human being, of no account. He had spoken to her as if she were someone’s small dog trapped behind a sofa. And for an instant, she doubted. It was as if all that had been between them and all they had done had never been done. But only for an instant. Still, she couldn’t answer him; he had deprived her of her powers of repartee.

They were going off to eat somewhere. Or some of them were. She heard him say, and her heart seemed to revolve, return to its place with a bump, “Curry it is, then.”

At the foot of the stairs, he stepped back to let Rosie and Vicky pass ahead of him and then walked on up, leaving her to follow. Her throat was dry and blocked at the same time. On the back of his coat, at about waist level, her mouth had left a dark red blurred imprint. She asked herself then what she had never before asked: why she liked this, why it excited her so much, and why did the doubt add to her excitement. If she had been drunk, she was no longer, but she still walked slowly, dragging herself up the stairs.