Trevor, William - Children Of Dynmouth

She poured custard on to his pudding for him, fearing he would spill it if she handed him the jug. He wasn’t sober. Even before he’d taken more than a few sips of the beer she’d noticed that his movements weren’t co-ordinating properly. Sweat had begun to form on his forehead.

‘Time was,’ the Commander said, ‘when you could go into a grocer’s shop and there’d be a round-bottomed chair up by the counter for a customer to sit on. What d’you get now? Some child in a filthy white coat picking the dirt out of her nose while she’s working a till in a supermarket. No, I’ll not have any of that, dear girl.’

‘All right, Timmy?’ she whispered.

‘Cheers, Mrs Abigail.’

‘Some of those girls press half a million buttons a day,’ the Commander said.

Timothy drank more beer, washing down a mouthful of fig pudding and custard with it. He remembered a time when he was eight or so, walking along the wall of the promenade and Miss Lavant coming up to him and saying he shouldn’t because it was dangerous. She was a beautiful woman, always fashionably turned out: you wouldn’t mind being married to Miss Lavant. When he’d climbed down from the wall in order to please her she’d given him a sweet, holding out a paper-bag so that he could choose, Mackintosh’s Quality Street. The one he’d taken had green silver paper on it, a chocolate-covered toffee. All you had to do was to smile at women like that and it pleased them, like it pleased this woman now. He tried not to laugh, thinking of Miss Lavant in her expensive clothes, going up and down the promenade, giving people sweets. But he was unable to keep the laughter back and had to say he was sorry.

After that he lost track of time again. He noticed that she was on her feet, clearing their pudding plates away, putting them on the tray she always used, a brown tray made of imitation wood. She put the remains of the steamed pudding on it, and the custard. She was still looking grumpy, not smiling, not even trying to smile. Miss Lavant did that sometimes because for all her beauty she had bad teeth. He wondered if Miss Lavant was her sister. They were both small women, neither of them possessed children.

Timothy sat back in his chair and finished his beer. She’d be back in a few minutes with flowered cups and saucers and a flowered tea-pot, and cake. She’d sit down, trying not to listen to the Commander going on with his rubbish. She’d offer him a piece of McVitie’s fruitcake, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t ask her if Miss Lavant was her sister. It would please her, a question like that. It would please her if he told her a couple of funnies from 1000 Jokes for Kids of All Ages. He laughed and saw the Commander looking across the table at him, laughing himself, a tinny sound as though the man had something wrong with him. ‘Cheers, Commander,’ he said, waving his glass at him. ‘Any more Watney’s Pale, sir?’

‘My dear fellow, of course there is. Well played, old chap.’ The Commander rose at speed and crossed to the sideboard, from which he withdrew two further pint bottles. He was feeling sunny, Timothy guessed, because it would annoy her when she came in and found more beer on the table. ‘Forgive my inhospitality,’ the Commander said.

‘Ever read books, Commander? Embarrassing Moments by Lucy Lastick?’ He laughed vigorously, wagging his head at the Commander. He could have sat there for ever, he said to himself, telling funnies where they were appreciated. ‘Lucy Lastick,’ he said again. ‘D’you get, sir? Embarrassing Moments by Lucy Lastick? Bloke in a cafe, Commander: “Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?” “Looks like the breast-stroke, sir.” D’you get it, Commander? This bloke in a cafe –’

‘Yes, yes, Timothy. Very amusing.’

‘This woman goes into the kitchen and says to her kid she should have changed the gold-fish water. “They haven’t drunk the last lot yet!” the kid says. D’you get it, Commander? The kid thinks –’

‘I understand, Timothy.’

‘D’you know Plant down in the Artilleryman’s Friend, Commander?’

‘I don’t know Mr Plant. Well, I mean I know him to see. I’ve seen him out with his dog –’

‘I was in the car-park of the Artilleryman’s one night and Plant comes out of the Ladies. Two minutes later this woman comes out. I saw him up to it a few times. D’you get it, Commander?’

‘Well, yes –’

‘Another time I got up at two a.m. to go to the toilet and there’s Plant in our lounge in his shirt. Paying a visit to my mum, taken short in the middle of it.’ Again he was unable to prevent himself from laughing, thinking of Plant’s wife blowing her top if she ever heard about any of it. A big Welshwoman she was, with a temper like a cat’s. Disgusting Plant had looked, with his legs and his equipment showing.

She came into the sitting-room and placed a tray of tea things and the McVitie’s fruitcake on the table. He smiled, wagging his head at her.

‘It’s green and hairy and goes up and down, Mrs Abigail?’

She didn’t understand the question. She frowned and shook her head. She was beginning to add that she wondered if Timothy could manage a slice of cake when she noticed the newly opened bottles of beer.

‘Gordon ! Are you out of your mind?’

She couldn’t help herself. She knew it was wrong, she knew it was ridiculous to speak like that when he had opened the two fresh bottles purely in order to upset her. He smiled narrowly beneath his narrow moustache.

‘Mind?’ he said.

‘He’s had a pint of beer already. And sherry. Gordon, he’s fifteen. No child’s used to it.’

‘The boy asked for a little more ale, Edith.’

Timothy was red-faced, his lips wetly glistening, the upper one speckled with foam. His eyes were stupid-looking.

‘A gooseberry in a lift,’ he said.

‘I told you not to take the sherry,’ she cried, suddenly shrill.

He laughed, wagging his head. ‘D’you get it, though? Up and down in a lift. A gooseberry in a lift.’

She asked him to try and be sensible. He looked absurd, sitting there with his head wagging.

‘Bloke in a cafe: “Do you serve crabs?” “Sit down, mister, we serve anyone.” This bloke goes into this cafe, see, and says do they serve crabs –’

‘Yes, yes, of course, Timothy.’

‘Ever read books, Mrs Abigail?’

She didn’t reply. He couldn’t see if she was smiling or not. He couldn’t see her teeth but she could easily be smiling and not showing her teeth. Her sister hadn’t shown her teeth for an instant, the time she’d given him the choice of her Quality Street. Funny thing, really, a woman handing out sweets on a promenade just because she met someone else. ‘I met the boy,’ Plant had whispered that night when he’d returned to the bedroom, and then a giggling had started even before Plant closed the bedroom door. Plant was the type who was always coming out of toilets, the Ladies in the car-park, anywhere you liked. Another time Rose-Ann and Len had been on the job, on the hearth-rug in the lounge, when he’d walked in after the pictures. They hadn’t turned a hair.

The room moved slightly. On the other side of the table the Commander slipped about, to the left and then to the right, overlapping himself so that he had more than one pair of eyes and more than one moustache. ‘You’ve gone and got him drunk,’ her voice said, sounding distant, as though she were on the other end of a telephone.

Feeling that a further drink of beer would settle his vision, Timothy finished what was in his glass. He liked beer very much. Alone in the Youth Centre one afternoon, the first time he’d ever tasted beer, he’d found two bottles which someone had hidden at the back of a cupboard. No beer was permitted on the premises, only Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but often for a special occasion some was smuggled in. He’d taken the two bottles to the Youth Centre lavatory and had drunk the beer they contained, not expecting to like it but drinking it because it didn’t belong to him. He’d left the bottles sitting in the lavatory-pan in the hope that someone would use it before noticing they were there. He’d walked out into a sunny afternoon feeling tip-top. Ever since, he’d drunk what beer he could manage to get hold of.