Trevor, William - Children Of Dynmouth

‘No, Gordon.’

‘I am not a passionate man, my dear. I prefer things in moderation.’

‘Thirty-six years’ abstinence is more than moderation, Gordon.’

Her voice was as soft and as deliberate as his. She shook her head and stared into the fire and then at the television screen. The programme had changed: a collie dog was now gambolling about, apparently seeking aid for a distressed shepherd.

‘I don’t always feel well,’ he said, which was another statement he had prepared. He paused, searching his mind for something else to say, something that might move the emphasis away from himself. He said:

‘I honestly didn’t know you still had interests like that, Edith.’

‘I cannot remain married to a man who is known to be a homosexual.’

He shivered. He recalled again the game of Find the Penny, and the face of the cub scout who liked to talk about his badges. Once in the Essoldo Cinema a lad had moved away when he’d done no more than offer him a piece of chocolate in the darkness. Once on the promenade a boy had laughed at him.

‘It’s not true what he said. I’ve no interest in cub scouts. I swear by almighty God, Edith.’

She looked away from him, not wishing to have to see him. She said there was no need to discuss it: she wanted to leave Dynmouth and to leave him, that was all.

‘I never did anything wrong, Edith.’

She didn’t speak. Still standing by the window, he began to weep.

His mother was out when he arrived back at Cornerways, and so was Rose-Ann. In the small grease-laden kitchen the dishes they’d eaten a meal off were in the sink. On the draining-board there was a piece of butter, half wrapped in its original paper, with scrapings from toast adhering to it. There were two tins, one that had contained peaches and the other half full of spaghetti. His mother would be at Thursday-evening Bingo, Rose-Ann out in Len’s car.

He knocked what remained of the spaghetti into a saucepan, and placed four slices of Mother’s Pride bread under the grill of the electric cooker. He hunted in a cupboard for another tin of peaches – or pineapple or pears, he didn’t mind. He knew he wouldn’t find any. He wouldn’t even find a tin of condensed milk, because his mother always opened tins on the day she bought them. In Mrs Abigail’s cupboards there were tins and jars of all sorts of things, fruit cocktail, chicken-and-ham paste, steak-and-kidney pie, Gentleman’s Relish. He poked through a jumble of dusters and Brasso, a broken electric iron, clothes pegs and a jelly mould. Finding nothing edible, he closed the cupboard door.

He went on thinking about Mrs Abigail. When he’d finished eating the spaghetti he’d call round and see her. He’d explain that in the kerfuffle last night he hadn’t been paid for the jobs he’d done. He’d say he was sorry for the kerfuffle, which was what she’d want to hear. He’d blame it all on the beer and the sherry, he’d say with a laugh she’d been right to tell him not to take any. Then he’d raise the subject of the dog’s-tooth suit.

The spaghetti sizzled in the saucepan, the toast flared beneath the grill. Unlike his mother and Rose-Ann he didn’t object to burnt toast, so he buttered it as it was, not pausing to toast the other side of it. He poked at the spaghetti with a knife, separating the congealed orange-and-white mess.

The Abigails were still in their sitting-room when the doorbell rang. The Commander, having ceased to weep, was sitting on the sofa. Mrs Abigail was in her armchair. The television set, still turned low, continued to perform.

On hearing the doorbell, the Commander’s reaction was affected by the events of the day and the matter they had just been so emotionally discussing: irrationally, he believed he was being visited by the police. Mrs Abigail, similarly affected, believed that what she’d been dreading all day had now come about: the parents of some child had arrived at the bungalow.

‘I’d better go,’ she said.

‘No, no. No, please –’

‘We can’t just sit here, Gordon.’

She rose slowly. She passed close to him as she crossed the room, averting her eyes. He had sobbed like a child. Tears had run on his cheeks as she had never seen tears coming from an adult man before. He had collapsed on to the sofa, holding his face with his hands, shrunken-looking. She hadn’t said anything. She’d even felt quite calm, only thinking that in the oven his dinner would be in cinders now.

In the hall she dreaded the advent of a parent less than she had dreaded it earlier. It was less terrible because her marriage was over. She had spoken and he, by his tears, had confessed: everything was different. She felt as though she had regained consciousness in a hospital bed after some physical calamity, that because of injury and loss she must now map out a new existence for herself.

‘Cheers,’ Timothy Gedge said when she opened the hall door.

The sight of him dismayed her. Some of the strength she had gained through coming to terms with the truth oozed out of her. She attempted to be brisk, but could not.

‘Well?’ she said, and then cleared her throat because her voice was croaking.

‘I come up to say I’m sorry, Mrs Abigail. If there was any inconvenience, due to the sherry and the beer.’

‘The Commander and I would rather you didn’t return here, Timothy.’

‘I was trying to play a joke on you, dressing up and that. I thought we were on for charades. I didn’t mean to cause a kerfuffle.’

‘It would be better if you went.’ She shook her head at him. She tried to smile, attempting to indicate that she knew it wasn’t his fault, that he hadn’t known what he was doing. ‘The Commander and I are upset, Timothy.’

She heard a sound in the hall behind her and then Gordon was pulling at the hall door, opening it wider and shouting. In a high voice he used expressions she’d never heard before. His face had reddened. His eyes had a wildness about them, as though he might attack the boy, who was looking at him with his mouth open.

‘The kind of person you are, Gedge,’ the Commander shouted, ‘you should be locked away. You’re a bloody young devil. You can’t mind your own business. Can you, Gedge?’ shrieked the Commander. ‘Can you mind your own business?’

‘I do the best I can, sir.’

‘You can’t tell the truth, Gedge. You’re trying on a blackmail attempt. You can be had up for blackmail, you know.’

‘We’ll keep the secret, Commander. No harm at all. Easy as skinning a cat, Commander.’

‘You deserve to be birched. You spy on innocent people. You tell nothing but lies.’

‘I wouldn’t ever tell a lie, sir.’

‘You bloody young pup!’ screamed the Commander.

There was silence then. A door opened in a bungalow across the avenue. A figure stood in the rectangle of light, attracted by the noise. The Commander was quietly weeping.

‘It’s all right, Gordon,’ she said in a flat, emotionless voice. ‘It’s all right, dear.’

She tried to close the door but he was grasping the edge of it, supporting himself against it. He moaned and sobbed, clinging to the door. He said he thought he would commit suicide.

The boy didn’t go away. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t turn and go.

‘Lies,’ her husband sobbed, in a voice that was now so soft it could scarcely be heard. Spittle was running down his chin and dripping on to his clothes. His fingers still gripped the edge of the door, his small body was pressed against it. He’d been shy and fair-haired the Sunday afternoon he’d asked her to marry him, without any confidence in those days. She’d wanted to mother him. She’d wanted to press him to her and to stroke the thin, vulnerable nape of his neck. He had asked her to marry him because he was ashamed of himself, because he wanted to hide. For thirty-six years she had been convenient for this purpose. ‘Lies,’ he whispered again. ‘All lies about me.’