William Trevor: Collected Stories

‘Would you care for a swig, sir?’ he said to Malcolmson, and Malcolmson thanked him and said he wouldn’t. ‘It would do the little misses no harm,’ suggested the man. ‘It’s good, pure stuff.’ Malcolmson shook his head. ‘I was born in County Clare,’ said the man, ‘in 1928, the year of the Big Strike.’ The girls, red in the face from containing their laughter, poked at one another with their elbows. ‘Aren’t they the great little misses?’ said the man. ‘Aren’t they the fine credit to you, sir?’

In the Volvo on the way to Barnes they kept repeating that he was the funniest man they’d ever met. He was nicer than the man in the news cinema, Susie said. He was quite like him, though, Deirdre maintained: he was looking for company in just the same way, you could see it in his eyes. ‘He was staggering,’ Susie said. ‘I thought he was going to die.’

Before the divorce he had telephoned Elizabeth, telling her that Diana had gone. She hadn’t said anything, and she’d put the receiver down before he could say anything else. Then the divorce came through and the arrangement was that the children should remain with Elizabeth and that he should have reasonable access to them. It was an extraordinary expression, he considered: reasonable access.

The Sunday afternoons had begun then, the ringing of a doorbell that had once been his own doorbell, the children in the hall, the lift, the Volvo, tea in the flat where he and Diana had lived and where now he lived on his own. Sometimes, when he was collecting them, Elizabeth spoke to him, saying in a matter-of-fact way that Susie had a cold and should not be outside too much, or that Deirdre was being bad about practising her clarinet and would he please speak to her. He loved Elizabeth again; he said to himself that he had never not loved her; he wanted to say to her that she’d been right about Diana. But he didn’t say anything, knowing that wounds had to heal.

Every week he longed more for Sunday to arrive. Occasionally he invented reasons for talking to her at the door of the flat, after the children had gone in. He asked questions about their progress at school, he wondered if there were ways in which he could help. It seemed unfair, he said, that she should have to bring them up single-handed like this; he made her promise to telephone him if a difficulty arose; and if ever she wanted to go out in the evenings and couldn’t find a babysitter, he’d willingly drive over. He always hoped that if he talked for long enough the girls would become so noisy in their room that she’d be forced to ask him in so that she could quieten them, but the ploy never worked.

In the lift on the Way down every Sunday evening he thought she was more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, and he thought it was amazing that once she should have been his wife and should have borne him children, that once they had lain together and loved, and that he had let her go. Three weeks ago she had smiled at him in a way that was like the old way. He’d been sure of it, positive, in the lift on the way down.

He drove over Hammersmith Bridge, along Castelnau and into Barnes High Street. No one was about on the pavements; buses crept sluggishly through the damp afternoon.

‘Miss Bawden’s got a black boyfriend,’ Susie said, ‘called Eric Mantilla.’

‘You should see Miss Bawden,’ murmured Deirdre. ‘She hasn’t any breasts.’

‘She has lovely breasts,’ shouted Susie, ‘and lovely jumpers and lovely skirts. She has a pair of earrings that once belonged to an Egyptian empress.’

‘Flat as a pancake,’ said Deirdre.

After Diana had gone he’d found it hard to concentrate. The managing director of the firm where he worked, a man with a stout red face called Sir Gerald Travers, had been sympathetic. He’d told him not to worry. Personal troubles, Sir Gerald had said, must naturally affect professional life; no one would be human if that didn’t happen. But six months later, to Malcolmson’s surprise, Sir Gerald had suddenly suggested to him that perhaps it would be better if he made a move. ‘It’s often so,’ Sir Gerald had said, a soft smile gleaming between chubby cheeks. ‘Professional life can be affected by the private side of things. You understand me, Malcolmson?’ They valued him immensely, Sir Gerald said, and they’d be generous when the moment of departure came. A change was a tonic; Sir Gerald advised a little jaunt somewhere.

In reply to all that Malcolmson said that the upset in his private life was now over; nor did he feel, he added, in need of recuperation. ‘You’ll easily find another berth,’ Sir Gerald Travers replied, with a wide, confident smile. ‘I think it would be better.’

Malcolmson had sought about for another job, but had not been immediately successful: there was a recession, people said. Soon it would be better, they added, and because of Sir Gerald’s promised generosity Malcolmson found himself in a position to wait until things seemed brighter. It was always better, in any case, not to seem in a hurry.

He spent the mornings in the Red Lion, in Barnes, playing dominoes with an old-age pensioner, and when the pensioner didn’t turn up owing to bronchial trouble Malcolmson would borrow a newspaper from the landlord. He slept in the afternoons and returned to the Red Lion later. Occasionally when he’d had a few drinks he’d find himself thinking about his children and their mother. He always found it pleasant then, thinking of them with a couple of drinks inside him.

‘It’s The Last of the Mohicans,’ said Deirdre in the flat, and he guessed that she must have looked at the Radio Times earlier in the day. She’d known they’d end up like that, watching television. Were they bored on Sundays? he often wondered.

‘Can’t we have The Golden Shot?’ demanded Susie, and Deirdre pointed out that it wasn’t on yet. He left them watching Randolph Scott and Binnie Barnes, and went to prepare their tea in the kitchen.

On Saturdays he bought meringues and brandy-snaps in Frith’s Patisserie. The elderly assistant smiled at him in a way that made him wonder if she knew what he wanted them for; it occurred to him once that she felt sorry for him. On Sunday mornings, listening to the omnibus edition of The Archers, he made Marmite sandwiches with brown bread and tomato sandwiches with white. They loved sandwiches, which was something he remembered from the past. He remembered parties, Deirdre’s friends sitting around a table, small and silent, eating crisps and cheese puffs and leaving all the cake.

When The Last of the Mohicans came to an end they watched Going for a Song for five minutes before changing the channel for The Golden Shot. Then Deirdre turned the television off and they went to the kitchen to have tea. ‘Wash your hands,’ said Susie, and he heard her add that if a germ got into your food you could easily die. ‘She kept referring to death,’ he would say to Elizabeth when he left them back. ‘D’you think she’s worried about anything?’ He imagined Elizabeth giving the smile she had given three weeks ago and then saying he’d better come in to discuss the matter.

‘Goody,’ said Susie, sitting down.

‘I’d like to marry a man like that man in the park,’ said Deirdre. ‘It’d be much more interesting, married to a bloke like that.’

‘He’d be always drunk.’

‘He wasn’t drunk, Susie. That’s not being drunk.’

‘He was drinking out of a bottle –’

‘He was putting on a bit of flash, drinking out of a bottle and singing his little song. No harm in that, Susie.’

‘I’d like to be married to Daddy.’

‘You couldn’t be married to Daddy.’

‘Well, Richard then.’