The Watchers on the Shore Read online

  'You'll have the neighbours complaining.'

  'You mean you don't want to listen to it, don't you? Is there any time at all when you don't mind me playing the gramophone?'

  'I just said it was too late and it is. You don't have to make a thing out of it. I think you've been clever enough for one night.'

  I say 'Oh, how's that?'though I know very well what she means.

  'The way you snapped at me earlier on. Trying to show me up in front of Chris and David. I didn't answer back then because I don't like rows in front of other people, but I hope you didn't think you were getting away with it. Didn't you notice how embarrassed they were?'

  'Not particularly.'

  'No, you don't when you're showing off. Well it might seem clever to you but it doesn't to people listening.'

  'All right then, I'm sorry.'

  'I wish I thought it'd stop you doing it the next time you feel like it.'

  'Well, I shan't feel like it if you don't make stupid remarks, shall I?'

  'It must be really awful for you having a wife who's always saying stupid things.'

  'We've all got a cross to carry.'

  'Oh, what a clever devil you are! Too clever to live.'

  With this she begins to move out of the room.

  'Are you going to bed?'

  'I'm going to have a bath.'

  I sit down for a minute or two and leaf through the new Radio Times as the light snaps on in the bathroom and the water begins to gurgle in the pipes. I smoke a cigarette all through, marking up a few concerts I wouldn't mind hearing but don't expect I will, before going to drop the latch on the door and turning the hands of the mantelshelf clock back one hour. The end of summertime. Officially. Remembering the dreary mixed weather we've had all through the middle months of the year it strikes me somebody should be sued for misrepresentation. I adjust my wrist-watch as I'm undressing in the bedroom and wonder if Ingrid's mad enough to have locked me out of the bathroom. But the door opens to my push and I walk into the thin steamy atmosphere and take brush and toothpaste out of the wail cabinet, my back to Ingrid, hearing the whoosh of the water as she finishes soaping herself and slips down to lie full length.

  Knowing what she looks like and already wanting her, I deliberately stop myself from turning round till I've rinsed my mouth and spat into the basin. Then I sit down on the little cork-topped chest and cut my toenails, trying to judge from her expression if she's in the mood to get her own back for tonight in the best way she can. But she gives nothing away: her eyes are half closed, her thoughts, from the look of her, on nothing more important than the heat of the water round her body. Her breasts, buoyant in the water, are a lovely shape and I think no, she wouldn't have bathed like this, knowing I'd see her, if she was going to turn me down. She'd have locked the door.

  As I'm sitting there, the scissors idle in my hand, her eyes flick up to my face for a second.

  'Are you staring at me?'

  'Well, I'm looking,'I tell her.'I was just thinking you're better-looking now than when I first knew you.'

  'Oh, it's compliments now, is it?'she says, but I know she's pleased.

  I go back to cutting my toenails.

  'Early night tonight.'

  'What time is it?'

  I look at my watch. 'Well, it's twenty to twelve now, but at three o'clock it'll be twenty to eleven.'

  'What on earth are you talking about?*

  'Summertime. It ends at three o'clock.'

  'I'd like to spend the extra hour in here, but I don't think there's any more hot water. I just love warm baths.'

  'I just love warm beds, and that's where I'm going now.'

  'Pass me the towel, will you??

  I unfold the big blue bath towel and hold it up as she cleans the tidemark off the sides of the bath, pulls the plug out and stands up. She steps out into the towel and I wrap it right round her, keeping her trapped against me in my arms.

  'Thank you, James. That will be all.'

  'Will it?'I plant a kiss on the damp curve of her neck and shoulder.

  'Yes, it will,'she says; 'On your way, lover-boy. I want to get dry.'

  'I'll dry you.'

  'I can manage, thanks, I don't want covering with bruises.'

  'Would you rather have kisses?'

  'I'd rather you went away and let me get dry.'

  'I can take a hint.'

  I leave her and go into the bedroom. I open a new book but I've hardly got into my stride with it when I hear Ingrid coming out of the bathroom, so I put the book away, switch off the bedside light and lie in the dark. She comes into bed and lies quietly beside me for a while. Then she says:

  'Do you wish Bobby was ours?'

  'What? No. Why should I?'

  'You seem to make such a fuss of him.'

  'I think he's a grand little lad; but there's a difference between playing with a kid for half an hour and having to cope with him all day and every day.'

  'You would like to have children, wouldn't you?'

  "Course I would. But there's no hurry yet.'

  This isn't a new conversation with us. Every now and again Ingrid's got to be reassured that I do want kids and at the same time that I'm not over-worried that in her case it's going to be a bit trickier than normal to produce them. But when I say there's no hurry it's not the real reason I give her. The real reason is that a baby would put another chain round us, tie us a bit more firmly, and try as I might I can't help resisting this. There's a part of me under the daily routine, the settled surface of our marriage, that never accepts, that's always holding out against a final surrender to the facts.

  And it's a bit later, when we've made love, that the feeling hits me strongest; and I lie in the dark with nothing now between me and the thought that comes to me time and time again; the question that's always hanging round waiting for an answer I can't give: Is this all?

  2

  'What I want to know,'Henry Thomas says,'is where's the catch.'

  'You would, Henry,'I tell him. 'Everybody else is taking their first easy breath for a week and you're nattering about catches.'

  'Oh, I'm relieved,'Henry says, taking a dog-end from behind his ear and lighting up. 'But perhaps I'm a bit more far-sighted than some people. I don't take things on face value as easy as most.'

  It's Monday morning, first thing, a grey October morning out in the streets, and we're in the shop together. I'm looking through the post and Henry's leaning on the other side of the counter, having a chat like he often does before organizing his day's work.

  'You see,'Henry says, pulling his great thinker's face, 'I can't understand why the Russians should build missile bases in Cuba without trying to camouflage them, and then agree to dismantle them when the Americans cut up rough.'

  'Perhaps they didn't expect the Yanks to get as tough as all that.'

  'Aye, and perhaps they did expect just that. I don't know. It's a mystery.'

  'It is to me an'all. But I'm not trying to analyse it; I'm just bloody glad it's all over ... Here, listen to this: "Dear Sir, That television I bought from your shop two months ago is very good on the BBC but there is too much advertisements on the other side which keeps breaking into the programmes and spoiling them. Would you please send your assistant to adjust and oblige yours faithfully..."'

  'Do you fancy a bit of adjusting and obliging mine faithfully?'

  Henry takes it very calmly. 'Who is it?'

  'A woman in Greenford.'I pass him the letter.

  'This one's worse than that woman who wanted to swap her seventeen-inch for a twenty-one because she thought she wasn't getting all the picture. You'd better drop her a line. I've too much on to mess about with her.'

  'You could always send Walt,'I say with a grin.

  'Walt!'Henry's eyebrows go up in disgust.'You can't send him for a box of screws. D'you know he brought six sets in last week that could have been seen to on the spot? And why? Because he couldn't do 'em himself. He's supposed to be a skilled man but I'm do
ing his work for him. All he's good for is fetching and carrying. Summat'll have to be done about him, that's all. I can't go on like this for ever.'

  'It beats me how he got set on in the first place.'

  'Because I didn't interview him, that's how. I'd have seen through him in two minutes, but he told the Old Man a tale and he swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.'

  'Where's Walt now?'

  'Out with the van, picking some more stuff up for me to repair.'

  Olive comes through the door from the, washroom at the far end of the shop. Another of Mr Van Huyten's appointments, she's a thin, mousy girl, quiet and a bit vague, but not bad at her work as long as you keep telling her what to do. She hovers about at the end of the counter till I call out to her:

  'Will you have a bit of a dust round, Olive love, if you've nothing else to do.'

  She takes a yellow duster from under the counter and wanders off among the TV sets and radiograms.

  'I wonder if Mr Van Huyten's coming in today,'Henry says. 'I really ought to have a word with him about Walt.'

  'I want to see him as well,'I say, 'Though as far as coming in's concerned I wish he'd keep clear altogether, because he's sure to poke his finger into something whenever you see him. The trouble is, we run the place but he won't stop interfering and let go. All we need him for is to sign the cheques ... Here's a perfect example.'

  I nourish a letter I've just opened at Henry.

  'The electricity bill. He wouldn't let me see to it. No, leave it with him, he said. Now it isn't paid and they're threatening to cut the supply off.'

  'He knows he's past it physically but he won't admit he's losing his grip mentally as well. Ah, well, I suppose it comes to all of us if we live long enough.'He stirs himself. 'I suppose I'd better get some work done.'

  'Here you are, Henry; take these.'I hand him four letters asking for service. 'A bit of rescue work for you to do.'

  Henry ambles away down the shop to the workroom and I carry on with the post. It's mostly bills, invoices and circulars, apart from the customers' letters, but one envelope is addressed to me personally. When I open it I'm surprised to see that it's from Albert Conroy, a bloke I haven't seen in years, who was making plans to emigrate the last I heard of him.

  'Dear Vic, I hope this reaches you care of the shop as I don't know your home address. How are married life and the pop-record fans treating you? Any family yet?

  'The reason I'm writing is because I was wondering if you'd ever given any thought to the possibility of coming back into engineering. I moved down here eighteen months ago to a job with a small structural firm called Joyce and Walstock and now I'm the chief draughtsman (no less!), first of all boss of myself and now in charge of two more draughtsmen, one of them Jimmy Slade, your old pal from Whittaker's, who I persuaded to come down twelve months ago.

  'As I say, this is a smallish firm yet, but it changed hands just before I joined it and the new management is set on building the business up. We shall be needing some more men and there's a nice little opening for a bright lad like yourself, if you fancy it. Money, conditions and prospects are all good and there's room for a bloke to use his initiative.

  'For all I know you're happy doing what you're doing but I thought I'd write on the off-chance you fancied a change. If it sounds interesting to you, let me know and I'll send you more details or, better still, I can fix up an expenses-paid trip so that you can come down and look the job over for yourself.

  'Jimmy sends his regards. He suggested writing to you at the shop. He seems to have settled down here nicely and he's fraternizing with the natives to the extent of doing a bit of courting in the town.'

  There's a p.s.: 'It's good ale,'that makes me smile.

  The address on the letter is 33 Tavistock Road, Longford, Essex. The grin stays on my face because I'm flattered that Conroy's written to me like this. Most of the time we worked together in the drawing office at Whittaker's we didn't get on all that well; and it was only just before Conroy left that I found out there was more to him than a big mouth and a cocky sense of his own importance that put everybody's back up at times. Now I see that I must have made a bigger impression on him than I ever guessed.

  I let my mind run on for a minute, wondering what it would be like to go down south and work with Conroy and Jimmy again, then I fold the letter and put it away, thinking I'll reply when I've ten minutes to spare. I know now what the answer will have to be, but it still makes me feel good to have been asked.

  The day goes by without anything unusual happening. Walt drifts in and out, saying nothing much to anybody, the usual blank look on his long face, a half-smoked fag drooping at the corner of his mouth as always. You never see Walt light a cigarette or put one out, but he always has one, partly burned away, stuck in his face. Olive dreams her way through to six o'clock. Henry grumbles a bit more. Mr Van Huyten doesn't show up, nor does he get in touch. So I decide I'll have to go up and see him after I've closed the shop.

  I ring Chris first and ask her to tell Ingrid I'll be late, then when I've locked up I hop on a bus which goes up the hill past the end of Mr Van Huyten's street. I have heard him talk at times, but not lately, about buying a bungalow, which would be cosier for him on his own; but he's never made the move and he's still in the biggish gloomy stone-built place I've always known him to live in; though now he seems to have retreated into just a couple of rooms on the ground floor and dragged most of his possessions in after him in the most fantastic overcrowded hotch-potch of furniture, junk and knick-knacks I've ever seen. I don't think there's anything in the place I'd give him more than ten bob for, though I don't know about these things and it could be there's something an antique dealer might rub his hands over.

  He's a long time in answering the door. With his heavy curtains drawn it's hard to tell whether he's in or out. I ring the bell a few times before I hear the shuffle of his feet in the hall and his voice on the other side of the door.

  'Who is it?'

  'It's me: Victor.'

  Then he lets me in.

  It's really a terrible change the last three years have brought in Mr Van Huyten. He's been old and frail for as long as I remember him, but now he's all of a sudden a lot older, a lot frailer, and eccentric into the bargain. And it's the last bit he doesn't seem to see himself.

  I go for him over the electricity bill as soon as we're sitting in the big wing-chairs by his great dark marble fireplace.

  He says dear me, tut, tut, tut, he's quite sure he paid it. But he can't ignore the .notice I've brought with me and he gets up and pokes about in the pigeon-holes of his roll-top desk, which look from where I'm sitting like a model of untidiness and inefficiency, and in a minute he finds the bill and looks at it in surprise.

  'Well, bless my soul; here it is. I could have sworn I'd attended to that promptly.'

  'We all make mistakes, Mr Van Huyten,'I tell him.'I've brought the cheque book with me. If you tell me the amount I'll make it out for you to sign and post it on my way home.'

  He passes the bill over and sits down again. The chair seems to swallow him and his hands on the arms are thin, big-knuckled and never quite still. He's like a ghost sitting there; you get the impression you can see right through him. But he manages to sign his name to the cheque with an old-fashioned flourish that touches me as I look at it and remember all the talks we've had, the concerts we used to go to when he was running his car, and the way he used to infect me with his enthusiasm for music; getting on his feet to clap at the end of a concert if he felt like it, and talking all the way home from Leeds or Bradford about Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Elgar. He showed me that they were men like other men, but they had this extra something that left a mark on the world; they left their music and it was mine to enjoy as much as anybody else's. And when he did this Mr Van Huyten somehow seemed to open up the world for me. He gave me a feeling of being part of something bigger than this minute and the latest passing fancy. It was a feeling I tri
ed to pass on to Ingrid, but never could. Or was I not trying to pass it on so much as looking for some kind of response to what I felt? Looking for, how can I put it, a sense of things that could spread out wider and wider like ripples on a pond instead of being tied to a straight line of direct experience that grew longer, just longer, with age?

  'I really don't know what I'd do without you, Victor,'Mr Van Huyten's saying. 'I'm very grateful for your efficiency in handling things.'

  'I'm glad you think like that, Mr Van Huyten,'I say; 'only, I might as well tell you that I'm not happy about it at present.'

  'Oh?'

  'Well, this electricity bill, for instance. If you'd left it with me it would have been paid long since.'

  'Yes, yes. I'm sorry about that. Perhaps I am a little forgetful at times. But then, you must make allowances for me.'

  'That's the trouble. I can make allowances for you, but you won't make them for yourself.'I wonder if I'm rattling him by talking like this, but I have to go on.'What I mean is that I'm more or less running the shop from day to day -'

  'And you do it very well,'he puts in.

  'Well, thanks very much. But, you see, you haven't got your finger on things like you used to have, and when you decide to come down to the shop there's times when you - 'I want to say 'interfere' but I soften it,'- when you do things off your own bat and throw the work out of gear.'

  He looks at me and in his eyes there's a flash of the old Mr Van Huyten, canny and understanding.