Long Lankin: Stories

Lovers

Birds were going mad in the square, spring and the recent rain had them convinced that they were enchanters. Muriel crossed the road and sauntered along by the green railings, swinging her bag and whistling with the magic music. Late April sunlight was in the street, softly washing against the houses and dusting the ragged trees with colour.

She turned the corner and light from above flashed in her eyes. She looked along the tall face of the houses. At a high open window a figure stood, one hand on the sill. She waved her arm, and smiling she lowered her head and ran across the road. As she came near it the door opened and a bent old man in a shabby raincoat shuffled out on the step. He peered at her, his jaw working, his little eyes half closed against the light. She was about to step past him when he turned and slowly, firmly closed the door. She watched him as he went down the steps muttering to himself, then she grinned and put out her tongue at his back. She rang the bell. After a long moment she heard steps in the hall, and Peter opened the door.

— Well, she said. You came at last.

He stood in the dark musty hall, smiling, one arm raised and laid along the edge of the door. The front of his sweater was covered in dust, and he needed a shave. He was about to speak when she pointed at his head and laughed.

— Look at you, she said. You have cobwebs in your hair.

— Cobwebs. So I have.

They climbed the stairs and he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. She said:

— Have you everything ready?

— Almost.

The flat looked as though something had exploded there. On the sagging bed were piled books and papers tied into bundles with thick white string. Two battered trunks stood by the window, their straps straining. The kitchen table held the remnants of two or three meals, and the floor had a thick layer of dust that soaked the sunlight where it fell. An ancient wardrobe lay on its side before the fireplace like a great dead animal, its mirror smashed. She stood in the middle of it all and looked around with comic despair. He lit a cigarette and leaned his long thin frame against the sideboard. He watched her, smiling. She said:

— Have we to take all this?

— Well, not the wardrobe.

She laughed, and dropping her bag she stepped near him, and the light picked out the tiny yellow flecks in the pupils of her eyes. When she opened her lips a thin silver thread hung between them an instant, and broke. He took her in his arms and kissed her. After a moment she laid her cheek against his neck and asked:

— What will we do today, Peter?

He did not answer, but buried his face in her dark hair. She moved back a pace and looked up at him.

— What’s wrong?

— Nothing, he murmured. Have you forgotten?

— What?

— We said we’d visit my father. You said you would come with me.

She went to the window, and he said wearily to her back:

— One day. It’s not much.

— I know. But I’m afraid of him, Peter.

He snapped his teeth together and looked at the floor. He said:

— How can you say that? He’s just an old man.

— I don’t know.

He went to her, and her lip was trembling when she turned. He took her face in his hands. At first she would not look at him, but he stood silently and stared at her until she raised her eyes. He said slowly:

— He’s an old man and dying and he can’t touch us even if he wanted to. Next week we shall be in France and then the world is before us. There’s nothing to fear.

She dropped her eyes again, murmuring:

— I know. I know. But Peter, I’m not logical like you and … and strong.

He laughed suddenly, and putting his arms around her he picked her up and whirled her in a circle. With her hands on his shoulders she looked down at him and giggled. He buried his face between her breasts and shouted:

— We’re getting out. Out. Away.

He set her down again and said into her face, his voice shaking with laughter:

— You hear me, you mad bitch? We’re getting out and we’re not coming back. Think of it.

With her mouth open she grinned, nodding her head, yes, yes.

— And we’ll be free, she said.

— We’ll be free. We’re young and the world is wide. We’ll be free.

He told her to wait then, and whistling gaily he left the flat. She listened to his steps fade down the stairs, and when the whistling too had faded she turned back to the window and put her face against the glass. The sun-drenched street was empty but for a lame dog that stood in the gutter, sniffing delicately at a soiled scrap of newspaper. From far off came the sound of faint music, beating softly through the air with slow, sad strokes. The dog lifted a leg and watered on the paper, shook himself, and trotted away. The music ceased, and there was silence. Muriel turned and stood with her arms stiff by her sides and looked at the disordered flat, the books, the dust, the blue threads of smoke he had left to hang so still on the air. Everything seemed strange, and somehow mournful, as though the things she knew were fading into the past even as she stood there. She began to weep.

When he came back she was standing before the mirror, painting her eyelids. He stopped whistling and looked closely at her reflection in the glass.

— You’ve been crying.

— I have not. Where were you?

— At the shop. Why were you crying?

— I wasn’t. I told you I wasn’t.

— All right. You wasn’t.

She twisted about and fell into his arms, pulling him close. She said:

— Everything will be all right, Peter, won’t it?

— Of course. Now let’s go see the man.

She went out of the flat, and on the stairs Peter kissed her again and told her that everything would be fine.

By the canal the green bus carried them, past the hideous new buildings of glass and steel, past bored swans, the dusty trees, past the old men who walked the tow paths to watch the water in its changes. Peter said:

— I wonder if we’ll miss all this.

She looked at the streets riding past.

— I will. I’ll miss it. Poor city.

The trees were in bloom in the grounds of the hospital, their faint wood perfumes mingled with the smell of cut grass. As they walked up the drive a pair of pigeons fled before them, their wings clattering in the silence. Cars were parked before the entrance, and a withered old lady was slowly picking her way across the lawn.

They went in through the high doors and stopped at the reception desk, where a nurse with a bored expression sat behind the glass. From the stairs above them came the sound of voices to disturb the hanging silence.

— Mr Williams, please, Peter said.

The nurse looked slowly from one of them to the other, then lowered her eyes and examined Muriel’s white linen dress. She ran her finger down a chart before her on the desk and said:

— Three-forty-two. The corridor to your right. Count the doors.

They walked down the white echoing corridor. Far off at the end there was a window of frosted glass where the sun came in and made a mist of light that glared on the polished floor. Muriel pulled down the corners of her mouth and said in a funereal voice:

— Count the doors, all ye who enter here.

Peter smiled vaguely at her and looked away. They came to the room and he knocked gently.

The walls were of the same sterile white as the corridor, and the floor had pale green tiles. There was a plywood wardrobe and a small locker. Opposite the door a square window looked out over the lawn to the trees along the drive. The bed was long and narrow, with white enamelled legs and a white spread. The old man lay there propped up against the pillows, his face turned to the window.

— Hello dad, Peter said.

Slowly the old man turned his head and looked at them blankly. Muriel took time to close the door, then stood awkwardly with her weight on one leg. The old man was tiny, his feet reached only half way down the bed. His thin hair was white as the walls, and his eyes were small and dim and seemed to look inward. His withered hands lay motionless on the covers like two white, plucked birds. He continued to gaze at them without sign of recognition. Peter rubbed his hands on his trousers, and laughed nervously and said:

— It’s me. Peter. How are you today, dad?

Without a word the old man turned back to the window. Peter signalled with his eyes to Muriel, and she sat down carefully on the end of the bed. She said brightly:

— Hello Mr. Williams. It’s Muriel. Don’t you remember me?

The old man looked at her and calmly said:

— I remember you.

His voice was surprising, strong and deep, a heavy man’s voice. It was all that remained of his youth.

— I’m glad, she muttered weakly, and looked down at her fingers worrying the clasp of her bag. Peter put his hand on her shoulder. He said:

— You look well, dad. How are they treating you here?

The old man smiled faintly and said:

— Their kindness is proportional to the size of one’s fee. They show me great kindness. I should have stayed at home.

Peter sat on the bed at the other side from Muriel and wound his long legs about each other. The old man looked at him without expression and asked:

— Where is your mother?

Peter opened his mouth helplessly and said nothing. The old man went on:

— She should come to see me. It’s not asking a great deal of her. Tell her she must come.

— Yes dad. I’ll tell her.

The old man leaned forward and peered closely at his son.

— You look unhappy, he barked. What is it?

— Nothing, dad. I’m happy.

— So you should be. You have a life.

There was silence. From outside came the snip-snip of shears. The old man sighed, and his hands fluttered restlessly. Peter said:

— We’re leaving on Monday.

The old man said nothing for a moment, and Peter glanced at Muriel. She was still looking at her hands, but she was faintly smiling now.

— This is the last time you will see me then, the old man said.

Peter laughed uneasily.

— Why do you say that?

— Because it’s true.

His dim eyes turned swiftly and settled on Muriel. Loudly he asked:

— Are you going with my son, young lady?

— What?

She looked up quickly and glanced at Peter, who said:

— Yes, dad, Muriel is coming with me.

The old man murmured sourly:

— Has she no voice?

Muriel lifted her head and shook a strand of hair away from her forehead. With her eyes narrowed she stared at the old man.

— Yes, I’m going away too. Peter and I are going away together.

The old man shrugged his shoulders, and the faint shadow of a smile came back to his face. He said:

— She has a voice.

Peter shifted on the bed, took out a cigarette and put it away again. He locked his fingers together and said:

— We’ll come back at the end of the year to see you, dad.

Muriel turned and stared at him, but he had turned with his back to her. She opened her mouth to speak but the old man was there before her.

— I shall be dead by then.

Peter rubbed his forehead and said:

— Don’t talk like that, dad. Why, you’ll outlive us all.

The old man stared at him and said coldly:

— Since when do you think I need to hear that kind of nonsense? I shall be dead before the year is out. And glad of it. I’ve seen enough of this world. I want to …

He paused, and a shadow settled in his eyes. He blinked rapidly and went on:

— I want to go home.

Peter lifted his eyes to the window.

— Home? he murmured, puzzled.

The old man followed his son’s gaze to the window, to the trees and the soft sunlight. He said:

— I’ve lived too long. These last years have been useless. They have kept me going with needles and drugs and pills, and for what? To see everything slip away and die. Now you are going too and I have nothing. Even your mother won’t visit me.

Peter looked at him and said evenly:

— Dad, you know mother is dead.

— Do I need to be told that?

Again his eyes wandered to the window.

— When we were young we used to walk up here. Fields then. Nothing but fields. The city was smaller. It was easy to live and we thought we would live forever. But everything dies. I’ve lost two wives. I’ve seen too many deaths and now all I live for is to see my own.

Suddenly he turned to them, and his little eyes were bright. He clasped his hands together and said briskly:

— You’re going away.

— Yes.

— When?

— Monday we —

— Where?

— France first and then —

— How will you live?

— Well, we’ll … we’ll find things as we go along. Fruit picking or — anyway I have a little money.

The old man nodded once, and gave a long sigh. He leaned back against the pillows and after a moment he said quietly:

— You have my money.

Peter looked at him, and his forehead wrinkled.

— How do you mean, dad?

— I sent instructions yesterday that you were now solely in charge of my affairs.

— What does that mean?

Muriel leaned across the bed towards Peter. There was apprehension in her eyes. She clutched his hand, but he did not look at her. The old man glanced in her direction and said:

— Be quiet, girl. Now, my boy, I shall tell you what it means. You are from now head of the firm of Williams and Son.

Peter’s mouth was open as he stared at his father. There was a long silence. At last Peter said:

— But I am going away, dad.

The old man waved a hand.

— The business runs itself. You may take your holiday. It means merely that you will now be rich enough to enjoy it.

— But dad …

— Well?

— I don’t know. This is all very —

Muriel struck his wrist with her knuckles, and he turned to her in surprise. She said slowly:

— We’re going away, Peter.

He smiled, and as though explaining to a child he said:

— Yes, of course, Muriel. You heard dad saying we could go.

— That’s not what he said, and you know it.

They stared at each other, and the old man watched them, the thin smile on his lips. He said to her quietly:

— Everything dies, my dear. Everything.

Without looking at him she stood up and walked stiffly to the door.

— Where are you going? Peter called.

She paused with her hand on the door, but did not turn.

— I’m going, she said.

And was gone. Peter turned to his father, and the old man said innocently:

— The young lady seems upset. I wonder why.

— I don’t know.

The old man picked at the sheet, his lips pursed. After a moment he said:

— Peter, I think I may have exaggerated a little. Head of the firm — a figure of speech, you understand. But you have the money, which I suppose at this stage is what matters. Anyway, the business would bore a young man. Am I right?

— I suppose so, dad.

Peter uncoiled himself from the bed.

— I think I better follow her. You’ll take care of yourself until we get back.

— Of course.

He went to the door, and there the old man’s voice stopped him:

— But you won’t be going away now, will you?

— Why do you say that?

He pulled the sheets an inch nearer his chin and folded his hands again over his stomach. He said:

— I shall live a little longer, now.

Peter went out into the corridor. With the door almost closed he stopped and looked back at his father through the narrow opening. The old man was smiling to himself. When he turned to the door, Peter quickly closed it, but not before he heard:

— And bring your mother with you next time, boy.

Outside the hospital Muriel stood and watched the gardener cutting down the dead stalks of flowers. When Peter came up she did not move or speak. He said peevishly:

— Why did you run out like that? He is my father, after all.

— I’m sorry, she said in a flat voice.

They turned and started down the drive. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and said:

— I think we’ll have to wait a week or two now before we go. This changes things.

— Yes.

They moved slowly between the smooth lawns. The afternoon was ending. In the trees the birds were going mad.