‘I’ll have to see to Mark soon,’ Myra said.
Handley downed his brandy. ‘Don’t think about him. Helen will do that. She’s capable — be fourteen next birthday. I wouldn’t mind a pint of muscatel and a t-bone steak.’
Enid lifted a thick sheet of sweet ham on to a slice of bread: ‘London’s ruined you, I think.’
‘My imagination ruined me before ever I got to London.’
Enid watched Myra watching him and told herself that thay had been to bed together. When, she did not know, but surmised there must have been some opportunity between tragedies. Yet it couldn’t have been serious if Albert invited her to stay in the house. He had done it on her once or twice, she suspected, but had been painstakingly discreet. She didn’t really mind what he did, as long as he didn’t commit the ultimate foolishness of leaving her. She was convinced he would never do that, yet had to guard against it nevertheless. If he had brought this Myra to the house with any idea of fornication she would make a public announcement of her pregnancy — which the doctor had told her about only that morning. That would put a stop to it. And if he hadn’t, he would go into raptures at the news, as all men should, and as Albert had often enough for it to become a reflex action of cheer and jollity that led to a total blackout of drunkenness when the terrible truth went finally into his middle.
He poured tumblers of Bordeaux claret, little sensing what he was in for. Myra, who had a headache, preferred tea, while Richard, with a ton of dust in his throat, downed the glass and asked for more. ‘I don’t lag behind when there’s wine flowing like water — which is rare enough.’
‘It may be rare,’ Handley said wryly, ‘but I owe the wine-merchant three hundred pounds, which makes about five hundred bottles of steam in the last few months. I drink beer much of the time, so if we aren’t careful this family will be wiped out by cirrhosis of the liver.’
‘I found an empty crate in the caravan yesterday,’ said Enid, ‘which I suppose Maria and Catalina scoffed.’
‘I’ll put a stop to it,’ Handley said, corking the bottles.
‘What about Mandy?’ Richard said. ‘She’ll die of hunger.’
Enid pulled a tray from beside the sink, set down food and a cup of tea, then walked across the yard in the thin showering of rain. When she slid it through the car-window Mandy pulled it in greedily and began to eat. ‘Thanks, Ma. I’ll come to the kitchen as soon as they’ve finished at the trough.’
‘If you don’t,’ Enid said, ‘I’ll pull you out and give you a good hiding. We can’t have you upsetting everything with your tantrums.’
She showed Myra her room, next to Uncle John’s. It was carpeted from wall to wall, and in the middle was a low three-quarter divan with a white cotton bedspread touching the ash-blue carpet on all sides. A small chest of drawers painted yellow stood under the curtainless window. The walls were white, and facing the bed hung an early picture of Handley’s. It lacked the quality of his present work yet was easily recognisable. A small shed stood in the middle of a wood, with a slanting wall of red fire drawing towards it. She thought it might be rather terrifying to wake up from a nightmare and have it as the first sight of the real world.
‘It’s a beautiful room,’ she said, thinking it the apotheosis of colourful spartan negativism. She sat on the only chair, a thin cushion spread over the seat whose centre had broken through. Enid was curious: ‘Have you known Albert long?’
‘Just over a year. I was introduced at the opening of his exhibition, by a friend of mine, Frank Dawley.’
Enid opened the window. ‘This room hasn’t been aired since it was painted. Richard will close them all when he brings your baby up. Have you ever been to bed with Albert?’ The house had turned quiet, though the weather was roughening outside. Maybe it would grow calm with the new moon, which would be full tonight. Myra stood, and Enid noted her figure, a great deal younger than her own, yet not much better for all that. ‘I’d better leave,’ Myra said.
Enid laughed. ‘No, really, don’t do that. As soon as I saw you I knew we were going to be friends. The thought just popped into my mind, and I asked it.’
‘Why didn’t you ask Albert?’
‘I’d never get a straight answer. He doesn’t know the meaning of the truth, and never has. I wouldn’t want it, either, not in those details. Men and women can have secrets from each other, but not women.’
Myra liked her dignity and hard charm. Her presence explained much about Albert, because it seemed that with any other women he would have appeared smaller. ‘I did go to bed with him once. We weren’t in love, but neither of us could resist it. I’m in love with Frank Dawley, who gave me my child.’
Enid knew that Albert downstairs must be wondering what they were talking about, and that soon he would start pouring brandy down his throat or throwing chairs around, knowing it was about him. ‘Men are such babies,’ she said.
It seemed a banal remark, not worthy of her. Maybe she hadn’t known a man well enough yet. ‘I didn’t come up here to be with Albert on those terms. I’m not as stupid as that. Just to get out of my house for a few days.’
‘Albert told me,’ Enid said, believing her. ‘We were thinking of going to the seaside tomorrow in the Rambler. Not long ago poor Albert used to walk there, twenty miles, and take some drawings that he hoped to sell on the sea-front for a few shillings each. I often wonder how many there are stuck on people’s walls in Nottingham, or forgotten in drawers somewhere. Still, it kept him fit. He hasn’t succumbed to the soft life yet.’
‘I don’t think he will,’ said Myra. Mark was crying downstairs.
She took Myra’s hand: ‘I’m glad you came. Now that we’ve been honest we can really be friends.’
Mark sat quiet and smiling on Handley’s knee, who snapped his fingers and pushed out his tongue, winked and made popping noises with his mouth as if he were the father. Thirteen-year-old Helen begged to take him out. She was slightly built for her age, her face the same colour as Albert’s and similar to Handley in feature, with long black hair falling in ringlets down her back. Her great heroine was Mandy, and she followed her tantrums and victories as if all her body breath was needed to keep the glow of admiration in her eyes. Handley gave Mark to her, who enjoyed being passed around, and let her take him out. ‘Will he be all right?’ Myra asked.
‘Forget the little blue-eyed Dawley,’ he said. ‘They’ll feed, cuddle and worship him at the caravan. Helen will see to him. He can play with Rachel, as well. She’s our three-year-old. We’ve got them to suit all ages.’ Paul who was twelve sat in a corner surrounded by a thousand parts of some plastic construction set, unwilling to break off and talk. ‘He won a scholarship last year and got taken on at the local grammar school. The others were just as intelligent, but they never passed that pernicious test, I suppose because I was too broke at the time for them to be considered. Still, John took care of their education, taught them all sorts of useful arts like tactics and bomb-making. That reminds me, you’d better set his tea out. It’s nearly half-past four. I’ll go up and see how he is.’
The eyes of the radio were dim, its face of fifty dials cold and blue-black. John lay on his bed, shirt open at the neck, and gazing at the white ceiling. ‘No work today?’