PART FOUR
The Great Doing
Chapter Sixteen
'What are you reading?' asked the wife. 'Police Gazette,' I said. 'Deserters and Absentees from His Majesty's Service.' We were in the living room, waiting for the knock that would signify the arrival of my father for his Sunday visit. I turned the page and it came. Just as I stood up to open the door, I noticed, on the very top of the scrap papers in the fire basket, the words 'LADIES' COLUMN by "Lucy"'. It was one of the ones sent by dad to the wife in the hopes of turning her into the more common run of housewife, but it was too late to do anything about it now. I had the door open and Dad was stepping in, removing his brown bowler. 'Harry,' said the wife, and she rose from the sofa and they kissed. 'Now you mustn't stand up, dear,' said Dad. Leaving aside his being forty years older, he looked like an indoor version of me: pinker and more rounded, better maintained. 'Well, you know, I like standing up, Harry,' said the wife. 'It is one of my favourite activities.' 'But in your condition, Lydia' said Dad. He was standing at the fireplace now, in his Sunday-best suit, boots gleaming. 'You do look well on it, though, I must say. Absolutely blooming, isn't she, James?' He was looking about the room – searching for the sewing machine. I'd forgotten to put it out. 'Journey all right, Dad?' I said. 'Yes, all right, lad,' he said. 'A bit blowy coming along the cliffs.' The wife was watching him very carefully as he folded his gloves and placed them inside his bowler hat. He knew she was doing this, and he coloured up a little. A good deal of his gentlemanliness was new, a luxury afforded by a comfortable retirement, and he was liable to be embarrassed over it. He said: 'The waiting room at Ravenscar blew clean away, last month, you know.' 'But how could it?' said the wife, evidently fascinated. 'Well, it was made of wood, for one thing,' said Dad. 'They built it out of wood with the gales they get up there?' said the wife. 'Has nobody in that company read The Three Little Pigs?' Dad didn't know what to make of this, and went a little redder. 'I don't know I'm sure, dear. You must take it up with your husband… Oh, before I forget,' he said, and he took out from his inside pocket a pen which he handed over to me. 'Now you're working at a desk,' he said, and he handed me a pen. I recognised it. This was Dad's Swan fountain pen, his best one. Receipts to the gentry were always written with it – and I'd often tried to puzzle out the secret of its smoky green and black decoration. 'I can't take this, Dad.' 'Look after it,' he said, 'and it'll be a lifelong friend. I always meant to give you it when you started work, but first you were portering, then on the engines. There was no call for a pen.' 'I'm not always at a desk' I said, looking at the wife. 'A fair amount of the work is outdoors.' 'But it's not as if you're patrolling a beat… Is it?' he added, rather anxiously. 'I'm a detective, Dad, in the plainclothes section. I've told you this before.' 'Detective?' he said. 'That sounds a rather superior grade.' 'It is the very lowest grade on the plainclothes side'1 said. 'The lowest grade in a superior division' said Dad, who was now removing another article from his pockets. It was small and squarish, and wrapped in brown paper. He handed it to the wife, saying: 'This is for you, Lydia, love.' 'Thank you, Harry,' she said. 'Whatever is it?' 'Cheese' he said, 'best cheddar.' 'I'll go and put it in the pantry straight away' said the wife. 'No, no, let me, dear. I need to go to the little room as well. That's…' 'Out in the garden' I said. Dad took the cheese back from the wife, and handed over a slip of paper to her as he did so. 'Brought you another of these, love' he said. He turned and walked through to the kitchen, and I looked at the wife. It was another 'LADIES' COLUMN by "Lucy"' snipped from the Whitby Gazette. She read out loud: 'There are many dishes which are much improved in richness and flavour by the addition of a sprinkling of grated cheese.' 'Well that's the mystery of the present solved' she said, putting the cutting into the fire basket, from where I retrieved it and placed it on the table next to the typewriter. The wife was now putting on her cape and gloves, while I took my cap off the hook on the front door. We had a plan for the day, and it was now being put into effect.
'We thought we'd go off to church,' said the wife, when Dad came back from the privy. 'Oh good,' said Dad.