‘Quite soon. Quite soon.’ Mr Dutt beamed. ‘Naturally Beryl is beside herself with joy. She is busy preparing all day.’
‘There is a lot to see to on these occasions.’
‘Indeed there is. Beryl is knitting like a mad thing. It seems as though she can’t do enough.’
‘It is the biggest event in a woman’s life, Mr Dutt.’
‘And often in a man’s, Miss Efoss.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘We have quite recovered our good spirits.’
‘I’m glad of that. You were so sadly low when last I saw you.’
‘You gave us some wise words. You were more comfort than you think, you know.’
‘Oh, I was inadequate. I always am with sorrow.’
‘No, no. Beryl said so afterwards. It was a happy chance to have met you so.’
‘Thank you, Mr Dutt.’
‘It’s not easy always to accept adversity. You helped us on our way. We shall always be grateful.’
‘It is kind of you to say so.’
‘The longing for a child is a strange force. To attend to its needs, to give it comfort and love – I suppose there is that in all of us. There is a streak of simple generosity that we do not easily understand.’
‘The older I become, Mr Dutt, the more I realize that one understands very little. I believe one is meant not to understand. The best things are complex and mysterious. And must remain so.’
‘How right you are! It is often what I say to Beryl. I shall be glad to report that you confirm my thinking.’
‘On my part it is instinct rather than thinking.’
‘The line between the two is less acute than many would have us believe.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Miss Efoss, may I do one thing for you?’
‘What is that?’
‘It is a small thing but would give me pleasure. May I pay for your tea? Beryl will be pleased if you allow me to.’
Miss Efoss laughed. ‘Yes, Mr Dutt, you may pay for my tea.’ And it was as she spoke this simple sentence that it dawned upon Miss Efoss just what it was she had to do.
Miss Efoss began to sell her belongings. She sold them in many directions, keeping back only a few which she wished to give away. It took her a long time, for there was much to see to. She wrote down long lists of details, finding this method the best for arranging things in her mind. She was sorry to see the familiar objects go, yet she knew that to be sentimental about them was absurd. It was for other people now to develop a sentiment for them; and she knew that the fresh associations they would in time take on would be, in the long run, as false as hers.
Her flat became bare and cheerless. In the end there was nothing left except the property of the landlord. She wrote to him, terminating her tenancy.
The Dutts were watching the television when Miss Efoss arrived. Mr Dutt turned down the sound and went to open the door. He smiled without speaking and brought her into the sitting-room.
‘Welcome, Miss Efoss,’ Mrs Dutt said. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’
Miss Efoss carried a small suitcase. She said: ‘Your baby, Mrs Dutt, When is your baby due? I do hope I am in time.’
‘Perfect, Miss Efoss, perfect,’ said Mr Dutt. ‘Beryl’s child is due this very night.’
The pictures flashed silently, eerily, on the television screen. A man dressed as a pirate was stroking the head of a parrot.
Miss Efoss did not sit down. ‘I am rather tired,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I go straight upstairs?’
‘Dear Miss Efoss, please do.’ Mrs Dutt smiled at her. ‘You know your way, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Miss Efoss said. ‘I know my way.’
The Introspections of J. P. Powers
J. P. Powers, big, forty-three, his face a mass of moustache, said: ‘You must depress the clutch, Miss Hobish. It is impossible to change from one gear to another without you depress the clutch.’
J. P. Powers was aware of his grammatical lapse. It is impossible to change from one gear to another unless you depress the clutch. It is impossible to change from one gear to another without depressing the clutch. Either variant would have done: both were within his idiom. Without you depress was foreign to him, the way the Irish talk. Despite the Celtic ring of his name, Justin Parke Powers was not Irish.
Miss Hobish drove the Austin in a jagged manner down Cave Crescent and into Mortimer Road. Ahead lay Putney Hill and an awkward right turn, across both streams of traffic. Powers prepared himself for the moment, feet ready for the dual controls, fingers poised to jab the starter when the engine stalled.
‘Slowing down signal,’ said J. P. Powers. Then: ‘Change to second, hand signal, indicator. Always the old hand signaclass="underline" never rely on the indicator, Miss Hobish.’
Miss Hobish edged the car forward, aiming at a bus.
‘Wait for a gap, Miss Hobish. All that traffic has the right of way.’
He had said without you depress just for the novelty sound of it, because he had become so used to the usual patter of words, because his tongue grew tired of forming them.
‘Now, Miss Hobish.’ He seized the steering wheel and swung it, giving the engine a spurt of petrol.
The Austin bore to the left at the traffic lights, along Upper Richmond Road, and later turned right, into the quiet roads of Barnes Common. Powers relaxed then, telling her to take it calmly. Miss Hobish was always happy on Barnes Common.
He lit a cigarette and lowered the window so that the smoke would be carried away. He sat in silence, watching the road. Occasionally he glanced at Miss Hobish and occasionally at parts of himself. He saw his fingernails splayed on his two thick knees. He was not a particularly clean man, and this was a fact he now thought about. He visualized his grey-brown underclothes and the tacky yellow on the underarms of his shirts. Once his wife had commented on this yellow, saying he was a dirty man, running baths for him and pushing deodorants at him. She did all this no longer, only sighing when by chance she came upon his socks, stiff like little planks, in the big cardboard carton she used as a laundry basket. A complaint had come in one summer from a fastidious man called Hopker. Roche had had him in and told him about it, with the typing girl still in the room. ‘Wash out your armpits, old son. Get Lifebuoy and Odo-ro-no or Mum.’ Roche was a little fellow; it was easy for Roche, there wasn’t an ounce of sweat in him. Powers was fifteen stone: rolls of fat and muscle, grinding out the perspiration, secreting it in fleshy caches. To keep himself sweet he’d have to take a shower every two hours.
During his daily periods of boredom J. P. Powers was given to thought. It was thought of a depressing quality, being concerned with his uselessness. Fifty years ago there were no driving instructors in the world: what would he have done fifty years ago, how would he have made a living? The truth was he brought no skill to the job, he had no interest in it. How could one be interested in so unnecessary an occupation as teaching people to drive motor-cars? People could walk, they had legs. People could avail themselves of public transport. He gave no real service; better to be a booking clerk for British Railways. Not that people weren’t grateful to him. They waved to him afterwards, implying that he had helped them on their way. But J. P. Powers was thinking of himself; there was nothing expert in what he did, anyone could teach the gears and the knack.
‘Well, that was nice,’ said Miss Hobish. ‘I do enjoy it, Mr Powers. Now, will you take a cup of tea with me?’
Miss Hobish had been learning to drive for five years. It was an outing for her: Miss Hobish was seventy-three.
There was a job that was waiting for J. P. Powers, preserved for him by Ransome, with whom he had served in the Royal Air Force. ‘Any time you’re ready, J. P.,’ was how Ransome put it. Ransome with an amber pint in his paw, down at the Saracen’s Head on a Sunday morning. Ransome was sorry for him, remembering how he had driven a Spitfire during the war, thinking of him being driven by inept drivers now. Ransome felt he owed him something, some vague debt incurred in 1945. ‘Your day’s your own,’ said Ransome. ‘We supply the car.’ The task was to sell baby requisites from door to door: gripe water and talcum powder, disinfectant and baby oiclass="underline" Ransome was expanding: he’d just bought up a concern that manufactured nappies; he was taking a look at the plastic toy business. ‘Let me ask you a question,’ said Ransome. ‘Doesn’t it send you up the wall hawking these learner drivers about?’ Ransome had a nice little patch keeping warm for Powers out Kingston way. ‘Look at the commission,’ said Ransome. ‘You won’t find commissions like that in your front garden.’