‘Since I was seventeen, Mrs Mayben, since the day of my mother’s funeral, I have lived alone with all this horror. Dunfarnham Avenue is the theatre of my embarrassment. You feed the sparrows, Mrs Mayben, yet for me it seems you have no crumb of comfort.’
‘I cannot be expected –’ began Mrs Mayben.
‘I am forty-one this month. She is four years older. See us as children, Mrs Mayben, for it’s absurd that I am here before you as a small man in a weekend suit. We are still children in that house, in our way: we have not grown up much. Surely you take an interest?’
‘You come here saying you are notorious, Mr Tripp –’
‘I am notorious, indeed I am, for God is a hard master. The house is dark and unchanged. Only the toys have gone. We eat the same kind of food.’
‘Go away,’ cried Mrs Mayben, her voice rising. ‘For the sake of God, go away from me, Mr Tripp. You come here talking madly and carrying a ham knife. Leave my house.’
Edward rose to his feet and with his head bowed to his chest he walked past Mrs Mayben into her hall. He picked up the ham knife from the table and moved towards the front door.
‘I’m sorry I can’t interest myself in you and your sister,’ said Mrs Mayben. ‘I am too old, you see, to take on new subjects.’
Edward did not say anything more. He did not look at Mrs Mayben, but into his mind came the picture of her leaning from her sitting-room window putting crumbs of bread on the window-sills for the birds. He walked from her house with that picture in his mind and he heard behind him the closing of her hall door.
Edward crossed Dunfarnham Avenue and entered the house he had always known, carrying the ham knife in his left hand. He moved slowly to the dining-room and saw that the table was neatly laid for lunch. The sliced ham had been placed by his sister on two blue-and-white plates. Salt and pepper were on the table, and a jar of pickles that he himself had bought, since they both relished them. She had washed a lettuce and cut up a few tomatoes and put chives and cucumber with the salad. ‘I’ve made the mustard,’ said Emily, smiling at him as he sat down, and he saw, as he expected, that the look had gone from her face. ‘We might repair the sitting-room carpet this afternoon,’ said Emily, ‘before that hole becomes too large. We could do it together.’
He nodded and murmured, and then, although he was awake and eating his lunch, Edward dreamed. It seemed to him that he was still in Mrs Mayben’s sitting-room and that she, changed in her attitude, was murmuring that of course she understood, and all the better because she was old. She placed a hand on Edward’s shoulder and said most softly that he had made her feel a mother again. He told her then, once more, of the pansies plucked from the flowerbed, and Mrs Mayben nodded and said he must not mind. He must suffer a bit, she said in a gentle way, since that was his due; he must feel his guilt around him and know that it was rightly there. In Edward’s dream Mrs Mayben’s voice was soothing, like a cool balm in the sunshine that came prettily through her sitting-room window. ‘My dear, do not weep,’ said the voice. ‘Do not cry, for soon there is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ The birds sang while the sun illuminated the room in which Mrs Mayben stood. ‘I will go now,’ said Edward in his dream, ‘since I have mended your fuse and had my sherry. We’ve had a lovely chat.’ He spoke in a peculiar voice and when he rose and walked away his feet made little sound as they struck the floor. ‘Come when you wish,’ invited Mrs Mayben with tears in her eyes. ‘Cross the road for comfort. It’s all you have to do.’
Edward chewed lettuce and ham and a piece of tomato, staring over his sister’s shoulder at the grey curtains that hung by the window. His eyes moved to his sister’s face and then moved downwards to the table, towards the knife that lay now on the polished wood. He thought about this knife that he had carried into a neighbour’s house, remembering its keen blade slicing through the flesh of a pig. He saw himself standing with the knife in his hand, and he heard a noise that might have been a cry from his sister’s throat. ‘I have played a trick on you,’ his own voice said, tumbling back to him over the years.
‘A pity if that carpet went,’ said Emily.
Edward looked at her, attempting to smile. He heard her add:
‘It’s always been there. All our lives, Edward.’ And then, without meaning to say it, Edward said:
‘She was harsh in how she looked. Too old to take on new subjects: she was making excuses.’
‘What?’ murmured Emily, and Edward sighed a little, eating more of the food she had prepared. Vaguely, he told her not to worry, and as he spoke he imagined them that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the other room stitching the carpet they had always known, not saying much except to comment perhaps upon the labour and upon the carpet. And as they worked together, he knew that he would go on praying, praying in his mind for the day to come: a day when old Mrs Mayben and all the people of Dunfarnham Avenue would see his sister walking lightly in the Kingdom of Heaven. In their presence she would smile as once she had smiled as a child, offering him her forgiveness while saying she was sorry too, and releasing in sumptuous glory all the years of imprisoned truth.
The Forty-seventh Saturday
Mavie awoke and remembered at once that it was Saturday. She lay for a while, alone with that thought, considering it and relishing it. Then she thought of details: the ingredients of a lunch, the cleaning of the kitchen floor, the tidying of her bedroom. She rose and reached for her dressing-gown. In the kitchen she found a small pad of paper and wrote in pencil these words: mackerel, parmesan cheese, garlic. Then she drew back the curtains, placed a filled kettle over a gas-jet and shook cornflakes on to a plate.
Some hours later, about midday, Mr McCarthy stood thoughtfully in a wine shop. He sighed, and then said:
‘Vin rosé. The larger size. Is it a litre? I don’t know what it’s called.’
‘Jumbo vin rose,’ the assistant murmured, ignoring the demands of the accented word. ‘Fourteen and seven.’
It was not a wine shop in which Mr McCarthy had ever before made a purchase. He paused, his hand inside his jacket, the tips of his fingers touching the leather of his wallet.
‘Fourteen and seven?’
The assistant, perceiving clearly that Mr McCarthy had arrested the action with which he had planned to draw money from within his clothes, took no notice. He blew on the glass of the bottle because the bottle was dusty. Whistling thickly with tongue and lips, he tore a piece of brown paper and proceeded to wrap with it. He placed the parcel in a carrier bag.
‘I thought it was ten shillings that size,’ Mr McCarthy said. ‘I have got it in another place for ten shillings.’
The assistant stared at him, incredulous.
‘I buy a lot of vin rosé,’ Mr McCarthy explained.
The assistant, a man of thirty-five with a face that was pock-marked, spoke no word but stared on. In his mind he was already retailing the incident to his superior when, an hour or so later, that person should return. He scrutinized Mr McCarthy, so that when the time came he might lend authority to his tale with an accurate description of the man who had demanded vin rosé and then had argued about the charged price. He saw before him a middle-aged man of medium height, with a hat and spectacles and a moustache.
‘Well, I haven’t time to argue.’ Mr McCarthy handed the man a pound note and received his change. ‘Threepence short, that is,’ he said; and the assistant explained:
‘The carrier bag. It’s necessary nowadays to charge. You understand?’
But Mr McCarthy lifted the wine out of the bag, saying that the brown paper wrapping was quite sufficient, and the assistant handed him a threepenny piece.