On the way back he stopped at the shop, stuffing a box of chocolates up his jumper while the girl behind the counter fetched him some fresh tobacco. It was late afternoon and already darkening.
He ate a peppermint before entering the lounge. “Here you are, pet,” he said. “Sorry I missed beach.”
Shell had been dozing on the settee. Arthur knelt by her side and handed over the chocolates. “I ended up last minute help for a mate who needed a lift wi’ a set of drawers,” he explained, taking Shell’s hand. Her wedding ring felt so loose. “The buggers turned out too big for the stairs. I had to take ’em apart. By the time I got to Wolton the coach had gone.”
Shell set the chocolates on the floor. “You’ll have stopped in the WMC then,” she said.
“Aye, popped us head in.”
Shell sat up, rubbing her face. “There weren’t time to leave a note. I left a message wi the barman. Did tha speak to him?”
“Aye, chap mentioned it. He were all right, actually. Decent fella.”
There was a long period of silence before Shell lay back down. “I’m tired, Arthur.”
“I said I were sorry, love.”
“Well in that case don’t worry about it.”
You just never knew when you were going to drop in the drink with her. Arthur stood. “Did tha least have a good time? Bit of a break, wasn’t it…”
“No I didn’t have a good time.”
“Well, what about Lawrence? You an’ him get chance to talk?”
“He didn’t turn up either.”
There went the last flutter of salvation. Arthur picked up the chocolates. “I’ll pop these on t’side for when you wake,” he said.
There was no talking to Shell when she was like this.
On the front step Arthur sucked down a flood of air. He could see the leaded windows, the gloom-obscured brick and pebbledash of the neighbouring houses, and of a sudden, a shape in the window opposite. It could have been a spectre formed by candlelight in the Cairns’ house. David Cairns, beckoning with his head.
Arthur knocked-on. He’d always had time for David, so when he was let into the lad’s house he tried not to show his dismay at the sight of the downstairs, which was completely empty of furniture save a deckchair in the front room.
David sat on the chair. An unlit Calor Gas camping stove stood in front of him on which a pan of spaghetti rested, a plastic fork buried in the slop. Circular beds of light ringed two or three patches of candles and piles and piles of letters were on the mantelpiece, under which some embers throbbed. Arthur could just make out what looked like a table leg protruding from the ash.
“Just you in?”
David nodded.
“Where’s Cherry and t’kids?”
“Left.”
“Anywhere nice?”
“Left, Art.”
“Oh.”
Arthur sat cross-legged on the carpet. David was a good ten years younger than him and had a boyish cow-lick and non-existent eyebrows, both of which were obscured by a woollen hat. David set the pan down, took his hat off and scratched his head. Some pictures the tots had drawn were in the kitchen, taped to the cupboard near where the fridge had been. He said, “Probably for best. Not fair on t’littluns, living like this.”
“Who knows, after all this is finished…” Arthur trailed off.
David looked like the food he’d just eaten was off and had been all along. He fixed his gaze on the subdued fire and said, “I were sorry to hear about Het.”
“What’s sack-head got to do wi’ anything?”
“If I’d known they’d go after him, I’d have doubled back.”
“What you on about?”
“You not heard about us getting stopped?” David said, staring at Arthur as if he’d grown a second head.
“Apparently not.”
David’s duffel coat was hiked around the stomach. He undid it, smoothed it, picked the pan up and started tucking into the spaghetti once more. Speaking through his mouthful, a cave of wet string, he said, “Spotted after curfew on us way to picket Braithwaite. Busted on us way back. Someone’s reported Het’s car◦– they had his details on file. He were arrested. Now he’s on bail.”
A crump is a shake in a bed of stone when a gap closes and you get an almighty bang in the earth above your head. Arthur had a similar feeling now. David was a bright lad who was after becoming a ventilation engineer one day. Perhaps he could explain it.
“All of yous lifted?”
“Just him. Got any cigs?” said David. “I’ve started again.” He gestured at the empty room as if to say, why not. Arthur handed over the tobacco.
“You’ve spoken to him?”
“Thought you might’ve.”
Arthur snorted. “Y’know what us two are like.”
“That I do,” said David. He seemed really to be searching for something as he put his tongue to the rolling paper and ran it along the gum. “Which is why I was surprised to see him on the coach to Skegness wi’ your missus earlier.”
And you’re very keen not to make eye contact, so very careful now you’ve let the pin out of the grenade, David. Arthur made disbelieving noises that felt false, even to him, as he began to pace the room. He might have known. Of course he knew. He had always known.
“Before Cherry went to her mam’s,” David was saying, “she mentioned Shell and Het had been seeing a lot of each other. I been on picket more often than most, so hadn’t noticed… Course you knew.
“Anyway,” David continued, before Arthur could respond. “I were on coach, sat minding us own at back. I thought it’d clear us head, the day out. Sea breeze, like. Well them two got on, one after t’other. Side by side. They went off together on t’sand.”
“Reight.”
“Shell weren’t on t’bus back.”
This was the emptiest house Arthur had ever been in. He watched the smoke unfolding up the chimney.
“I’m losing the place, Art,” said David.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” replied Arthur, or at least that’s what he thought he’d said. He couldn’t be sure with his brain fizzing the way it was, the keening noise in his ears, sort of like the sound they played at night on TV when there were no more programmes to watch. He felt sick.
“Sure you seen ’em?”
“Well, I couldn’t reckon it up for definite, but I saw ’em side by side, getting all comfy, then they went off together. Like I said, only one of ’em were on t’coach home. I suppose I could have said summat on the way back, give Het chance to explain it away. I just couldn’t for some reason. Shell had her head on his shoulder all the way there. I thought it best I say summat, Art. If it were me I’d want to know.”
…A reckless spread of fern and gorse. A wolfhound emerging from the undergrowth with a conduit of blood trickling from its nose…
Arthur snapped awake, trying to catch his breath.
…The hound leaping off the mountain, a hen harrier trapped in its mouth. Through the beating hail the dog’s paws thumped the last of the burnt heather, pounding the Litten Path, the bird’s blood sizzling as it dripped on the ground…
Arthur slipped out of bed. Not a peep from Shell, lying there, this stranger he’d elected wife. He glared at her form, then felt terrible. He mouthed an apology, dressed and put his shoes on, left the bedroom and the freezing house.
His mam’s front garden was silent and littered with decaying leaves. Nothing here was growing. It was all reduced to stalk, easy to snap, skeletal.
Helen had done very well for herself since Alec’s accident. This house was so much bigger than the old place, the fraught terrace of Arthur’s boyhood that had been laden with the smell of lard cooking, bread and dripping and lavender candles. The thinned upholstery of furniture had hosted decades of afternoon naps.