Slinky Jane Read online

  For a moment Peter found himself unable to speak, but when he did it was like a spluttering explosion, as he roared ‘Well, I’m not coming into your damn family, so don’t you worry.’

  They stared at each other in silence until Davy said, ‘Oh! So you’re not, eh?’ There was no sign of amusement on his face now, nor laughter in his voice. Whereas the refusal of his offer for the garage had not, seemingly, touched him, this second refusal brought a tautness to his whole body which showed that he was not only surprised but, in his turn, angry.

  ‘No, I’m not. And what I do is my business! Get that.’

  ‘But there you are mistaken, lad. It isn’t just your business, she’s me sister and you’re not going to play fast and loose with her.’

  ‘Now look—get out!’ Peter’s attitude again left nothing to doubt, but Davy stood his ground and the two men glared angrily at each other, as they had done at intervals since their schooldays.

  As always, Davy was the first to recover, and he did so on this occasion quicker than usual, saying, ‘Aw! Peter man, we’re fools. What’s between you and Mavis is your business, as you say.’ He stared a moment longer at Peter, waiting for a retort; and when all he got was the continued fiery glare from Peter’s eyes, he gave a laughing ‘Huh!’ before turning away, saying, ‘I’ll look in the morrow.’

  ‘You can save your feet.’

  The car roared round the garage drive and away along the village, and Peter, pelting the tow into a corner, cried, ‘Damn!’ and then again, ‘Damn!’ Why did he let that fellow get under his skin? There wasn’t another person in the whole world who reacted on him as Davy Mackenzie did. And him suggesting that because he had been out twice with Mavis he was thinking of moving into their family. My God! Florrie had been right.

  He strode into the office, grabbed up the key, and made for the door, there to be confronted by the subject of his thought in the flesh, Mavis herself.

  That Peter was astounded by the sight of Mavis was plain to be seen. It would almost seem as if Davy had willed her out of the air and dropped her here to further both his and her own cause.

  ‘Hello.’ Mavis’s slightly bulging blue eyes blinked up at him while her lips made a vain but refined effort to meet over her slightly protruding teeth. Everything about Mavis was refined. From her too small shoes to her neatly permed hair there was a tight, prim compact refinement about her. And it had thoroughly soaked itself into her voice, for Mavis did not speak ‘North Country’ except for a few revealing words. But she spoke a twang of her own, which she considered very refined-like.

  ‘I thought I’d look in and see you…I got off early.’

  Peter did not speak, he only stared.

  ‘Oh, it’s been hot in the office today, sweltering.’

  Still Peter said nothing.

  Mavis looked up at him through slightly narrowed lids now; then she smoothed down her gently heaving bosom with one hand and, lowering her lids, said, ‘Oh, I got annoyed today. That Mr Pringle was on again…pawing. Really, I think I’ll have to leave there.’

  Peter’s greasy hands ran through his hair. Why in the name of heaven had he let himself in for this? He had known on Saturday night that he couldn’t stand her, yet he had to go and ask her again for Sunday. He must have been barmy, clean barmy. Even Florrie didn’t warrant his putting up with Mavis Mackenzie for two nights, and one more night of her would drive him round the bend. She had always got on his nerves, which was why he had constantly striven to keep her at a distance. And then he had let himself in for …

  ‘Are you going anywhere tonight?’

  The sweat ran down from his tousled hair, and he pulled a lump of tow from his back pocket, muttering as he did so, ‘I’ve got a big job in.’ He nodded back to the dismembered car.

  Mavis, putting her head to one side, looked at the skeleton frame of the Alvis and an understanding, even a maternal gleam came into her eye. For Peter she would even babysit to a car. ‘I’ll come along after tea and keep you company,’ she said.

  Her eyelids were drooping again and her lips straining to meet, when Peter’s voice, with a distinct note of panic, brought them all wide.

  ‘No! No! You’ll not, thank you very much. I’ve got me hands full. I can’t stand anybody—I mean—’ What he did mean he couldn’t bring himself to say, and he turned from her muttering something about shutting up, and with a great deal of to-do brought the garage doors together and locked them.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Mavis’s voice was slightly off its refined key now, and he answered her over his shoulder, ‘Nowt’s up with me.’

  ‘I thought we—’

  He clipped the lock into place with a loud bang, saying, ‘You shouldn’t think; people take too much for granted by thinking.’

  ‘Well!’

  He was compelled now to turn and face her, and he nodded at her and said, ‘Aye…well?’

  ‘I want an explanation.’ Her head was up and her lips had almost accomplished the impossible.

  He forced himself to throw out his chest. ‘And I want me tea and a wash…I’m tired.’

  As he marched away another swelling ‘Well!’ hit his back, and he thought again, Aye, well, you can go and tell your menfolk that. They would have to think again if they were going to try and hook him through her.

  But although he was thinking in these strong and firm terms he was feeling anything but strong and firm. As Florrie said, Mavis would take some shaking off; it would take more than a little incident like this to get her off his track.

  He was still agitated and was sweating visibly when he entered the house, and he hadn’t got his hands under the tap when his mother, from the kitchen door, demanded, ‘Who’s Slinky Jane—do you know?’

  He turned quickly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Listen to them.’ She lifted her head to the ceiling, and he put his head to one side in an effort to make out what the lads were singing.

  Rosie’s face split into a grin as she said, ‘It’s a song of some kind they’ve made up about somebody in the village, listen.’

  ‘Slinky Jane’s a girl with style.

  For Slinky Jane I’d walk a mile,

  Through a dark wood and over a stile,

  All for Slinky Jane.’

  ‘It’s a nice tune, catchy. Never heard it before, have you?’

  ‘No.’ He grinned back at her, then turned to the sink again. The lads had never made that up. Likely it was the girl. And his mother thinking it was somebody in the village. Funny that.

  There followed a short silence before Rosie, her tone now completely altered, put in abruptly, ‘Your dad’s not in yet. If he’s gone to the Hart again the night afore coming home there’ll be summat to do here, I can tell you.’

  Ignoring now the nice tune which was still going on, Rosie banged the cups onto the tin tray and Peter screwed up his eyes against the soap and her voice, as she gave him a sample of what she would say to Harry when he did come in.

  Oh Lord! He gave a quiet moan. That was one thing he couldn’t bear to listen to—his mother going for his dad, even if she was in the right. The security that the house offered from Mavis tonight would, he saw, have to be waived. Yet as he finished drying himself he realised that he had left it too late for even the bus into Allendale, and also that the danger consequent on a walk was not to be considered, so there would be nothing for it but the Hart. The Hart was one place into where Mavis wouldn’t follow him; they were all teetotallers, the Mackenzies, too damn mean to be anything else …

  He had washed and changed and eaten his meal so quickly that Rosie, suspicion gathering on her brow, demanded, ‘Going some place the night?’

  ‘The Hart.’

  She had warned him about the Hart in the past, saying ‘You don’t want to get like him,’ ‘him’ being his father, but now there was a look of undisguised relief on her face. Far rather the Hart than that Mavis Mackenzie, and she smiled at him and there was no sting in her words as she said, ‘I’ll soon have to
take all the meals down there.’

  ‘Aye, you might an’ all. That’ll be the day.’

  They both laughed together now at the improbability of such a happening.

  As he let himself out of the front door Grandpop’s voice, endeavouring to be hushed, came to him heavy with warning saying, ‘Watch yerself, lad. One after t’other’s been at the window. On the lookout for somebody I should say. You didn’t say to meet her the night, not by her face as she passed here, you didn’t, and they’re puzzling their pluddy heads as to where you might be off to.’

  Peter did not reply, only cast a warning glance in his great-grandfather’s direction. Nothing escaped the old ’un. You’d think he’d be past taking an interest in the goings-on, but not he. Although he had a tongue that would clip clouts, he was generally right in all he said. And he was right again this time, for as he went out of the gate he detected a watcher behind the Mackenzies’ fancy-curtained windows. This fact lent wings to his heels, and he was within a few yards of the Hart when he heard the unmistakable click of the Mackenzies’ gate. He did not turn to ascertain who might have come through it, but it took all his control not to sprint the last few yards to the inn.

  Once safely in the bar parlour he glanced through the window to see if his assumption had been right, and yes, there she was crossing the road, away from the contamination of the wicked place. He heaved a sigh that released a grin to his face, then he answered the remarks being thrown at him from the regulars, as one after the other they called:

  ‘Goin’ to stand us one for the road, Peter?’

  ‘Peter Puddleton, made millionaire through being only one in village with bit spare land and garage.’

  ‘Guess of all the lot of us you’re the one who’s going to gain by this, Peter.’

  ‘Well, it serves you right,’ he threw back at them. ‘Old Parkinson was trying to sell that place for years, and you laughed at him. You see, them that laughs last laughs longest.’

  ‘What’s yours, Peter?’ Mr Booth’s flat voice asked of him.

  ‘Oh.’ Peter turned back to the counter. ‘A Burton please, Stan…small…Dad been in?’

  ‘In, and still is.’

  ‘Where?’ Peter looked around.

  ‘Darts with the lady.’

  Slowly Peter’s eyes moved along the room, but they couldn’t go round the corner to where the dartboard was. What they did take in, however, was the fact that nearly all the customers were seated in positions which enabled them to take in—the corner.

  Nonchalantly taking up his glass, he walked to a point from where he, too, could have a view of the proceedings, and he was just in time to see the girl poised to throw a dart. He watched her thin body give a slight twist, then jerk forward. For one brief second the chatter and laughter ceased, then one voice after another cried, as if to proclaim the achievement for the first time in history, ‘Double twenty! Double twenty!’

  ‘Double twenty! Lordy, lordy. Why, miss…not first time you’ve seen dartboard.’

  ‘Why, I be jiggered! What’s she got?’

  ‘Double twenty.’

  ‘Double twenty? No! That’s the second time she’s done it.’

  Peter smiled to himself and turned away. It was evident that his client had caught on.

  The darts players were moving from the board now and coming towards the bar proper. The girl was walking with his father on one side and Bill Fountain on the other, and Peter kept his head turned away, but his ears were wide to his father’s voice as he said, ‘What’s it to be this time, miss? Now come on, make it something stronger than grapefruit…Hallo there, lad.’ Harry addressed Peter’s back, and Peter, turning as if in surprise, said, ‘Oh, hallo there,’ before adding under his breath, ‘Been home yet?’

  Harry’s beam didn’t actually fade, but he looked sharply at his son while saying quite pleasantly, ‘No, not yet, lad.’ Then turning to Mr Booth he added, ‘Two bitters and a grapefruit, Stan.’

  ‘Hallo, Peter.’

  ‘Hallo, Bill.’

  Bill Fountain looked like an outsize Billy Bunter who had just brought off a scoop of some kind, the kind in this case being not far to seek. Really, thought Peter, both his dad and Bill looked like a couple of old roosters in the spring.

  And now it was the girl who said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Oh, hallo there, miss.’ It was as if he had only just become aware of her presence, and although he smiled his voice was slightly offhand.

  The girl’s gaze was full on him as it had been earlier in the day. It seemed an odd trick of hers to look you dead in the eye, and for all his outward seeming casualness it disturbed him, made him sort of uneasy. He didn’t know whether he liked her or not, but he felt sure that if he didn’t he was the only one in the bar who had come to such a decision. In spite of this feeling he couldn’t help but notice things about her, for instance her eyes. Behind their directness they looked tired, very tired: yet in their depths did he detect a hint of laughter? This suspicion made him turn away from her, but determining not to be outdone by his sire, in small talk at least, he leaned his elbows on the bar counter and asked lightly, but under his breath, ‘And how’s Slinky Jane?’

  The girl reached out for her glass of grapefruit and took a sip from it, then looked away from him across the counter to a row of bottles on a high shelf, before answering with equal lightness, ‘Very well. Thank you very much.’

  He had the desire to laugh at the way she said this, and strangely now he began to feel excited, as if they were discussing in code something of great import.

  ‘When did you see her last?’ he asked, still under his breath.

  ‘About an hour ago. Are you going to have a look at her before it gets dark?’

  Peter finished his beer in one long drink before committing himself—Mavis was still lurking in the back of his mind. Even so he heard himself say, ‘Yes, I think I’ll have a dander down and see her.’

  No sooner had he said it than he knew he had done a damn silly thing, and he almost twitched the glass off the counter when her voice came softly to him, saying, ‘I think I’ll have another peep at her, too.’

  He turned his head sharply and looked down at her. His mouth was slightly open in an attempt at a protest, then he looked quickly away again, straight ahead and into the mirror, and to his consternation he saw that there was hardly a man in the room who wasn’t looking in their direction. If he walked out of here with her the village would be set alight, and if they were seen in the wood together…! Frequenters of the wood were the odd fishers going to the lake, the few children of the village, and courting couples. And at present there were only three couples courting strongly enough to warrant their retirement to the wood.

  The pink hue was glowing under the dark stubble of his face when she said very softly, and with an unmistakable gurgle in her voice, ‘I’ll get my coat and dander across.’ She stressed his word dander. Then she turned from him to Harry, saying, ‘Thanks for the game.’

  Immediately Harry broke off his conversation with Bill and gave her all his attention. ‘You’re very welcome, miss…it’s been a pleasure. I’ll be happy to play you any time, win or lose.’

  ‘That goes for me an’ all.’ Bill was swelling visibly with this anticipatory pleasure.

  As she smiled from one to the other of the older men and Harry bent towards her beaming his broadest, Peter wondered what it was about his dad that made him get on with women. Apparently they didn’t seem to notice he had a cast in his eye, yet it wasn’t a thing that could escape anybody’s notice. Perhaps it was his unselfconsciousness—and nerve. He wished he had inherited a bit more of both himself.

  As the girl walked out amid a chorus of ‘Goodnight, mam’ and ‘Goodnight, miss’, Mrs Booth came in from the saloon, and having given her list of orders to her husband, she turned and faced the three men, saying, ‘Enjoying yourselves, gentlemen?’

  ‘Now, now, there,’ said Harry. ‘What’d you mean by that?’

  �
��What do I mean? There’s no fools like old ’uns.’

  ‘What do you think of that, Bill?’ Harry turned his straight eye, full of assumed indignation, on his pal, and as Bill’s stomach rumbled with his laughter preparatory to a juicy retort Peter moved away from the counter. He was in no frame of mind to listen to further gallantries, either from Bill or from his father, though they were directed this time towards Mrs Booth. Moreover, he told himself, he couldn’t risk staying here in case the girl took it into her head to look in the bar again on her way out. ’Twixt her and Mavis he saw himself now between the devil and the deep sea.

  As he reached the open doorway leading to the porch, Harry called, ‘You off, lad?’ and without turning round he threw over his shoulder a terse, ‘Aye.’

  Mrs Booth’s eyes were on him as he left the bar, and when they noted that he did not turn towards home she went swiftly into the passage and towards the back of the house, and Bill, turning quickly to Harry, said, ‘Say, Harry, your Peter know her afore she come here?’

  ‘You mean?’ Harry jerked his head upwards indicating the guest room.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘No, he never seen her afore the day.’

  ‘Fact?’

  ‘Fact. Why?’

  ‘Well’—Bill scratched his chin and gave a deep-bellied chuckle, which managed to convey a complimentary note—‘he’s a Puddleton all right, and miles ahead of you, Harry, though I’d never have believed that possible.’

  ‘What you mean, Bill?’ Harry’s face was straight.

  ‘Well, didn’t you hear ’em, man? Christian names it was, and all very intimate like. Sylvia Jane he called her. “And how’s my Sylvia Jane?” he said. Just like that. S’fact. You not hear him?’

  Harry had just lit his pipe, and the first full draw went scutting down his gullet like the shot from a gun, bringing him doubled up and choking.