The Long Corridor Page 8

  Bett’s smile was slightly derisive, and she rocked her head from one side to the other as she said, ‘I only hope it makes you happy.’

  ‘It will; it has. I’ve had the best three weeks I’ve had in my life.’

  ‘And what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’ve plans.’

  ‘I bet you have.’

  ‘What do you mean, Bett?’ The light in Jenny’s face had dimmed.

  ‘Oh, I only mean that if you planned all this and kept it dark then you’re bound to have other plans…Where are you going to settle?’

  ‘Here, in Fellburn, I think. I’ll have to get a flat. I’ll…I’ll have to have some place to put my clothes seeing as I’ve three cases full, and a trunk coming on.’

  ‘My, my! We have been busy.’ Bett could no longer keep the bitterness from her tone, and turning to the door she said, ‘Well, we’ve got company, but you’d better come in and see Lorna.’

  ‘I’d rather wait until later, until she’s by herself.’

  ‘Oh, I thought the new set-up would have given you all the confidence in the world.’

  ‘Are you being nasty, Bett?’

  The question was really unnecessary; this is what she had feared all the journey down, Bett’s reaction, yet it said something for her new façade that she had dared to voice the question.

  ‘No, of course, I’m not being nasty, only I think it was quite unnecessary to make all this mystery about what you intended to do. And I don’t suppose his lordship will be very pleased either; he’ll likely get professional pip thinking that you might have said something about the operation…because it was an operation, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that.’ Jenny had never thought of Paul being annoyed about her doing this off her own bat, but now the possibility presented itself. Apart from Bett’s reactions she had imagined everybody being kind, even pleased. She was under no illusions; her altered nose hadn’t made her into a beauty, but it had taken the focal point from people’s eyes, and in doing that had literally removed a weight from her body and a burden from her mind. It had also, as Ben had said it would, make her want to dress up. Oh, Ben, Ben. Of all the wise men in the world Ben had been the wisest. Why should she have been so lucky as to meet Ben? If only he had lived; that deep, hidden pain that was always in her would have been soothed, and the dreams to which her mind escaped at night would have faded; they must have done under Ben’s kindness. But here she was now, without Ben but as Ben had always seen her. But how would Paul see her? And what if he was annoyed? One thing she did know; it would please Bett if he was.

  Jenny did not answer Bett’s last remark but said instead, ‘I’ll go in and see Lorna. I hope she survives the shock.’ She laughed nervously and waited for Bett to make some comment, and when she didn’t, but continued to appraise her coolly, she became embarrassed. And this increased when Bett swung round and without further words went out into the hall. There was nothing for Jenny to do but follow her, and for the first time in weeks she felt flat, and the feeling didn’t lift when she entered the drawing room.

  Jenny had never ceased to be amazed at the mercurial changes Bett could bring about in her attitude, and here again she was witnessing just such a change, for Bett, on pushing open the drawing room door, assumed an entirely different character. ‘Look who we have here,’ she cried to Lorna, ushering Jenny in as if she were an exhibit.

  ‘Why, Aunt Jenny.’ Lorna turned from the long record player in the far corner of the room where she was standing near a young man, and flinging her arms wide with youthful gusto she darted across the room, only to come to a sliding stop on the carpet some feet away from Jenny. Her arms dropping slowly to her sides, she gaped for a moment at this smartly dressed woman who was, yet who wasn’t, her Aunt Jenny. The face was the same yet different; her nose was gone, the big hooked nose with the wide nostrils, and in its place was a straight affair, still largish but rounded at the end, a nose that was part of the face and no longer protruded from it as if trying to free itself from its base.

  ‘Why, Aunt Jenny!’ Lorna’s voice was just a whisper, and what else she might have said was checked by the sound of the young man’s voice answering her mother, and she remembered they had company, and her arms flinging upwards she embraced Jenny, and Jenny held her tightly.

  ‘Don’t be silly, child; leave your aunt alone.’ Now Bett’s voice separated them and went on, ‘This is Brian. Brian Bolton. Brian, my cousin…Mrs Hoffman.’ She inclined her head deeply towards Jenny as she gave her her married title for the first time.

  Jenny shook hands with the tall fair boy, Lorna’s first boy, who had looks and undoubtedly charm, perhaps a little too much, Jenny thought, as he said, ‘How do you do, Mrs Hoffman. I feel I know you very well; Lorna is always singing your praises.’ Then to her slight annoyance he turned her round and added, ‘Do you keep your wings under your coat?’

  ‘Oh, really!’ Jenny flicked him away with her hand and walked to where the tea things were still on the trolley to the side of the fireplace. She hadn’t much room for slick young men, slick men of any age.

  ‘Go and ask Maggie for a pot of fresh tea, Lorna.’

  ‘OK, Mammy.’ Lorna skipped to the trolley and grabbed up the teapot, and, laughing towards Jenny, darted from the room.

  Bett now looked towards the boy where he stood examining some records on the side table and called in a high voice, as if he was at the other side of the house, ‘Put another record on, Brian.’

  ‘A dance one?’ He turned his head, his wide grey eyes laughing at her. It was as if he had been coming to the house for years, he seemed so at home.

  ‘Yes, let’s have Twist and Shout again.’ With a few movements of her hips Bett demonstrated the record, and the young man laughed out loud, and she with him.

  Jenny, her face unsmiling, stared at Bett. What made her do it? Why must she act like a girl? Granted she was still young, only thirty-six, but she was no longer a teenager, she was a woman with a fifteen-year-old daughter. As the raucous cries from the record burst upon them, Bett, hips, arms, and feet twisting, moved towards the young man, and he, his tall body wriggling with the mobility of a snake, came towards her until they faced each other.

  As she watched them Jenny became warm with embarrassment. Yet why? Why? She could do the twist. She guessed that most housewives could do the twist. What woman, listening to Housewives’ Choice, hadn’t done a wriggle? She herself had made Ben laugh until he was sore when she’d had a go. Anybody who could stand could do the twist, so why should she feel so embarrassed now? It was certain that neither of the dancers felt embarrassed. Yet a moment later it became plain to Jenny that Lorna too, when she returned to that room, felt something akin to what she herself was experiencing. She had come in laughing, the teapot balanced on a stand, but by the time she had placed it on the trolley the smile had gone, to return fleetingly as she said, ‘Will I pour, Aunt Jenny?’

  ‘No, I’ll see to it. You go and have a dance.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to. I…I’ve been dancing for the last hour.’ But as she went to sit down Brian called, ‘Come on, Lorna, beat it up.’ And immediately the cloud lifted from her face and she was around the couch and facing him. Jenny watched her as she started to dance, her movements slower than her mother’s, more flowing, less intense; naturally graceful, nothing forced. As if this fact had made itself evident to Bett, she suddenly stopped her prancing, and coming to the couch she flopped down, helped herself to a cigarette, then lay back panting gently as she blew out the smoke in quick nervous movements.

  Without looking at Jenny she said, ‘You haven’t had any tea.’

  ‘I’ll help myself.’ Jenny rose to her feet and went to the trolley.

  ‘How long are you going to stay this time?’

  ‘For a week or so if you’ll have me; over Christmas, perhaps, until I find a flat.’

  ‘You can stay as long as you like, you know that.’

  ‘Thanks.�
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  ‘Have you thought of what you are going to do with yourself?’

  ‘What was that?’ Jenny screwed her face up against the heightened noise of the record, and Bett spoke louder, ‘I said, have you thought what you are going to do with yourself?’

  ‘Not really.’ Jenny returned to the couch with the cup in her hand. ‘I feel I’d like to make a home, just a little home, somewhere to come back to after I have a holiday. I’d like to go abroad for a time. But I know that I couldn’t live without working; I’ll very likely take up nursing again later on.’

  ‘You must be barmy.’ Bett slanted her glance towards her. ‘I know what I would do if I had it.’

  ‘Yes, so do I, Bett; so it’s a good job you haven’t, because your place is here.’ Jenny had turned her head to meet Bett’s gaze, and as she held it she said distinctly and slowly, ‘I could give you half of what I’ve got, and I could do it quite easily because I don’t need very much. I know I don’t. Just enough to give me a little security—I can always work. But what would happen to you? You’d go mad. I know you, Bett. And what about Lorna and Paul? So…so I’m not going to give you anything to help you lose what…what you’ve got.’

  ‘Who’s asking you?’ Bett’s voice was harsh and rasping. ‘It’s time enough for you to refuse when I ask you for anything, and that’ll be a long time, I’m telling you. As for losing what I’ve got; you can have it…anybody can have it…God, what I’ve got!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Jenny, her voice full of contrition, put her hand on Bett’s arm, and Bett, as if suddenly deflated, sat forward on the edge of the couch and dropped her head on to her chest.

  ‘Bett, listen.’ She moved closer to her. ‘I’m going to get you a little car; you’ve always wanted a car. Do you hear?’

  Bett’s head sank lower, and she appeared to be on the point of crying. It was as if she had forgotten the dancers and had become oblivious to the sound of the thumping of the record, but when it stopped she lay back and composed herself, the only evidence that she was upset showing in the constant nipping of her lips.

  Into the silence that followed the noise of the record, Brian’s voice, although low, came clearly to them, saying, ‘There’s a beat session on at the Ricco Club tonight, what about it? The Howlers are topping the bill.’ After a short pause Lorna said, ‘Oh, I’d love to, but I’ve got homework…But’—her voice lightened—‘I could do it after. Mammy, can I go out? Brian wants to take me to the Ricco Club.’

  Bett pulled sharply on her cigarette. ‘You just said you’ve got homework to do.’ Her tone was flat, uninterested, ‘Anyway, I don’t think your father would like you going there.’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mrs Higgins.’ The boy was facing her now from the hearthrug, bending slightly towards her, a strand of his fair hair drooping across his forehead to his left eye. He looked a mixture of sophistication and gauche youth. ‘We just all sit round; there’s turns, folk songs, community songs, and “The Howlers” do some of the pops. It’s all very nice.’ He stressed the last words, speaking like a man who was trying to assure a doubting mother as to the propriety of the club. And then his blue eyes widening, as if the thought had just come to him, he exclaimed, ‘Why don’t you come along, too? You would love it. It would just be up your street.’

  Jenny watched Bett being lifted on to the plane of careless youth by this young man, who hadn’t, she thought, much to learn. She watched the eager, hardly submerged girl in her rise to the invitation and grab it with a technique so thin that it was pitiful.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want me trailing along with you. Goodness gracious…And her mother came too!’ She made the high infectious sound that she could do so well, it was a cross between a laugh and a giggle.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ He bent further towards her. ‘You’re not like her mother.’ He lifted his glance above the couch and smiled at Lorna standing exactly where he had left her in the middle of the room. ‘You’re not even like sisters, you’re more like twins. Come on, what about it, eh?’

  It was as if he had thrown both his hands out to her, for she wiggled on the couch and brought herself towards its edge and him, saying again, ‘No, no, it can’t be done. Anyway, this is one of my nights on; I’ve got to stay in and receive calls. You see, our cook goes shortly after six and I’m without a maid.’ She glanced at Jenny now, a quick questioning glance.

  Jenny looked down at her hands, lying slackly, one on top of the other in her lap. She knew that if Bett didn’t go to the club then Lorna wouldn’t be allowed to, yet she wondered at the same time if it wouldn’t be better like that rather than Bett impose her false youth and gaiety into the natural element that was growing between these two young things. Her voice sounded prim as she said, ‘I’ll not be going out, I’ll take the calls.’

  ‘Would you, Jenny? Oh, but it would be an imposition to ask you.’

  ‘Why?’ Jenny could not resist making the blunt statement. ‘I’ve done it before, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but…Oh, well, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Thanks, thanks, Jenny. I’ll go and get ready then. What time does it start?’ She turned her head back towards Brian.

  ‘Seven o’clock, but we must get there early if you want a seat; it’s generally packed.’ He straightened up and pulled at his tie. He looked pleased with himself, as if he had brought something off.

  ‘Give me ten minutes.’ As Bett laughed at the tall, smiling youth, Jenny was forced to look away, and her eyes were drawn to Lorna where she was bending over the record player. Lorna, she noticed, hadn’t said anything one way or the other, and when her mother called to her gaily as she went from the room, ‘Come on, dear, and get ready,’ she replied, ‘I am ready. I just need to put my hat and coat on.’

  She might have said, Youth is its own dresser, it needs no adornment, for Bett stopped abruptly. Her face straight now, her voice sharp, she said, ‘Don’t be silly; you can’t go out in that get-up.’ She indicated with a wave of her hand Lorna’s pleated skirt and bulky pullover.

  ‘I’ll have a coat on.’

  ‘Oh, well!’ She raised her shoulders and her eyebrows together. ‘If you want to look a mess that’s your business.’ Then turning about she closed the door after her.

  The boy was looking towards Lorna now, but made no effort to join her, and Jenny looked at him and she didn’t know whether she liked him or not. In any case she felt he was a bit too old for Lorna, at least for her first boy. To make conversation she said to him, ‘Do you work in Fellburn?’

  ‘Yes, I’m at Boyes, the engineering works, and I do half-time at the college.’ He motioned his head in the direction of the Square.

  ‘You’re going to be an engineer then?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  As they spoke, Lorna came to the fireplace, and lifting her narrow foot on to the raised tilted fender she started to tap it, a sure sign that she was upset. And apparently the boy realised this for now turning to her he said quietly, ‘I think you look fine in that.’

  Lorna cast a sidelong glance at him. ‘I don’t really.’ Her voice, although holding its natural attractive huskiness, sounded dull.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it suits you. That goldy brown of the sweater is your colour…isn’t it?’ He appealed to Jenny, and Jenny said, ‘Yes, I think it is, but then Lorna can wear almost anything.’

  ‘Aw, Aunt Jenny.’ The set look slipped from Lorna’s face and, coming to the couch, she dropped with a plop beside Jenny and added, ‘You always say nice things, Aunt Jenny.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ Leaning towards Jenny, she dropped her head on to her shoulder and hugged her arm. It was as if she had forgotten Brian’s presence for the moment. ‘And you look lovely, Aunt Jenny. I meant to say it. And you smell nice too. What is it? What’s it called…the scent?’

  Jenny laughed down at her. ‘You’d never guess, not in a month of Sundays. It’s called…Snake Charm. Did you ever hear such a name
for such a nice smell?’

  ‘Snake Charm! Good Lord! But it’s lovely. Was it expensive?’

  Jenny closed her eyes and moved her head slowly. ‘The earth. Four pounds for a small bottle. I expected to get a cobra with it for that money.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Jenny.’ They were laughing together when Lorna, raising her head from Jenny’s shoulder, looked up at Brian and said, ‘I told you so, didn’t I?’ Brian seemed to understand this enigmatic remark, for he smiled down at Jenny; then said, ‘Lorna tells me you’re going to live here.’

  ‘Oh, not here.’ Jenny shook her head. ‘Not in the house. I’m thinking of taking a flat, and I want someone with good taste to help me furnish it.’ She doubled her fist and pressed it gently against Lorna’s nose, and Lorna cried, ‘You mean it? You really mean it…I could help you choose things?’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to have help from someone; I’ve no artistic sense, although I’ve got an eye for colour, quiet colours, like flaming red, purple and orange. Oh, I like flaming red, purple and orange, and nicely mixed.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Jenny, you don’t, you don’t. Don’t believe her.’ Lorna shook Jenny as she spoke to Brian, and Brian, playing the gallant, looked Jenny slowly over before saying, ‘Your choice of clothes belies that statement.’

  The compliment and the way it was said brought a straight look to Jenny’s face. No, she didn’t like this boy when he was playing the man. She thought again he was much too old for Lorna. She was saved from trying to make any reply to his gallantry by Bett entering the room.

  Bett was wearing a grey coat with a broad half-belt at the back and a high collar, and perched jauntily on her hair was a white fur toque. It was a youthful-looking rig-out, and together with a skilfully made-up face, which gave the impression of no make-up at all, she could have passed for twenty-five or under.