Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

tell anyone the amount but let it be known Auntie had left her money. It proved Auntie’d loved her. When she added it to her own savings the total came to ?2,500. Any sum over a thousand pounds was real money, Minty thought, proud of what she’d amassed. It was after that that she collected Auntie’s ashes from the undertakers and buried them in Maisie Chepstow’s grave.

A long time passed before she went back to the pub. The following week Laf and Sonovia hadn’t wanted to see the film so she’d gone alone; she didn’t mind that, it wasn’t as though she wanted to talk in cinemas. Wisely, she went to the six-ten showing when hardly anyone else did. There were only eight people in the seats besides herself. She liked being alone with no one to whisper to her or pass her chocolates. On the way back she dropped into the Queen’s Head and bought an orange juice. Why, she couldn’t have said. The pub was half empty, it seemed less smoky than usual, and she found a table in the corner.

All her life Minty had never spoken to a man who wasn’t someone’s husband or her employer or the postman or bus conductor. Those sorts of people. She’d never seriously thought of having a boyfriend, still less of getting married. When she was younger Sonovia used to tease her a bit and ask her when she was going to get a man of her own, and Minty always said she wasn’t the marrying kind. Auntie’s mysterious but horrific account of her marital experience had put her off. Besides, she didn’t know any unattached men and none showed any signs of wanting to know her.

Until Jock. Not the first but the second time she went into the pub she saw him looking at her. She was sitting at that same corner table on her own, dressed as she always was in a clean pair of cotton trousers and a long- sleeved T-shirt, her hair newly washed and her nails scrubbed. The man she stole cautious glances at was tall and well built, long-legged in blue jeans and a dark-blue padded jacket. He had a handsome face and a nice tan; he looked clean and his brown hair was short and trim. Minty had almost finished her orange juice. She stared into the golden grainy dregs of it, to avoid looking at the man.

He came over, said, “Why so sad?”

Minty was too scared to look at him. “I’m not sad.”

“You could have fooled me.”

He sat down at her table, then asked her if she minded. Minty shook her head. “I’d like to buy you a real drink.”

Auntie sometimes had a gin and tonic, so Minty said she’d have one of those. While he was getting her gin and a half of lager for himself, Minty felt near to despair. She thought of getting up and running away but she’d have had to pass him to get to the door. What would Sonovia and Josephine say? What would Auntie have said? Have nothing to do with him. Do not trust him, gentle maiden, though his voice be low and sweet. He came back with the drinks, sat down, and said his name was Jock, Jock Lewis, and what was hers.

“Minty.”

“Yum, yum,” said Jock. “Sounds like something that comes with a shoulder of lamb.” He laughed, but not unkindly. “I can’t call you that.”

“It’s Araminta really.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Minty, Minty, the rick-stick Stinty, round tail, bobtail, well done, Minty.” He laughed into her incredulous face. “I shall call you Polo.”

She thought about it, understood. He didn’t have to explain. “I’m Jock. John, really, but everyone calls me Jock. Live round here, do you?”

“Syringa Road.”

He shook his head. “I’m a stranger here myself but I soon won’t be. I’ve got a place up in Queen’s Park, I moved in on Saturday.” He glanced at her hands. “You’re not married, are you, Polo? You’ve got a boyfriend though, I’m sure you have, just my luck as usual.”

She thought of Auntie who was dead and of Agnes going off to Australia. “I haven’t got anybody.”

He didn’t like that. She couldn’t tell why but he didn’t. She’d said it very seriously, of course she had, it was serious to her. To make it better she tried to smile. The gin had gone straight to her head, though she’d only sipped a few mouthfuls of it.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll make you laugh. Now listen. Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drownded. Who was saved?”

It was easy. “Pinch Me.”

He did so. Very gently on her upper arm. “Caught you out, Polo.”

She didn’t laugh. “I ought to be going.”

She thought he’d try to stop her but he didn’t. “Here, have one for the road.” He offered her not a drink but a Polo mint. “I’ll walk you home. I’ve not got my car with me.”

She didn’t believe in the car. Not then. Besides, if he’d had one and offered to drive her she’d have refused. She knew all about not taking lifts from strange men. Or sweets. They might be drugs. Wouldn’t being walked home be just as dangerous? She couldn’t refuse; she didn’t know how. He held the pub door open for her. The streets round here were deserted at night except for groups of young men, wandering, filling the width of the pavement, silent but occasionally letting out bestial yells. Or you’d meet just one, loping along to the deafening beat of a ghetto blaster. If she’d been alone, she wouldn’t have risked it; she’d have got the bus. He asked her what was behind the high wall.

“That’s the cemetery.” She didn’t know why she had to add, “My auntie’s ashes are in there.”

“Is that a fact?” He said it as if she’d told him something wonderful, like she’d won the lottery, and from that moment she started liking him. “Your auntie was very important to you, right?”

“Oh, yes. She was like my mother. She left me her house.”

“You deserved it. You were devoted to her and did all sorts of things for her, didn’t you?” She nodded, speechless. “You had a reward for your good services.”

Syringa Road didn’t turn directly out of Harrow Road but out of a turning off it. He read out the street name in the sort of tone you’d use to say Buckingham Palace or Millennium Dome. His voice was lovely, like something sweet and dark brown and smooth, chocolate mousse maybe. But she was afraid he’d want to come in and she wouldn’t know how to stop him. Suppose he tried to kiss her? Laf and Sonovia weren’t in. No lights were on next door. Old Mr. Kroot lived on the other side, but he was eighty-five and wouldn’t be much use.

Jock dispelled her fears. “I’ll wait here and watch you in.”

She took three steps up the path and turned round. Five would have brought her to the door. “Thank you,” she said.

“What for? It’s been a pleasure. Are you in the phone book, Polo?”

“Auntie was. Miss W. Knox.”

If she hadn’t wanted him to phone she should have said she wasn’t in the book, which was true. She wasn’t. But maybe she did want him to phone her. He went off whistling. The tune was “Walk On By,” the one about being strangers when we meet.

Jock wasted no time. He phoned her the next day. It was in the early evening, she’d just got home from Immacue and was having a wash. No good thinking she could get to the phone when she was all wet and her hair dripping. She let it ring. It would only be Sonovia wanting to tell her something about what Corinne had done this time or the prize Julianna had won or where Florian had come in his exams. The phone rang again while she was arranging cold ham slices and cold boiled potatoes and cubes of cucumber on a plate for her supper, with a chocolate mousse she’d made herself to follow. The voice that was like the mousse said it was Jock and would she come to the cinema with him.

“I might,” Minty said, and then she said, “All right.”

That was how it began.

Josephine said, Had she found out if he was married? Sonovia said she knew nothing about him and would she like Laf to check on Jock’s antecedents, which he could easily do on the police computer. When she told him, Laf said was she joking, a guy with a name like John Lewis? There’d be thousands of them. Not to mention the department store. Minty didn’t much like any of this. It wasn’t their business. How would they like it if she started checking up on their friends? Laf and Sonovia thought a lot too much of themselves, just because he was the first black policeman in the UK to have been made a sergeant. It made her keener on Jock than she might have been