the office, it had meant that early start by train, on a nippy morning. And then, before three o'c1ock in the afternoon, the clerks were turning on the lights, and as often as not there would be fog in the air, murky and dismal, and a slow chugging journey home, daily bread-ers like himself sitting five abreast in a carriage, some of them with colds in their heads. Then the long evening followed, with Midge opposite him before the living-room fire, and he listening, or feigning to listen, to the account of her days and the things that had gone wrong.
If she had not shouldered any actual household disaster, she would pick upon some current event to cast a gloom. 'I see fares are going up again, what about your season ticket?', or 'This business in South Africa looks nasty, quite a long bit about it on the six o'clock news', or yet again 'Three more cases of polio over at the isolation hospital. I don't know, I'm sure, what the medical world thinks it's doing…'
Now, at least, he was spared the role of listener, but the memory of those long evenings was with him still, and when the lights were lit and the curtains were drawn he would be reminded of the click-click of the needles, the aimless chatter, and the 'Heigh-ho' of the yawns. He began to drop in, sometimes before supper, sometimes afterwards, at the Green Man, the old public house a quarter of a mile away on the main road. Nobody bothered him there. He would sit in a corner, having said good evening to genial Mrs. Hill, the proprietress, and then, with a cigarette and a whisky and soda, watch the local inhabitants stroll in to have a pint, to throw a dart, to gossip.
In a sense it made a continuation of his summer holiday. It bore resemblance, admittedly slight, to the care- free atmosphere of the cafes and the restaurants; and there was a kind of warmth about the bright smoke-filled bar, crowded with working men who did not bother him, which he found pleasant, comforting. These visits cut into the length of the dark winter evenings, making them more tolerable.
A cold in the head, caught in mid-December, put a stop to this for more than a week. He was obliged to keep to the house. And it was odd, he thought to himself, how much he missed the Green Man, and how sick to death he became of sitting about in the living-room or in the study, with nothing to do but read or listen to the wireless. The cold and the boredom made him morose and irritable, and the enforced inactivity turned his liver sluggish. He needed exercise. Whatever the weather, he decided towards the end of yet another cold grim day, he would go out tomorrow. The sky had been heavy from mid-afternoon and threatened snow, but no matter, he could not stand the house for a further twenty-four hours without a break.
The final edge to his irritation came with the fruit tart at supper. He was in that final stage of a bad cold when the taste is not yet fully returned, appetite is poor, but there is a certain emptiness within that needs ministration of a particular kind. A bird might have done it. Half a partridge, roasted to perfection, followed by a cheese souffle. As well ask for the moon. The daily woman, not gifted with imagination, produced plaice, of all fish the most tasteless, the most dry. When she had borne the remains of this away — he had left most of it upon his plate — he returned with a tart, and because hunger was far from being satisfied he helped himself to it liberally.
One taste was enough. Choking, spluttering, he spat out the contents of his spoon upon the plate. He got up and rang the bell.
The woman appeared, a query on her face, at the unexpected summons.
'What the devil is this stuff?'
'Jam tart, sir.'
'What sort of jam?'
'Apple jam, sir. Made from my own bottling.'
He threw down his napkin on the table.
'I guessed as much. You've been using some of those apples that I complained to you about months ago. I told you and Willis quite distinctly that I would not have any of those apples in the house.'
The woman's face became tight and drawn.
'You said, sir, not to cook the apples, or to bring them in for dessert. You said nothing about not making jam. I thought they would taste all right as jam. And I made some myself, to try. It was perfectly all right. So I made several bottles of jam from the apples Willis gave me. We always made jam here, madam and myself.'
'Well, I'm sorry for your trouble, but I can't eat it. Those apples disagreed with me in the autumn, and whether they are made into jam or whatever you like they will do so again. Take the tart away, and don't let me see it, or the jam, again. I'll have some coffee in the living-room.'
He went out of the room, trembling. It was fantastic that such a small incident should make him feel so angry. God! What fools people were. She knew, Willis knew, that he disliked the apples, loathed the taste and the smell of them, but in their cheese-paring way they decided that it would save money if he was given home-made jam, jam made from the apples he particularly detested.
He swallowed down a stiff whisky and lit a cigarette.
In a moment or two she appeared with the coffee. She did not retire immediately on putting down the tray.
'Could I have a word with you, sir?'
'What is it?'
'I think it would be for the best if I gave in my notice.'
Now this, on top of the other. What a day, what an evening.
'What reason? Because I can't eat apple-tart?'
'It's not just that, sir. Somehow I feel things are very different from what they were. I have meant to speak several times.'
'I don't give much trouble, do I?'
'No, sir. Only in the old days, when madam was alive, I felt my work was appreciated. Now it's as though it didn't matter one way or the other. Nothing's ever said, and although I try to do my best I can't be sure. I think I'd be happier if I went where there was a lady again who took notice of what I did.'
'You are the best judge of that, of course. I'm sorry if you haven't liked it here lately.'
'You were away so much too, sir, this summer. When madam was alive it was never for more than a fortnight. Everything seems so changed. I don't know where I am, or Willis either.'
'So Willis is fed-up too?'
'That's not for me to say, of course. I know he was upset about the apples, but that's some time ago. Perhaps he'll be speaking to you himself.'
'Perhaps he will. I had no idea I was causing so much concern to you both. All right, that's quite enough. Good-night.'
She went out of the room. He stared moodily about him. Good riddance to them both, if that was how they felt. Things aren't the same. Everything so changed. Damned nonsense. As for Willis being upset about the apples, what infernal impudence. Hadn't he a right to do what he liked with his own tree? To hell with his cold and with the weather. He couldn't stand sitting about in front of the fire thinking about Willis and the cook. He would go down to the Green Man and forget the whole thing.
He put on his overcoat and muffler and his old cap and walked briskly down the road, and in twenty minutes he was sitting in his usual corner in the Green Man, with Mrs. Hill pouring out his whisky and expressing her delight to see him back. One or two of the habituees smiled at him, asked after his health.
'Had a cold, sir? Same everywhere. Everyone's got one.'
'That's right.'
'Well, it's the time of year, isn't it?'
'Got to expect it. It's when it's on the chest it's nasty.'
'No worse than being stuffed up, like, in the head.'
'That's right. One's as bad as the other. Nothing to it.'
Likeable fellows. Friendly. Not harping at one, not bothering.
'Another whisky, please.'
'There you are, sir. Do you good. Keep out the co1d.'
Mrs. Hill beamed behind the bar. Large, comfortable old soul. Through a haze of smoke he heard the chatter, the deep laughter, the click of the darts, the jocular roar at a bull's eye.
'. and if it comes on to snow, I don't know how we shall manage,' Mrs. Hill was saying, 'them being so late delivering the coal. If we had a load of logs it would help us out, but what do you think they're asking? Two pounds a load. I mean to say…'
He leant forward and his voice sounded far away, even to himself.
