you prefer?’
‘I’m not going into any cemetery,’ she said, standing with legs apart in the gateway as if he might move her by force.
Dougal said, ‘There’s a lovely walk through the New Cemetery. Lots of angels. Beautiful. I’m surprised at you. Are you a free woman or are you a slave?’
She let him take her through the cemetery eventually, and even pointed out to him the tower of the crematorium when it came into sight. Dougal posed like an angel on a grave which had only an insignificant headstone. He posed like an angel-devil, with his hump shoulder and gleaming smile, and his fingers of each hand widespread against the sky. She looked startled. Then she laughed.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ she said.
On the way back along the pastoral streets of trees and across the Rye she told him about her six years as mistress of Mr Druce, about Mr Druce’s wife who never came to the annual dinners and who was a wife in name only.
‘How they bring themselves to go on living together I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There’s no feeling between them. It’s immoral.’
She told Dougal how she had fallen out of love with Mr Druce yet could not discontinue the relationship, she didn’t know why.
‘You’ve got used to him,’ Dougal said.
‘I suppose so.
‘But you feel,’ Dougal said, ‘that you’re living a lie.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘You’ve put my very thoughts into words.
‘And then,’ she said, ‘he’s got some funny ways with him.’
Dougal slid his eyes to regard her without moving his face. He caught her doing the same thing to him.
‘What funny ways? Come on, tell me,’ Dougal said. ‘There’s no good telling the half and then stopping.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be right to discuss Mr Druce with you. He’s your boss and mine, after all.’
‘I haven’t seen him,’ Dougal said, ‘since the day he engaged me. He must have forgotten about me.
‘No, he talked a lot about you. And he sent for you the other day. You were out of the office.’
‘What day was that?’
‘Tuesday. I said you were out on research.’
‘So I was,’ said Dougal. ‘I was out on research.’
‘Nobody gets forgotten at Meadows Meade,’ she said. ‘He’ll want to know about your research in a few weeks’ time.’
Dougal put his long cold hand down the back of her coat. She was short enough for his hand to reach quite a long way. He tickled her.
She wriggled and said, ‘Not in broad daylight, Dougal.’
‘In dark midnight,’ Dougal said, ‘I wouldn’t be able to find my way.’
She laughed from her chest.
‘Tell me,’ Dougal said, ‘what is the choicest of Mr Druce’s little ways?’
‘He’s childish,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I stick to him. I could have left Meadows Meade many a time. I could have got into a big firm. You don’t think Meadows Meade’s a big firm, do you, by any chance? Because, if you do, let me tell you, Meadows Meade is by comparison very small. Very small’
‘It looks big to me,’ Dougal said. ‘But perhaps it’s the effect of all that glass.’
‘We used to have open-plan,’ she said. ‘So that you could see everyone in the office without the glass, even Mr Druce. But the bosses wanted their privacy back, so we had the glass partitions put up.’
‘I like those wee glass houses,’ Dougal said. ‘When I’m in the office I feel like a tomato getting ripe.’
‘
‘Merle,’ he said, ‘Merle Coverdale, I’m a hard-working fellow. I’ve got to be out and about on my human research.’
They were moving up to the Rye where the buses blazed in the sun. Their walk was nearly over.
‘Oh, we’re soon here,’ she said.
Dougal pointed to a house on the right. ‘There’s a baby’s pram,’ he said, ‘stuck out on a balcony which hasn’t any railings.’
She looked and sure enough there was a pram perched on an open ledge only big enough to hold it, outside a second-floor window. She said, ‘They ought to be prosecuted. There’s a baby in that pram, too.‘
‘No, it’s only a doll,’ Dougal said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen it before. The house is a baby-carriage works. The pram is only for show.’
‘Oh, it gave me a fright.’
‘How long have you lived in Peckham?’ he said.
‘Twelve and a half years.’
‘You’ve never noticed the pram before?’
‘No, can’t say I have. Must be new.’
‘From the style of the pram, it can’t be new. In fact the pram has been there for twenty-five years. You see, you simply haven’t noticed it.’
‘I don’t hardly ever come across the Rye. Let’s walk round a bit. Let’s go into the Old English garden.’
‘Tell me more,’ Dougal said, ‘about Mr Druce. Don’t you see him on Saturdays?’
‘Not during the day. I do in the evening.’
‘You’ll be seeing him tonight?’
‘Yes, he comes for supper.
Dougal said, ‘I suppose he’s been doing his garden all day. Is that what he does on Saturdays?’
‘No. As a matter of fact, believe it or not, on Saturday mornings he goes up to the West End to the big shops. He goes up and down in the lifts. He rests in the afternoons. Childish.’
‘He must get some sexual satisfaction out of it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said.
‘A nice jerky lift,’ said Dougal. ‘Not one of the new smooth ones but the kind that go yee-oo at the bottom. ‘And Dougal sprang in the air and dipped with bent knees to illustrate his point, so that two or three people in the Old English garden turned to look at him. ‘It gives me, ‘Dougal said, ‘a sexual sensation just to think of it. I can quite see the attraction these old lifts have for Mr Druce. Yee-oo.’
She said. ‘For God’s sake lower your voice.’ Then she laughed her laugh from the chest, and Dougal pulled that blonde front lock of her otherwise brown hair, while she gave him a hefty push such as she had not done to a man for twenty years.
He walked down Nunhead Lane with her; their ways parted by the prefabs at Costa Road.
‘I’m to go to tea at Dixie’s house tonight,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what you want to do with that lot,’ she said.
‘Of course, I realize you’re head of the typing pool and Dixie’s only a wee typist,’ he said.
‘You’re taking me up wrong.’
‘Let’s go for another walk if it’s nice on Monday morning,’ he said.
‘I’ll be at work on Monday morning. I’ll be down to work, not like you.’
‘Take Monday off, my girl,’ Dougal said. ‘Just take Monday off.’
‘Hallo. Come in. Pleased to see you. There’s your tea, Mavis said.
The family had all had theirs, and Dougal’s tea was, set on the table. Cold ham and tongue and potato salad with bread and butter, followed by fruit cake and tea. Dougal sat down and tucked in while Mavis, Dixie, and Humphrey Place sat round the table. When he had finished eating, Mavis poured the tea and they all sat and drank it.
‘That Miss Coverdale in the pool,’ said Mavis, ‘is working Dixie to death. I think she’s trying to get Dixie out. Ever since Dixie got engaged she’s been horrible to Dixie, hasn’t she, Dixie?’
‘It was quarter to four,’ said Dixie, ‘and she came up with an estimate and said “priority” – just like that - priority. I said, “Excuse me, Miss Coverdale, but I’ve got two priorities already.” She said, “Well, it’s only quarter to four.”
