The Collected Stories

‘Professional life can be affected by the private side of things. You understand me, Malcolmson?’ They valued him immensely, Sir Gerald said, and they’d be generous when the moment of departure came. A change was a tonic; Sir Gerald advised a little jaunt somewhere.

In reply to all that Malcolmson said that the upset in his private life was now over; nor did he feel, he added, in need of recuperation. ‘You’ll easily find another berth,’ Sir Gerald Travers replied, with a wide, confident smile. ‘I think it would be better.’

Malcolmson had sought about for another job, but had not been immediately successful: there was a recession, people said. Soon it would be better, they added, and because of Sir Gerald’s promised generosity Malcolmson found himself in a position to wait until things seemed brighter. It was always better, in any case, not to seem in a hurry.

He spent the mornings in the Red Lion, in Barnes, playing dominoes with an old-age pensioner, and when the pensioner didn’t turn up owing to bronchial trouble Malcolmson would borrow a newspaper from the landlord. He slept in the afternoons and returned to the Red Lion later. Occasionally when he’d had a few drinks he’d find himself thinking about his children and their mother. He always found it pleasant then, thinking of them with a couple of drinks inside him.

‘It’s The Last of the Mohicans,’ said Deirdre in the flat, and he guessed that she must have looked at the Radio Times earlier in the day. She’d known they’d end up like that, watching television. Were they bored on Sundays? he often wondered.

‘Can’t we have The Golden Shot?’ demanded Susie, and Deirdre pointed out that it wasn’t on yet. He left them watching Randolph Scott and Binnie Barnes, and went to prepare their tea in the kitchen.

On Saturdays he bought meringues and brandy-snaps in Frith’s Patisserie. The elderly assistant smiled at him in a way that made him wonder if she knew what he wanted them for; it occurred to him once that she felt sorry for him. On Sunday mornings, listening to the omnibus edition of The Archers, he made Marmite sandwiches with brown bread and tomato sandwiches with white. They loved sandwiches, which was something he remembered from the past. He remembered parties, Deirdre’s friends sitting around a table, small and silent, eating crisps and cheese puffs and leaving all the cake.

When The Last of the Mohicans came to an end they watched Going for a Song for five minutes before changing the channel for The Golden Shot. Then Deirdre turned the television off and they went to the kitchen to have tea. ‘Wash your hands,’ said Susie, and he heard her add that if a germ got into your food you could easily die. ‘She kept referring to death,’ he would say to Elizabeth when he left them back. ‘D’you think she’s worried about anything?’ He imagined Elizabeth giving the smile she had given three weeks ago and then saying he’d better come in to discuss the matter.

‘Goody,’ said Susie, sitting down.

‘I’d like to marry a man like that man in the park,’ said Deirdre. ‘It’d be much more interesting, married to a bloke like that.’

‘He’d be always drunk.’

‘He wasn’t drunk, Susie. That’s not being drunk.’

‘He was drinking out of a bottle –’

‘He was putting on a bit of flash, drinking out of a bottle and singing his little song. No harm in that, Susie.’

‘I’d like to be married to Daddy.’

‘You couldn’t be married to Daddy.’

‘Well, Richard then.’

‘Ribena, Daddy. Please.’

He poured drops of Ribena into two mugs and filled them up with warm water. He had a definite feeling that today she’d ask him in, both of them pretending a worry over Susie’s obsession with death. They’d sit together while the children splashed about in the bathroom; she’d offer him gin and lime-juice, their favourite drink, a drink known as a Gimlet, as once he’d told her. They’d drink it out of the green glasses they’d bought, years ago, in Italy. The girls would dry themselves and come to say good-night. They’d go to bed. He might tell them a story, or she would. ‘Stay to supper,’ she would say, and while she made risotto he would go to her and kiss her hair.

‘I like his eyes,’ said Susie. ‘One’s higher than another.’

‘It couldn’t be.’

‘It is.’

‘He couldn’t see, Susie, if his eyes were like that. Everyone’s eyes are –’

‘He isn’t always drunk like the man in the park.’

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Richard,’ they said together, and Susie added: ‘Irishmen are always drunk.’

‘Daddy’s an Irishman and Daddy’s not always –’

‘Who’s Richard?’

‘He’s Susie’s boyfriend.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Susie. ‘I like him.’

‘If he’s there tonight, Susie, you’re not to climb all over him.’

He left the kitchen and in the sitting-room he poured himself some whisky. He sat with the glass cold between his hands, staring at the grey television screen. ‘Sure, maybe some day I’ll go back to Ireland,’ Deirdre sang in the kitchen, and Susie laughed shrilly.

He imagined a dark-haired man, a cheerful man, intelligent and subtle, a man who came often to the flat, whom his children knew well and were already fond of. He imagined him as he had imagined himself ten minutes