The Collected Stories

legs. He was pushing a trolley full of breakfast cereals and wrapped bread, and tins. Although he didn’t speak to her or even appear to see her, it was a stroke of luck to come across him in the town because he didn’t often come into the village. Foxton had only half a dozen shops and the Bow and Arrow public house even though it was enormous, a sprawling dormitory village that had had the new Comprehensive added to all the other new building in 1969. Because of the position of the Tennysons’ gate-lodge it was clearly more convenient for them to shop in Ilminster.

‘Hullo, Mr Tennyson,’ she said in the International Stores, and he turned and looked at her. He nodded and smiled.

Jenny moved into 1A at the end of that school year. She wondered if he’d noticed how her breasts had become bigger during the time she’d been in 2A, and how her complexion had definitely improved. Her breasts were quite presentable now, which was a relief because she’d had a fear that they weren’t going to develop at all. She wondered if he’d noticed her Green Magic eye-shadow. Everyone said it suited her, except her father, who always blew up over things like that. Once she heard one of the new kids saying she was the prettiest girl in the school. Adam Swann and Chinny Martin from 1B kept hanging about, trying to chat her up. Chinny Martin even wrote her notes.

‘You’re mooning,’ her father said. ‘You don’t take a pick of notice these days.’

‘Exams,’ her mother hastily interjected and afterwards, when Jenny was out of the room, quite sharply reminded her husband that adolescence was a difficult time for girls. It was best not to remark on things.

‘I didn’t mean a criticism, Ellie,’ Jenny’s father protested, aggrieved.

‘They take it as a criticism. Every word. They’re edgy, see.’

He sighed. He was a painter and decorator, with his own business. Jenny was their only child. There’d been four miscarriages, all of which might have been boys, which naturally were what he’d wanted, with the business. He’d have to sell it one day, but it didn’t matter all that much when you thought about it. Having miscarriages was worse than selling a business, more depressing really. A woman’s lot was harder than a man’s, he’d decided long ago.

‘Broody,’ his wife diagnosed. ‘Just normal broody. She’ll see her way through it.’

Every evening her parents sat in their clean, neat sitting-room watching television. Her mother made tea at nine o’clock because it was nice to have a cup with the news. She always called upstairs to Jenny, but Jenny never wanted to have tea or see the news. She did her homework in her bedroom, a small room that was clean and neat also, with a pebbly cream wallpaper expertly hung by her father. At half past ten she usually went down to the kitchen and made herself some Ovaltine. She drank it at the table with the cat, Tinkle, on her lap. Her mother usually came in with the tea things to wash up, and they might chat, the conversation consisting mainly of gossip from Foxton Comprehensive, although never of course containing a reference to Mr Tennyson. Sometimes Jenny didn’t feel like chatting and wouldn’t, feigning sleepiness. If she sat there long enough her father would come in to fetch himself a cup of water because he always liked to have one near him in the night. He couldn’t help glancing at her eye-shadow when he said good-night and she could see him making an effort not to mention it, having doubtless been told not to by her mother. They did their best. She liked them very much. She loved them, she supposed.

But not in the way she loved Mr Tennyson. ‘Robert Tennyson,’ she murmured to herself in bed. ‘Oh, Robert dear.’ Softly his lips were there, and the smell of fresh tobacco made her swoon, forcing her to close her eyes. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, yes.’ He lifted the dress over her head. His hands were taut, charged with their shared passion. ‘My love,’ he said in his soft voice, almost a whisper. Every night before she went to sleep his was the face that entirely filled her mind. Had it once not been there she would have thought herself faithless. And every morning, in a ceremonial way, she conjured it up again, first thing, pride of place.

Coming out of Harper’s the newsagent’s one Saturday afternoon, she found waiting for her, not Mr Tennyson, but Chinny Martin, with his motor-cycle on its pedestal in the street. He asked her if she’d like to go for a spin into the country and offered to supply her with a crash helmet. He was wearing a crash helmet himself, a bulbous red object with a peak and a windshield that fitted over his eyes. He was also wearing heavy plastic gloves, red also, and a red windcheater. He was smiling at her, the spots on his pronounced chin more noticeable after exposure to the weather on his motor-cycle. His eyes were serious, closely fixed on hers.

She shook her head at him. There was hardly anything she’d have disliked more than a ride into the country with Chinny Martin, her arms half round his waist, a borrowed crash helmet making her feel silly. He’d stop the motor-cycle in a suitable place and he’d suggest something like a walk to the river or to some old ruin or into a wood. He’d suggest sitting down and then he’d begin to fumble at her, and his chin would be sticking into her face, cold and unpleasant. His fingernails would be ingrained, as the fingernails of boys who owned motor-cycles always were.

‘Thanks all the same,’ she said.

‘Come on, Jenny.’

‘No, I’m busy. Honestly. I’m working at home.’

It couldn’t have been pleasant, being called Chinny just because you had a jutting chin. Nicknames were horrible: there was a boy called Nut Adams and another called Wet Small and a girl called Kisses. Chinny Martin’s name was Clive, but she’d never heard anyone calling him that. She felt sorry for him, standing there in his crash helmet and his special clothes. He’d probably planned it all, working it out that she’d be impressed by his gear and his motor-cycle. But of course she wasn’t. Yamaha it said on the petrol tank of the motor-cycle, and there was a girl in a swimsuit which he had presumably stuck on to the tank himself. The girl’s swimsuit was yellow and so was her hair, which was streaming out behind her, as if caught in a wind. The petrol tank was black.

‘Jenny,’ he said, lowering his voice so that it became almost croaky. ‘Listen, Jenny –’

‘Sorry.’

She began to walk away, up the village street, but he walked beside her, pushing the Yamaha.

‘I love you, Jenny,’ he said.

She laughed because she felt embarrassed.

‘I can’t bear not seeing you, Jenny.’

‘Oh, well-’

‘Jenny.’

They were passing the petrol-pumps, the Orchard Garage. Mr Batten was on the pavement, wiping oil from his hands with a rag. ‘How’s he running?’ he called out to Chinny Martin, referring to the Yamaha, but Chinny