Long and the Short Read online

  Major Le Surf looked at his reflection in the mirror. Not bad for his age; not as dashingly handsome as he had been in his youth but good enough for the ladies at the bridge club. He was a novelty there. Many of the bridge-playing ladies had husbands overseas, but they didn’t resent his presence. After all, the Major was getting on. He was only helping out in an emergency. If it hadn’t been for the war he would have never been seen north of Watford. The bridge-club ladies fawned on the Major. His Old World gallantry was a change from the brusque northern ways. He had some manners and a bit of style. They always asked him to pick the draw ticket raffle for the Spitfire Club.

  It was at the fortnightly bridge sessions that the Major had met Mrs Grantley, whose husband has been tragically killed in a motorbike accident while riding around Wellington Barracks. It had been some kind of a stunt, for a bet, and Captain Grantley had been drunk at the time and had run into a brick wall at full tilt and fractured his skull. Mrs Grantley had been very brave about it all. The Major discovered the truth by discreet enquiries, but she had been told that her husband had been killed on a training exercise, and he was given a military funeral. The accident had happened in peacetime, so Captain Grantley did not have the distinction of being a war hero. His widow had never looked at another man, she said, until the Major arrived, and he nodded, pleased, although he didn’t believe a word of it.

  The Major soon got into the habit of Sunday afternoon teas. Mrs Grantley was a tall, dark woman who tried to cultivate an air of mystery. She had an annoying habit of sucking in her cheeks and licking her lips and peeking under her eyelashes as though she was about to impart some vital secret. Her conversation sounded guarded, as if every word had been sieved through the Official Secrets Act, and as if every sentence needed decoding. The Major was alternately amused and cross with Mrs Grantley, but she had a nice warm house and a plentiful supply of whisky and, with the help of a sniffy teenage maid, could rustle up an adequate meal at short notice, although God knows where she got it.

  She called him ‘Eeon’ which grated, so he called her ‘Grouse’ or ‘Gryce’ for Grace, and she never noticed.

  So the Major and Harry Boy had contrived to make themselves at home in the northern outpost, in situations which acknowledged their ranks. They couldn’t see that the war would ever end. Montgomery had just got Rommel on the run in North Africa. The victory at El Alamein was undoubtedly a jolly good show, but what had Egypt and Libya to do with Germany? The British had to get through France before they engaged the enemy.

  The restrictions of contemporary life were beginning to chafe; the food rationing, the bags of coke you had to carry home because you couldn’t get coal, four-inch baths, petrol coupons, clothing coupons for garments of hard-wearing drabness that you wouldn’t put on a horse, which were all that was on offer for desperate females wishing to look fashionable. None of this, don’t do that, you can’t go there, switch that off, don’t waste that, don’t poke the fire, mind what you say, make do and mend, don’t grumble, be cheerful all the time whatever the circumstances, no fags, no life at all really, dried egg, Spam, whalemeat, skimpy newspapers, gas-masks, and every outburst of dissent met by the droning mantra ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

  It was a drab life, and attempts at humour only brought forth desperate and bitter laughs. ‘I was up at Victoria Station last night. All the pregnant mums were being sent to a safe area to have their kids. The whole place was bulging with them,’ and then, after the sniggers, ‘I said to my wife, just think of it. One man is responsible for all this.’ Stage comics flogged around for some kind of relief. In the end they had to resort to some kind of patriotic song to get them off stage. In general the mood was grim. There was no future worth considering. The country was stuck in an endless conflict which, even if Britain won, would leave the country paralysed and bankrupt for years to come.

  Boys of eighteen were called up as soon as they reached the fatal figure. Many had just completed an underpaid apprenticeship and, just at the point when they expected to get some respectable wages, they were torn away from their job and their home to train to become robots to be fed into the gigantic lottery called the war effort. Jimmy Fossett cried when his call-up papers came. At eighteen he had just got a junior card in the union. His dad put him in for it. It was his entry to a world of prosperity, the comradeship of ‘the print’. No doubt he would have a senior card when he returned, if he did, or if the war ever came to an end. At first Jimmy tried to regard the event as a bit of a lark. He hadn’t been away from home before. He had hardly been out of London except for a few excursions to the south coast. He was told to report to a place in Cheshire. They sent him a railway ticket to Chester. He looked it up in an atlas. It was miles away! He didn’t fancy going to another part of the country. It would be unfamiliar. They all talked funny up there; it would be like living in a foreign country. He was a London lad. He knew his way around there. In Chester he would be lost. Going that far wasn’t in his scheme of things at all. He wouldn’t have minded Caterham or Aldershot, but further than these well-known military encampments was foreign territory as far as Jimmy was concerned. The only way to get to Chester was to change at Crewe. He had been given the time of the train he was to get at Euston, but, thinking that he ought to hang on to his independence as long as possible, he deliberately missed the morning train and set off in the afternoon.

  All the way he was filled with feelings of dread. No good would come of this outing. He would be tied up, stabbed and shot at and delivered to the graveyard before he had time to draw his wages. It wasn’t just a turning point in his life; it was the end of it. The trouble was that, although he had had a few good times, he hadn’t really started on his life yet. Surely they could have given him a few more years before they released the trapdoor on his swinging carcass. And what was it all about anyway? Some madman who wanted to control the world. Why didn’t they just kill him off out of it? His dad had said that no good ever came of politics. But this Hitler was such a comic figure, shouting and saluting himself and throwing himself in a rage about nothing, that it was a wonder that anybody took him seriously, even the Germans. Were they all mad, the Germans? A whole nation all gone barmy together? And look what trouble this Hitler had caused. Sweet rationing now, hard to get fags, beer (his dad said) all water. His dad had to get permission to drive his own car. Was this kind of world worth fighting for?

  He got to Crewe and found that he had two hours to wait for the next train. It was late afternoon, and already the gloom was descending. He walked out of the station. By now it was nearly dark. Maybe he could find a café to get a cup of tea. There were no lights. He walked out of the station concourse and on to the road. He walked into somebody who seemed to be standing in his path.

  ‘Have you got a light?’

  It was a woman’s voice, low and loaded with odd under-current, as though it was trying to convey something more than a simple request. He could see only the outline of a head with a beret on.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket for his lighter.

  He flicked the lighter, and the beret came closer. In the dim glare he saw a small face with dark eyes that conveyed an invitation to some kind of devilry. The eyes met his. There was a sultry dare in them. They were bold and challenging, and Jimmy felt uneasy. She lit the cigarette, and it glowed in the cold mist. Patches of fog were beginning to form. Jimmy felt out of his depth. Something was going on here that made him uneasy. The end of the cigarette turned to ash. He couldn’t see her any more, but he could feel her presence. She seemed very close to him. Suddenly she leant forward, and her mouth brushed his ear.

  ‘Do you want to?’ she breathed.

  ‘Do I want to what?’ he said.

  There was an audible sigh of impatience. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  There was a scent of some kind of cheap perfume mixed with the grubby smell of human flesh. Suddenly it hit him. She was one of those! A prostitute.

  Here he
was, miles from London and the first human contact he had was with a prostitute. Well, he was his own man, for the moment. Later it might be different. He still had a few hours of freedom. God knows what this girl was like. This was as near to a pig in a poke as you could get.

  ‘Where to?’ he said.

  The girl didn’t respond to this. ‘Have you any money?’ she asked.

  ‘A bit,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘It’ll be five bob,’ she said. ‘You got that?’

  He nodded and then, realizing that she couldn’t see his acceptance of her terms, added, ‘Sure. I got it.’

  ‘Give us half a crown first,’ she said. ‘And then we’ll go.’

  ‘I’ve got to get a train,’ he said.

  ‘What time?

  ‘Twenty past seven.’

  ‘You’ll be back. I only live around the back.’

  So the mysterious woman started to move away. Then she came back and took his arm.

  ‘We’d better stay together,’ she said. ‘Can’t see your arse behind your back.’

  So they wandered along, an odd couple, with Jimmy wondering whether he was doing the right thing but, despite his fears, feeling a mounting sense of excitement. He could see just muffled shapes of houses. The whole town seemed dead. Occasionally he heard hoots and grunts from trains which seemed louder than he remembered.

  The woman guided him to a door and fumbled for her key. ‘We’ll go straight upstairs.’ She opened the door and took a torch from her bag.

  ‘Is that you, Maggie?’ An old voice came from an inside room.

  ‘Go up,’ said the girl called Maggie.

  ‘It’s all right, Mam,’ she called.

  ‘Have you got somebody with you?’

  ‘Yes. Go to sleep.’

  The voice seemed satisfied, evidently used to this situation. ‘Maggie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I got some liver today.’

  ‘Good,’ said Maggie.

  She led the way up a narrow staircase. There was a musty smell, as though this was a house where a window was never opened. She pushed at a door and ushered Jimmy in. She went to the window and drew back the curtains. There was a little light from a newly formed moon. In the gloom Jimmy could make out a single bed.

  ‘What you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. In Crewe. Nobody comes here unless they’re changing to go somewhere else.’

  ‘I’m joining the army. Called up.’

  ‘Poor sod. Never mind. You’ll get some proper grub. More than I do.’

  She was pulling the sheet back, opening the bed. Then she sat down and eased her knickers off. ‘You ready?’

  He wasn’t a bit ready. He was appalled at the situation he had let himself in for. He had often thought about such a moment; but it was never in a small room like this, on a dark night, with trains rumbling by in a chorus of shunts and clanking. He couldn’t even see this girl, not even her face; didn’t know her; they hadn’t talked, established any common ground. She had come to him out of the dark and made this crude offer in which the only qualification was that he’d got five bob. The whole business was too cold-blooded for his taste.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to eat you.’

  ‘I’ll give you the money. That’s only fair.’

  ‘Where you going you might never get another chance,’ she said softly.

  He thought about this. Maybe she was right. Once he caught that train at twenty past seven he had no idea what his future might be.

  ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘And don’t take all night. I’m on early shift in the morning.’

  ‘You’ve got a job?’

  ‘Factory. I only do this in my spare time. If I feel like it.’ Her arms were around his neck and her lips on his face. ‘And I feel like it now.’

  She lay back and pulled him on top of her. ‘Think of it as a going away present,’ she said.

  At the first touch his body snapped into a dreamscape. He felt he was floating somewhere, every muscle relaxed and yet supported. The girl smelt earthy and good. There was something real about this situation. Not as he had imagined it, but it was real and somehow honest.

  Harry Boy paced up and down. The house was still in darkness. Where had they gone to? It was getting cold and there was a fog coming on. If he had to go back and sleep in his own bunk they would hear about it in the morning. He decided to try next door. This was also shrouded in darkness, with no sound from within. He was sure a curtain twitched. He banged again, and a woman came to the door wrapped in a dressing gown.

  ‘Watcha want?’

  ‘Next door. Where have they gone?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me. I mind my own business,’ the woman said huffily.

  ‘They were supposed to meet me. I’ve got something for them.’

  ‘What is it?’ said the woman inquisitively.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Harry Boy shortly. ‘Do you know where they’ve gone?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me if they run off to Blackpool.’

  ‘Blackpool!’ said Harry. ‘What’s going on there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the woman, falling back and closing the door. ‘They must have had an invitation, I expect.’

  Jimmy awoke to view a brown-stained ceiling. He was in a small bed, alone. He looked at his watch. It was half-past eight. Where was the girl? The one who came to him out of the gloom, the one that gave such an immense sigh of satisfaction that he felt proud of his effort. He went to the door. He could hear a wireless below. He pulled on his clothes and went downstairs. An old woman was humming tunelessly as she toasted bread on a long fork by the fire. He suddenly realized that it was morning. He had slept through the train time like a baby.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Sleep well?’ and chuckled until she started coughing. She spat into the sink and ran the tap. She was grey and drab and seemed to be sewed into sheets of black cotton. She had a coloured headscarf wound around her head and tied at the back. Grey wispy hair escaped and stuck out as though in an electric shock.

  ‘Where has she gone?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone to work. Early shift. She works too hard. She’s a grand girl is Maggie. Works hard, but she knows how to enjoy herself, and why not, eh?’

  Jimmy didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Do you want a mash?’ the old woman asked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘A mash, a brew. Tea, you ninny.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Please.’

  ‘You can have this bit of toast. There’s some marge on the table.’

  Jimmy scraped some margarine on the dry crisp toast.

  ‘You been called up, ain’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I should have got there yesterday.’

  It was a small room with a low ceiling. There was a range with an oven and a kettle on the fire which began to steam.

  ‘I’ll mek it,’ the woman said. ‘You get yer toast.’

  ‘How far is it to Chester?’ he asked.

  ‘Not far. Grand city, Chester. Good shops. Everything you want. I went once. Just for the day, you know. On coach. Shops on top of one another and a big church.’

  She made the tea in a large mug and then poured some into a cup and gave it to him, with tea leaves floating in it.

  ‘’Ere. I’ll give you some milk.’

  It seemed strange to be sitting in a friendly way with the mother of a girl that you had spent the night with.

  ‘He was called up. Her husband. Never heard another word. Don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. Could be anywhere. Anywhere in the world. Don’t write or nothing. She said he couldn’t write anyway, but he could get someone else to do it, couldn’t he? She misses him – well you know that, don’t you?’

  Would it have made any difference if he had known that she was somebody’s wife? Probably not. The whole experience was so surreal, such a surprise, that he had just drifted into it. It w
as as though he had met someone in complete darkness or a masked beauty in a ghostly ballroom, entered a temporary alliance and then shrunk back into the shadow. And the strange thing was that now the encounter didn’t seem odd in any way. It was normal in these circumstances, almost mundane. People propelled into situations outside their orbit and reacting naturally, getting some physical comfort in a world that didn’t offer much beyond.

  He washed his face in the sink. Everything in this place was within arm’s reach. He could hear trains near by. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.