‘Do you really think it’s nice, Laura?’
Shirley, now a wife of three months’ standing, asked the question eagerly.
Laura, completing her tour of the flat (two rooms, kitchen, and bath), expressed warm approval.
‘I think you’ve made it lovely.’
‘It was awful when we moved in. The dirt! We’ve done most of it ourselves – not the ceilings, of course. It’s been such fun. Do you like the red bathroom? It’s supposed to be constant hot water, but it isn’t usually hot. Henry thought the redness would make it seem hotter – like hell!’
Laura laughed.
‘What fun you seem to have had.’
‘We’re frightfully lucky to have found a flat at all. Actually some people Henry knew had it, and they passed it on to us. The only awkward thing is that they don’t seem to have paid any bills while they were here. Irate milkmen and furious grocers turn up all the time, but of course it’s nothing to do with us. It’s rather mean to bilk tradesmen, I think – especially small tradesmen. Henry doesn’t think it matters.’
‘It may make it more difficult for you to get things on credit,’ said Laura.
‘I pay our bills every week,’ said Shirley virtuously.
‘Are you all right for money, darling? The garden’s been doing very well lately. If you want an extra hundred.’
‘What a pet you are, Laura! No, we’re all right. Keep it in case there’s an emergency – I might have a really serious illness.’
‘Looking at you, that seems an absurd idea.’
Shirley laughed gaily.
‘Laura, I’m terribly happy.’
‘Bless you!’
‘Hallo, here’s Henry.’
Turning the latch-key, Henry entered, and greeted Laura with his usual happy air.
‘Hallo, Laura.’
‘Hallo, Henry. I think the flat’s lovely.’
‘Henry, what’s the new job like?’
‘New job?’ asked Laura.
‘Yes. He chucked the other one. It was awfully stuffy. Nothing but sticking on stamps and going to the post.’
‘I’m willing to start at the bottom,’ said Henry, ‘but not in the basement.’
‘What’s this like?’ Shirley repeated impatiently.
‘Promising, I think,’ said Henry. ‘Of course it’s early days to say.’
He smiled charmingly at Laura and told her how very pleased they were to see her.
Her visit went off very well, and she returned to Bellbury feeling that her fears and hesitations had been ridiculous.
‘But Henry, how can we owe so much?’
Shirley spoke in a tone of distress. She and Henry had been married just over a year.
‘I know,’ Henry agreed, ‘that’s what I always feel! That one can’t owe all that. Unfortunately,’ he added sadly, ‘one always does.’
‘But how are we going to be able to pay?’
‘Oh, one can always stave things off,’ said Henry vaguely.
‘It’s a good thing I got that job at the flower place.’
‘Yes, it is, as it turns out. Not that I want you ever to feel you’ve got to work. Only if you like it.’
‘Well, I do like it. I’d be bored to death doing nothing all day. All that happens is that one goes out and buys things.’
‘I must say,’ said Henry, picking up a sheaf of accounts rendered, ‘this sort of thing is very depressing. I do hate Lady Day. One’s hardly got over Christmas, and income tax, and all that.’ He looked down at the topmost bill in his hand. ‘This man, the one who did the bookcases, is asking for his money in a very rude sort of way. I shall put him straight into the waste-paper basket.’ He suited the action to the word, and went on to the next one. ‘ “Dear sir, we must respectfully draw your attention – ” Now that’s a nice polite way of putting it.’
‘So you’ll pay that one?’
‘I shan’t exactly pay it,’ said Henry, ‘but I shall file it, ready to pay.’
Shirley laughed –
‘Henry, I do adore you. But what are we really going to do?’
‘We needn’t worry tonight. Let’s go out to dinner somewhere really expensive.’
Shirley made a face at him.
‘Will that help?’
‘It won’t help our financial position,’ Henry admitted. ‘On the contrary! But it will cheer us up.’
Dear Laura,
Could you possibly lend us a hundred pounds? We’re in a bit of a jam. I’ve been out of a job for two months now, as you probably know (Laura didn’t know), but I’m on the verge of landing something really good. In the meantime we’ve taken to sneaking out by the service lift to avoid the duns. Really very sorry to sponge like this, but I thought I’d better do the dirty work as Shirley mightn’t like to.
Yours ever,
Henry.
‘I didn’t know you’d borrowed money from Laura!’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Henry turned his head lazily.
‘No, you didn’t.’ Shirley spoke grimly.
‘All right, darling, don’t bite my head off. Did Laura tell you?’
‘No, she didn’t. I saw it in the pass-book.’
‘Good old Laura, she stumped up without any fuss at all.’
‘Henry, why did you borrow money from her? I wish you hadn’t. Anyway, you oughtn’t to have done it without telling me about it first.’
Henry grinned.
‘You wouldn’t have let me do it.’
‘You’re quite right. I wouldn’t.’
‘The truth is, Shirley, the position was rather desperate. I got fifty out of old Muriel. And I made sure that I’d get at least a hundred out of Big Bertha – that’s my godmother. Unfortunately, she turned me down flat. Feeling her surtax, I gather. Nothing but a lecture. I tried one or two other sources, no good. In the end, it boiled down to Laura.’
Shirley looked at him reflectively.
‘I’ve been married two years,’ she thought. ‘I see now just what Henry’s like. He’ll never keep a job very long, and he spends money like water …’
She still found it delightful to be married to Henry, but she perceived that it had its disadvantages. Henry had by now had four different jobs. It never seemed difficult for him to get a job – he had a large circle of wealthy friends – but it seemed quite impossible for him to keep a job. Either he got tired of it and chucked it, or it chucked him. Also, Henry spent money like water, and never seemed to have any difficulty in getting credit. His idea of settling his affairs was by borrowing. Henry did not mind borrowing. Shirley did.
She sighed:
‘Do you think I’ll ever be able to change you, Henry?’ she asked.
‘Change me?’ said Henry, astonished. ‘Why?’
‘Hallo, Baldy.’
‘Why, it’s young Shirley.’ Mr Baldock blinked at her from the depths of his large shabby arm-chair. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he added aggressively.
‘Of course not,’ said Shirley tactfully.
‘Long time since we’ve seen you down here,’ said Mr Baldock. ‘Thought you’d forgotten us.’
‘I never forget you!’
‘Got your husband with you?’
‘Not this time.’
‘I see.’ He studied her. ‘Looking rather thin and pale, aren’t you?’
‘I’ve been dieting.’
‘You women!’ He snorted. ‘In a spot of trouble?’ he inquired.
Shirley flared out at him.
‘Certainly not!’
‘All right, all right. I just wanted to know. Nobody ever tells me anything nowadays. And I’m getting deaf. Can’t overhear as much as I used to. It makes life very dull.’
‘Poor Baldy.’
‘And the doctor says I mustn’t do any more gardening – no stooping over flower-beds – blood rushes to my head or something. Damned fool – croak, croak, croak! That’s all they do, these doctors!’
‘I am sorry, Baldy.’
‘So you see,’ said Mr Baldock wistfully, ‘if you did want to tell me anything – well – it wouldn’t go any further. We needn’t tell Laura.’
There was a pause.
‘In a way,’ said Shirley, ‘I did come to tell you something.’
‘Thought you did,’ said Mr Baldock.
‘I thought you might give me – some advice.’
‘Shan’t do that. Much too dangerous.’
Shirley paid no attention.
‘I don’t want to talk to Laura. She doesn’t really like Henry. But you like Henry, don’t you?’
‘I like Henry all right,’ said Mr Baldock. ‘He’s a most entertaining fellow to talk to, and he’s a nice sympathetic way of listening to an old man blowing off steam. Another thing that I like about him is that he never worries.’
Shirley smiled.
‘He certainly never worries.’
‘Very rare in the world nowadays. Everybody I meet has nervous dyspepsia from worrying. Yes, Henry’s a pleasant fellow. I don’t concern myself about his moral worth as Laura would.’
Then he said gently:
‘What’s he been up to?’
‘Do you think I’m a fool, Baldy, to sell out my capital?’
‘Is that what you have been doing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, when you married, the control of it passed to you. It’s yours to do what you like with.’
‘I know.’
‘Henry suggest it to you?’
‘No … Really no. It was entirely my doing. I didn’t want Henry to go bankrupt. I don’t think Henry himself would have minded going bankrupt at all. But I would. Do you think I was a fool?’
Mr Baldock considered.
‘In one way, yes, in another way not at all.’
‘Expound.’
‘Well, you haven’t got very much money. You may need it badly in the future. If you think your attractive husband can be relied upon to provide for you, you can just think again. In that way, you’re a fool.’
‘And the other way?’
‘Looking at it the other way, you’ve paid out your money to buy yourself peace of mind. That may have been quite a wise thing to do.’ He shot a sharp glance at her. ‘Still fond of your husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he a good husband to you?’
Shirley walked slowly round the room. Once or twice she ran her finger absently along a table or the back of a chair, and looked at the dust upon it. Mr Baldock watched her.
She came to a decision at last. Standing by the fireplace, her back turned to him, she said:
‘Not particularly.’
‘In what way?’
In an unemotional voice Shirley said:
‘He’s having an affair with another woman.’
‘Serious?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So you came away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Angry?’
‘Furious.’
‘Going back?’
Shirley was silent a moment. Then she said:
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Baldock, ‘it’s your life.’ Shirley came over to him and kissed the top of his head. Mr Baldock grunted.
‘Thank you, Baldy,’ she said.
‘Don’t thank me, I haven’t done anything.’
‘I know,’ said Shirley. ‘That’s what’s so wonderful of you!’