Joshua liked treacle and cream on his cereal for breakfast. He would pace round the room in his dressing-gown, holding the bowl, and stop to look out of the windows as he ate. In contrast to all the sweetness of the cereal, the other half of his breakfast was a large tin mug of sugarless black coffee. He would leave this on the low table and drink it when all the steam had gone and it was nearly cold.
It was a morning three or four weeks after Edith Smith’s death. I was lying on the floor at breakfast time selecting stories from the papers to read to him. He was wandering round me, as usual, making no comment. It was October now, and the early sky, as if it had absorbed something from the grey shimmer of London below it, was a sombre blue. Joshua stopped at the window and looked down.
‘The flower woman,’ he exclaimed. ‘She hasn’t been by for a month.’ He ran from the flat, still in his dressing-gown, no pyjamas beneath. I called after him but he didn’t reply. I looked out of the window but couldn’t see the flower woman he had seen.
He came back ten minutes later carrying a wooden box filled with pots of chrysanthemums. They were pink, gold, and deep wine red.
‘Look! I almost bought her out.’ He was ridiculously pleased. ‘Do you like them? Do you like chrysanthemums? Where shall I put them? – Wait, stay there. Stay on the floor.’ He knelt down, put the box on the floor, and began to take the pots of plants from it one by one. With them he made a barrier round me and the papers.
‘Child,’ I said.
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Which colour best?’
‘Gold.’
‘So do I. Look, now you’re in a fortress. I can’t get you.
‘If I put my head on the floor you couldn’t even see me unless you knelt up and peered over. They’re so tall.’
‘I could crush down the barrier.’
‘Don’t spoil the flowers – ’
‘To hell with the flowers – ’. He parted several plants with the quick gesture of someone pulling back curtains and they scattered on the floor. They fell on their sides. Thin green stalks snapped, leaves bent, and crumbs of earth trickled from the cheap plastic pots.
‘Joshua!’ The papers crackled beneath us.
‘Darling.’ It was the first time he had ever said that. We lay in the middle of the ruined fortress of flowers. The plants that still stood were tall as trees, their petals bright balloons against the white walls of the room.
‘Say that again,’ I said.
‘Darling, darling, darling. There you are.’
‘Why haven’t you ever said it before?’
‘You always ask silly questions.’
‘Joshua?–’
‘Be quiet.’ I was, for a moment.
‘Joshua. You know what? I haven’t thought about Jonathan, or being married, for about two weeks now. What must that mean?’
‘That something has made you think about him now. What?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose just that we never used to have breakfast like this. He liked everything neatly laid on the dining-room table. Boneless kippers were his favourite food. Typical. He thought acts like boning fish were a waste of his time.’
Joshua pulled himself up on one elbow and took the cup of cold coffee from the low table.
‘Did you ever make love after breakfast?’
‘Not if he was already dressed. Sometimes he thought about it – I could tell the evening before, and he went about with a funny sort of smile so I knew that he was planning it all elaborately. He would come down to breakfast in his dressing-gown, and his pyjama tops undone so that I could see the St Christopher on his chest. The only thing was, he had shaved, so the uncalculated look was rather spoiled. When he got to about the toast and marmalade he would suggest that we went back to bed to sleep for an hour. He could never just say: let’s go and make love. And if I hadn’t realised about his plan, and had dressed, myself, he wouldn’t say a thing – He could never bear to ask me to undress.’
Joshua lay back on the papers again.
‘You know something nice?’ he said quietly, shutting his eyes ‘The film is nearly finished. And I thought when it was quite finished I might take you away somewhere for a few days.’ He pulled my head on to his chest. His dressing-gown smelt of damp corn.
‘Where would we go? France? No, I hate France. Please not there. Italy would be lovely. I could show you Florence or Rome. I know all those hills near Florence – I know farmhouses where you can just drop in and they fry you plates of bacon – Or we could try Spain, perhaps, or Corfu. Corfu’s like Gloucestershire in the summer.’
‘None of those places, baby,’ he said.
‘Where, then?’
‘Norfolk.’
‘Norfolk?’
‘It’s marvellous.’
‘I don’t know it.’
‘You will. You’ll like it.’
‘But the weather?’
‘It’ll be rather dank, and quite cold in the evenings. I have a small boat up there. We’ll take her out to the island and have picnic lunches. You could build a fire, even.’ I could see him smiling to himself, his eyes still shut.
‘A fire? Me? Won’t it be too cold for outdoor cooking? How will we go? In the car?’
‘My darling.’ He sat up now and dragged me with him. ‘You have an ad-type mind. I can see you imagining us in the red car, open, hair streaming in the wind … petrol people. The car is going to be repaired.’
I hit him and squealed. He flung me back on to the floor again.
‘We’re going by train,’ he said, and the last of the flowers fell over.
We did go by train, a few days later. At the station Joshua did things quite differently from Jonathan. Jonathan always made a great show of organising the luggage, even if it was only two cases. He told the porter the time of the train two or three times. He told him which cases to put on which part of the luggage rack, then rubbed the coins noisily together before tipping the man with an air of great benevolence. Joshua’s way was to carry all four cases himself and to discourage any helpful-looking porter with a scowl.
We found a carriage to ourselves.
‘Are you glad we’re going to Norfolk?’ Joshua seemed distant, irritable.
‘I wouldn’t mind where we were going.’ Witless answer, I thought. But he kissed me. The map on the wall of Southern England and the B.R.’s embroidered on the antimacassars spun about.
It was a clear, hard day. The fields we rattled through were mistless, the trees and hedges turning brown and gold. People on the platforms of small stations stamped their feet and rolled their hands about in their pockets. Joshua read the law reports in The Times. Jonathan’s enthusiasm for train journeys was too devouring to allow him to read. Not one acre of the country we passed through could escape some boring observation.
‘Darling, look at that spire – Norman, I should say.’
‘The last time I passed through Cambridge Timothy was telling me about his electronics business…’
‘Look! There’s a ‘28 Sunbeam Talbot just like the one my father had … darling, do you ever listen to me?’
If by chance he was not sitting by the window the steward and the ticket collector would become his prey. As the steward approached the carriage Jonathan would tap a coin on the door and signal to him to stop.
‘Let us know in plenty of time when the second lunch is ready, will you?’ he would ask.
‘That is my job, sir,’ the steward would reply – He had been snubbed by many stewards on many trains, but it made no difference – Joshua was quite quiet all the way to Norfolk.
At the station an old taxi, whose seats were worn into deep shabby troughs, waited for us. The driver greeted Joshua with enthusiasm and reminded him of past holidays. The hotel was a rambling, pebble-dash building hidden from the main road by a high wall. A short gravel drive edged with trim grass led up to it. Chrysanthemums the colour of vintage marmalade were clumped in neat borders at each side of the heavy front door. Inside, the hall smelt of wet mackintoshes. The receptionist welcomed Joshua with no less pleasure than the taxi driver.
‘I’ll get Rita to show you to your room,’ she said. She rang a small brass bell shaped like a labrador’s head, and a young, plump girl wearing a short black skirt and a bad op-art shirt appeared. She had dark curly hair, slanting brown eyes and dimples even before she smiled.
‘Hello, Mr Heron,’ she dimpled. ‘I heard you were coming so I persuaded them to put you in your usual room. I know you like it best.’ She giggled, and glanced at me without interest.
‘That was very thoughtful,’ Joshua said. We followed Rita along husky passages whose floors, like the taxi seats, were worn into troughs, but shallower. Rita waggled her fat behind and trailed her pudgy fingers provocatively up the oak banister.
‘There.’ She opened the door and walked ahead of us. ‘You’ll find it just the same. Nothing about the room has changed.’ She giggled again.
‘Thank you,’ said Joshua briefly, and for a moment held her glance.
‘If there’s anything you want, you know where to find me.’ She closed the door behind her slowly.
The room was furnished very simply: two scrubbed pine chairs, a painted chest of drawers, a desk, two single beds which sank in the middle. Their covers were white damask, like unstarched table cloths. The air wasn’t positively damp, but the carpets, the beds, even the walls gave the impression that if you touched them they would feel softer than you would expect.
I went to the window. A lawn sloped down to the creek. The tide was out. Small boats lay on their sides in the mud and a couple of seagulls rose and fell across the grey sky as if perched on an invisible wave.
‘How many girls have you brought here?’ I asked, crossly.
‘Will you do something for me?’ Joshua came up behind me, his voice patient. ‘Will you, while we are here, stop imagining my past? Can’t you stop being jealous of my past?’
‘I’m not jealous.’
‘What difference would it make if I had brought a hundred different girls to this very room? It wouldn’t take away from how it will be here for you and me.’
‘But that girl, Rita – ’
‘If you’re silly enough to be upset by anything she says, I’m surprised. Come on, don’t be silly.’ He took my hand and dragged me from the window, smiling. ‘Do you know what I like best about this place? It’s the only hotel I know where they provide free sealing-wax. Look here.’ I laughed, forgetting Rita.
We went to the desk. Two sticks of red sealing-wax and a small, half-gutted candle in a china holder lay on the blotter. Joshua sat on the chair at the desk and lit the candle.
‘I used to play a game with sealing-wax when I was a child. I wonder if I can do it now?’ He opened a pad of soggy writing-paper, cheaply stamped with the name of the hotel, and held a stick of wax over the flame. It softened, curved, and dripped into a large blob on the paper. A string of white smoke rose up to us, with the crisp mystical smell peculiar to hot sealing-wax. Quickly Joshua picked up a sharp pencil, also provided free, and wrote on the wax I am Josh… it hardened. Another letter was impossible.
‘I used to be able to write my whole name,’ he said. ‘You try.’ I sat on his knee and he made a new pool of wax for me. But I only managed as far as I am Cl… Then he wrote We are… in a third blob.
‘I can’t think what,’ he said, watching the wax harden while he thought. I took the pencil from him and on yet another pool of wax wrote We are us.
‘What silly things people do,’ Joshua said. I slipped on to the floor and sat there with my head on his knee. A thin shadow of smoke still hung in the air, and the candle spluttered out. We stayed there, without speaking, till darkness filled the room. Then we had to stumble about, tripping over things, looking for the lights.
After dinner we went into the lounge. It was not conducive to a gay evening. In one corner a middle-aged woman vigorously attacked a piece of tapestry, as if she were mending a sail. In the other corner her husband’s thick-set tweed legs and a beam of pipe smoke stuck out at different angles from behind a sporting paper. Joshua suggested we should go down to the quay.
The night was cold, almost frosty. A full moon lit our way down the narrow village street, and then down the cobbled way to the quay. No-one else was about. Joshua wore rubber-soled shoes and walked quite silently. My shoes made an irritating clatter.
Several large fishing boats were drawn up on to the quay: they sheltered round a huge Tarmaced barge. It was turned upside down, and looked like a prefabricated hut. In the water, the collection of small boats which had been cast on their sides in the mud had now regained their dignity. From time to time they twitched a little, when the water moved beneath them, then fell back into stillness.
Suddenly Joshua, who had been holding my arm, let go and ran away. I spun round to see what had happened.
I called him. No answer. I was faced by more empty boats, standing like high empty husks, and a confusion of thick black shadows. I looked up to the sky. For a moment the full moon balanced on a mast, a saucer on a juggler’s stick. Then a black cloud straggled across its face, hiding all but the barest outlines of the place. I called again. This time there was a weird, high pitched wail for an answer:
‘Here I a – m.’ It was impossible to tell where the voice was coming from. I felt my way over to the upturned barge, stumbling through the smaller boats, bumping their sides.
‘Where?’
‘Here.’ The voice was behind me now, not near the barge after all. I turned. The clouds cleared the moon again. The boats were empty. Then a figure leapt from the bottom of one of them, screaming with laughter, a ragged silhouette against the sky. It flopped back and the laughter stopped. I jumped with fright, knowing at once the stupidity of my fear. I put out a hand, groping for something to hold on to, and hit the hard belly of the barge. It was lumpy and damp. I shivered and tried to laugh.
‘Please come out now. You gave me an awful fright. … Joshua?’ No answer, and new clouds increased their speed towards the moon. Clumsily I ran to the boat he had jumped from. He was not hiding in the bottom. Nothing there but a long thin pool of water shining flatly as old glass.
‘I didn’t see you get out,’ I called, and repeated myself louder. ‘Come on, let’s go back. Don’t let’s play this game any longer. I’m cold. Please….’
‘Please come out now’ A high treble voice mocked mine. Once more it seemed to come from behind the barge. But the moon was re-blotted out, and the darkness more intense after the spell of brightness. All sense of direction left me. I clung to the boat I stood by, shivering with cold.
‘You can go on playing your silly game by yourself. I’m going back …’ I shouted, and didn’t move. Long, slow moments passed. Then an ice-cold hand touched my cheek. I screamed. Joshua laughed.
‘Don’t you like playing hide-and-seek?’ he asked, in his normal voice. I flung myself against him, angry and relieved.
‘No, not in a place like this. Not in a place I don’t know. And anyhow I can’t see in the dark, and I hate boats out of water.’
‘Did I really give you a fright? I’m sorry. It was just a game.’ He was incredulous. He kissed my forehead and eyes.
‘You do unsettling things.’ For the third or fourth time, I had lost count, the moon reappeared. I could look up and see the reassuring hulk of Joshua’s shoulders and jaw. Relief that the game was over was almost as unbearable as the former silly fear.
‘You could have come down here on your own,’ I heard myself saying, ‘if you’d wanted to be alone.’ Joshua laughed.
‘That wouldn’t have been any fun,’ he said. ‘The fun was running away from you.’ He took my arm. ‘Come on, laugh. I’m back, aren’t I?’ I laughed. ‘I’ll bet you anything you like,’ he went on, ‘I can guess what Jonathan’s game is. – Golf.’
‘And what’s more, if Jonathan changed from golf to hide-and-seek, he wouldn’t be very good at it, because he’s not a very sprightly man, is he?’
I laughed again, and in response Joshua speeded up his fantasy.
‘He’d have a handicap, wouldn’t he? – His running.’ He broke away from me and ran a few paces ahead, the fat waddling run of a man clumsy on his feet. ‘Like this?’
‘Quite like that.’ I was laughing hard now. ‘Cruel, you are.’ He wobbled back to me.
‘And I have no doubt,’ he said, ‘that in the end you will go back to a man who runs like that, won’t you?’
‘Nonsense,’ I said. Pause. ‘What makes you think that?’
He didn’t answer. We were almost back at the hotel now. It was flushed by orange floodlights: tame, secure, warm.
In our room the coral bar of electric fire was no more than a faint reproach against the cold. Our single beds were intolerably narrow. We pulled all the blankets from one bed on to the other and arranged ourselves to spend an uncomfortable night.
For the time being, we spoke no more of Jonathan.