Stratton sat back and watched his brother-in-law Donald sipping his beer. They were in The Swan, which they frequented mainly because Reg was unequivocal in his preference for the pub in the next street. After another row with Jenny – actually, another abnormally loud conversation, which was as close as they ever got – about whether or not the children should come home, Stratton had decided to seek consolation in a quiet pint. The alacrity with which Donald had responded to his suggestion of a drink made Stratton wonder if he might not have spent his afternoon going over the same sort of ground with Doris. He determined to ask about this, but not until they’d exhausted the pleasurable subject of Reg’s recent idiocies. ‘They’ve been drilling at the football ground,’ said Donald. ‘Talk about the blind and the halt! There was one old chap staggering around with an assegai, for Christ’s sake.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed the top of his nose. ‘I hope they frighten Hitler, because they certainly frighten me.’
‘I saw that dirty great sword.’
‘He insisted on taking it. I don’t know what use he thinks it’s going to be … I was in the toilet when he came round.’ Donald shook his head. ‘It’s come to something when you can’t even have a shit in peace.’
Stratton laughed.
‘And when I said something about business being bad,’ – Donald ran a camera shop – ‘he told me I’d be had up for spreading alarm and despondency! Said it was unpatriotic to complain. Mind you, I don’t think he’s doing too well, either, with the stationery orders …’
‘Has he said anything to you about Johnny?’
‘No, but he wouldn’t, would he? I know Lilian’s worried about him, though. She told Doris.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Bit of trouble at the garage. ‘Course, Lilian says it’s all their fault, says he’s being bullied. Boot’s more likely to be on the other foot, if you ask me.’
Stratton nodded. ‘What did Doris say?’
‘Not much she could say. You know Lilian.’ Donald shrugged. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t said anything to Jenny.’
‘Not yet. But Jenny said she’d seen him loafing with some boys when he should have been at work, so …’ After a few more shrugs, and oh wells, and some general stuff along the lines of don’t-meet-trouble-halfway, they relapsed into a companionable silence. One of the things Stratton liked about Donald’s company was that he knew when there wasn’t anything more to be said. Unspoken between them was the knowledge that Johnny was a bad lot and Reg was a fool, and it was this, as well as marriage into a large and close-knit family, that had helped to cement their friendship. They’d never have criticised their wives to each other – not that Stratton had ever felt the need, and he suspected that Donald was the same – but they were both aware of their status as outsiders: Stratton, because he’d grown up in rural Devon (his accent, which had charmed Jenny when they first met, had been gradually eroded by years of contact with hard London vowels) and Donald because of his Scottish parents.
‘Talking of children,’ said Stratton, ‘Jenny keeps saying we should have our two back home.’
‘Yeah …’ Donald sighed into his pint. ‘Doris is the same about Madeleine. I keep telling her it’s not safe, but … It’s a funny thing. You get into the habit of not bothering each other, but all the time when we’re not talking about it, I know she wants to and she’s biting her tongue.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Stratton thought of Jenny that afternoon, staring through the taped window into the garden, her beautiful green eyes moist with unshed tears. She had claimed – in a tight voice that declared I-don’t-want-to-discuss-it but meant exactly the opposite – to be watching the birds. ‘God knows I miss them – even the squabbling and the racket. D’you know, I found myself in Pete’s room the other night, reading one of his books? Winnie the Pooh. Bloody silly.’
Donald nodded. ‘I’ve done a few things like that myself. Can’t
blame the women though – it’s a lot harder on them, and – ’ His expression changed abruptly. ‘Christ, what’s he doing here?’
Stratton, who had his back to the door, said, ‘It’s not, is it?’
‘It bloody is, and he’s seen us.’ Donald raised his hand in a half-hearted greeting. ‘He’s brought Farmer Giles with him. And the Major.’ Stratton half turned in his seat to see Reg’s porky buttocks pushing the tail of his jacket into divergent halves as he laid the camel sword, now clean and polished, reverentially on the floor before straightening up and patting his pockets for change. Next to him, bearing a pitchfork, prongs up, as if it were a standard, was Harry Comber, the grocer, etiolated and balding. Behind them was Major Lyons, a small septuagenarian, stiff and tweedy with bushy eyebrows, who always made Stratton think of a malevolent cairn terrier.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Donald did a dramatic double-take. ‘He’s actually standing a round.’
Reg’s meanness with money was legendary. He regularly subjected the rest of the family to unsolicited advice about household savings, including – until he’d cut his arse on the remains of an acid-drop – the practice of using grocers’ bags and torn up newspaper in the toilet.
‘Shame you haven’t got a camera with you,’ said Stratton. ‘We could capture the moment for posterity.’
Donald rolled his eyes. ‘He’s coming over.’
Reg, pint in hand and trailed by the others – at a respectful distance, because the sword, jammed underneath his arm, was weaving dangerously behind him – ambled over to greet them. ‘Well met, indeed! Off duty, are we?’ He winked, as though he’d caught Stratton doing something he shouldn’t, made an expansive gesture, slopping beer on Donald’s shoulder, and then, having ascertained that both their glasses were well over the halfway mark, said, ‘Can I get you gents anything?’
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ said Stratton.
‘I can’t think why you come in here,’ said Reg, plonking himself on an empty chair. Donald opened his mouth, then shut it again, leaving the obvious answer – because you don’t – hovering in the air. ‘Don’t mind if we join you?’ Reg continued, pulling out the chairs next to him for Comber and Major Lyons.
‘So why are you here?’ asked Stratton.
‘Bit of a crush at The King’s Head. Just come off duty, you know.’
‘We gathered,’ said Donald.
‘Got our armbands, you see.’ Reg rotated his right arm towards them so that they could make out the letters LDV against the white cloth. Comber and the Major moved likewise, the latter letting out an affirmative yap as he did so. After a moment, Stratton, seeing that some response was called for, gave a hearty, ‘Jolly good,’ and raised his pint. ‘Cheers!’
A moment’s arm-raising, toasting and theatrical supping noises ensued, during which Stratton avoiding looking at Donald, and then Comber, lowering his glass, said, ‘Candidly, I think this invasion stuff is all nonsense. It’s Hitler’s last throw. He wants to get the war finished before winter.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s going to be famine in Europe.’
The Major looked disconcerted but contented himself with, ‘Now we know where we are.’ Stratton tried to remember exactly how many times he’d heard this remark in the last week, and felt a surge of irritation. ‘I’m buggered if I do,’ he said.
There was a short pause before Reg and Comber started to speak at once, Reg giving way with a small, fruity belch and applying himself once more to his pint as Comber launched into a long and obviously well-rehearsed spiel about how, candidly, there would be no food left in Germany by mid-October and how, candidly, dogs and cats were already being killed en masse because there was nothing for them to eat and how, candidly, the German people wouldn’t put up with it for a second longer than they had to and then, candidly, Hitler would be done for. Stratton toyed with the enjoyable possibility of telling Comber, candidly, to fuck off, but a glance at Donald confirmed that this was impossible.
After ten more minutes of Comber’s pontificating, a kick from Donald made Stratton gulp down the rest of his drink – waste of decent beer, but it couldn’t be helped – remark, untruthfully, that Jenny would have his guts for garters if he stayed out too long, and depart, with Donald, amidst a barrage of jovial advice about not upsetting the little woman and injunctions from Comber and the Major to give our regards to your good ladies.
‘We’re fucking done for,’ Donald remarked, as they walked back to Lansdowne Road.
‘I know,’ said Stratton. ‘All that stuff about famine in Germany. He’s conveniently forgotten about Dunkirk. Magnificent retreat, my arse! You can’t win wars by evacuating people. It’s just wishful thinking. Worst thing is when you find yourself doing it.’
‘Yeah … Not like Comber, though.’
‘God, no. I just keep thinking about how nice it’ll be when we’re together again as a family – what we were saying before.’
‘If it happens.’
‘Do you think it won’t?’
‘Don’t know.’ Donald didn’t look at him. ‘Best not to think at all, really. Mind you, having to listen to people like Comber talk a lot of piss doesn’t help much.’
‘They’re enjoying it, though.’
‘You’d enjoy it too if you were married to Joan Comber.’
‘That’s true.’ Mrs Comber was a large, raw-boned woman, whose face bore an alarming resemblance to Stan Laurel’s.
‘You’d take any excuse to get out of the house.’
‘Do you think they still …’
Donald grimaced. ‘Would you?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t in the first place. Change the subject, for Christ’s sake.’
‘To what?’ asked Donald. ‘It’s all pretty fucking gloomy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton. ‘It fucking well is.’
‘Reg is a stupid old fart, isn’t he?’
‘He’s a fucking stupid old fart.’
They grinned at each other. They’d always enjoyed the harmless, if juvenile pastime of swearing in each other’s company. Normally, they were more inventive, even laboriously so, but at the moment, just being crude seemed to be enough to relieve their feelings. Stratton had always felt that the fucks, shits, and occasional cunts that oiled their conversation were like the visible tip of a vast sunken iceberg of things that he thought or felt, but that couldn’t be spoken without revealing himself to be malicious, misanthropic, self-pitying, uncaring, arrogant, lecherous, cowardly, or some appalling combination of all of them. He’d occasionally wondered if Donald saw the swearing thing in the same way but
that, again, was something quite impossible to put into words. When they parted in front of Donald and Doris’s gate, two doors down from his own, Stratton felt oddly comforted. The conversation had provided confirmation that he did, as the Major had said, know where they were: in the shit, and without a shovel. There was, he thought, as he unlocked the front door, a sort of grim satisfaction to be taken from this.