Chapter Fifteen

Night Duty

 

“I’ll tell you what, Cy,” Ruth Endicott said. “Why don’t we buy some fish and chips and take it home, it’s ever so much more comfortable there.”

“That’s a jolly good idea,” said Cyril Owen, “but I ought to be in bed early tonight, ducks.”

“I won’t stop you,” Ruth promised him.

They were walking away from the Roxy, in Whitechapel Road, just after ten o’clock. The show had finished earlier than usual, and they felt a little cheated. Owen was uneasy because the situation between him and this girl was getting out of hand. It was one thing to scrape an acquaintance – and that certainly hadn’t been difficult; he had waited until Ruth came into the Walsh’s shop, made the usual joking suggestions about a night at the pictures or at the palais, and hadn’t really been surprised when after a show of coyness she had said yes.

That had been a week ago, and he had seen her every evening since. He had not yet started to try to find out much about her husband, being sure that he must approach that question cautiously; but a situation had developed which really began to worry him.

In the first place, he was getting fond of Ruth. She had a perky way with her, a nice sense of humour, and a much higher intelligence than he had anticipated. She wasn’t clever by any means, and hadn’t a great deal of general knowledge, but she certainly wasn’t a fool. Many of the girls he had been around with had been morons compared with shrewd little, plump little Ruth.

Her smallness, or rather her shortness, and her plumpness, intrigued him, too. She dressed to fit her figure much more than she had when her husband had been alive, and had a ridiculously small waist – he couldn’t quite span it with the fingers of his two hands, but the middle fingers weren’t far apart when he tried. She had a swelling bosom, tightly confined, showing a deep cleavage, and her hips curved so that from behind she looked like an old-fashioned egg timer.

More important than any of this was the fact that she had taken to him.

This was their third evening at the pictures, the third of holding hands, the second when she had taken his right hand and guided it to her breast, to her full, soft thighs. Sitting so close to her, with this promise of intimacy, had awakened all the male in him; he had been glad when the film ended and the National Anthem was played.

Now Owen had a real problem.

He was pretty sure what Ruth wanted; sure that she was acutely lonely at night. Her suggestion of buying fish and chips and taking them home meant only one thing – she wanted to get him into the house. She knew that he wasn’t married, and knew where he lived and worked, too.

It wasn’t often that an attractive girl threw herself at him; usually it took a lot longer than this to make a complete conquest, and Owen did not know what to do. If he made excuses, and didn’t go home with her, or if he stayed for an hour and left without any proof of passion and desire, it might be his last chance. He had wanted this affair to develop much more slowly and deliberately, but now he had to make up his mind in a hurry. His attitude could determine the whole of their future relationship, and this was hardly a thing on which he could take advice.

She believed he was shy, of course, and diffident; he could tell that when she took his hands, when she whispered: “I love you touching me,” when she looked at him and smiled very knowingly.

He was twenty-seven and she was twenty-four, and there were a lot of times when he felt that she was twice his age.

Half a dozen people ahead of them turned into a brightly lit fried-fish shop, outside which a green fluorescent sign read:

 

Eat Here or Take Away.

 

Ruth believed that his hedging was simply due to shyness, remember; if he did anything which made it clear that it wasn’t, there was no telling how she would react.

“Come on,” she said, as they reached the shop. “The plaice here is ever so nice, and we’ll be home in five minutes. It’ll still be hot.” She held his hand as she pulled him towards the door, and he followed her.

He saw a policeman on the other side of the road, a man who had no idea that he was a plain-clothes officer; he had noticed that the police kept an eye on Ruth. She was smiling, almost laughing, as she went into the brightly lit shop, with its penetrating odour of frying oil and frying fish, the hissing and bubbling as fresh chips were tossed into the boiling oil. The four in front went to the tables, so that he and Ruth were alone at the counter.

If he made an excuse—

“Three plaice and a shillingsworth of chips,” Ruth ordered from the dark-haired, dark-eyed Greek who owned the place.

At one end of the counter was a stack of cigarettes and chocolates, just behind the cashier, a grey-haired woman who sat at a small window. The policeman in Owen noticed this, and tucked it away in the back of his mind. The Greek was taking pieces of plaice from the grille at the top of the fryer; a girl shovelled crisp golden chips into a greaseproof bag.

“If I go home with her,” Owen told himself, “that’s it and all about it.” He watched her as she stood at the counter, flushed, rosy-cheeked, excited and happy. He found himself taking out a ten shilling note and paying for the fish and chips. He felt the increasing warmth of the packet as he carried it along towards the next turning, Ruth’s arm linked in his free arm. He turned the corner into Brasher’s Row, and saw the policeman who had been in Whitechapel Road, walking along with a sergeant; here, even in these days, the police did not patrol in ones except by day.

The fish was hot and beginning to get smelly when they reached Ruth’s little house.

“I won’t be half a jiff,” she said, and let him go, and rum-aged in her bag for her key. He was quite sure that once he was inside he wouldn’t be able to resist her; it would be virtually impossible to come away after a meal, anyway.

She pushed the door open.

“Go on in, silly,” she said. “I won’t eat you!” She gave him a little push, and switched on the light, and they stepped inside. She closed the door, quickly, and looked up at him. She was striking and beautifully coloured, and her eyes were so bright; she was obviously delighted.

She pushed the bolt home at the top of the door, standing on tip-toe to do it, and then took the package from him. “I’ll pop this in the oven to keep warm, and lay the table,” she said. “How about a little drink, Cy? Would you like a whisky or a gin and something?”

“A—a whisky sounds fine,” said Owen.

“I’ll tell you what, you help yourself. I’ll pop this in the oven and then go upstairs and put some slippers on,” Ruth said. “I hate walking about the house in high heels. Wouldn’t you?”

“Hate it,” he made himself say.

“There’s where I keep the drinks,” she said, and pointed to a small wall cupboard in a corner. “You needn’t be too mean with the whisky, I’ve another bottle tucked away somewhere.” She hurried out of the living-room, the room where she had seen the plump man who had come to her just after her husband’s death, and into the kitchen. He heard the pop of gas, saw her bending down at the oven, adjusting the flame, then saw and heard her take down dishes and plates, and heard the rustle of paper. She was an efficient little person.

He opened the corner cupboard and found glasses and the whisky, some gin, a bottle of Noilly Prat and a bottle of Cinzano, as well as some Babychams. He poured himself a stiff whisky, and sipped it. Ruth was out of sight now, and he called:

“What will you have, Ruth?”

“I think I’d like one of those little bottles of Babycham,” she called, and a moment later appeared, flushed from the heat of the stove. “Pour it out for me, Cy love.” She flashed a bright roguish smile at him as she passed, and touched his hand; then he heard her hurrying up the stairs. He drank more of the whisky, pondering. If he walked out now he would never be able to win her confidence; if he stayed now he might be making serious trouble for himself.

He heard her moving about. He took down two bottles of the “champagne”, and hesitated, then took down two champagne glasses.

“I started it, I’ll finish it,” he said, and tossed the rest of the whisky down. The decision gave him a curious sense of relief, and his heart began to throb. He listened intently, and heard Ruth padding about, presumably in her slippers. She was a long time if she was just changing her shoes. He half finished his second drink, and then heard a soft, rustling sound in the passage; it scared him, and he jumped forward.

She was coming towards him from the foot of the staircase, wearing a flimsy gauze-like housecoat which hid very little, even when she was in the gloom of the passage. As she came into the brighter light of the living-room, he could see through the gauze almost as if through glass. He had never imagined a fuller, firmer, more seductive figure. The delight in her eyes, the promise and the hope, were unmistakable.

“I just had to change, Cy,” she whispered, and came towards him. He didn’t move. She drew up close to him, and slid her arms round him, pressing her body against his. “Cy,” she said, “I can make this couch into a bed, or we can go upstairs. Which would you rather?”

He moistened his lips. “Ruth, that fish’ll get baked.”

She put her head back and laughed at him, and he saw how white and beautifully even her teeth were. He tightened his grip round her shoulders, and then hoisted her in his arms.

Then he carried her upstairs.

 

“Cy,” she said, afterwards, “I hope you don’t think I’m terrible.”

“I think you’re wonderful.” Owen didn’t speak.

“Cy,” said Ruth, lying on her side, quite naked, quite lovely, ‘’there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“Listen, Ruth—”

“I’ve just got to tell you,” she insisted. “I was married to my husband for five years, and I hated it. I hated—I hated having to give in to him. I just hated him. I didn’t realise anything could be so wonderful, but when I first saw you, I knew—I knew we would just have to get to know each other better. You—you felt like that too, didn’t you?”

Owen moistened his lips.

“Of course I did.”

“There’s something about you,” Ruth said, and she half closed her eyes; he had never realised before how curly and long her black eyelashes were. “You—you’re the first man I’ve ever really been interested in, that’s the honest truth. After my husband died—after he was murdered, I mean—I didn’t think I’d ever have anything to do with men again. I hated them all. I even hated the police—they kept asking me questions all the time, as if they didn’t believe me, but they might just as well. My husband’s like a bad dream, now, but it wasn’t until I met you that I realised I was absolutely free from him, free from everything.”

“What about his friends?” Owen made himself ask.

“I didn’t know any of his friends,” said Ruth, in a low-pitched voice. “I didn’t want to, either. Cy, I’m telling you the honest truth, I hated him. I just had to put up with him, he frightened me so much. If you knew how he treated me …”

It was as if the passion of their union had released some store of memory, as if she had been repressing all these things for a long time, and now had to talk about them. Owen let her talk. She had a soothing voice, and she talked without heat and without venom, telling him how she had hated Endicott, showing him the scars she bore, and he prompted her now and again, so that she went on talking lazily, sometimes taking his hand and fondling it.

 

It was much later, downstairs, as they ate the fish and chips, which had gone a little soggy, that he noticed the sea shells in a drawer of the corner cupboard, where he was looking for a bottle opener. He didn’t give them a thought. There were a dozen of them or more, all little pink sea-shore shells which he noticed as he did everything.