next time Ben came by, it would have seen so many trains that it would not twitch an ear.
Greedily, with a swift, practised eye, Ben took in all the details. A bucket tipped over outside the stable. A cat mewing to get in at the kitchen door. A hanging, broken branch which the father should get at with his saw. Too cold for there to be anyone in the garden. Yes, there was. A girl in an old sheepskin coat. Not the pretty one with whom Ben was in love, but the older one, throwing a stick for a dog which bounded in a flurry of dead leaves. She looked up for a moment as the train rushed by above her, then the side of the bridge rose up and she was gone.
Ben sat back in his seat. Why did she look up at the trains, the untidy one with the long, schoolgirlish legs? The others never did, and she never used to when she was younger. For a fraction of a second as he passed over her garden, it had seemed that she caught his eye. Did she see him through the space he had wiped on the steamy glass and wish that she were Ben, going somewhere, envying him because he was on the move; just as he envied her because she was playing in the leaves with a dog and he was travelling sedately to Wavecrest, Firbanks Avenue, where there was no garden worth the name, and no dog, and a difficult two days ahead of him?
Lunch was cooking when Ben arrived at his parents’ house—he never thought of it as home. As he stood on the doorstep between the pair of curly Chinese dragons which fitted so ill with the square concrete and stucco house and the geometrical flower-beds, edged with looped wire, he could smell beef roasting. Well, that was something. He was to be given the prodigal’s welcome, withYorkshire pudding and all the trimmings, although his mother would overcook the beef and it would be as tasteless as slate when they had it cold for lunch tomorrow. Perhaps he could get away early.
The front door was locked. Ben had a feeling that the doors of the house by the railway were never locked. Firbanks Avenue was a quiet street, on the way to nowhere except a disused gravel-pit, and there were no mental institutions nearby, and nothing in the house to steal except Ben’s father’s oriental souvenirs from the days when he was in the P. & O., but there were double bolts on all the doors, and little chains and pegs fitted to the windows to stop them being opened from the outside far enough to get an arm through. This also meant that they could not be opened from the inside far enough to get an arm through, or to get any appreciable amount of air; but Ben’s mother did not shake dusters or mops out of windows. She shook them on to a piece of newspaper. His father had once had malaria, which had never recurred, but had given him an excuse to keep out the good sea air and enjoy a comfortable stuffiness.
Ben would not use the electric chime—his mother’s pride—so he thumped on the frosted glass at the top of the door, and heard her quick feet coming tap tap along the linoleum.
“Don’t bang on the glass, dear,” she said automatically. She wiped her hands on her apron and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, for she was very small.
All the way from London, Ben had rehearsed how he should break the news. Better perhaps to tell them as soon as he stepped into the house rather than let them think that this was just a friendly visit prompted by nothing more sinister than filial affection. If he let them preserve that illusion any longer than necessary, there would be a double-edged accusation hanging in the air. Not only had he let himself get kicked out of the Navy, but he had let them welcome him as if everything was all right. He would tell his mother immediately, and then she could go running in to his father crying: “Tommy, Tommy, the most disastrous thing has happened!” and his father would puff out his cheeks and look as if he had been struck by lightning, and they could get the worst of it over right away perhaps, and then get on with
Greedily, with a swift, practised eye, Ben took in all the details. A bucket tipped over outside the stable. A cat mewing to get in at the kitchen door. A hanging, broken branch which the father should get at with his saw. Too cold for there to be anyone in the garden. Yes, there was. A girl in an old sheepskin coat. Not the pretty one with whom Ben was in love, but the older one, throwing a stick for a dog which bounded in a flurry of dead leaves. She looked up for a moment as the train rushed by above her, then the side of the bridge rose up and she was gone.
Ben sat back in his seat. Why did she look up at the trains, the untidy one with the long, schoolgirlish legs? The others never did, and she never used to when she was younger. For a fraction of a second as he passed over her garden, it had seemed that she caught his eye. Did she see him through the space he had wiped on the steamy glass and wish that she were Ben, going somewhere, envying him because he was on the move; just as he envied her because she was playing in the leaves with a dog and he was travelling sedately to Wavecrest, Firbanks Avenue, where there was no garden worth the name, and no dog, and a difficult two days ahead of him?
Lunch was cooking when Ben arrived at his parents’ house—he never thought of it as home. As he stood on the doorstep between the pair of curly Chinese dragons which fitted so ill with the square concrete and stucco house and the geometrical flower-beds, edged with looped wire, he could smell beef roasting. Well, that was something. He was to be given the prodigal’s welcome, withYorkshire pudding and all the trimmings, although his mother would overcook the beef and it would be as tasteless as slate when they had it cold for lunch tomorrow. Perhaps he could get away early.
The front door was locked. Ben had a feeling that the doors of the house by the railway were never locked. Firbanks Avenue was a quiet street, on the way to nowhere except a disused gravel-pit, and there were no mental institutions nearby, and nothing in the house to steal except Ben’s father’s oriental souvenirs from the days when he was in the P. & O., but there were double bolts on all the doors, and little chains and pegs fitted to the windows to stop them being opened from the outside far enough to get an arm through. This also meant that they could not be opened from the inside far enough to get an arm through, or to get any appreciable amount of air; but Ben’s mother did not shake dusters or mops out of windows. She shook them on to a piece of newspaper. His father had once had malaria, which had never recurred, but had given him an excuse to keep out the good sea air and enjoy a comfortable stuffiness.
Ben would not use the electric chime—his mother’s pride—so he thumped on the frosted glass at the top of the door, and heard her quick feet coming tap tap along the linoleum.
“Don’t bang on the glass, dear,” she said automatically. She wiped her hands on her apron and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, for she was very small.
All the way from London, Ben had rehearsed how he should break the news. Better perhaps to tell them as soon as he stepped into the house rather than let them think that this was just a friendly visit prompted by nothing more sinister than filial affection. If he let them preserve that illusion any longer than necessary, there would be a double-edged accusation hanging in the air. Not only had he let himself get kicked out of the Navy, but he had let them welcome him as if everything was all right. He would tell his mother immediately, and then she could go running in to his father crying: “Tommy, Tommy, the most disastrous thing has happened!” and his father would puff out his cheeks and look as if he had been struck by lightning, and they could get the worst of it over right away perhaps, and then get on with
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