Customers lingered by his stall, putting on their spectacles, peering at the price tags, picking things up, putting them down, moving away, coming back to look a second time. A woman offered Claud sixteen pounds for the mug he had marked up to seventeen; they made a deal at sixteen fifty. Claud felt elated; this was his first sale. He felt he had arrived. He wrapped the mug tenderly in newspaper, took the money.

  Contrapuntally while minding his stall he let his mind dwell on his novel. He saw his mother lingering at the stall which sold old household tools. She turned the handle of a frightful old mangle, chatted to the stall-holder. Was she tempted? What part could an Edwardian mangle play in her life? Claud watched his mother and exulted. Laura will love my book; she must be the first to read it. He daydreamed by his stall in the busy market of a crisp and finished manuscript.

  ‘What are you asking for this?’ It was one of Laura’s doubles; he held a spoon, his thumb over the price tag.

  ‘The price is written on it.’

  ‘This spoon has my family’s crest on it. I wonder how it got here?’ Almost he accused, peering with Laura’s dark eyes.

  Claud took the spoon from him, looked at the tag: ‘Six pounds fifty. Sterling silver.’

  ‘Plate, actually, it’s plate.’ Laura’s double denigrated the spoon, replaced it on the stall. Claud felt the hairs of his neck rise or, he told himself, they rose metaphorically.

  ‘Hullo, Nicholas.’ Claud’s mother had come up behind him. ‘How are you and Emily? How is Laura?’

  ‘We are all so-so, just about so-so.’

  Claud was as glad as he had sometimes been as a child to see his mother. ‘Hullo, Mother. Can I sell you something?’ He felt an unusual need to keep her close to him.

  ‘I have been looking at that old kitchen machinery. D’you think it still works? Fascinating stuff.’

  ‘Is this your son, Margaret? D’you think he’s been pinching our spoons? He’s got one here with our crest on it. I’m sure it’s ours.’

  ‘I hardly think so, Nicholas. I’d no idea you had a crest. Whatever next, should I bow and curtsey? Why don’t you buy it?’

  Nicholas Thornby moved away. ‘That’s a mischievous old man,’ said Margaret.

  ‘M-m-m.’

  ‘Laura’s uncle, or so they say.’

  ‘What else could he be?’ asked Claud. ‘The likeness is striking.’

  ‘What indeed,’ said Margaret Bannister.

  ‘Do you think the spoon was his? Most of this stuff comes from Laura; she brought it from their attic.’ Claud felt uneasy.

  ‘Then don’t let on. Let him buy it if he wants it back.’ Claud was heartened by his mother’s robust attitude.

  ‘I think he may have been responsible for my black eye,’ Claud whispered.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ Margaret demurred. She wanted to ask him whether he was enjoying his new venture, but did not want to seem interfering. She was afraid of embarrassing her son; he was such a touchy fellow. She felt she should buy something from his stall, but all the little objects repelled her. She felt, standing by his stall, that she was barging in on his independence. She would do better to move away. ‘I am planning to sell all my outmoded kitchen gadgets to that man over there,’ she said.

  Claud gaped. In his novel she cherished her gadgets, her life was ruled by them; she did not get rid of them. He felt a sharp pang of abandonment.

  Margaret went on, ‘I have so much junk; I shall unload it on him and there’s plenty about the house that you may like for your stall.’

  ‘That will be lovely,’ said Claud dully.

  It won’t be lovely, it will be a nuisance, thought Margaret. She had no confidence in herself as a parent. Other people seem to be at ease with their children, she thought, why can’t I? ‘I shall have a grand clearance, a clean sweep when I move,’ she said, pretending to be bold.

  Claud gasped. He had not realised that her departure was imminent; he had visualised it months, maybe years, ahead, that meanwhile she would be around to provide ideas for the novel. Damn her, he thought, can’t she see I need her? Then why can’t I tell her? If she were Laura, it would be simple. He watched his mother as she moved away.

  ‘I’ll have that spoon.’ Nicholas Thornby was back. ‘But I shan’t give you more than a fiver. It must have been stolen from us, by one of our dailies perhaps.’

  ‘Six pounds fifty,’ said Claud. ‘Perhaps it was not a daily.’ He looked Nicholas in the eye.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Nicholas produced the money from his wallet. ‘Twice robbed,’ he said. ‘Don’t wrap it up.’

  Claud took the money and handed over the spoon. He was amused to see that Nicholas had chosen the most worn note from his wallet. ‘You gave me this black eye,’ he said, indicating the bruise, which over a period of a week had faded from purple to greenish yellow.

  ‘I wish I had,’ said Nicholas Thornby, ‘by which I mean that I would wish I had if you had stolen my spoon, if you can follow a convoluted train of thought.’

  ‘I think I can just about manage,’ said Claud. He put the dirty note in his hip pocket.

  He sold no more that morning and presently packed up his stall and joined Brian, Susie and other traders for lunch in the wine bar. They all sat round a table while Mavis took their orders, standing graceful and pliant beside the table, reminding Claud of the first morning when he had sat there with Laura. Thinking of Laura he hardly noticed Mavis’ appetising body in its nylon overall appearing for once without the overcoat. If he had bothered to look he would have seen Mavis’ nipples pointing perkily under the nylon as she breathed, but his mind’s eye only saw Laura who was not there. He wished he was sitting alone with Laura so that he could tell her that he was regaining some of the confidence lost with the failed exam and the difficulties with Amy. He had not mentioned the failed exam, it no longer mattered; it was the moral disintegration of his failure with Amy which had significance. Thinking of Laura he endowed her with more power than she had, supposing that she had understood his trouble when she urged him to leave home, to write, to keep a stall, that she wasn’t taking an interest for amusement’s sake but really cared about him, knew about the confidence Amy had snatched from him so ruthlessly, so cruelly. ‘Damn and blast Amy,’ he spoke out loud.

  ‘Who is Amy?’ asked Brian, looking up from his pizza. ‘Anyone we know?’

  Claud did not answer but ordered an Irish coffee, catching Mavis by the skirt as she passed their table, calling her Maeve. ‘Mavis, my name is Mavis.’ She smacked his hand and went away to place his order.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Claud called after her, ‘I failed to recognise you without your coat.’

  Watching Claud settle into a routine at the market precipitated Margaret’s plan to sell up and move. She did not trust him to stay in the Kennedys’ loft; it was too basic. The bohemian glamour might soon wear off. She could see him moving back into her house bringing habits which did not fit with hers, moods which could be trying.

  Since her husband’s departure she had secretly looked forward to the time when, his education complete, Claud would flit into the outer world, leaving her to do whatever she wished with an uncluttered conscience. Now she felt threatened. Claud looked like settling in the town he had affected to despise all the years they had lived in it. He was making friends with locals who up to now had not been worth his trouble. Being herself naturally unsociable Margaret had, when her husband embarrassed her with his quarrelsome drinking, kept aloof from people. When he left her she remained withdrawn; his absence made no difference. As he grew up Claud had clearly found home boring, had preferred to spend holidays away with friends, sulked when he had to be at home. She knew that he thought her dull; indeed, in adolescence, he often said so. She had never anticipated his wanting to live near or with her when he left university.

  She now saw her solitude at risk. She blamed herself for introducing him to Laura at the concert, so brilliant against the drab background. She felt threatened when, several times during his first week in the loft, Claud dropped in to share her meals, bringing with him his laundry to feed her washing machine, taking the opportunity to have a bath. Her hot water system was, it seemed, more reliable than the Kennedys’. He brought his new friends, Brian and Susie, for drinks; asked whether he could bring Mavis for supper, making it impossible for her to refuse. A mild hint she dropped about independence and doing his own washing he ignored. He was, he said, working hard on his novel, getting inspiration from local colour; he looked round the kitchen when he said this, fingering her electric whisk or fidgeting with the mixer in a way which made her uneasy.

  Irrationally Margaret blamed Laura for all this. Mavis, a more obvious cause of potential trouble, worried her not at all; it was the idea of Laura that caused angst. However private and withdrawn she had been during the years she had lived in the neighbourhood, she had not escaped hearing that the Thornbys had a reputation. The old brother and sister were said to be odd, and Laura a mischief-monger; nobody knew why she had not married or what she did when she was elsewhere. She had rented the Kennedys’ loft for many years, but latterly had taken over the back premises of the Old Rectory, building a brick partition between herself and the old people. Some person had joked that she had created not a granny flat but a manic’s flat. Margaret was on Christian name terms with the Thornbys, as everybody was with everyone these days, a habit caught from America; she greeted them cheerily in public but had no wish to enlarge her acquaintance.

  So Margaret made a date with the house agent; her house was eminently saleable. She invited the man who kept the machine and tool stall in the market to call. He came next day and went away with most of her kitchen equipment. The cheque he gave her surprised her by its substance.

  She sorted her clothes, ruthlessly reducing her wardrobe to essentials. Oxfam benefited, and the jumble sales more so.

  She invited the second-hand booksellers to browse among her surplus books. Systematically she ransacked the house for objects suitable for Claud’s stall, packing them in cardboard boxes which she stowed in the boot of her car.

  As she stripped the house of belongings, she cleaned it, erasing the patina it had acquired from her occupation, stripping it of its character, preparing it for the imprint of new owners.

  When the estate agent brought some people to view, she was in the garden getting it tidy for a spring she would not be there to see. She answered the would-be buyers’ questions politely, but when they asked her how she could bear to leave such a charming neighbourhood, such an adorable convenient little house, she did not think it was any of their business and further questions froze.

  She knew she was running away and felt guilty. Guilt cemented her determination to escape Claud. When the house agent telephoned the same evening to tell her the people were prepared to buy at the asking price on condition they could move in immediately, she accepted the offer with relief. The prospect of moving away was rejuvenating. She looked forward to it with joy.

  ‘Goodness, what are you up to?’ Laura, returned from London, stood in the porch. She looked over Margaret’s shoulder into the hall, interested and inquisitive. ‘Someone told me you were moving,’ she said. ‘I wondered whether your house would suit some friends of mine who are househunting. And another thing, have you any furniture you are parting with that I might—’ she let the sentence drop.

  ‘Why don’t you come in?’ Margaret stood aside. She guessed that the househunting friends were imaginary, but it was possible Laura was interested in furniture; in any case she could not stop Laura’s inquisitiveness without being rude. ‘Come in,’ she repeated.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Laura. ‘It’s a super house, how can you bear to leave it?’

  ‘Quite easily.’ Let Laura discover for herself that the house was sold.

  ‘Where shall you live?’

  Margaret ignored this. ‘There’s a chest of drawers in Claud’s room I shall sell. I definitely won’t keep that.’

  ‘May I look at it? Where did you say you will live?’

  ‘I didn’t. D’you mind looking round on your own? I’m rather busy packing things for Claud’s stall.’

  ‘Of course not. Sorry to interrupt. Has he sold the stuff I gave him?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘I shall. Okay if I look round?’

  ‘Please do.’ Margaret moved towards the stairs. Let her pry on her own. Why should Claud be beholden to this woman? She watched her climb the stairs, then took a tray and stacked it with a tea set she had thought that morning she would keep. Now she decided to give it to Claud. As she wrapped the cups and saucers in newspaper she heard Laura moving about and thought, not for the first time, that while the outer walls of the cottage were thick, the inside was by no means soundproof. In the past she had heard much she would rather not, not only from her husband but from Claud, too. She could leave these echoes behind.

  ‘How much do you want for the chest?’ Laura rejoined her.

  Margaret named her price.

  ‘Okay, fine, I’ll have it. I need one. I found this when I pulled out the drawers.’ Laura handed an envelope to Margaret. ‘Snaps of a girl. She’s pretty. Friend of Claud’s?’

  Margaret took the envelope, looked at the snaps. She knew at once that this was an oblique sign from Claud. She did not recognise the girl. This would be the girl he had so often telephoned, who had wrung him out like a dishcloth, taken to hanging up on him, ceased to exist in his life.

  ‘Oh, that’s Amy,’ she said, furious to feel her neck flush, her voice alter. ‘Well, like a cup of tea? I was about to make one.’

  ‘Why not? Thanks.’ Laura followed Margaret to the kitchen. ‘You’d never seen that girl, had you?’ Laura sat at the kitchen table. ‘I suppose he was in love with her. I suppose she chucked him. Badly hurt, was he?’

  She had made him fail his exams. This was some sort of message; obviously he couldn’t bear to talk about the girl, the girl he had called Amy, shouting the name into the unresponsive telephone. Laura was still speaking. ‘But you never met her, did you?’

  ‘How do you know?’ It popped out.

  ‘Your expression. An oh dear that’s cat’s-mess face.’

  Margaret laughed. ‘It always gives me away. You haven’t got friends looking for a house, have you? You are interested in Claud.’

  ‘That makes two with intuition. Yes, I find him interesting, easily hurt I’d say, vulnerable. One wouldn’t want to hurt him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t suggest you would. How old are you?’

  ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘I am fifty-five. I had him when I was thirty-two, rather old to start a family.’

  ‘Which makes him twenty-three.’

  ‘Yes, poor boy.’

  ‘Poor boy, poor boy,’ Laura laughed. ‘He needs boosting, jollying up, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve tried. Failed lamentably.’

  ‘Your heart isn’t in it.’

  ‘My heart is battle fatigued,’ said Margaret.

  Laura grinned; she enjoyed teasing people. She watched Margaret making tea, putting out mugs, bending to take milk from the refrigerator, reaching into a cupboard for sugar. ‘I’ll find out what she did to him and let you know.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ Margaret was repressive.

  ‘It’s not good to let things fester. He should have confided in you.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t.’

  ‘He should have.’

  ‘Claud’s business is Claud’s business.’

  ‘And you are not interested?’

  Margaret shot a spiteful glance at her tormentor, poured her a mug of tea with a steady hand.

  She’d like to throw the pot at me, thought Laura. ‘You’ll grow out of this,’ she said and put two lumps of sugar into her mug, plop, plop.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You will grow out of wanting shot of Claud.’ Laura stirred her tea.

  ‘God!’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t know what you are doing here. I didn’t invite you. I don’t know why you are interested in Claud—’

  ‘He’s pretty, he’s intelligent—’

  ‘You are old enough to be his mother—’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘As his mother I have every right to let him lead his own life—’

  ‘And not tangle with yours?’ Laura’s eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘You want to live somewhere where you can twiddle the knobs of your own television, choose your own programmes, go to bed without the fear of being woken by Claud coming in drunk and being sick before he can reach the loo. You don’t want to be bothered by his heart cracking about the place over some idiot girl. You are abdicating parenthood.’

  ‘You have been spared parenthood,’ said Margaret, ‘you prying bitch.’ She said in friendly accents, ‘Tell me, was it your uncle who attacked Claud?’

  ‘My uncle?’

  ‘Nicholas.’

  ‘Oh, Nicholas. I rarely think of him as my uncle. I couldn’t think what you meant for a moment. Yes, it was. He was cross because I gave Claud junk from the attic. It was a mistake to tell them. I should just have helped myself, they would never have noticed. It was my innate honesty.’

  Margaret sniffed.

  ‘They are funny about possessions,’ said Laura.

  ‘They are funny full stop,’ said Margaret. ‘I’ve often heard their house referred to as the Funny Farm.’ This was not true, but it pleased Margaret to say it. She found herself blaming Laura for Claud’s drunkenness, his black eye, his being sick in the hall, none of which she had minded much at the time since, compared with her late husband’s behaviour, it was mild stuff. ‘If you are passing anywhere near Claud’s loft would you drop some boxes of knick-knacks and china I’ve packed up for his stall?’

  ‘All right, I’ll go. I can take a hint,’ said Laura, putting down her empty mug. ‘Where are these boxes?’ she asked, unruffled.

 

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