Читать книгу Household Ghosts: A James Kennaway Omnibus - James Kennaway - Страница 18

TEN

WHEN SHE HEARD him shouting, Mary ran through to the bedroom. Jock was shouting her name out loud. There was no overhead light in the room and she had to stumble as far as the bedside light while he still shouted. He was sitting bolt upright in the bed and he seemed to be in the throes of a fever: in spite of the chill of the room, his face and neck were covered with sweat, and his shirt was wet. Even when the light was switched on he kept shouting.

She stood back and said, ‘Was it me you were calling?’ She was groomed all ready to leave for some party, and she looked neat and efficient.

He mopped his brow and his cheek with the hard palm of his hand.

‘Aye. It was either you or the Mother of God.’

‘You nearly shouted the walls down. Are you sober, now?’ Jock opened and closed his mouth once or twice.

‘I’ve got a mouth like a parrot’s cage.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. It’s time you gave up whisky, and that’s a fact.’

Jock had grown used to the light now and he swung his legs over the side of the low bed. At some stage he had taken off his kilt and his stockings had dropped to his ankles; the red garters trailed loose round his feet. As he pulled up his stockings Mary noticed that he had climbed between the sheets.

‘You’d no need to get between the sheets,’ she said a little sourly, but Jock did not listen to her. He still looked half stunned, as if he were trying to remember something.

‘What’s the time?’

‘It’s twenty-five to eight. I’m off to supper in another five minutes.’

‘Aye. Good for you.’ He walked over to the radiator by the curtained window, and picking up the towel there he wiped his neck with it. Then he shivered. The room was very cold and untidy, and nobody likes waking when it is dark.

‘That’s bloody strange, Mary. I was having some sort of dream.’

‘It sounded more like a nightmare.’

‘A-huh,’ he said gently: he wanted to talk. ‘That’s what’s so strange. Christ, I’ve been sweating.’ He chucked the towel over the back of a chair and ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes were much brighter than usual: they did not look flat any more. ‘I’m thinking it wasn’t so bad. The dream wasn’t so bad. No.’

‘Well, you were fairly yelling for me. Here’s your kilt. I was thinking of waking you up, anyway, when you started to cry.’

‘I wasn’t crying.’

‘Then it was something very near it.’

‘I’d no call to cry, lass. The whole Battalion was on the move.’

But Mary was too busy to listen to dreams.

‘Here; take your kilt. I’ll be through next door.’

She turned away, but as Jock sat down on the bed again he wanted her to stay.

‘Mary, Mary, bide,’ he said and she hesitated. ‘It was a good dream. I was telling you.’

‘Och, for heaven’s sake, Jock.’

He gave a little smile. ‘I was only wanting to tell you.’

‘All right; all right. I’m glad it was a good dream. But it’s time you were awake, and out of here.’

‘That’s the way of it?’

‘Och.’

‘Hi, Mary. What’s the time?’

‘I told you.’

‘Did you?’

‘It’s after half-past seven.’

‘Ach, to hell. I’m too late for the Mess.’

‘Then you’d better go home.’ She was standing holding on to the door, half in the room and half out. Jock was as anxious as a child that she should stay.

‘I told Morag I’d be out.’

‘She’ll give you a boiled egg, I’m sure.’

‘A-huh.’ He smiled and bent down stiffly to collect his shoes. ‘I’m no much good at amusing us, so it seems.’

‘So it seems.’

Then Jock returned to the dream. ‘I can’t just mind what the hell it was all about. But it wasn’t a nightmare: not really. It’s cold, Mary. Is it snowing?’

She knocked her knuckles against the door with impatience.

‘How should I know? I haven’t left the flat.’

‘You would have been as well in bed beside me then.’

Again she was about to leave.

‘Mary?’

‘I’ve got company,’ she said and Jock looked up from his laces.

‘Who the hell?’

‘It’s all right: it’s a friend of yours. Never mind about the bed: I’ll make it later.’

Jock was not very grateful. ‘If you make it at all,’ he said.

Charlie Scott was lying on the sofa with his head tipped back on the arm, and he did not move when Jock came into the room. When Charlie sensed danger all that happened was that his movements were a little slower, and his speeches even shorter. He was known for that. There was a live newsreel taken of his company going into an attack during the Italian campaign and Charlie had been something of a star in it. As the smoke thickened and his men deployed along the line of tanks, a runner came up with some message. There is a wonderful picture of Charlie taken on the spot, and you see it repeated from time to time when they show old shots of battle. The runner has a long message which you do not hear, and Charlie listens to him. He nods, and brushes his big moustache: he does not look flurried or afraid. You hear his voice, with the tanks behind.

‘Tell Mr McLaren from me,’ he says, ‘that he must bloody well bide his time.’ The message, though never understood or explained, served as a catch phrase in the Battalion for some time after that. And it was the same calm, dumb expression that confronted Jock when he came into the room.

But Jock could not disguise his astonishment.

‘Charlie Scott. What the hell are you doing here?’

Then he looked at Mary’s back. She was bending over a table at the far end of the room, pouring out some drinks, and it was all suddenly plain.

‘Bit worried about you. Thought you might have tottered along here, old boy.’

Jock looked at him hard, looked at Mary, and looked back at him again. He blinked; then he smiled.

‘Aye. Old boy, old boy. And you’re a bloody liar, Charlie Scott. But you’re a bloody bad liar. I’ll give you that.’

‘No, Jock lad, I …’

‘Och, it’s no business of mine,’ Jock said irritably, turning away, and now Mary put a tumbler in his hand. ‘I was just surprised.’

As casually as she could, Mary said, ‘Don’t worry, Charlie; Jock always judges others by himself.’ But Jock shook his head. She was as unconvincing as Charlie. He chuckled as he said, ‘And I’m always right.’

‘Here’s to us,’ Mary said; then she put her glass down on the bookshelf and disappeared into the bedroom.

Charlie sat up and he raised his glass with a flippant little jerk.

‘Astonishing good luck.’

‘Aye,’ Jock said, and he took a gulp. When he noticed it was brandy he was drinking he made a sour face. ‘I suppose the whisky’s done. Was it your bottle, Charlie?’

‘Lord, no.’

‘I’ll repay you, sometime.’

Charlie sat silently and Jock walked up and down the room for a moment or two, touching things. Then he glanced at the door, and stepped back to Charlie. He bent forward and spoke in a low voice.

‘Charlie; you’re a bloody idiot, man. It’s time you got out and got yourself married. You can’t go on like this all your life.’

It was just like that newsreel. Charlie’s face was without expression. At last he said slowly, ‘You must have had the hell of a dream,’ and he took a sip of brandy, but he did not much like the taste of brandy, either.

Jock looked at him earnestly then he straightened his back again, and he said, ‘Aye; the hell of a dream.’ He walked over to the chair in the corner and picked up his bonnet.

Charlie said, ‘Sorry about all this.’

‘A-huh.’ Jock had not meant to say any more on the subject, but now he nodded to the bedroom door. ‘Anyway the bed’s warm for you.’

‘Nothing’s warm these days, Jock: nothing except the bathwater.’

‘Aye, aye.’

It was only after he had closed the flat door behind him that Jock remembered Charlie’s confession on the night the Colonel had arrived. He had said it was fresh water. But Jock did not feel very much like smiling. He was worried: worried first because it had been the sort of dream that leaves a man worried: worried because he should never have gone round to see her; worried because he had said what he had said to Charlie; and finally, but most immediately of all, worried because he should have said a lot more to Charlie. When Charlie had said that about the bathwater he should have had an answer, or thrown a drink in his face. The thought of the bath and the bathroom annoyed him particularly. It was not that he was particularly in need of Mary, or any other woman. He supposed it was just something he had missed. Presumably, amusing men did it in the bath.

He was just about to wander down the stairs when Mary appeared on the landing beside him.

‘Jock.’

He was surprised to see her, and she smiled kindly. She quickly closed the door behind her and she touched his wrist.

‘Jock, you’re all right?’

He stared at her slowly: at her eyes, and the set of the eyes, and at her hair. She smiled anxiously.

‘I shouldn’t have been cross like that.’

He cocked his head on one side.

‘I’m all right, lassie. Dinny fash yourself.’

‘I’m glad.’ She was almost like a mother, saying goodbye to a schoolboy son. She did not seem to know quite what to say, but she was anxious to say something. ‘It’s fine seeing you again.’

Jock smiled now and shook his head. ‘Will I call back?’

‘Of course. I’m always pleased to see you,’ she said looking away, and Jock began to chuckle.

‘Away you go back to Charlie. Charlie’s a bloody stoat.’

‘Och, Jock …’ There was his coarseness again.

‘Aye, aye.’ He touched her hand and started to walk downstairs.

Charlie did not move from his place on the sofa when she returned to the room, and poured herself a drink. At last he said with a silly smile, ‘Touching farewell?’ and she gave him a look.

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you all. It used to be amusing, in the old days.’ She shrugged. ‘Och to hell.’

‘Jock’s certainly changed,’ he said at last, and she stopped and tapped her nails against the empty glass in her hand. She opened her eyes very wide, as if she were day-dreaming.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

Charlie swung his legs off the sofa, put his glass on the floor.

‘I reckon he’s heading for some sort of crack-up.’

‘Is he drinking an awful lot?’

‘That’s nothing new.’

She was dreaming again.

‘He was in a funny state today, no mistake. He came in here like an eighteen-year-old. Then he just faded away.’

‘Oh yep?’

She smiled warmly, and moved. ‘Jock’s a great man.’

Charlie twitched his moustache.

‘Let’s not go on about it,’ he said rather quietly, ‘old girl.’

She looked at him and she knew what she should say. She could have touched him, or joked him. She could have said, ‘He hasn’t your moustache’ or ‘I didn’t know you cared.’ She could have said, ‘For heaven’s sake.’ There were lots of formulae which would have fitted, but she somehow did not feel inclined to apply them. So they just left it at that.