Key to the Door: A Novel (The Seaton Novels) Read online

  She was unable to meet the glare of such grey eyes. His clipped white hair, lined and tanned face, and white moustache above thin lips, made up a visage from which all her misery emanated. “I’ve been to the Empire,” she admitted.

  He was unappeased: “What sort o’ time do you call this, then? It’s past eleven.”

  “I had to walk from Nottingham.” The tea was cold, so she wasted no sugar and pushed the cup aside; an effort of kindness by her mother come to nothing. “I dare say you did,” he shouted, “but you could a got ’ome earlier.”

  From experience she knew that arguments in this house were too short; afterwards they were seen as illogical explosions from which reason had been excluded by their inborn force. It was impossible to say: All right, I should have been in earlier, so please don’t hit me now; and just as out of the question to defy him by force, for he was the unassailable father of more than fifty years, whom she couldn’t dream of defeating. Only a craving for his extinction seemed possible and good enough, a hooked thunderbolt to lift him out of the house but leave her unharmed. The impossible was not on her side and she knew it, sensed rightly that it never would be. So she cried out in rage, which only made things worse, as she had known it would before the row began: “I couldn’t leave the show until it was finished, could I?” implying that he lacked sense to think so.

  “You should a come out earlier, you cheeky young madam.”

  “I did,” she conceded, beyond hope. “But I had some supper wi’ Jenny and Beatty.” She fell into a chair, choking on tears of hatred and bitterness. Who knows? Merton’s temper often wavered with his own children, hid contrition and a peculiar gruff kindness that sometimes turned to their advantage at the last moment. But the reins of compassion were rarely in his hands, had to be hoped for by those who had broken his rules. He might have been softened up to this point by Vera, been satisfied merely to wave the stick from the corner where he now stood; but the verifiable boundary of this was passing—too well disguised for her to see it, too faint for her to take advantage of it in such confused distress. She saw what was coming and hurried towards it, her wish to escape thrust out of the way by an uncontrolled defiance that could bring nothing but defeat. “Leave me alone, you rotten bogger. You aren’t going to hit me like you hit your dogs!” She didn’t move. He would hit her the same as he’d hit anything else. The weight of his hammer at the forge was heavy, and burning metal was moulded without trouble; he drank beer by the pint tankard on Friday night, but always woke from his stupor with an urge for more obedience, more work, more beer at the weekend, and to tame the defiance that sprang as much from him as anything else. All his blows seemed made for life and self-preservation, which afterwards he sometimes felt, mistaking his resentment of it for a pang of conscience.

  He struck her fiercely across the shoulders: “Let that teach you, you cheeky young bitch.”

  “I wish you was dead,” she moaned. “I wish everybody was dead.” The dogs outside whined at the noise, a pitying tune to her fit of dereliction. Silence between the last frantic rustling of leaves and the first onset of rain went unnoticed, and raindrops swept the yard like a square-mile sweeping brush.

  I’ll run away, was her first thought, as Merton threw down the stick and went up in his stockinged feet to bed. But how can I? I’ve got no money. But I must do summat because I can’t stand this. I’m nearly twenty-three and wain’t put up with the old man’s bullyin’ any more. If I can’t run away I might as well chuck myself in the cut or under a train as go on puttin’ up with a dog’s life like this, because it’ll go on and on, I know for a fact, if I stay here. I’ll never be able to go out to the Empire and come in late after it. I’ve stood on the canal bank before, trying to chuck myself in the deep locks, but I never could do it; and I’ve waited for a train on the embankment to come fast out of Radford Station but I’ve allus been frightened at the noise as it gets closer, and before it comes near me I run away, down the bank and back through the field because I was frightened to death. But then, I don’t see why I should kill myself just for the old man, because I’m sure it wouldn’t bother him a deal if I did. No, why should I? though it would be nice one day if I did get killed by a bus or tram so’s he’d happen be sorry and think of all the times he’s been a rotten bogger to me.

  Looking around the too familiar room—a whitewashed cottage kitchen with a Sandeman sherry mirror by the door, a large homemade rug by the hearth, chairs and table under the window—she saw his case of horseshoes on the wall, brass and chromium-plated prizes that kept the girls polishing and cleaning all Saturday morning as if they were silver and gold. Supported behind glass on especially wrought nails, these horseshoes had been accumulated by Merton from apprenticeship to his becoming one of the finest craftsmen in the county. She took down a big shoe and held it, feeling its weight and knowing it would slip easily from her fingers if a fair grip wasn’t kept on the bend. Two prongs pointed upwards and the grooved, smoothly polished side—meant to tread the soil on more workaday productions—was held facing her. A ray of red paint had been spilled into the groove from pronged tip around bulging curve to pronged tip—red because blood from the horse’s foot wouldn’t be noticed when the nails went in, she had always thought. On the left side were four holes and on the right side three. Beginning from left to right she muttered: Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday; and then looked at the three remaining holes on the right, completing the week: Friday Saturday Sunday. The first four were to be said quickly because you wanted them to go as fast as possible, thus bringing you sooner on to the last three, which you spoke more slowly because they were enjoyable days—looking at the seven holes through blood-red paint and holding the prongs upwards so that no luck would run out.

  She remembered Merton singing rhymes when they were children, holding each child on his knees in turn and chanting the words to them, again and again, as rain poured down and thunder boomed. When they were afraid of black Sunday evenings in summer, the sing-song chant had gone in and stayed, seven nails for a nursery rhyme rough-edged into them who were disturbed at being so close and not knowing with what amount of ease to take his momentary kindness and good nature, so that the jingled forgeries had stayed there for good.

  She saw herself taking a basket from the pantry, opening the door so that Merton would not hear, and returning up the steps to fill it with all thirty horseshoes. Then the outer door would open and into the choking rain she’d go, hatless and without a coat, between the pigeon coop and the house-side, her skirt soaking on long nettles and grass, shoes sogged and distorted on stones until she turned into the open and went towards the well. How would she find it? As easily as if it were a birth wart in the centre of her hand. And then I’ll throw the horseshoes one by one into it, hear each splash as it hits bottom and sinks, and laugh to think the old man will never see them again.

  The impossible dream faded; her hand covered her ear and cheek, was hidden by long hair; leaning on her elbow, she went on looking at the case of horseshoes until she grew too sleepy to stay awake.

  She was just back from Engine Town with a box of buttons to sew on her blouse, dodging mud-puddles under the railway bridge and negotiating ice-ruts in the lane so as not to wet her shoes in the piled snow. Looking out of the bedroom window, her desire to solve any problem was killed by the hard winter. Perhaps the year would break through. A long thick layer of cloud spearheading towards the Pennines was ghost-green on top and turning pink below, indicating a half-beaten-to-death sun lurking somewhere, licking its wounds after an agonizing Armageddon of autumn. Lines of snow lay in the furrows of the next field, and in the garden it gathered in uprooted cabbage hollows like deserted pools of unpalatable milk. Winter’s juggernaut crushed everything except people, who still went to work, quarrelled, played football, got married, and died.

  She walked up the lane on Sunday afternoon when her father was sleeping off his dinner and beer, noticing black withered beads of elderberries clinging still to twigs c
ontorted by icy cold. Three greyhounds flashed through a hedge into a hollow of Cherry Orchard, back legs skidding on frost-flowers when they tried to ascend and breach level ground. Off they went under the heavy lead of afternoon sky, across treeless humps and dips, each growl heard low from the distance they were suddenly at, the only sound from them as if caught in cupped hands and placed just outside her ears. And also Seaton’s ears: he put two fingers into his mouth and knifed the dead man of silence, so that the three greyhounds came racing back, front legs and back legs machine-gunning the turf.

  “Hello, duck,” he said, seeing her for the first time.

  She asked a question: “Are them whippets yourn?”

  “They aren’t whippets,” he told her, putting her right, “they’re greyhounds and they belong to my feyther.” He untangled the chain-leash. “I bring ’em out every Sunday for a run.”

  “They go fast.” They approached in line ahead, and she moved out of their way. “You’ll be all right, duck,” he said in a kind voice. “I’ll tie ’em up soon an’ tek ’em back ’ome. This sort o’ dog likes a good run, you know,” he explained, by way of breaking the silence when she showed no sign of speaking.

  A further whistle sent the dogs across the mile-long roughs. “They ain’t had enough yet,” young dark-haired Seaton with the leash said. She gazed vacantly towards the three dogs, watching their mad mechanical legs careering almost out of sight, then bend head to tail by the wood and bear round again towards them. Framed by green hollows and a dark pack of jellied trees, they broke formation often, one to manœuvre its long whippet head towards another, each in turn failing on the same trick, and devouring only the too vulnerable gap of much coveted dank air between the end of its muzzle and the flank of the one attacked. The best defence was to get slightly ahead, swing the head outwards and outflank the outflanker, showing a fierce growl and shine of teeth, make the other afraid to resist effectively by increasing the fierceness, which would then be outdone by the other dog, and to surmount it still again until a final pure competitive speed would remain. They turned their elongated, gracefully swinging bodies about in the frolic, drum-tight pelts stretched over distinguishable ribs and bones, sometimes rolling in the grass so that the pursuer, unable to pull up for its victory, thundered by to return only when the fallen dog was back on its four legs belting away in another direction.

  Wheep, wheep! A signal from Seaton, whom she had forgotten, wheeled them in his direction, and they came leaping three abreast up and down the dips and hollows, parted by a bush, then a disused well, until for no reason they swung away from Seaton’s repeated whistle and stamped against Vera before she could break the stony paralysis into which the sight of their seemingly unnatural advance had fixed her. Neither had Seaton time to act: she was on the crisp frost-bitten grass before he could swing the leash into a circle and intimidate his animals to a halt.

  “Well,” she said, as he fastened his dogs first, “don’t bother to pick me up, will yer?” Now he ran to do so, but it was too late. He pulled at the dogs and fastened the master-lead to a bush stump, laughing as she stood up. “I’m sorry, duck,” he said. “I didn’t know they’d bowl you over like that. You must be as light as a feather. What do they feed you on down yonder?” He pointed a tobacco-branded finger to the chimneys of the Nook. “Pigtaters?”

  She pulled her coat to and wiped wet hands on the pockets. “Don’t be so nosy, sharpshit. I get fed all I want.” A scornful look was thrown at his dogs: “Them whippets o’ yourn don’t get too much snap, though, by the look on ’em.”

  “Nay,” he said in a quiet tone, not willing to show even slight resentment to a stranger, “they get fed plenty of stuff. Hoss meat and boiled taters. It looks so good I could eat it myself sometimes.”

  He don’t seem English to me, she thought, with them brown eyes and that black mop, though it’s combed well and he’s a smart-looking chap all right. He looks like an Italian, with his skin and all, though his talk is Radford enough, I will say that for him. “My old man’s got two dogs,” she said. “Mongrels, but they’re good house-dogs. He uses ’em for fetching the birds when he goes shootin’ as well. And they allus know when a stranger’s coming up the yard, even before they see ’em, because of the feet. They never make a murmur at any of the family.”

  “They must be well trained,” he conceded. “Let’s walk down the lane a bit, duck, It’s cowd standin’ ’ere.”

  The dogs pulled hard, and she noticed his strong arms tugging them back. When she agreed to walk they jerked forward and nearly sprawled him into an icy rut. “Gerrr-er BACK,” he shouted.

  “The old man trained our dogs right enough,” she said, hands in pockets, noticing Seaton’s leather gloves. “The poor boggers think themselves lucky if a day passes wi’out ’im taking a stick to ’em.”

  “It’s like that, is it?” he said self-righteously. “I don’t like cruelty to animals. I mean, you can gi’ ’em a kick now and again if you lose your temper and don’t think what you’re doing, or if they get in your way, but it ain’t right to tek a stick to ’em.” He braced himself against the pull of the dogs and lit a crumpled cigarette from his raincoat pocket. On second thought: “Shall you have one, duck?”

  “If you’ve got another. I’d better be careful when I go past our gate in case the old man sees me.”

  He took a new packet from his coat and lit one for her. “Why? Has your old man tamed you as well as his dogs?”

  “Don’t be daft. He just don’t like me to smoke, that’s all.”

  “I see nowt wrong wi’ a woman smokin’ a fag now and again,” he said, generous and liberal at the same time. He’s a short-arse, she thought, but nice: only an inch bigger than me. “What sort o’ wok do you do?”

  “I wok for me feyther, ’polsterin’.”

  Her cigarette went low as they passed the gate, though the old man would sleep for a while yet. “What’s ’polsterin’?”

  “Repairin’ sofys and chairs. The old man teks wok in from pubs and ’ouses. We’ve got a shop in Radford. I don’t do much tackin’ or cuttin’, though. Mostly I fetch the stuff on a handcart and tek it back. I go for the leather and cloth as well from time to time. It’s good wok, but you’ve got to be as strong as a hoss, climbing up three nights o’ stairs wi’ a sofy on your back and getting nowt but threepence for your trouble when you get there.”

  “Don’t your old man pay you wages?”

  “Ay,” he said, “but it ain’t a sight.”

  They reached the bridge. “I’ll go no further,” she said. “The old man’ll be mad if I don’t get back in time for tea.” Which was as good an excuse as any to leave him at this point. Beyond the other side of the long bridge she saw the houses of Radford Wood-house: colliers’ houses, poachers’ dens, shops, and beer-offs.

  He had expected her to walk to the main road. “You don’t want to be so terrified of your old man,” he said. “He don’t bite that bad, does he?”

  “It’s not that. I’m hungry, so I think I’ll get back. I didn’t bother wi’ any dinner.”

  “Come on wi’ me, then, and I’ll buy you some tea.”

  “Another time I might. But not now.”

  He jerked the leash so violently that he nearly throttled the dogs. They ambled back, subdued, to Vera, and she patted their heads. “I’ll pass again next week,” he said. “Shall you wait for me?”

  He’s so quiet, except for them eyes. Half a pint o’ mild and a couple of hot whiskies. “If you like. I can be leaning on our gate.”

  “All right then, duck. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Black hair, and teeth going to bad: he couldn’t ’a bin a day over twenty-four. He walked off, with a slight swinging gait, which might, as far as she could tell, have been the way he always walked; or it might have been caused by the predatory forward pull of his three strong dogs.

  She kept telling herself that she didn’t want to be married, that, even though it meant getting away from the threat of the
old man’s fist and stick, she didn’t want to let herself in for something that as far as she knew might turn out to be worse. What did she know of Seaton? He was quiet, kind, and often charming in a simple sort of way; but he’d been barmy enough to ask her to marry him at the end of their second meeting, and she’d been just as barmy in saying all right. And now the three-month wait he’d agreed to was over and she sat by the window in her underwear, looking out at the garden and fields because she couldn’t stand the sight of her wedding-dress spread out on the bed behind. In half an hour she would be off to Lenton Church, in a horse-drawn cab on which Seaton had seen fit to splash part of his wages earned at an outside labouring job—saved up for what he hadn’t dared hope for when he’d “popped the question.” Vera remembered his disappointment, a black look when she mentioned the three-month wait. So how do I know what being married to him’ll be like? she wondered, nagged by the uneasy memory of their second meeting in the Cherry Orchard, a scrag-end of a field whose scrub-covered up-and-down surface matched well her feelings at that time.

  To get away from home for always was a good thing, that nobody could gainsay, though Merton had hinted after seeing Seaton for the first time that he didn’t think he was much of a bargain for his gel, and that she’d realize (by God she would) what a good home she’d had when she’d lived with him a while in Nottingham. But this had only made her more anxious to escape, had cut her apprehension at the roots and made her look forward to starting a new life in a Nottingham house or flat, despite the needling of premonitions that soon came back.

  There was no time left to deliberate. She closed her arms over her soft, well-shaped breasts and began to weep, the sound of it bursting upon her ears and cordoning her off from the noise of fussing in the kitchen below. She did not want to be married, was prepared to stay more months or years in peril of the old man rather than take a chance of living with someone she did not know, throw herself at a stranger after three months’ acquaintance.