Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [14]
After a time Lucy shouted that she was off now. Binny kept silent:
‘Well, come on. Give us a kiss.’
‘I certainly won’t,’ called Binny. ‘You’re far too rude.’
The door slammed violently. Instantly remorseful, Binny ran to the window and watched her daughter walk sullenly along the gutter. She looked such a little girl, aggressively scuffing the ground with the studs of her massive boots. At the same age Binny had been married and looking after a house. She rapped frantically on the pane of glass; she blew kisses. Lucy disappeared round the corner.
Binny turned and banged her hip painfully against the edge of the ping-pong table. Every week she meant to advertise it for sale in the local newspaper. It had been bought three years ago for the children; she had hoped it might keep them off the streets. Selflessly she had moved her bed and her wardrobe into the back half of the room so that there would be somewhere to put it. After six weeks of their constant bickering, turfing her personal belongings ruthlessly on to the landing to make additional space, and bringing their friends in at all hours of the day and night, sometimes even when Binny was asleep, she had forbidden them the use of the room. They didn’t seem to grasp how irritating it was for her to lie there with her face-cream on and be subjected to large unknown youths clambering under and over her bed in the pursuit of ping-pong balls. She couldn’t think where they learned such behaviour, though she suspected it was being taught in the schools. They couldn’t spell and they didn’t read and they had little respect for property. Like a vast army on the move they swarmed across the city playing gramophone records and frequenting public houses. It wasn’t that they disliked adults – they simply didn’t notice them. Devoted to their homes, it was obvious that they would never leave. The only edge they had on an earlier generation was their casual regard for animals; they didn’t pull wings off flies or throw stones at cats.
Rubbing her side, Binny was about to take off her coat when she heard a knock at the front door. Alarmed, she crept on to the landing. It could be any one of a number of people, none of them welcome – Alison deceived over the ice cream and returning in tears, the woman from No. 52 looking for her cat, the arrears collector from the television rental service? It was too early surely for the Simpsons to have arrived.
Thinking it might be Lucy come back for a cuddle, she went hopefully downstairs and opened the door.
‘Are you the cleaning woman?’ A stout black man advanced into the hall. His neck was encased in plaster of Paris.
‘No,’ said Binny.
‘I am bringing a message for you and all believing strangers, so that you may have a chance of redemption.’
‘I don’t really think I’m a believer,’ Binny said.
‘The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous,’ claimed the man, taking no notice. His own eyes were fixed on a point directly above Binny’s left shoulder. ‘His ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good?’
‘I’m rather busy at the moment,’ said Binny.
‘All that He asks is that you should follow Him.’
‘Still,’ protested Binny, ‘I haven’t much time.’
She was relieved to see Edward stepping out of a taxi at the kerb, holding several bottles in his arms.
‘Luke xv:7,’ preached the black man relentlessly. ‘Who are the just persons who need no repentance?’ He was watching the stairs, as if waiting for somebody to appear.
Edward came up the path. Binny thought he looked terribly attractive. She usually thought that when he came towards her unexpectedly; later it wore off. Lucy addressed him as ‘Fatso’ whenever she saw him; but really, in his dark City suit and his shirt with the pale stripe, he seemed very trim and dapper. He reminded Binny of a pre-war father come home ready for his Ovaltine