The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [43]
He asked her if she’d heard from her young man yet, and she quite bit his head off, snapping at him like Marge.
He tried to be patient. He told her he’d noticed the way she looked at the necklace Marge was wearing the night of Valerie Mander’s party.
‘What necklace?’
‘The pearl one your auntie was wearing.’
‘What of it?’
Disturbed by the truculent way the girl spoke to him, he managed to control his bad temper. God knows, he was only trying to be affectionate. She’d gone all sly, twisted inwards away from him, slouching there with her mouth sulky and her hair all over the place.
‘I just noticed the way you looked at it. I’ve got one or two pieces of your mam’s tucked away at home. I thought you might want them.’
She almost laughed, the way he put it. It sounded as if he’d cut her into squares and hidden her about the place. After all he was a butcher.
‘What pieces?’ she said.
‘There’s an engagement ring and a watch I gave her. A brooch – nothing valuable – but you’re getting to an age.’
‘I don’t want them.’
He couldn’t make her out. She had grown all flushed in the face, as if he had said something to annoy her.
‘I only thought it would be nice for you,’ he said.
‘Leave me alone.’ She was violent. ‘You’re always wanting to do what’s nice for me just lately – I didn’t notice you bothered much before.’
He was stunned. She was a different girl. He had nourished a viper in his bosom.
A man in a black overcoat, a newspaper under his arm, came into the saloon. He stopped when he saw Jack, bent to take a closer look, and put his arm about his shoulder like a brother.
‘Well, I never!’ he said. ‘It’s Jack!’
‘Walter!’ cried Jack, jumping to his feet, his whole face illuminated in welcome. ‘Walter Price!’
Rita thought it absurd the fuss he was making, the way he shook hands repeatedly, the way he murmured the man’s name, over and over as if they were sweet-hearts. Walter had a little moustache that had turned grey at the edges. He kept darting glances at her, not sure who she was.
‘It’s Rita,’ said Jack finally. ‘You remember young Rita, surely?’
Walter didn’t remember, Rita could tell, but he shook hands with her, unbuttoning his grubby leather gloves and holding her fingers tightly. Jack and he had an argument as to who should buy the first drink.
‘Let me, Jack.’
‘No, Walter, no, no, I insist.’
Off he went to the bar leaving Walter alone with Rita.
She wondered what she should do if Ira had telephoned while she was here. She didn’t know where to phone him back. She didn’t like to ask Valerie Mander – it would make her look as if she was doing all the running. Walter Price was telling her something, bending forward intently in his seat.
‘Why, I remember. You’re Nellie’s girl!’
She looked at him coldly.
‘I last saw you when you were a little lass no bigger than that,’ and he held his hand out above the floor on a level with the table edge. She stared at the lino and the space between his spread fingers, gazing at an image of herself when small.
‘Just a little slip of a thing
‘I’m not Nellie’s girl,’ she said. ‘I’m Jack’s daughter.’
Walter had a lot to tell Jack about his business in Allerton. He’d expanded, done well for himself.
‘Three vans!’ said Jack. ‘My word, you have done well!’
At the back of his mind he was hearing what Rita had said to him about the past. It hurt him, it stuck like a thorn in his flesh, the memory of her words. As soon as Walter went to the bar to buy his round, he said: ‘I can’t make you out, Rita.’
‘What have I done now?’
‘What you said before. I’m very hurt.’ He drew in his mouth as if to stop his lips from trembling.
‘Oh yes,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘What do you know about anything?’ he hissed, hating the look on her face. ‘What do you know about my life ever since your mam passed on. D’you think I liked being on me own, giving up me house and me family?’
She gazed down at the floor, impressed by his show of emotion.
The presence of the girl inhibited Walter Price. And Jack was not himself.