The Sweet-Shop Owner Read Free Page B

her neck, drawing in her shoulders. And only for an instant had there flickered in her eyes that other look which he could never reach, never touch, never quite rescue: ‘Save me.’
    The blue and pink tea service glimmered on the table, and she cut the cake – a Dundee – with the ivory handled slicer on the cut-glass cake stand. So many presents. You ate off them, sat on them, slept between them. That lavish family of hers. Furniture, china, glass, bed-linen; not to mention the house itself, the garden, with the lilac tree and hydrangea bushes, or her furs and jewels, most of which she kept locked in cupboards and drawers and never brought out, as if condemning them. But it was all for her, the only daughter. Not for him. She liked fine, fragile, precious things, things which you couldn’t use. And he had the podgy hands of one who would let slip such things and break them. And, besides, (he’d overheard what her brothers had said, at the wedding reception) he was ‘only something to occupy her with’.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘don’t worry about the nonsense that family talks.’
    They posed for photographs. June, 1937. There was a marquee in the garden, smoked salmon, turkey and champagne; and the feeling you get on a journey when some landmark looms into view, soon to be passed by. A scent of cut grass; red and white carnations. The chatter rustled like a breeze through the hats and flowers. Her brothers were there, Paul and Jack, with wing-collars, moving smoothly among the guests, as if their sister made a habit of getting married and they had done it all many, manytimes before. His parents sat, along the table, looking flushed and attentive. They would be dead soon, one after the other, as if by mutual arrangement, in a space of months. But tonight, when it was all over, they would have the neighbours round and, amidst bottles of gin and beer, they would dance, that quiet pair, on the worn carpet in the back room. Yes, better do it now, better rejoice; our son’s wedding night, that is something to celebrate. They had scraped every penny, in those stringent times, so as not to be outdone, to give the set of silver cutlery which stood on the damask tablecloth on the trestle table amongst the other gifts. But what they most gave, silently, generously, was their thanks.
    Her parents whispered gravely to each other, as if the event were for them the completion of some shrewd act of diplomacy. And should he cast his eyes a moment their way, they would break off their discussion, in deference to his place of honour, and give him wide, immaculate, approving smiles. They had made their money out of immaculacy; out of little laundries dotted about the streets of south-east London. They had contracts with hotels, shipping lines. And they’d won their custom on the promise of whiteness: white sheets and white shirts, white pillow-slips; as white as the white wedding cake that rose in icy tiers before them. And the brothers, who had partnerships, investments, interests of their own, smiled too, the same smile, approving, not friendly. Yes, he’d do. He’d do for a bride-groom. To have a wedding you needed a bride-groom.
    He felt like someone borrowed for the occasion.
    But he didn’t mind. That condescension. Not when, with his head growing lighter, he’d stood up to make his speech and said simply, gawping: ‘Thank you, thank you … thank you really, thank you all.’ That was all that was expected of him, and they’d clapped and cheered as at masterly oratory. Nor when, after more champagneand words with relatives he didn’t know and wouldn’t meet again, he had wandered through the house like a stranger, and heard her mother say to another – he caught no more – ‘a difficult girl’, and had glimpsed afterwards, upstairs, through the half open door, Paul on the bed and Jack in a chair, their waistcoats undone and their grey ties pulled loose from their collars, like weary gamblers, and