The Price of Love and Other Stories Read online

“Something like that.”

  “Let’s see, then.” Geoff took a pair of bifocals from his shirt pocket and squinted at the list. “Bloody hell, you’re right,” he admitted, blushing. He showed the receipt to Ida Banks. “It’s a fair cop. See there, Mrs. B? It looks like an eight to me but it’s really a six. That’s what comes of being too vain to wear my glasses in the supermarket.”

  Ida Banks laughed and slapped him on the arm playfully. “Oh, get away with you, Geoff. Anyone could make a mistake like that.”

  Geoff counted out the rest of the change into her hand. He glanced sideways at Banks, still slightly red with embarrassment. “I can see I’ll have to watch myself now there’s a copper around,” he joked.

  “Yes,” said Banks, not laughing. “I think you better had.”

  III

  “There was no need for that, Alan,” Banks’s mother said after Geoff Salisbury had left. “Embarrassing us all.”

  “I wasn’t embarrassed,” Banks said. “Besides, he tried to cheat you.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s like he said. He couldn’t see the figures properly.”

  “Does he do this often?”

  “Do what?”

  “Go shopping for you.”

  “Yes. We can’t get around like we used to, you know, what with your dad’s angina and my legs and feet.”

  “Legs and feet?”

  “My varicose veins and bunions. Getting old is no treat, Alan, I can tell you that much. You’ll find out, yourself, one day. Anyway, he’s been good to us, has Geoff, and now you’ve gone and upset him.”

  “I don’t think he’s upset at all.”

  “Only here five minutes, and there’s trouble already.”

  “Mum, I really don’t think I upset him. Maybe he’ll just be more careful in the future.”

  “And maybe we’ll have to find someone else who’ll do our shopping for us and give the place a good dust and a vacuum every now and then. Fat chance of that.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “Well, I just hope you’ll apologize to him next time you see him.”

  “Apologize?”

  “Yes. You as good as called the man a thief.”

  “Fine,” said Banks, raising his hands in surrender. “I’ll apologize.”

  His mother gave another disapproving little sniff. “I’d better see to those pork chops.” Then she strode off into the kitchen and shut the door behind her.

  IV

  The Coach and Horses, about a hundred yards away, on the main road, was one of those pubs that had hardly changed at all in the past forty years or so. True, they’d got in a jukebox and a few video machines, and the brewery had forked out for a minor facelift sometime in the eighties, hoping to pull in a younger, freer-spending crowd. But it didn’t take. The people who drank at the Coach and Horses had, for the most part, been drinking there most of their lives. And their fathers had supped there before them.

  Though there were few young people to be seen, it still managed to be a warm and lively pub, Banks noticed as he walked in with his father just after eight o’clock that night, the steamed pudding and custard still weighing heavy in his stomach. His father had managed the walk without too much puffing and wheezing, which he put down to having stopped smoking two years ago. Banks, who had only stopped that summer, still felt frequent and powerful urges.

  “Arthur! Arthur! Come on, lad, come on over.”

  It was Geoff Salisbury. He was sitting at a table with an elderly couple Banks didn’t recognize and two other men in their sixties he remembered from his previous visit. They cleared a little space when Banks and his father walked over to join them.

  “My shout,” said Geoff. “Name your poison.”

  “No,” said Banks, still standing. “I’m the visitor. Let me buy the first round.”

  That got no argument, so Banks wandered off to the bar. He hardly had to fight his way through the crowds of impatient drinkers. The bartender, the same one Banks remembered when he had last been in the Coach that summer, nodded a curt greeting and proceeded to pull the pints. When Banks carried the tray back to the table, his father was already talking football with one of his old pals, Harry Finnegan. Harry looked up and said hello to Banks, asked him how he was doing.

  “Fine,” said Banks. “You’re looking well yourself.”

  “Fair to middling. Sorry to hear about you and that young lass of yours splitting up.”

  Sandra. No secrets here. He wondered if they also knew about Sean and the imminent baby. “Well,” said Banks, “these things happen.” More to his generation than theirs, he realized. Theirs tended to stick at marriage, even when all the love had gone out of it. He didn’t know if that was better or worse than changing wives every decade. Probably best not to get married at all, he suspected.

  But his mother and father still loved each other, or so he believed. Fifty years together meant they probably didn’t have much new to say to each another anymore, and the passion may have disappeared from their relationship years ago, but they were comfortable together. Besides, passion is transitory and infinitely transferable anyway, Banks believed. What his parents had was stronger, deeper, more permanent; it was what he would never get to experience with Sandra: growing old together. He was used to the loss by now, but every now and then he still felt a pang of regret for what might have been, and a lump came to his throat.

  Harry introduced Banks to the couple at the table, Dick and Mavis Conroy. The other man, Jock McFall, said hello and shook hands.

  “I hear you’re a Leeds United supporter these days, Alan,” said Harry, a twinkle in his eye.

  Banks nodded. “For my sins. Not that I get the chance to go to Elland Road very often. Match of the Day is usually the closest I get.”

  “Elland Road,” his father said. “You’d not be able to bloody afford it on what a copper earns, son.” They all laughed.

  Banks laughed with them. “Too true.”

  As the conversations went on in that vein, people started to pair off: Dick and Mavis talking to Jock McFall about the latest supermarket price wars; Harry and Arthur Banks discussing Peterborough United’s miserable performance that season. Banks edged his chair closer to Geoff Salisbury’s.

  “Sorry about that business with the change,” said Geoff. “My eyesight’s not what it used to be. Honest mistake.”

  Banks nodded. “Honest mistake. No offense,” he said, though he still wasn’t convinced. It was the closest he was willing to get to an apology, so it would just have to do. There was certainly no point in antagonizing Geoff and upsetting his mother even more. After all, he was only down for the weekend; these people had to live close to one another day in, day out. And if Banks couldn’t be around to help his parents with their shopping and housecleaning, then it was a good thing Geoffrey Salisbury was.

  “How long have you lived on the estate, Geoff?” Banks asked.

  “Six months now.”

  “Where did you live before?”

  “Oh, here and there. Bit of a wanderer, really.”

  “What made you settle down?”

  Geoff laughed and shrugged. “My age, I suppose. I don’t know. Wandering lost its appeal.”

  “Well, there’s something to be said for knowing you’ve always got a roof over your head.”

  “There is that.” Geoff took a stick of chewing gum from his pocket. When he had unwrapped it and put it in his mouth, he folded the silver paper time and time again until it was just a tiny square, which he set down in the ashtray. He noticed Banks watching him and laughed. “Habit,” he said. “Stopped smoking five years ago and got addicted to this bloody stuff. Wish I’d stuck with cigarettes sometimes.”

  “You’re probably better off as you are,” Banks said. “What line of work are you in?”

  “Odd jobs, mostly.”

  “What? Fixing things? Carpentry?”

  “Cars, mostly. Tinkering with engines. I used to be a mechanic.”

  “Not a
nymore?”

  “Got made redundant from the last garage I worked at, and I just couldn’t seem to get taken on anywhere else. My age, I suppose. Again. They can get young kids still wet behind the ears and pay them bugger all to do the same job.”

  “I suppose so,” Banks said. “So you work for yourself now?”

  “Odd jobs. I don’t need much, just enough to keep the wolf from the door.”

  “And you help out Mum and Dad?”

  “Grand folk, Arthur and Ida,” Geoff said. “Been like a mother and father to me, they have.”

  If there was any irony intended in the remark, Geoff didn’t seem aware of it. “How long have you known them?” Banks asked.

  “Since not long after you’d left this summer. They told me about that business with the missing lad. Terrible. Anyway, they always said hello right from the start, you know, like, when they saw me in the street. Invited me in for a cup of tea. That sort of thing. And with them not being…well, you know what I mean, not as able to get around as well as they used to do, I started doing little favors. Just little things, washing, cleaning, shopping and the like, helping them out with their finances. I like to help people.”

  “Finances?”

  “Paying bills on time, that sort of thing. They do get a bit forgetful sometimes, just between you and me. And taking the rent down to the council office. It’s an awful bother for them.”

  “I’m sure they appreciate it, Geoff.”

  “I think they do.” He nodded. “Another?”

  Banks looked at his empty glass. “Yes,” he said. “Go on, then. One more.” He looked over at his father. “All right, Dad?”

  Arthur Banks nodded and went back to his conversation with Harry Finnegan. The pub had filled up in the last half hour or so, and Banks thought he recognized some of the faces. One or two people looked at him as if they knew him, then decided perhaps they didn’t, or didn’t want to. Banks watched Geoff Salisbury at the bar. He seemed to know everyone; he was shaking more hands and patting more backs than a politician on election day. Popular fellow.

  Geoff came back with the drinks and excused himself to talk to someone else. Banks chatted with Dick and Mavis for a while—they wanted to know if he’d helped catch the Yorkshire Ripper—then, after his second drink, his father said he was tired and would like to go home. “You can stay if you like,” he said to Banks.

  “No, I’ll walk back with you. I’m feeling a bit tired myself.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They said their good-byes and walked out into the cool autumn night. It was mild for the time of year, Banks thought: light jacket weather rather than overcoats, but the leaves were changing color, winter was in the air and the weather forecast said they had a shower or two in store. Neither Banks nor his father had anything to say on the way home, but then Arthur Banks needed all his breath for walking.

  V

  Banks’s bedroom, he had been amazed to discover that summer, was almost exactly as it had been when he first left home. Only the wallpaper, curtains and bedding had been changed. The bed itself was also the same one he had had since he was about twelve.

  As he squeezed himself between the tightly tucked sheets in his narrow bed, he remembered how he used to hold the old transistor radio to his ear under the sheets, listening to Radio Luxembourg amid the whistles and crackles. First, Jimmy Saville playing the latest top-ten hit from “member number 11321,” Elvis Presley. Then, a few years later, came the pirate stations, with even more static and interference: John Peel playing the Mothers of Invention, the Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish, names from another world, music so startling and raw it transcended even the poor radio reception.

  Banks’s eyes were too tired and scratchy from the smoky pub to read his Graham Greene, so he put on the Cecilia Bartoli CD of Gluck arias and listened as he drifted toward sleep.

  As he lay there, he couldn’t help but think about Geoff Salisbury. Something about the man put Banks on his guard. It wasn’t just the wrong change—that could have been an honest mistake—but the manner in which he seemed to have insinuated himself into the lives of Banks’s parents, the ease with which he breezed in and out of the house. Banks wouldn’t be surprised if Geoff had a key. He switched off the CD and turned on his side, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling, telling himself he was being too mistrusting, and that he probably only felt this way because he felt guilty he wasn’t taking care of his aging parents himself. He knew he ought to be glad that someone was doing the job; he only wished that someone wasn’t Geoff Salisbury.

  VI

  Banks awoke with a start the following morning and experienced a moment’s absolute panic and terror when he had no idea who or where he was. It was as if he had woken from a coma after many years, all memory gone and the world around him totally changed, or as if he had been abducted and had woken up in an alien spaceship.

  But it only lasted a second or two, thank God, and after that he managed to orient himself and his heartbeat slowed to normal. He was in his old bedroom, of course, the room he had slept in between the ages of twelve and eighteen. It was at the back of the house and looked over backyards, an alleyway and a stretch of waste ground to the north, where he and his friends used to play. When Banks looked out of his window, he noticed that the builders had moved in since his last visit and laid the foundations for yet more houses. As if Peterborough needed to grow any more. Since the midsixties, when the developers decided to make it a catchment area for London’s overcrowded suburbs, it had done nothing but grow, swamping outlying villages with housing estates and business parks. The planners and promoters said it blended old and new in unique and interesting ways. Even so, Banks thought, King Paeda, who founded the city, would turn in his grave.

  On a Saturday morning, the building site was deserted; concrete mixers sat idle and quiet, and the thick sheets of polythene covering pallets of bricks or boards flapped in the wind. It was another grand autumn morning: sunshine, bright blue sky and a cool wind to make everything look and feel fresh. Banks checked his watch. It was after nine o’clock, and he was surprised he had slept so long and so deeply; he couldn’t remember having any dreams at all. He listened for sounds of life from downstairs and thought he could hear talking on the radio and dishes rattling in the sink. They were up.

  Desperate for tea or coffee, Banks dressed quickly and made his way downstairs. In the living room, his father looked up from his paper and grunted, “Morning, son.”

  “Morning, Dad,” Banks replied, glancing out of the window to make sure his car was still there. It was. His father’s newspaper rustled back into position, and the local radio station, according to the DJ, was about to play a request for “Memories Are Made of This” by Val Doonican, for Mrs. Patricia Gaitskell, of 43 Wisteria Drive, Stamford. Jesus, thought Banks, he could have been caught in a time warp while he slept, back to the B-side of 1967. Perhaps that was why he had felt so disoriented the minute he awoke?

  He walked through to the kitchen where his mother, washing the breakfast dishes, gave him a cursory glance and said, “Well, you’ve decided to get up at last, have you?” It was exactly what she used to say when he was a teenager and liked to lie in bed most of the morning. The only thing that saved him from seriously doubting his sanity was the little television on the kitchen table showing a breakfast program. That hadn’t been there all those years ago, nor had breakfast television.

  Banks made some comment about having had a long drive and put on the kettle. “Want a cup of tea?” he asked his mother.

  “No, thanks. We had ours ages ago.”

  “Well, you could have another.”

  She gave him a withering look, and he busied himself looking for the tea bags, telling himself that his parents really weren’t being especially nasty to him. They had their routine; it just took a little getting used to.

  “They’re where they’ve always been,” his mother told him.

  That didn’t help much, as he coul
dn’t remember where they’d always been. A terra-cotta jar in the cupboard with TEA engraved on the front looked promising, but it turned out to be empty. Beside it, however, Banks found a jar of instant coffee. Might as well, he thought. As long as you convince yourself it’s a different drink, not really coffee at all, then it doesn’t taste too bad. The kettle boiled and Banks made himself a cup of instant coffee. Specks of undissolved powder floated on the surface no matter how much he stirred it.

  “Don’t you want any breakfast?” his mother asked, drying her hands on her pinafore. “We got some Sugar Puffs in for you specially. You always used to like Sugar Puffs.”

  When I was about twelve, thought Banks. “I’ll give it a miss this morning,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  He wandered into the living room again, his mother not far behind. Val Doonican had given way to the Searchers singing “Someday We’re Gonna Love Again.” An improvement, Banks thought. Funny how the Searchers were exactly the kind of “pop rubbish” his parents dismissed thirty-five years ago, but now they were as acceptable as Val Doonican.

  Banks needed a newspaper to complete his morning ritual. His father was still buried deep in the Daily Mail, which, being a Labour man, he only read so he could find things to complain about. The Mail wasn’t Banks’s kind of paper anyway. No real meat on its bones. Especially on the weekend. He needed something with a bit more writing and fewer pictures, like the Independent or the Guardian.

  “I’m off to the newsagent’s for a paper,” he announced. “Anything I can get for you?”

  “You’ll be lucky if they’ve got any left at this time,” his mother said. His father just grunted.

  Banks took their responses as a no and set off. In the house next door, the upstairs windows were all open and music thudded out. It definitely wasn’t Val Doonican or the Searchers; more like Nine Inch Nails or Metallica. Banks studied the house. There were no curtains on the windows, and the front door was wide open. As he was looking, a scruffy couple walked out on to the overgrown path. They looked like Fred and Rosemary West on acid. The man’s eyes, in particular, reminded Banks of the opening of Vertigo.