Sunday Best Read online

  Bernice Rubens

  SUNDAY BEST

  For Sharon and Rebecca

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Three

  Chapter One

  Note on the Author

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Just because I’m writing a book doesn’t make me a writer. Let’s get that straight from the start. My only problem is that if I ever finish this book, it might give me ideas. I might want to write another, and yet another. So just in case I’m going to be a writer, I must guard against writing my first book in the first person. I could say it all happened to ‘him’. That would at least envisage his present, his future. But with the ‘I’, there is only past. ‘I’ is final; ‘I’ is the recognition of death. ‘I’ is not for the first book, but the last.

  You see, you write a paragraph and already you think you’re a writer. Already you’re worried whether this might be your last book. Maybe, when all this is down, I will have said it all, and there’ll be nothing more to write about anyway. Not that that ever stopped a writer. But with God’s help, when this is finished, I can shut up and start living a little. No more books, and I can afford the ‘I’.

  So I take in my hand that thorny pronoun. Forgive me my histrionics; writers are prone to dramatize themselves a little. It’s a lonely job, and there’s little drama in the making of it. So allow me my thorns, let me grasp them, let them bleed me a little. My pleasure. Let me drop them when they get too painful, and you’ll have to make do with the ‘he’ for a while. Let George Verrey Smith feel them in his rotten flesh. It’s easier for me that way.

  But since this is the beginning of my story, you must know where I stand. So I pick it up, that nettled pronoun, and hold it gingerly. I am going to touch it with myself, and plunge straightaway, for I am a devout coward, into the shallow end. My name. I have no problems with that one at all. Neither with my address, though the latter is subject to change. It’s the other headings that fox me. Age, curriculum vitae, referees. Such proclamations wither me, and might even reduce me to the ‘he’ again. But bear with me, if you are still there, that is. I am moving into an honest, self-revealing phase, so that, although I already feel myself a writer, I don’t kid myself about my compulsive qualities, and I humbly address myself to those who are still with me, to regard this preamble as a final rehearsal for the gentle movement of my tool of thorns towards my body. It is here. I am ready to name myself, and savour it well, for not only is it a name to conjure with, but it is the one solid thing about me of which I am absolutely certain. My age, my profession, my testimonials, in these I have no confidence or conviction whatsoever. But my name, challenge it at your peril.

  George Verrey Smith. It doesn’t look that good on paper, but I promise you, that rolled off the tongue by the Major Domo at the dinner of the Society of Authors – I’m not an ambitious man; my sights are painfully low – take my word, such as it is, that that name has a noble ring, that much more will be heard of it, even if you care not to listen. George Verrey Smith. It will stand repetition, even in writing. Notice the lack of hyphen. The hyphen is a legal appendage, an indication of a name in law. But my name is blood, pure blood, and marriage had nothing to do with it. Get that straight, ’cos I don’t want you to start thinking that my wife has contributed anything to my being, well or otherwise.

  I’m going to get my age over quickly, because I like to pretend I’m not sure of it. Even so, I hesitate, since hesitation about one’s age gives one’s readers a loophole. So give or take a year or two, it’s, er, forty-two. I am now faced by what I take as a personal affront; curriculum vitae, I have never heard that phrase spoken. It is a phrase of cowards, and only written down, and I intend to ignore it. For all the jobs and activities I’ve taken part in during my life I find utterly irrelevant, and so for your sake and mine, I shall spare you all that. And generously will offer you a re-cap. My name is George Verrey Smith, I am – er – forty-two years old, my profession, that of a schoolmaster, and I no longer have any confidence in my teeth.

  There. I’ve said it. And it was supposed to be the last thing I would tell you and I’ve blurted it out like a solution without a problem. So we’ll have to go back a little. I’ll start at the beginning, which is not, after all, a surprising place at which to start. I had a nanny once, who, off or on duty, looked like a fashion model. One afternoon, she went for a walk and was run down by a taxi. They took her to hospital and undressed her. The poor woman confessed that never in her life had she had a bath, and changed her underwear only when it fell off her. Her immaculate topping marked her as a fraud. Now there was a woman who didn’t begin at the beginning. I won’t be referring to her again, so I might as well tell you that as they peeled off her grey chemise she expired. Whether from shame or injuries sustained, I cannot tell, for there was no postmortem. In any case, how can you tell if someone has died from dirty underwear? My wife, after all, is hale and hearty. I’m not saying that a bath and clean underwear would have saved my nanny from the taxi, but at least, had she known to start at the beginning of things, she might have died with a less unsavoury reputation. So mindful of my poor old nanny, God rest her soul, I’m starting with the start, whatever that means, and I’m going to tell you the root of all my troubles, whatever that means also. I mean, even if you’re talking about yourself, and perhaps, as by now may well be the case, to yourself, you must have some respect for chronology. Otherwise, there is nothing but confusion. So roots are beginnings, and my teeth are the root of my problem. Now you may think that this is a small matter, but when you’re pushing – er – forty, and you’re already afraid to look too closely at your hair, when snow is not as white as you remembered it, well, this is no time to begin losing confidence in your teeth.

  It started about a year ago when I picked up an apple. I am, or rather, was, a great apple-eater, but there was something about this one apple, this year-ago apple, that suddenly assumed a look on its mottled face of such scorn and mockery, that I knew better than to argue with it. During my life, I have taken up most challenges that have been offered me. I have always had, as it were, a fighting chance. I’m not a man to shirk a challenge. But I’m wise enough to know when I’m beaten. I put the apple down, and fingered my front teeth, my long-standing apple teeth. They wriggled with gratitude at my decision. Since that day I have never touched an apple. I have nurtured in myself such a loathing for apples. They were a signal to my present condition. In fact, I might as well face it. The root of my troubles is not teeth at all. It’s apples. You see how roots can shift, and beginnings meander. Maybe my nanny, God rest her soul, was not so very wrong after all.

  So to hell with chronology. Neither forwards nor backwards shall I go, but rather, like a crab, sideways, for in such direction is less chance of collision, and what with my nodding teeth, this can be a decisive factor.

  So off on a tangent to my breakfast this morning. She’d just put the tray before me, she being my wife, whose name, even in thought, I find difficult to refer to. But for what it is worth, I give it to you, for after all, she did you no harm, so why should her name stick in your throat. Joy. Believe it or not, that�
�s how her mother named her. Imagine. I have noticed that it is a name that has a habit of appending itself to the most joyless of creatures and my wife is no exception. Well, I sat there this morning facing my toast, porridge and fried sausages. She has a habit of bringing everything at once, and keeping me waiting for my coffee. It’s her own special brand of efficiency, tho’ I know it by no other name than spite. The sight of the toast unnerved me. As I spread it with butter, I deliberated which part of my mouth could safely accommodate it. The sole back molar on the left side was normally my only toast tooth, but even that, over the last few days, had painfully rejected calls on its function. That too, like the others, was loosening. I considered giving it a rest, thinking that in idleness it might tighten itself. Desperation can often blunt a man’s intelligence. I could of course, have dipped the toast in my coffee, if she ever got round to bringing it. But I withdrew from such an abdication and started with confidence on my porridge, confining the mixture to my four wriggling front teeth, good for little else now save pap. I decided to give a miss to the toast and to test my right molar on the sausages. Damn her with that coffee. Her place had been discreetly cleared away except for a few crumbs that surrounded the white damask ring where her plate had been. The crumbs irritated me, yet another reminder of her lack of thoroughness. Everything about her, apart from her underwear, was just that much short of perfection, but it’s this small deficiency that unnerves me so much. She might as well be an out-and-out slut. She tidies my study, for instance, till not a speck of dust remains, but she constantly neglects to place my pens in line, and their lack of symmetry infuriates me. She leaves the cushions unplumped; the drawers of my tallboy are never one hundred per cent closed, the counterpane is always uneven on one side. And now those crumbs she’d left around her plate. For a moment, I considered hoisting my body from my seat and removing them myself, but such an act would be a surrender, a participation in what, after all, is her duty to me. And I am a firm believer in not giving an inch when a mile is takeable. So I weighed up the intensity of my own irritation on the one hand, and the effort and surrender of clearing the crumbs myself, and the crumbs and my irritation won the day. Where the hell was she with that coffee? I loathe her heartily.

  Now you may think from all that, that I do not love my wife. But I don’t hate her either. Tho’ it’s difficult. The point is I’ve treated her rather badly over the past few years, and that’s enough to make you hate anybody. She’s been so decent about it all, and it’s this full-blooded decency of hers that fills me with loathing. Yet I can’t hate her. I’ve never been able to leave her either. If two such negatives add up to anything at all, well, that’s more or less what I feel for my wife.

  I checked on my teeth again. Panic-loose. I must go to a dentist. Perhaps now, in any case, it’s all too late. You’d think I’d have something better to do than to sit here testing my teeth. You’d think a man like myself would have real problems. You’re right, I have. I’m trying to concentrate on my tooth problem, I tease those left-over molars of mine with sausage meat and pap, because the real problem, I cannot face. I play safe with a touchable, tangible problem. I have to. I daren’t allow my mind to stray to anything else. Because, many years ago, but the guilt is as sure as yesterday, I killed a man.

  There, I’ve said it. Or rather, I’ve written it down. To say it aloud invites an echo, a magnification, and it is enough, what I have done, without enlargement. I dare not risk it aloud. I write it down. I minimize my sin with pen and ink, or rather with the stub of a pencil, which is close, close to the page, with the proximity of absolute confession. So I whisper with my crayon. ‘Long ago, I killed a man.’ II y a longtemps, j’ai tué un homme – a hangover from my translation days, before I started to make my living at the blackboard. I often translate a predicament if it’s too tough to handle. I reduce it to a job of work. Oui. J’ai tué un homme. But it was no Frenchman’s doing. It was my very own.

  Does it show on my face? Lately I’ve found myself avoiding mirrors. Was this a rehearsal for an act that I would never indulge in again? And is it for this reason that I cannot look my wife in the eye for fear of what I would find there? My wife is very clever and her understanding has been my undoing. Other men complain that their wives don’t understand them. I complain because mine does. She has always insisted on understanding me. She has destroyed me with her understanding. But I have destroyed too, and I must get back to it and take upon myself the blame. I must leave my wife out of this, tho’ this too, damn her, she will understand. I married her when I was twenty-one. It was not my first mistake. I had made many before, but minor ones that I could have rectified, had they been important enough. But my marriage was a major error. Not marriage itself. I have nothing against marriage, but at twenty-one, for a man, it is foolhardy. Moreover I was a virgin. I didn’t know I was. In fact I thought I wasn’t. That might give you some idea of how much of a virgin I was. I am not sure to this day whether my wife was or wasn’t, and later on, when I learned the facts of it all, I had already forgotten the circumstances. It is a great omission in one’s life if one does not know whether or not one has married a virgin. I have always been too embarrassed to ask my wife out of fear of betraying my own ignorance. In any case she would laugh at me and remind me of it. She exploits my secrets at every opportunity, not in playful private teasing, but in public malice. But I must not speak ill of her. I have done her great wrong. She is a victim, and therefore unaccusable.

  I want to start at the beginning, because I need to know myself how it all started. I have problems with what is relevant. I remember sneaking into a church when I was a boy and spitting into the baptismal font. I had walked about half a mile through the town and over the tombs in the churchyard, gathering saliva all the while. I gathered it with relish and deliberate intent, tho’ what my purpose was, I had no idea. Then I saw the font, and the cause of my harvesting became clear. I dropped it neat and clean on to the holy slab, and I watched it trickle down the side, holding its integral shape all the while. I don’t know why I am reminded of this incident at this time. Did that act of blasphemy have anything to do with that man who lies rotting in the earth? Everything is relevant, and nothing. I am digressing again. But in truth I am postponing. I will start at some sort of beginning and promise to go straight to the end. But this is a vain promise from a man whose whole life has followed detour after detour. But as a token of my honest intent, I shall leave my shadow on the straight and narrow, as hostage as it were, as I digress into my meanderings. And after my detours, I shall ask myself, ‘Where was I? Where was I?’ and pick up my shadow again to lead me to the point of my story. I will try. I will start at the beginning. Not with the teeth. When you look for the root of your problem, you’re really looking for someone or something to blame. No one is to blame except myself. This I have learned. My scribblings have not hoodwinked me. Forget the teeth and the apples. This is really the beginning of my story. My stubby pencil trembles on the thin straight line, and my ill-fitting shadow ploughs the way.

  Chapter Two

  We have neighbours, my wife and I. The Johnsons. You will notice in my story, that apart from my own name, which makes you feel at once that you are in the company of a better class of person, all other names are very banal, common even. Which makes you feel that the story could have happened to anybody, not you, of course, but at least to your next-door neighbour. And in fact, this story did happen to the Johnsons as well as it happened to me. So think again. It could happen to you also.

  The Johnsons had been married for fifteen years, and had kept their charlady all their married life. That’s the sort of people the Johnsons were. Everything always went right for them. Mr Johnson did-it-yourself, Mrs had a slender wardrobe, but always the right thing to wear for the occasion. I’ve seen inside her cupboards, but I could have told you without looking that she had trees in her shoes. Everything about the Johnsons was in its right place. They did no one either harm or good. They were totally unaccus
able. The Johnsons were what is known as a nice couple and everybody loathed them.

  I had a nodding acquaintance with both of them, which is unavoidable, I suppose, if you’re neighbours. I would see them on my way home from school, always together, in a desperate armlock which I found unnerving. They were both very tall. Laid end to end, they would have covered lengthwise their twelve by nine Axminster on the living-room floor, or their lounge, as they chose to call it. Though they were not the sort of people you would associate with lounging. One wondered indeed in what position these two giants slept, tho’ sleeping, like lounging, was an activity difficult to associate with them. For they were always up and doing, cleaning their car, weeding their front lawn, even sweeping the small square of pavement that led from their gate to the kerb. For me and for all the others in our street, their activities on a Sunday morning were a fair eyesore, and a row of net curtains was hastily dropped at the sight of the Johnsons’ infuriating energy. I would watch them from my study window on a summer Sunday, see them settle in their car with Tom their son and a picnic basket, and there was no doubt in my mind that wherever they were going, along with thousands of others who were going to the same place, Mr Johnson would find somewhere to park.

  As I dropped my net curtain those summer afternoons I often offered up a fervent prayer, that one of these fine days, one of the Johnsons would come a cropper. And God is occasionally good.

  It happened on a Sunday that I remember very well. It was apple Sunday, and had marked the first apple that I had had to deny myself. I’d gone up to my study, tickling my teeth on the stairs, and in such a profound depression that I went straightaway to the window to refuel my melancholy with the sight of the wretched Johnsons at work. But their frontage was deserted. Their car stood at the door, gathering whatever dust was available, and a few sweet wrappers shamed the garden out front, shedding a sudden humanity on to the whole house. And then I heard Mrs Johnson screaming. It was a cue for all the net curtains in the road. Within a few seconds we were rewarded with yet another scream, and then another. Things were hotting up. In my excitement, I even forgot my tooth problem. The silence between the screams was as promising as the screams themselves, but Mrs Johnson herself put an end to the show by crying out, ‘Help, help. Please stop him.’