Afraid of the thing in her he did not understand. Henry for the most part liked her, she was his friend, she wanted to make him laugh, not to tell him what to do. She made him laugh with all her funny voices, and if she told a story and was excited, and that was often, she acted it out for him, telling it up and down the length of the sitting-room. ‘The day Deborah left her husband she walked straight down to the bus stop …’ and here Mina danced a little arm-swinging march into the centre of the room … ‘but it was only then that she remembered that at lunchtime there were no buses from the village …’ shading her eyes with her hand she scoured the room for a bus, then the other hand flew to her mouth, wide eyes, jaw sagging, remembrance came all over her face, like the sun from behind a cloud … ‘so she went back home to have her lunch …’ again the little walk … ‘and there was her husband sitting in front of two empty plates, belching away and saying, “Well, I didn’t expect you home so I ate yours” ’ … hands on her hips Mina bulged her eyes at Henry who was now the husband sitting at the table, and he wondering if he should join in, lean back in his chair and belch. But he laughed instead because Mina was laughing now, she always did when she came to the end of her story. Mina was on television now and then, he admired her for that, even though it was only the commercials, she was usually the housewife with the right soap powder, curlers, and knotted scarf in her hair gabbling over a garden wall, some neighbour leaned over and asked about her sheets, what was her secret, and Mina told her in her Souf Lunnun accent. She hired the set just for the ads, they sat there with the schedule sheet waiting for it to come on and when it did they laughed. When it was over she turned it off, only sometimes did they watch a programme, and then it was the actors, they made her angry in advance, ‘Christ! that’s Paul Cook, I knew him when he swept the floor at the Ipswich rep,’ she jumped up from her chair, unplugged the set on the way to the kitchen, Henry sat in his chair watching the white dot recede in the centre of the screen.
One afternoon nearing a Christmas, coming cold and late from school, there was a pile near his plate at tea, arranged by Mina and he was bound to find them, of smooth white cards, reading in elaborate copperplate, lean and decorous, Mina and Henry invite you to their party. Come disguised. RSVP. Henry read several, his own unfamiliar name in print, and looked across at Mina watching him, some kind of pursed-up smile hovering in the space between them, all ready to break out and she was waiting for him. Excited but unable to show it because he was waited for, so lamely he said, ‘That’s very nice,’ and that was wrong, that was not how he felt it at all, never been to a party and never been on an invitation card. Still something in Mina made it hard to say, more was required, ‘Disguises though, what kind of disguises?’ But too late because Mina was laughing and rising while he said it, and making a strutting ballerina walk across the room and chanting in time to her steps, ‘That’s nice? Ni-ice? Ni-ice? Ni-ice?’ and so round the room back to the table and the chair where he sat watching her and very unsure. She stood behind his chair tousling his hair for pretend affection, but pulling it, and stung his eyes. ‘Henry, dear, it will be formidable, fantastical, awful, but never nice, nothing we ever do will be nice,’ speaking this all the while she ran her hands in his hair, twined it through her fingers. He turned to look upwards and escape her, and she was caught in the sudden wild upward stare in the large white of his eyes, relented now, squeezed him with real affection, ‘We’ll have the time of our lives, aren’t you excited? What do you think of the cards?’ He took the cards again, saying seriously, ‘No one will dare not come.’ The edge of the vicious gone from her tone she told him, pouring the tea, that the disguises must be impenetrable, and made jokes and anecdotes about the friends she was going to invite.
After dinner they sat by the coal fire talking, Mina wearing a New Look of the rationing days and Henry in his Fauntleroy suit, Mina said suddenly after a long silence, ‘And you? Who are you going to invite?’ He did not reply for several minutes, thinking of his friends at school. At school he was different, it was different, he played chasing games and loud football against the wall, and in class borrowed some of Mina’s words and anecdotes to make his own; the teachers considered him mildly precocious. He had many friends, but he wandered and did not have a best friend like some of them. And then at home sitting quietly through the drama spectacles and Mina’s moods, attending so not to miss a cue, he had not thought of the two things together, one large and free with big windows, lino floors, long rows of pegs to hang your coat on, the other was dense, the things in his room, two cups of tea and Mina’s games. Telling his day to Mina was like telling a dream over breakfast, true and not true, at last he said, ‘I don’t know, I can’t think of anyone.’ Could the ones he played football with be in the same room as Mina? ‘Have you not made any friends at school worth bringing home?’ Henry did not make an answer. How could they be in disguises, costumes and things like that, he was sure it would not fit.
She did not ask him again the next day, but unwound the details, ideas which flooded to her, all day thinking of nothing else. To help the disguises along the rooms shall be dimly lit. ‘Even best friends won’t be able to recognize each other,’ and disguises must stay a secret, no one will know who Mina is, she can move around, have a good time, let them get their own drinks, do their own introducing - false names of course - and they are all theatre people, masters of disguise, masters at the art of creating character, because that is the art of acting as Mina sees it, creating a self, in other words a disguise. And breathlessly on and on with the details, it came to her in the bath, of course red light bulbs, a special recipe for punch, arrange the music from somewhere and perhaps we will burn some joss sticks. Then the invitations were sent away, all the arrangements made that could be made and it was still two weeks, so Mina and therefore Henry spoke of the thing no more. Since she knew his costumes, had bought them all herself and did not want to know him on the day, she gave him money for his disguise, he must get it himself and promise to hold it to himself. Walking all one Saturday he found it in a junk shop near the Highbury and Islington tube station, among the cameras, broken shavers, and yellow books, a kind of monstrous Boris Karloff face of cloth with holes for the eyes and mouth, and in the shape of a hood you pulled it over your head. It had wiry hair in all directions, it was funny and surprised, not frightening, though, cost thirty shillings, the man said. And not having his money with him that day he told the man he would be along to collect it Monday when he came from school.
But that day he was not there, that day he met Linda, it was the way the desks were arranged, in pairs, four by four and a gangway to walk down. Henry was the newest to the class, proud to have a desk to himself, that was the way it worked out when all the others had to share. His charts and books and two puppets took both sides of it, good to sit at the back all spread out. The teacher explaining twenty-five feet said that it was about from here to Henry’s desk, and they turned round to look at everyone in the class, of course it was his desk. On Monday there was a girl, a new girl, and sitting at his desk, setting out her coloured pencils as if she belonged. Seeing him stare she turned her look down, said quietly but with no submission, ‘Teacher told me to sit here,’ and Henry scowled, sat down, his space violated was bad, and this was a girl. Through the first three lessons she sat, a no presence, by his side, and Henry stared ahead, for looking round was to admit her, these seeking girls who meet your eye. At break he rose before the others, stood under the stairs drinking milk, avoiding his friends, and waited till the classroom was empty to go back in there to clear one half of his table for her, sulkily, packing the bits, the tender off the clockwork train, some old clothes and things, into two carrier bags, and feeling obscurely martyred put them behind her chair, he wanted her to know how the inconvenience was. She made a nervous little smile coming in to sit down but he was brisk, a pretender, dismissive, looking away and rubbing his hands.
But bad temper fades and he became curious, stole some glances
and then again some more, the striking things about her moved something, like the long fine sun-yellow hair all over her shoulders on the soft wool about her back, and bloodless skin like this paper but almost transparent, and then her nose, very stretched, tight and taut, flared like a horse, her scared large grey eyes. Knowing him watching her again she made the beginnings of a smile with the corner of her lips, gave Henry a little uneasy thrill, that movement, in the pit of his stomach, so he moved his eyes to the front of the classroom, understanding vaguely what it was when they said this or that girl was beautiful, when it always seemed before an exaggeration Mina might make.
Growing up you fell in love, Henry knew that, with some girl you met, and that was when you got married, but only if you met a girl you liked, and how for him when most girls could not be understood? This one, though, he could see her elbow almost on to his part of the desk, this one was frail and different, he wanted to touch her neck or put his foot near hers, or did Henry feel guilty with all this new, this confusion and feeling? A history lesson and all drawing a map of Norway and colouring Viking ships with their bows pointing south. He touched her elbow, ‘Can I borrow a blue pencil?’ ‘Blue for the sea or blue for the sky?’ ‘Blue for the sea.’ She found a pencil for him, told him her name was Linda, and holding it still warm from her own hand he bent over his own map with extra care, scratched a blue halo for his coastline making it sound linda linda as he worked it up and down three inches from his eyes. Then he remembered, ‘I’m Henry’ he whispered, the grey eyes opened wider to take it in, ‘Henry?’ ‘Yes.’ Frightened by himself he steered round her at lunch, made sure of another table to eat his meal and noisily sought out his friends across the playground who taunted, ‘See you got a girl,’ for which he pantomimed a tremor of real disgust to make them laugh and take him in. They played football against the playground wall and Henry shouted most, swung his elbows and fists, but when the ball went over the wall and they hung about waiting, then his mind was gone on in advance into the classroom sitting next to a girl. And returning himself he found her already there and let her see by the slightest incline of his head he saw her smile. The afternoon trickled out bored and slow, he shifted around in his seat not wanting it to end or continue, knowing she was sitting there.
He knelt behind her chair when school was over, making as if to look for something in the bags, certain he would not see her till the morning. She was still sitting at the desk, completing something and not noticing, so Henry rustled the bags some more, standing up cleared his throat, said roughly, ‘See you, then,’ echoing his voice in the empty classroom. She stood up, closing her book, ‘I can carry one.’ Taking one of the bags from him she led the way out of the room and they crossed the silent playground, Henry looking round to see if his friends were still about. There was a woman by the school gates with a leather coat and her hair was tied in a ponytail, young and old at the same time, who bent down to Linda and kissed her on the lips. She said, ‘Have you made a friend already?’ looking at Henry, he stood a few paces off. Linda said simply, ‘His name is Henry,’ and called to him, ‘She’s my mother,’ and her mother stretched out her hand towards Henry who came over and shook it, very grown-up. ‘Hello, Henry, can we give you a ride home with your bags?’ described with a vague tossing of her wrist joint the big black car parked behind her. She put his bags in the back seat, suggested they all sit in the front, which they did, and Linda pressed close up against him to let her mother change the gears. He was not expected home straight away because of the mask, he had told Mina he would be late, he accepted then the invitation to tea and sat pressed along the car door, listened to Linda tell her mother of her first day at the new school. Down a gravel curving driveway they stopped by a large house of red brick and trees all round and through the trees the Heath dropping down in one long sweep towards a lake, which Linda pointed to when they walked round the side of the house. ‘The mansion there, you can just make it out in the trees, that’s Kenwood House, it’s got lots of old pictures you can see for free. They have Rembrandt’s “Self-Portrait” in there, the most famous picture in the world.’ Henry wondered what about the Mona Lisa, but he was very impressed.
Her mother made the tea, Linda took Henry to show him her room, along a corridor with thick carpets which muffled their steps, it opened into the hallway at the foot of a wide stairway, split half way up in two directions on to the great landing, a horseshoe expanse with a grandfather clock at one end, at the other a massive chest covered in brass with figures stamped upon it. It was a trousseau chest, Linda told him, where they put gifts for the bride, it was four hundred years old. They went up another staircase, did all the house belong to them? ‘It used to be Daddy’s but he went away so now it’s Mummy’s.’ ‘Where did he go?’ ‘He wanted to marry someone else instead of Mummy so they had a divorce.’ ‘And so he gave your m-mother this house to make up for it.’ He could not bring himself to say ‘mummy’. It was a junk heap with a bed, Linda’s room, covered the floor and blocked the doorway, toy prams, dolls, their clothes, games and bits of games, a big blackboard on the wall and the bed unmade, the sheets trailing into the centre of the room, beyond that the pillow, bottles and brushes in front of a dressing mirror and all the walls pink, alien girlish, it excited him. ‘Don’t you have to tidy it up?’ ‘This morning we had a pillow fight. I like it untidy, don’t you.’ Henry followed Linda down the stairs, it is always much better to do just what you want if you can find a place to do it.
She said at tea, Linda’s mother, to call her Claire, and later asking him if there was something else and he said, ‘No thank you, Claire,’ it made Linda choke on a mouthful of drink and Henry and Claire pounded her back, they went on after that laughing at nothing at all, Linda clutched at Henry to keep herself from falling on the floor. A tall man, in the middle of all this, put his head round the kitchen door, he had thick black eyebrows, he smiled, ‘Enjoying yourselves,’ and disappeared. When Henry put on his coat to leave and asked Linda who that man was, she told him it was Theo who sometimes came to stay with them, and whispered, ‘He sleeps in Mummy’s bed.’ As he spoke them, wishing the words back, he asked, ‘What for?’ and made Linda giggle into the wall of coats. They all three sat in the front again, squashed up close, and after a little way Linda wanted them to sing ‘Frère Jacques’ which they did all the distance to Islington so loud the people in their cars could hear them when they stopped at the traffic lights, smiling at them through their car windows. The singing broke off when Claire pulled up at Henry’s house, it was suddenly very quiet. He reached over to the back seat for his bags, muttering thanks for having … but Claire interrupted would he like to come on Sunday, and Linda shouted that it must be for the whole day, till they were all talking at once, Claire, if he wanted she could pick him up in the car, Linda, promised to take him to see the pictures in Kenwood House, Henry, that he must ask Mina first but he was sure it was all right. Linda squeezed his hand, ‘See you at school,’ shouting, waving, the beginnings of another chorus lost in the roar of a passing lorry, they left him there on the pavement with his bags, waiting a while before he went inside.
Mina was sitting at the table, her head was in her hands, the tea things were all around her. She did not look round at his hello, he lingered uneasily in the doorway, taking off his coat, fussing with the bags. Mina said quietly, ‘Where have you been?’ He looked at the clock, it was ten to six, he was an hour and thirty-five minutes late. ‘I told you I was going to be an hour late.’ ‘An hour?’ she drawled slowly, ‘it’s almost two hours now.’ There was something familiar in Mina’s strangeness, he felt his legs begin to go weak. At the table he began to play with a teaspoon, squeezing it into a tunnel made by his knuckles, till Mina drew air sharply through her nostrils. ‘Put that down,’ she snapped, ‘I asked you where have you been?’ Trembling in his voice, he explained, the mother of a school friend invited him home for tea and - ‘I thought you were picking up your costume,’ she spoke very softly. ‘Well,
I was but …’ Henry stared down at his fingers spread out on the table. ‘And if you were going to someone’s house why couldn’t you let me know?’ Now she yelled at the top of her voice, ‘We got a bloody telephone.’ Neither spoke, Mina’s echo lasted five minutes in the room, still chiming in his head, and then she said quietly, ‘You don’t give a damn anyway. Go up and get changed.’ There were things he knew he could say and make it all right, but none of the words was in his head, all that was were the things he could see, his knuckles, the pattern of the cloth beneath them filled his attention, nothing to say. Walking behind Mina’s chair to the door, she turned to hold him by the elbow, ‘And this time no fuss,’ and then pushed him away. At the top of the stairs he thought of what she had said, no fuss, some new costume for humiliation, for being late and breaking with the afternoon ritual. He approached the girl laid neatly on the bed, the same girl as before. Without thought he took his clothes off, could not bring to the open again Mina’s frenzy, the vicious compulsion to make a stranger of her, then he was frightened of her, feared it now and shivered, pulling the cold material over his skin, and the white tights, hurrying in case she thought he was hesitating. He fumbled with the thin leather laces, his fingers were pursued, and took up the wig, standing in front of the mirror to adjust it, standing there he glanced up, his motions froze, again that movement in his belly’s pit, for there she was in his bedroom now, the hair falling freely about the back, her pale taut skin, her nose. He took the hand mirror from the basin, watched his face from all sides, the eyes were coloured different, his were bluer and his nose a little larger. But it was the first glance, the shock of the first glance was still with him. He removed the wig, it was clownish, his short black hair with the party frock, it made him laugh. He put the wig back on, did a short dance across the room, Henry and Linda at once, closer than in the car, inside her now and she was in him. It was no longer an oppression, he was free of Mina’s anger, invisible inside this girl. He began to brush out the wig, the way he saw Linda do it when she came in from school, starting from the end and downwards, so not to split the ends she told him.