Free The Watchers on the Shore by Stan Barstow Page B

did look her best in winter, I think; though her heavy coats muffle her neat little body, they don't hide the colour in her cheeks, the soft cleanliness of her hair, and her white teeth with the breath whisping away from them. Nor the length and shape of her legs.
    'You're an attractive little piece, you know. And there's a black man looking you over.'
    The quick lowering of her eyelids and the sideways flick of her eyes is more than a sharp looksee at the West Indian standing a few yards away; it's the way she always takes a compliment. Ingrid hardly ever looks me in the face in times of either personal pleasure or anger. When we make love she'll offer her body and hide her eyes. It might give some people the impression she's sly; but I know it's a deep basic shyness and a lack of confidence in herself that over three years of being married to me have done nothing to cure. And why should it have? The way we started our marriage it would need continuous doting attention like I gave her when I first began taking her out to put her in the position she ought to be in. And it's an act I can't put on. Not that she wouldn't know it was an act anyway. There's too much water gone under our bridge. But at least I'm what she always wanted and I'm what she's got, for what I'm worth.
    The diesel slides into the platform and stops. I pick up the case. The weight of it tugs at my tired shoulder muscles.
    'This is it, then.'
    'Yes, good-bye. You will write, won't you?'
    'Yes, soon as I can.'
    I give her a quick kiss and catch the shine of tears under her eyelids as I pull back. I can't suppress the irritation.
    'Oh, for Pete's sake, Ingrid. I'll see you in a fortnight.'
    'You'd better get on.'
    I move,to the train and turn again once I'm inside the door. She's already walking away, striding briskly along the platform to the gate.
    'Well, what the hell!'
    But I can read unhappiness all over her back and when I go into the carriage and find a seat I've got agitation, restlessness and frustration leaping about inside me. Shovelling coal, digging a ditch, smashing windows. There's any number of things I'd rather do than sit for hours in a train. But something violent.

    6

    Conroy's pad is in a tall narrow house up a street off the London Road, near the railway. Mrs Witherspoon, his landlady, is a small, nodding, bird-like woman who fixes you with her bright little eyes and never seems to hear a word you say, though her head nods and nods as though she's taking all in and hearing the gospels for the first time. Very putting off, because you find yourself raising your voice until you're all but shouting at her and her head nods faster and faster as though to say yes, yes, yes, I can hear you, you don't have to shout, and you wonder if it wouldn't be possible if you ever got really mad with her and told her off for her to nod herself right into a convulsion or something. Conroy tells me not to mind as there's not much I'll need to talk to her about, and if ever I want anything seeing to, the best thing is to do what he does - leave a note (a memo, Albert calls it) on the kitchen table. ('Conroy, Room Four, to Mrs Witherspoon, c.c. Sanitary Inspector, Longford Borough Corporation, Subject upstairs lavatory. The above-mentioned installation is now in such a condition that it showers the puller of the chain with water rather than flushing away the waste matter in the bowl. I can only conclude that it constitutes a danger to health in this house and I should be obliged if you would kindly arrange to have it rectified.') It's Sunday when I go down there and Albert's arranged to pick me up at the station. 'Tell me what time your train arrives King's X,'his letter said,'and I'll calculate what time you'll reach here.'And only two minutes after I've come out of the station building and I'm stamping about the forecourt trying to keep my feet warm the little red Morris comes round the corner and pulls to a halt in front of me. He winds the window down,