Free The Husband's Story by Norman Collins Page B

away. As soon as she had sat down and put her handbag on the floor beside her, she gave Mr Winters one of her fullest, most confidential smiles.
    â€˜I expect my husband will soon be having a piece of news for you,’ she said. ‘Good news for all of us like. It’s about his promotion.’ And, just to show that she had remembered that she had brought him with her, she added: ‘Won’t you, Stan?’
    Mr Winters was smiling, too, by now. He swung round in his swivel chair so that Stan could tell him all about it. He had always had rather a liking for Stan. There was something so modest, so unassuming about him. And it was gratifying to think that he should have chosen one of the professions where diligence and hard work were properly rewarded. Somehow, Mr Winters couldn’t have seen him surviving for very long in the cut-price, short-measure, stab-in-the-back world so many of his business customers seemed to live in.
    â€˜Ah, is that so, Mr Pitts?’ he began.
    But he had turned his chair too soon.
    â€˜Of course, there’s nothing definite yet,’ Beryl was saying. ‘Not yet, there isn’t. But it’s as good as. You know what the Civil Service is like. Always keep you waiting. It’s Head of the Department, you know. And he’s earned it. He’s been there eighteen years. Haven’t you, Stan?’
    â€˜And when do you expect to hear?’
    This time, Mr Winters looked for a moment at Stan. Then back to Beryl again. And he was right to have done so.
    â€˜Well, I mean it’s got to be soon, hasn’t it. I mean they can’t keep you hanging about for ever like. Stan’s boss goes in April. They’ll have to announce it before then, won’t they?’ She paused and stroked her gloved finger thoughtfully across the crimson peony on her arm. ‘Of course, it’ll mean more money. Like I said, it’s Head of the Department. It’s a different Grade, and everything.’
    Mr Winters smiled back at her.
    â€˜Then you and your husband have every reason to be pleased,’ he said. ‘You must be very proud of him.’
    â€˜Oh, I am,’ she told him. ‘Aren’t I, Stan?’
    Mr Winters had taken out his gold, presentation pen and was fiddlingwith it, twisting it round and round in his fingers, as though he were winding it.
    â€˜Now about this overdraft,’ he said. ‘I wonder what we’d better do. Because we can’t let it go on like this, can we? It’ll just mount up and up if we don’t keep a check on it. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?’
    It was a speech that he had made many times before, smooth, considered and unvarying.
    â€˜Just look at those heavy withdrawals,’ he went on. ‘I’m afraid we can’t have any more of those. Not for the time being, that is.’
    Beryl found herself getting indignant. It showed that Mr Winters just didn’t understand.
    â€˜Well, I mean like there won’t be any more, will there?’ she replied.
    â€˜Not just now, there won’t. We don’t want to go on putting new carpeting down all the time like, do we, Stan?’
    â€˜And this one,’ Mr Winters pointed out to her, tapping the entry with his pen as he did so. ‘Seventeen pounds, four shillings.’
    â€˜Well, they’re new, too,’ Beryl told him. ‘The curtains, I mean. With the pelmets, that is. We shan’t be needing new curtains again. Not for years and years, we shan’t.’
    She had, she felt, satisfactorily disposed of that. The last thing she wanted was for him to imagine that she wasn’t careful. She cared every bit as much about money as he did. More, probably.
    Even so, he wasn’t satisfied.
    â€˜Then what do you suggest we should do?’ he asked, keeping carefully to the plural to make it clear that they were shoulder-to-shoulder in the matter.
    â€˜Well, we can’t send