The Sweet-Shop Owner Read online

  FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 1993

  Copyright © 1980 by Graham Swift

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Allen Lane in 1980. First published in the United States by Washington Square Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, in 1985.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Swift, Graham, 1949-

  The sweet-shop owner / Graham Swift.– Ist Vintage International ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82981-8

  I. Title.

  PR6069.W47S9 1993

  823’.914–dc20 92–56342

  Author photograph © Mark Douet

  v3.1

  For Candice

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part II

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part III

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Other Books by This Author

  A Note About the Author

  I

  I

  ‘In the end.’ ‘In the end’? What did she mean – in the end he would see?

  Dear Father,

  I have the £15,000. The bank notified me last week. Thank you for sending it at last. I’m sure this is for the best and how Mother would have wanted it. You will see in the end.

  I think we can call everything settled now. Don’t bother about the rest of my things. You said I should come – do you really think that’s a good idea? After all that you say I’ve put you through, I should have thought you’d be glad to be finished with me at last.

  Dorothy

  He sat up, in the double bed, holding the letter before him, looking at it fixedly as if it were really a code in need of breaking. It had come four days ago. He’d read it perhaps fifty times, so that he could remember the words without needing to see them.

  ‘– finished with me at last.’

  So he had seen her perhaps for the last time. And there was not even, before that final signature, a farewell, a ‘take care’, a ‘with love, your daughter’.

  He looked at his wrist-watch on the bedside table. Four-thirty. Light spread behind the pale green curtains.

  But she would come, surely. Now she had the money. She would come – she hadn’t said she wouldn’t - through the hallway (she still had her key to the front door), past the mirror, the barometer clock, the photographs of Irene and herself on the wall. Her eyes would be moist. She would find him in the armchair in the living-room, by the french windows where he always sat – where Irene had sat with her medicine – still, silent, his hands gripping the arm-rests. She would go down, weep, clasp his knees, as though she were clasping the limbs of a cold, stone statue that stares out and beyond, without seeing.

  He would be history.

  He folded the letter, smoothed it and switched off the bedside lamp. There was the usual pain in his chest. In the half-light everything stood as if fixed in position for ever. The dressing-table with its angled mirrors; the walnut wardrobe; the two green and white regency-striped chairs; her silver-backed hand-mirror; the china figurines, a shepherd and a shepherdess in eighteenth-century costume for ever on the point of flying into each other’s arms. Nothing had changed (you took nothing that showed, did you Dorry?). Nothing would change.

  He drew back the sheets. His belly pressed clammily against his pyjama cord. You could feel already the beginnings of a hot June day.

  There was always the sunshine. It had shone then – June, 1949 – through the windows of the nursing home. Trees brushed outside and bees had buzzed in and out of the open windows. Should they have allowed that, with all those babies? He had come, ushered by the nurse, laden with flowers. This might change everything. There was a little thing, wrapped like a gift in a shawl beside her. He had approached the bed with outstretched arms. But she had looked up, immovable, chestnut hair stuck to her forehead, and her eyes had said: There, I have done it, paid you: that is my side of the bargain.

  ‘The flowers, Willy. Give the flowers to the nurse.’

  Light seeped through the folds of the eau-de-nil curtains, turning the room into a dappled pool. She had always slept nearest the window. She could never get enough air.

  And would you be glad to know, child – would you understand – that you were just one side of the bargain?

  No matter. You’ve got the money now. You’re paid.

  And today, Dorry, is your birthday.

  He could almost smile at the neatness of it.

  He sat up, puffing. In the mirror he could see the reflection of his flushed face, the arc of stubble, the bluish lips, the slightly goggling eyes. Someone mimicking himself. He did not sleep. He was used to early rising. Besides, he would pass long stretches of the night awake, his body sprawled, wooden, like a toy in its box, his mind adrift in the dark. Even before, when she’d breathed laboriously beside him – her face in sleep as it was in waking, solemn, long-suffering – he’d lain like that, like a puppet. And only she had known how to make his little wired joints move, to make his body shift and jerk into action.

  Do you know where that money really came from?

  The dawn was gathering. Outside he could hear it: the rustle of the breeze in the lilac; the chatter of sparrows. He levered himself slowly to get out of bed. First the good leg then the bad. No exertion, no excitement. Doctor Field had said. And don’t carry on working seven days a week at that shop; take a holiday. It’ll kill you. (Doctor Field – Save my wife.) But there came a time when precautions were irrelevant.

  He looked at his watch. Nearly five. No need of alarms. That system hadn’t changed. Getting up, getting ready, going off, seven days a week. And when he’d resisted, shirked, kicked against it (but that had seldom happened), she had been there with her command, to prompt and reprove, to goad him into life like a malingering schoolboy. Do it: play your part. Up at five-fifteen. Wash, shave in the rose-pink bathroom – when he didn’t get a shave at Smithy’s. Breakfast: two eggs, soft-boiled (then Field had said, cut out eggs and butter), tea and toast, at five-thirty. Time enough not to hurry, to dress neatly, to gather his briefcase – the leather had become soft and creased as a glove – to kiss her – her cheek was there to be kissed – to drive to Briar Street in time to collect and mark up the papers, to arrange the shelves, to open at seven-thirty. And Sundays the same, only an hour later.

  No, it hadn’t changed. But, sooner or later, you do something for the last time. And then it becomes, perhaps, a kind of victory.

  He put on his dressing-gown. No longer in her
watchful presence. Spread the blue-bordered table cloth, laid the table, placed the blue and pink patterned china – they never ate hurried, makeshift meals (‘Let’s do it properly’) – as if she were looking still and approving (not a piece of that china had ever been broken), and as if, today of all days, there had spread over her face one of those rare, knowing smiles.

  ‘That’s right, Willy.’

  He took from the wardrobe the dark blue suit, with the maroon braces and the maroon tie and the pale blue shirt with just the thinnest dark stripe. Today of all days he must dress the part. There, on their hangers, were the other suits. The charcoal for formality, the pale grey for sociability, the dark grey for work, the two tweeds, brown and light green, for Saturdays and Sundays.

  He straightened his tie. She had chosen all his clothes. Not as gifts, not as little flatteries. She’d seldom given him things in that way. A gold tie-pin once (which she’d advised him to keep at home in a drawer); a silk Paisley scarf. And never, even years ago, had she watched him try on a new jacket before the mirror, button a new waistcoat – tilted her head, put a finger to her cheek, the way women do. She wasn’t like that. But she’d seen that what he got was proper. And always the best and most lasting materials and, always, value for money. Her judgement was firm.

  ‘That child. She will do something stupid one day.’

  There He was ready. The last time. Jacket brushed, shoes polished, hair combed. And if she’d been standing there, in the kitchen doorway, or had settled by then (for she couldn’t stand for long) with the blanket by the french window, she would have given him that little nod, that flicker of the eyelids, as if she’d pressed a switch inside him: ‘Go on now.’ And Dorry would be upstairs still, in her cotton nightdress, asleep. He would look in to see her, as he always did. As if she might have fled already. Hair tumbled, one arm raised on the pillow, as though to touch someone.

  It wasn’t a fight, we might have made peace.

  Sunshine gleamed in the hall. He picked up his hat and briefcase. Only then did he remember. The keys. The keys to the house, to Briar Street, to the till, to the safe in the stock room, to Pond Street. They were on the bedside table, by Dorry’s letter. He went to fetch them. He paused by the sheet of notepaper, breathed heavily, then folded it into his breast pocket.

  She’d come.

  2

  They pressed round in ragged fashion to take their money. Andy, Dave, Phil, Stephen, Bob. T-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes, uncombed mops of hair. By eight they would have changed into school clothes: uncomfortable figures in uniform. They held out their hands while he jingled money.

  They could be slightly in awe of him. But they knew his weaknesses, his fondness for children, for childishness, his enjoyment of their laughter (for he didn’t laugh himself, no one ever saw Mr Chapman actually laugh), and his way of winking, or seeming to wink – perhaps it was only with them – at his own solemnity. So they knew he would frown at their pranks – when one of them hid behind the icecream fridge and popped up with a shriek – yet wouldn’t forbid them. And what of his own pranks? That way he made a coin disappear up his sleeve (you never saw it) or the way he slipped into their newspaper bags, when they weren’t looking, a bar of chocolate, a stick of toffee. Yes, he liked his tricks; he had a clown’s face, glum and top-heavy. Though that old bag, Mrs Cooper, would have none of it. She called them louts – she called all boys louts. ‘Don’t excite Mr Chapman, with his heart. Don’t upset Mr Chapman, with his poor wife dead.’ But who had ever seen Mr Chapman’s wife? Though Phil said he had once, passing the house on his round – she was standing at the window, looking as if she were sinking in a pool. Yet what did it matter? If they played their pranks, if he liked it, if it cheered him, if they got out of him just once at least (they knew it was there) that laugh he never actually showed; before his heart stopped ticking right there in the shop.

  They watched him as they watched all adults, as if they were life-size models at work, but with a suspicion, in this case, that that was just how Mr Chapman regarded himself.

  ‘One pound. One pound twenty-five. One pound fifty.’

  He distributed the notes and coins. His fingers were soiled with newsprint, which made them look as though they were moulded from lead.

  ‘One pound fifty. One pound seventy-five.’

  Once they did it for half a crown. Now it was nothing less than a pound. Their hands closed. He wouldn’t see them again.

  Six-thirty. But already the sun through the plate glass window was warm. He switched on the little electric fan over the door into the stock room.

  ‘Which one of you’s going to pull down the awning?’

  That was something he could no longer do. No exertion. And they vied, when the weather made it likely, for the honour of getting their hands on that long, murderous pole, flexing their muscles on the pavement and pulling at the catch above the name-board.

  ‘Phil, you do it. And don’t smash the window in the process.’

  They sniggered, shouldering their bags. But he hadn’t finished.

  ‘Before you go –’ he hesitated, thinking of a suitable pretext. In his left hand was a black tin box labelled ‘Paper Boys’, with the lid open so they couldn’t see in. They thought he had emptied it. ‘As it’ll soon be the summer holidays –’ he fished in the box and drew out a column of fifty pence pieces which he let slip, three at a time, into each palm – ‘a little bonus. A little surprise.’ He looked severe. ‘Not a word to your Mums and Dads’ (but they weren’t stupid), ‘and if you’re late once in the next fortnight,’ he paused – they wouldn’t appreciate this prank – ‘I’ll ask for it back.’

  They looked up, duly surprised, thankful, puzzled. A good bunch, a cheerful bunch. They did what he asked and they earned their money. They came every morning by six-thirty, sleepy-eyed, rising before their parents, muffled in the winter in little anoraks and scarves. And there was a sense of constancy and devotion in watching them, through the glass of the shop door, riding off with their sacks, pedalling their bikes to appointed streets; so that he would think, ‘Don’t swing like that into the main road: there are lorries,’ and ‘Don’t get caught by a policeman, cycling without lights.’ But you had to take note of that little glint in their eyes which spied out extra ten-pences; and you heard them mutter under their breath: ‘Henderson across the common pays his boys two quid.’ They were wise to it already. You had to watch out.

  He scanned their faces sternly, like a commander his best men. And they knew perhaps, grinning back at him, that if he didn’t laugh it wasn’t because he couldn’t.

  ‘Right, now you’ve got your money. Before you go, take something each from the sweet counter. Only one thing, mind you.’ He wagged a finger. This was necessary. If you didn’t give them things they pinched them anyway.

  ‘Thanks Mr Chapman.’

  Fifteen thousand pounds.

  At a clap of his hands, as if they were performing animals, they were off, swinging their bags over their heads, chattering over their new-gained wealth, making off with it, racing each other on their bikes round the corner of Briar Street.

  And they were gone, leaving only Phil on the pavement, with his flop of blond hair, locked in battle with the pole and the awning. Would he do it? There, it went. And there he was, standing grinning in his mauve T-shirt with ‘YAMAHA’ across the front, like a knight-at-arms with that pole under his arm, almost demolishing a display in the window as he bore it back through the door.

  ‘Bye Mr Chapman. Thanks for the money.’

  ‘Bye Phil.’

  And Mr Chapman laughed – was that really a laugh that crossed his face? Phil would go and tell the others, speeding after them with the news: Mr Chapman laughed. But they wouldn’t believe him, Phil was always telling stories they’d say.

  ‘Bye. Take care now.’

  They were paid.

  The sunshine slanted through the glass over the door on to the counter and the piles of remaining morning papers which lay b
efore him. He never read the papers. Years of marking them up, stacking them, and taking them, flicking them into a fold with the wrist and holding them out between two fingers, palm cupped for the coins, had blunted his curiosity for their contents. But he still glanced each morning, and kept through the day in a little catalogue at the back of his mind so that if it was mentioned he would know, items like ‘Plane Crash in Brazil’, ‘Drama at Embassy’, ‘Worst Ever Trade Figures’. And there it was, this morning, on the page his eyes scanned:

  ‘PEACE BID FAILS.’

  She had always read her papers. He had them delivered (that had been Phil’s round, number three, Leigh Drive and Clifford Rise) and he brought home in the evening copies that weren’t sold. She’d read them, sitting in her armchair, beneath the tall standard lamp with its twisting wooden stem. Oh not because she liked news. It was only to take stock, to acquaint herself, to hold sway over the array of facts and regard them all with cold passivity. And sometimes, indeed, it was as if she didn’t read at all, her head hidden behind the outspread page, but peered through it, as through a veil, at a world which might default or run amok if it once suspected her gaze was not upon it. And he’d wait, stirring his tea, the clock ticking, not daring even to rattle his cup, until at last she would cast aside the paper in a weary gesture, her eyes moving wanly to the french windows. So predictable, these papers.

  He didn’t read them, but he liked them. Their columns, captions and neat gradations of print. The world’s events were gathered into those patterns.

  Dorothy had read them, read them with a will, wanting to discuss and argue over the dinner table, her little brows taut with the desire to make her mark. And Irene had sat on the other side, holding her knife and fork tightly so that they snicked at her plate like scissors, and refused to be drawn. All this excitement, this nonsense. I won’t have it. I won’t suffer it. You deal with her. And she would look at him: she is yours, don’t forget; I gave her to you.

  The floor-boards creaked under the weight of his stool and a faint rustle, like crumpled paper outspreading, came from the lines of shelves behind him. Sometimes, in the early morning, the shop seemed to speak, as if it wouldn’t let pass the association of years without a whisper, a breath of friendship.