The Husband's Story by Norman Collins Page B

Crocketts Green, a reminder of what the place must have been like when it was still a village. It had atmosphere. There were two others, the Station Arms (severe, run-down and melancholy) and the Kon-Tiki (smart, chromium and musical). Saloon prices were the same in all three; same proprietary brands, same measures. But everything else was different. The regulars went to the Station Arms and to the Kon-Tiki for the drinking – large pink gins in the Arms and vodka-and-pineapple-juice in the Kon-Tiki. Round at the Bull and Garter it wasthe company that counted. An altogether better class of customer, too, even though it was mostly only keg and draught that was drunk there.
    One of the things that Stan liked best about the Bull was the old, familiar smell of the place. It was a mixture of floor polish and freshly-cooked sausages and beer frothing out into thick glass tankards and tobacco smoke. A thick, blue haze like Channel mist always hung over the whole bar by closing-time. Because of the low ceiling it was noisy, too. Even with only a handful of customers, it sounded as though there were quite a good party going on.
    It had already begun to fill up by the time Stan got there: they were two deep all along the counter. Stan knew every one of them by sight. He would, in fact, have been surprised if any of them hadn’t been there. But he made his way past them as though they were strangers. They didn’t belong to him at all.
    His group, just the four of them, did their drinking over by the palm in the corner. They were four friends, four bosom friends, who saw each other regularly once a week, wouldn’t for the world have missed the reunion, and didn’t give each other so much as a thought on the other six days.
    Come to that, they didn’t even know very much about each other, either. One of them was something to do with insurance. Another, the blue blazer and bow-tie member, was vaguely in sales. And the third was mixed up with the rental business. All three knew that Stan was a civil servant. They even made jokes about it. But beyond that, outside the Bull, their lives were their own private and individual mysteries.
    And today, as he raised his tankard and said ‘Cheers’, Stan wasn’t for the moment interested in any of them. That was because right across the bar, on the other side where only casuals went, he thought that he saw somebody he knew. It was nothing definite. Only a glimpse. And it took him a second or two to remember. Then it all came back, and he was certain.
    The man who had just put his glass down on the counter opposite was the nice Mr Karlin, the representative of the international photo-press agency, the one who had said that he would be getting in touch with him. Stan was all ready to go over and ask him why he hadn’t. But the bar was full by now. Stan couldn’t squeeze his way past. And, in any case, Mr Karlin was just leaving. His smooth, pink, friendly face was turned away by now, but his raincoat had his own personal stamp upon it. It was the same raincoat that he had been wearing at FrobisherHouse on the day of the photographic exhibition. There weren’t too many of them about, not Continental-style raincoats with shoulder-flaps and a deep V-shaped seam running halfway down the back.
    Stan was sorrier than ever that he hadn’t been able to catch up with him. Because right from the start there had been something about Mr Karlin that he had liked. There was genuine warmth there, an outgoing quality that, even at first acquaintance, made you feel as though you had known him for years.
    Very few people were gifted that way, and Stan was anxious to keep up the friendship.

Chapter 7
    You can’t work in a Service department without facing up to the fact that security, like the weather, is something that you have to learn to live with. Not that it should come as anything of a shock. Because unless you have been checked, counter-checked and then