EFLshorts

Five years passed. Again it was a Sunday afternoon in October and again Mr Coombes was out walking by the canal. He was still the same man as before, and yet there was something different about him. He was thinner and he walked straighter, his overcoat was new as was his hat and gloves. He looked like a man who was happy with himself. Beside him, walked his brother Tom, just back from Australia.

`You have a very nice little business, Jim,’ said brother Tom. `In these hard days you have done well. And you are lucky to have a wife who is so happy to help you.’

`Between you and me,’ said Mr Coombes, `it wasn’t always like this. To begin with, she was not keen to help at all.’

`Really?’

Mr Coombes continued. `You would not think it, but at first she was very extravagant and always angry at me. I was a bit too loving, too gentle. She did what she wanted, always having her relations over and her girlfriends and their chaps. Comic songs on a Sunday, too. It was all getting too much and driving business away. I tell you Tom, the place wasn’t my own.’

`Dear, oh dear,’ said Tom, `I’m surprised.’

‘I tried to bargain with her. But she wouldn’t listen to me…She wouldn’t listen to my warnings.’

`So what happened?’ asked brother Tom.

The young man, Clarence, was a coward. He would not meet the fury in Mr Coombes’s eyes. Coombes rushed at him, fungi in hand. Jennie gave a shriek like a ghost and ran for the door, trying to escape. Mr Coombes followed her, but Clarence got in the way. With a crash, the tea table fell over as Coombes grabbed Clarence by the collar and tried to push the fungus into Clarence’s mouth. Clarence struggled free, happy to leave his collar in Mr Coombes’s hand as he escaped into the hall.

‘Run!’ Mrs Coombes cried. She wanted to shut the living room door, but her legs would not move. Jennie saw the shop door open at the back of the house. She ran in there and locked the door behind her. At the same time, Clarence ran into the kitchen, and Mrs Coombes ran upstairs and locked herself in the spare bedroom.

Standing in the hall, Mr Coombes hesitated. With a hat full of fungus under his arm, he considered where to go first. He decided on the kitchen. Clarence was still trying to lock the door. He heard Mr Coombes coming and ran for the back door. Mr Coombes caught Clarence before he could open the door to the yard. Mr Coombes told him that his face was a mess and dragged him to the kitchen sink and scrubbed his head under the tap with a hard black brush. After this, he gave Clarence his coat and Clarence was allowed to leave. Jennie was still locked in the shop, and she stayed there the rest of the evening.

Mr Coombes returned to the kitchen and drank the five bottles of beer that Mrs Coombes kept for ‘medical’ purposes. Then Mr Coombes ended that Sunday evening by having a long and peaceful sleep in the coal shed.

Mr Coombes laughed at the sudden happiness he felt. Was he dull? If so, he would not be dull any longer! Unsteadily, he stood up and looked at the world around him with a smile on his face. He began to remember. He had been disagreeable at home earlier because they wanted to be happy. But they were right and I was wrong; life should be as happy as possible. I’ll go home and be less grumpy, he thought. And I’ll take some of this fungus. In fact, I’ll fill my hat with it! So he did. And when his hat was full, he walked off, singing and looking forward to a happy evening…

*

The three of them – Mr Clarence, Mrs Coombes, and Jenny – were sitting around the fire, looking miserable.

‘You see what I have to put up with, Mr Clarence,’ said Mrs Coombes angrily.

‘He is a bit hasty,’ replied Mr Clarence.

‘All he cares about is his old shop. And if I buy myself something to make myself look nice or spend some of the housekeeping money or have a bit of company, there is an argument. He lies awake at night worrying about money and how to make me do without.’

‘If a man appreciates a woman,’ Mr Clarence said, ‘he must make sacrifices for her.’

‘I agree,’ said Jennie.

‘I should not have married him,’ said Mrs Coombes. A silence fell. Eventually Mrs Coombes got up and made some tea. When she came back, she heard a key turn in the door. Mr Coombes had returned.

‘Here is my Lord and master,’ said Mrs Coombes, sarcastically. ‘He went out like a lion but comes back like a lamb. Just you wait and see.’

The odour was strong – but not disgusting. He broke off a piece of the fungus. The smooth surface was creamy white. It changed like magic in about ten seconds to a yellowish–green colour. He broke off another two pieces and the same thing happened. They were wonderful things these fungi, thought Mr Coombes and all of them the deadliest of poisons. His father had told him this often. Deadly poison!

Why not try a little, here and now? thought Mr Coombes. He put a little piece, a very little piece – a crumb – in his mouth. It tasted so strong that he nearly spat it out. It tasted hot and full-flavoured, like hot mustard with a touch of horseradish and…mushroom. In the excitement of the moment, he swallowed it. Did he like it, or did he not? He tried another bit. It really wasn’t bad. In that moment, he forgot all his troubles. He was playing with death. He took another bite, deliberately taking a mouthful. A strange feeling, a tingling, started in his finger tips and his toes. His pulse began to beat faster. The blood in his ears pounded. He turned around and looked about himself. He struggled towards a little patch of purple fungi about twelve feet away. “Jolly good stuff,” he said out loud and fell on his face, his hands outstretched towards the fungi. But he did not eat any more of it. He just lay there, in the grass.

After a while, he sat up with a look of astonishment. He brushed off his silk hat. He put his hand to his forehead. Something had happened. He was no longer feeling dull – quite the opposite. Now, he was feeling bright and cheerful!

His money was all in his business. ‘If I leave my wife,’ he thought, ‘I will lose all my money. She can make me homeless!’ No. He could not afford a divorce. He thought about the marriage vows. He was married – ‘for better, or worse.’

But sometimes, tragic things happened. Sometimes, marriages ended very badly indeed. Bricklayers kicked their wives to death and small clerks and shopkeepers cut their wives’ throats….

Mr Coombes thought about such terrible things for a long time. He thought about razors and breadknives and pistols; he thought about going to jail and praying for forgiveness. But eventually he grew bored. His anger lessened, and he became sad. He looked down at himself, at his overcoat. When he married his wife, he had worn it. He looked at the path. In the early days of their marriage, they had walked along it, hand in hand. What had happened? Why had it all worked out so badly?

He looked at the canal’s water. Should he just stand in the middle of it with his arms out stretched and…?

While he was thinking of drowning himself, he saw the purple pileus for the first time. At first, he thought it was a leather purse. Then he saw it was a strange, poisonous-looking purple fungus. He touched it. It was slimy. It smelt bad too. He stared at the purple fungus as the thought of poisoning crossed his mind.

They all started to talk at once. The guest said he was going to marry Jenny and would protect her. Mr Coombes told him he could protect her anywhere, but not in his house. Mrs Coombes told him he should be ashamed for insulting her guests. She told him he really was an annoying little grub.

It all ended with Mr Coombes telling the guests to leave his house. But they wouldn’t go. In the end, Mr Coombes left. With his face burning red and tears in his eyes with anger, he went into the hall, put on his overcoat, and brushed his silk hat. Jenny began to play the piano again, over and over again: the same little, silly tune. Mr Coombes slammed the door shut and walked away, angry and frustrated.

He walked along the muddy path among the fir trees. It was October; the ground was soft with pine needles and lots of fungi were growing. Mr Coombes thought about his marriage and its history. He now saw that his wife had married him because she had had an uncertain, hard life and wanted a better one with him.

She was supposed to help him with his business, but she was too stupid. And they argued about money all the time. ‘You spend too much,’ he would say. She didn’t like to hear that. ‘Why can’t you be nice to me?’ she would ask. She also had a family that annoyed him. They caused trouble for his business and helped his wife to spend his money. It was not the first time he had run from his house in anger and frustration. But never before had he felt like this, so sick of life. So he walked along the path, his head down, breathing in the thick-smelling air. The evil-smelling fungi grew to his left and to his right.

A wife that did not really love him and a business that was in trouble. Perhaps that was his destiny, perhaps it was meant to be this way.