Back (11 page)

“Oh yes,” he said, eager. “Out in France.”

“Then d’you know him? My dad, I mean?”

“Of course I know him,” he replied, suddenly abrupt. “Why I tell you …”

“All right, all right,” she interrupted. “I only asked didn’t I? Because I thought it might be old Arthur up to one of his larks.”

“Arthur?”

“Arthur Middlewitch of course. You made out you knew him, last time.”

“What about him?” he wanted to be told. He was getting angry.

“All right, don’t upset yourself,” she said. “You think I’m Rose, don’t you?” she said.

All he could say was “What?”

“Because I’m not, see. She was my half sister.”

“Half sister?”

“Were you very much taken up with her, then?” she enquired, as though making conversation. Probably she did not want to appear too interested, but he was beyond taking in niceties. He began to dry his hands again.

“You’re not,” he said, low voiced.

“Hark at him,” she said with amusement. “Yes, you all fall for it hard.”

“All fall for it?”

“Well you don’t suppose you’re the first, do you? Still, I expect we’re most of us alike, it’s natural after all to consider you’re the only one on earth. That’s something I had to unlearn very early, I can tell you.”

“And James?” Charley asked.

“The widower? Why bless me, no. It would be a bit of a surprise for him, though, wouldn’t it, if I dyed my hair red?”

He was disgusted, and showed it.

“And the name I have is my mother’s,” she added.

He obstinately stared at her.

“It’s not very nice having a double, practically a half twin if you like,” she went on. There had actually been very few to come up to her who had known Rose, but plainly it was not for her to give this away just now. “I’ve had trouble over it, all right. The first time I did listen.” She laughed, and seemed to be going over this in her mind’s eye.

He saw everything a third time. She was a tart, and her father had sent him to redeem Rose because his hands were full at Redham. It was Rose right enough. But how different with the war. The troops must have been the cause? Made brutes out of women, that’s what Middlewitch said.

“I had a time with him,” she commented.

“Who’s that?” he asked, run through with jealousy.

“Here,” she said coming back to Charley. “No names, thanks. No, I consider, being as I am, the dead spit of another, that I’ve a responsibility, I’m not like the common run. But I don’t give
names away,” she said, again with what seemed to be pride. “Only my father’s,” she admitted, wryly. “But then what has he done for me to thank him?” she asked. “No, I’m in special case,” she said.

He looked at her. He wondered if, later on, he would be sick all over the carpet.

“I had such a time with the man I mentioned just now that I had to make a rule,” she went on. “To protect myself. I never admitted it again. Or hardly ever. Till you came along. It was your fainting did it.”

“Did what?” he demanded through his nausea.

“Why tricked me into admitting, of course,” she said. “What else?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he brought out, nauseated. Oh how she could, he cried in his mind, his Rose that he’d loved?

“Come as a bit of a shock to you, hasn’t it,” she said. “Take no notice. The first two years are the worst.” She actually laughed.

“Rose, listen here,” he began, with a stronger voice than he had used. But she broke in.

“Look,” she said sharp. “You aren’t sitting pretty here except on one condition. You’ll drop all this Rose stuff, or, if you can’t take it, stay silent. Otherwise out you go, this instant.”

He stayed silent.

“I’m a respectable girl,” she said.

He said nothing.

“Even if I am living alone because my mum’s been evacuated. You ask anyone here. They’ll tell you about us.”

He remembered he had been informed that whores had old women who took the money and who carried the police, got help if need be. She was in that kitchen this minute, most likely.

“Yes it’s a bit awkward in my position,” she began again. “I mean everyone has their own life, that only stands to reason, and here’s me has two, my own and someone else’s.”

He felt she might be trying to tell him she was sorry. He took heart again.

“Yes,” she went on, “I’ve a responsibility. You know why I did what I could for you the last time?” She paused. All he could remember was, she had chucked him out.

“Because this has hit you hard,” she explained. “You never put that faint on, I could tell. So I didn’t send you packing like I should. I’ve a responsibility.”

“A responsibility?” he asked.

“I’ve just said,” she told him. “Although it’s none of my fault, I’ve got to be fair. If a man really mistakes me for another I have to let him down in a decent fashion. I can’t laugh right in his face, not straight off, any old how.”

“I see,” he said.

“You don’t, from the looks of you,” she replied. “Oh all right, take your time. You’ll get used to it. Don’t mind me. Be easy now.”

“Has Mr Grant sent many to you?”

“Here,” she said harsh, “what are you insinuating? I told you before I won’t have his name mentioned, ever again.” He had no recollection of this. He assumed that he must have forgotten, as he had with Mr Grant’s request not to disclose how he got her address.

“I rang him up,” she said. “I told him. ‘This is the first time you’ve done this,’ I said, ‘and let it be the last. Haven’t you been enough trouble all my life?’ I said. ‘And now if you’re to start sending people round, what will the others think? Why I’d be hounded out of these rooms.’”

“What if Ridley came?” he suddenly asked, with the air of a man who has produced the unanswerable, who is bringing the whole house of cards down.

“Her little boy?” she enquired, absolutely unmoved. “You know I’ve often and often wondered. Why, it would be cruel, wouldn’t it?”

“You’ve said it.”

“I’m not too sure I like your attitude,” she complained. “Of
course that would be cruel, but not my fault? I can’t help looking as I am, can I? Which is at my father’s door.”

He did not wait to consider this. He must have thought he had her pinned.

“But if Mr Grant sent him?” he asked. His face flushed, and it was plain that he was trying to hold her eyes with his own. She became agitated.

“Why, he’d never,” she cried. “Why, it wouldn’t be right. He’d never dare.” She was truly indignant. “When the little chap thinks his mother’s away with the angels? I dream of it sometimes. Running across him in the street, I mean. Perhaps his grandma takes him up round the shops with her. I often wonder, wouldn’t that be awful if we met. But then it couldn’t be my fault, after all.”

“Whose then?”

“Why my dad’s of course.”

He now realized that she must be out of her mind, which would account for the change in her voice, and manner. He became terribly sad. Oh, this was not the old Rose, at all.

“That’s what makes me do it,” she explained.

“Do what?” he murmured.

“Aren’t some men dense?” she said. “You don’t suppose I’m talking to you, like I do, because I’ve nothing better, surely? I’m a working woman. I wouldn’t want to offend, of course. But as I told you before, I consider I have a duty by you and the others. Only when you said that my dad sent you, then I had to turn round at once. You see that surely?”

He felt he had best humour her.

“Yes,” he said.

“And you seemed to take it so hard I was sorry for you, and here we are,” she said.

He had a wave of self pity.

“It’s affected my work,” he muttered.

“You don’t want it to do that,” she said. “You see, I’ve thought more about this than you can ever. If you like to put it that
way, I’ve been brought up with the problem. It’s chance, that’s all, nothing more than bad luck. I’ve known since I was sixteen.”

That she’d leave the husband she had not yet seen, the unborn child, he cried out in his mind. He was sickened by it.

“What?” he said.

“Are you going queer a second time,” she wanted to know. “I mean about my half sister, naturally. They all say we might have been twins. What d’you think?”

“There’s no telling you apart,” he said, back to his idea of humouring her.

“Yet it’s funny I never felt anything when she was ill, like twins are supposed to feel, you understand. Then of course we were never real ones. Still, it makes you wonder, when I tell you we came within three weeks of one another. The old devil,” she said, with a hint of admiration in her voice.

“Did he send Middlewitch?” he asked, jealous again as soon as Mr Grant was mentioned.

“Of course not. I said, didn’t I?”

“How did you come across him, then?”

“I’ll not have these questions. What’s come over you? I’ve a life of my own, haven’t I? It’s not my fault, is it? And if I’m being nice to you it’s only that I’ve the responsibility. Even if he did send you along so things wasn’t natural, like crossing one another in the street.”

He began to hate. He saw her, yet again, as a tart, and could not bear the idea of these men having her, night after night having the old Rose.

“Oh no?” he brought out, bitter.

“What do you mean, thank you? I don’t quite fathom how I’m expected to take that, do you? Besides, I’ll tell you something. Just because you’re crazy, and a bit knocked off balance when you’re with me, you’re not entitled to pass remarks.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Wanting to know where I’d met Arthur Middlewitch. The sauce.”

The one thing he could not have, was for her to send him away. If she believed she had a responsibility, in the state she was in, then how much the greater was his own.

“Forget it,” he said. And, with a great effort, he returned to his normal manner of speaking, “Bit awkward for the rest of us, you see. The dead come to life,” he said.

“You are cheerful, aren’t you?”

“Bad about Mrs Grant, isn’t it?” he began. “Loss of memory can be a terrible thing.”

“I don’t want to hear about them, I’ve already told you.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I can’t seem to keep off the subject.”

She moved impatiently in her chair. “I’ve got my own life, as I mentioned before,” she explained. “It’s not exactly cheerful for a girl, is it, to talk of someone losing their memories when I’m a sort of walking memory to other people, complete strangers in every case? It’s only natural I suppose, but you men, that used to know her I mean, with her red hair you all talk about, I suppose you’re dead easy to think only of yourselves?”

Suddenly frantic, he looked about for the bed, to torture himself with the sight. She must have guessed, and guessed wrong, because she drew her skirt down over her knees, although she had not been showing too much leg, or no more than is usually shown.

“You’ll have to go in another minute,” she said, “and that’s meant to mean what it says.”

“I’ll go now before … before …,” but he could not finish. He rushed out, grabbing his hat, and slammed the door.

“Was there ever any girl as unlucky as me,” she wondered. “But I like his brown eyes. Oh well that’s all over, and I shan’t see him again, thank God,” she thought.

The next morning, after about the worst night he had ever had, he telephoned Mr Grant. He did not bother to ask Dot to leave the room. She was all the more certain something must be very wrong when she heard him insist that he should meet Mr Grant the same evening. He even fixed the time he would be there. And it did not help him, she noticed, for his work still suffered terribly all day.

When Charley got out to Redham, straight from the office, he found Rose’s father hanging around in the front garden.

“She’s better,” this man began at once. “Mother’s much better today. Tell you the truth I can’t make her keep to her bed, she will begin running downstairs the whole time. So I shan’t take you inside, if you’ll overlook it. Not after the recent occasion.”

He said this in such a way as to make it appear that he blamed Charley for the last visit, when Mrs Grant had been so upset to see what she understood to be her brother John. And Charley found himself tongue tied.

“So I presume you’ve come to apologise, my boy, eh?” Mr Grant said, walking up and down past Charley on the small patch of lawn. “But there, we mustn’t blame you young fellows. I know. You’ve been through a whole lot, and we all ought to be grateful. What’s more you’re not looking too fit in yourself. Gone thin. Lost weight? You want to take things easy at first, believe me. I’ve no doubt it’s the food. You’ve been on starvation diet out there so long that, when you are back, even the little we get is too rich for your stomach. I shouldn’t wonder if that wasn’t it.”

But Charley, as usual, was some sentences behind.

“I’m sure I’d never … I mean, if I’d known, I’d not have let Mrs Grant see …,” he mumbled, to protect himself from the unexpected charge of its being his fault that he had made Mrs Grant so much worse.