Stories (30 page)

“Ah, Rosie, don’t be so serious always.”

It was not long before they quarrelled again—because she was so serious. She was asking questions again about his past. She was trying to find out why the Army wouldn’t have him. He would never tell her. And then he said, impatiently, one night: “Well, if you must know, I’ve got ulcers…. Ah for God’s sake, Rosie, don’t fuss, I can’t stand being fussed.” For she had given a little cry and was holding him tight. “Why didn’t you tell me? I haven’t been cooking the proper things for you.”

“Rose, for crying out aloud, don’t go on.”

“But if you’ve got ulcers you must be fed right, it stands to reason.” And next evening when she served him some milk pudding, saying anxiously: “This won’t hurt your stomach,” he flared up and said, “I told you, Rosie, I won’t have you coddling me.” Her face was loving and stubborn and she said: “But you’ve got no sense….”

“For the last time, I’m not going to put up with it.”

She turned away, her mouth trembling, and he went to her and said desperately: “Now don’t take on Rosie, you mean it nicely, but I don’t like it, that’s why I didn’t tell you before. Get it?” She responded to him, listlessly, and he found himself thinking angrily: I’ve got two wives, not one…. They were both dismayed and unhappy because their happiness was so precarious it could vanish overnight just because of a little thing like ulcers and milk pudding.

A few days later he ate in heavy silence through the supper she had provided, and then sarcasm broke out of him: “Well, Rosie, you’ve decided to humour me, that’s what it is.” The meal had consisted of steamed fish, baked bread, and very weak tea, which he hated. She looked uncomfortable, but said obstinately: “I went to a friend of mine who’s a chemist at the corner, and he told me what it was right for you to eat.” Involuntarily he got up, his face dark with fury. He hesitated, then he went out, slamming the door.

He stood moodily in the pub, drinking. Pearl came across and said: “What’s eating you tonight?” Her tone was light, but her eyes were sympathetic. The sympathy irritated him. He ground out: “Women!” slammed down his glass and turned to go. “Doesn’t cost you anything to be polite,” she said tartly, and he replied: “Doesn’t cost you anything to leave me alone.” Outside he hesitated a moment, feeling guilty. Pearl had been a friend for so long, and she had a soft spot for him—also, she knew about his wife, and about Rose, and made no comment, seemed not to condemn. She was a nice girl, Pearly was—he went back and said, hastily: “Sorry, Pearl, didn’t mean it.” Without waiting for a reply he left again, and this time set off for home.

The woman he called his wife looked up from her sewing and asked briefly: “What do you want now?”

“Nothing.” He sat down, picked up a paper and pretended to read, conscious of her glances. They were not hostile. They had gone a long way beyond that, and the fact that she seemed scarcely interested in him was a relief after Rose’s persistent, warm curiosity—like loving white fingers strangling him, he thought involuntarily. “Want something to eat?” she enquired at last.

“What have you got?” he enquired cautiously, thinking of the tasteless steamed fish and baked bread he had just been offered.

“Help yourself,” she returned, and he went to the cupboard on the landing, filled a plate with bread and mustard pickles and cheese, and came back to the room where she was. She glanced at his plate, but made no comment. After a while he asked sarcastically: “Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t eat pickles?”

“Couldn’t care less,” she returned equably. “If you want to kill yourself, it’s your funeral.” At this he laughed loudly, and she joined him. Later, she asked: “Staying here the night?”

“If you don’t mind.” At this she gave a snort of derisive laughter, got up and said: “Well, I’m off to bed. You can’t have the sofa because the kids have got a friend and he’s got it. You’ll have to put a blanket and a cushion on the floor.”

“Thanks,” he said, indifferently. “How are the kids?” he enquired, as an afterthought.

“Fine—if you’re interested.”

“I asked, didn’t I?” he replied, without heat. All this conversation
had been conducted quietly, indifferently, and the undercurrent was almost amiable. An outsider would have said they hardly knew each other. When she had gone he took a blanket from a drawer, wrapped it round his legs, and settled himself in a chair. He had meant to think about himself and Rose, but instead he dropped off at once. He left the house early, before anyone was awake. All day at the factory he thought: About Rose, what must I do about Rose? After work he went instinctively to the pub. Pearl stood quietly behind the counter, showing him by her manner that she was not holding last night’s bad humour against him. He meant to have one drink and go, but he had three. He liked Pearl’s cheerful humour. She told him that her young man was playing about with another girl, and added, as if it hardly concerned her: “There’s plenty of fish in the sea after all.”

“That’s right,” he said, non-committally.

“Well, we all have our troubles,” she said, with a half-humorous sigh.

“Yes—for all they’re worth.” At this he felt a pang of guilt because he had been thinking of Rose. Pearl was giving him a keen look. Then she said: ? didn’t say he hadn’t been worth it. But now that other girl’s getting all the benefit….” Here she laughed grimly.

He liked this cheerful philosophy, and could not prevent himself saying: “He’s got no sense, turning you up.” He looked with appreciation at her crown of bright yellow curls, at her shapely body. Her eyes brightened, and he said goodnight quickly, and left. He mustn’t get mixed up with Pearl now, he was thinking.

It was after eight. Usually he was with Rose by seven. He lagged down the street, thinking of what he would say to her, and entered the flat with a blank mind. For some reason he was very tired. Rose had eaten by herself, cleared the table, and now sat beside it, frowning over a newspaper. “What are you reading?” he asked, for something to break the ice. Looking over her shoulder he saw that she had marked a column headed: surplus women present problem to churches. He was surprised.

“That’s what I am, a surplus woman,” she said, and gave that sudden, unexpected laugh.

“What’s funny?” he asked, uncomfortably.

“I’ve a right to laugh if I want,” she retorted. “Better than crying, anyhow.”

“Oh, Rose,” he said helplessly. “Oh, Rose, stop it now….” She burst into tears and clung to him. But this was not the end, and he knew it. Later that night she said: “I want to tell you something …” and he thought: Now I’m for it—whatever it is.

“You were home last night, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, alertly.

A pause and then she asked: “What did she say?”

“About what?” It was a fact that he did not immediately understand her. “Jimmie” she said incredulously, under her breath, and he said: “Rosie, it’s no good, I told you that before.”

She did not immediately reply, but when she did her voice was very bitter: “Well, I see how it is now.”

“You don’t see at all,” he said sarcastically.

“Well, then, tell me?” He was silent. Her silence was like a persistent question. Again he felt as if the warm, soft fingers were wrapping around him. He felt suffocated. “There’s nothing to explain, I just can’t help it.” A pause, and then she said in the flat, laconic way he hated: “Yes?” That was all. For the time being, at least. A week later she said, calmly: “I went to see Jill’s granny today.”

His heart faltered and he thought: Now what? “Well?” he enquired.

“George was killed last month. In Italy.”

He felt triumph, then he said guiltily: “I’m sorry.” She waved this away and said: “I told her granny that I want to adopt Jill.”

“But Rose …” Then he saw her face and quailed.

“I want kids,” she said fiercely. He dropped his gaze.

“Her granny won’t give her up.”

“I’m not so sure. At first she said no, then she thought it over a bit. She’s getting old now—eighty next year. She thinks perhaps Jill’d be better with me.”

“You want to have the kid here?” he asked, incredulously. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re working all day.” She was silent; he looked at her—and slowly coloured.

“Listen a minute,” she began, persuasively—not unpleasantly at all, though every word wounded Jimmie. “I furnished this place. It was my furniture and my money. And I’ve got a hundred still in the post office in case of accidents—I’ll need
it; now the war’s over we won’t be earning so much money, if I know anything. So far, I’ve not been …” But here her instinctive delicacy overcame her, and she could not go on. She wanted to say that she paid for the food, paid for everything. Lately, even the rent. One week he had said, apologetically, that he hadn’t the cash, and that if she could do it this once—but now it was a regular thing.

“You want me to give you the money so you can stay here with the kid?” he enquired, cautiously. She was blushing with embarrassment. “No, no,” she said, quickly. “Listen. If you can just pay the rent—that would be enough. I could get a part-time job, just the mornings. Jill goes to school now, and I’d manage somehow.”

He digested this silently. He was thinking, unbelievingly: She wants to have a kid here, a kid’s always in the way—that means she can’t love me any more. He said slowly: “Well, Rosie, if that’s what you want, then go ahead.”

Her face cleared into vivid happiness and she came running to him in the old way and kissed him and said: “Oh, Jimmie; oh, Jimmie….” He held her and thought, bitterly, that all this joy was not because of him; all she cared about was the kid—women! But at the back of his mind were two other thoughts: First, that he did not know how he would find the money to pay the rent unless he passed that examination soon, and the other was that the authorities would never let Rose have Jill.

Next evening Rose was despondent. “Did you see the officials?” he asked at last.

“Yes.” She would not look at him. She was staring helpless down from the window.

“Wasn’t it any good?”

“They said I must prove myself a fit and proper person. So I said that I was. I told them I’d known Jill since she was born. I said I knew her mother and father.”

“That’s true enough,” he could not help interjecting, jealously. She gave him a cold look and said: “Don’t start that now. I told them her granny was too old, and I could easily look after her.”

“Well then?”

She was silent; then, wringing her hands unconsciously, she cried out: “They wasn’t nice, they wasn’t nice to me at all. There were two of them, a woman and a man. They said: How
could I support Jill? I said I could get money. They said I must show them papers and things….” She was silently crying now, but she did not come to him. She stayed at the window, her back turned, shutting him out of her sorrow. “They asked me, how could a working girl look after a child, and I said I’d do it easy, and they said, did I have a husband….” Here she leaned her head against the wall and sobbed bitterly. After a time he said: “Well, Rosie, it looks as if I’m no good for you. Perhaps you’d better give me up and get yourself a proper husband.” At this she jerked her head up, looked incredulously at him and cried: “Jimmie! How could I give you up….” He went to her, thinking, in relief: She loves me better after all. He meant: better than the child.

It seemed that Rose had accepted her defeat. For some days she talked sorrowfully about those “nosey-parkers” at the Council. She was even humorous, though in the way that made him uneasy. “I’ll go to them,” she said, smiling grimly. “I’ll go and I’ll say: I can’t help being a surplus woman. Don’t blame me, blame the war, it’s not my fault that they keep killing all the men off in their silly wars….”

And then his jealousy grew unbearable and he said: “You love Jill better than me.” She laughed in amazement, and said: “Don’t be a baby, Jimmie.” “Well, you must. Look how you go on and on about that kid. It’s all you think about.”

“There isn’t no sense in you being jealous of Jill.”

“Jealous,” he said, roughly. “Who says I’m jealous?”

“Well, if you’re not, what are you then?”

Oh, go to hell, go to hell, he muttered to himself, as he put his arms around her. Aloud he said: “Come on Rosie girl, come on, stop being like this; be like you used to be, can’t you?”

“I’m not any different,” she said patiently, submitting to his caresses with a sigh.

“So you’re not any different,” he said, exasperatedly. Then, controlling himself with difficulty he coaxed: “Rosie, Rosie, don’t you love me a little….”

For the truth was, he was becoming obsessed with the difference in Rose. He thought of her continuously as she had been. It was like dreaming of another woman, she was so changed now. At work, busy with some job that needed all his attention, he would start as if stung, and mutter: “Rose—oh, to hell with her!” He was remembering, with anguish, how she had
run across the room to welcome him, how responsive she had been, how affectionate. He thought of her patient kindliness now, and wanted to swear. After work he would go straight to the flat, reaching it even before she did. The lights would be out, the rooms cold, like a reminder of how Rose had changed. She would come in, tired, laden with string bags, to find him seated at the table staring at her, his eyes black with jealousy. “This place is as cold as a street-corner,” he would say angrily. She looked at him, sighed, then said, reasonably: “But Jimmie, look, here’s where I keep the sixpences for the gas—why don’t you light the fire?” Then he would go to her, holding down her arms as he kissed her, and she would say: “Just leave me a minute, Jimmie. I must get the potatoes on or there’ll be no supper.”

“Can’t the potatoes wait a minute?”

“Let me get my arms free, Jimmie.” He held them, so she would carefully reach them out from under the pressure of his grip, and put the string bags on the table. Then she would turn to kiss him. He noticed that she would be glancing worriedly at the curtains, which had not been drawn, or at the rubbish-pail, which had not been emptied. “You can’t even kiss me until you’ve done all the housework,” he cried, sullenly. “All right then, you tip me the wink when you’ve got a moment to spare and you don’t mind being kissed.”