The newsagent was at the foot of the Nettel’s steps. A sparrow had paused on the top step to shake its wet feathers. The newsagent felt in his pocket. Ought to be some crumbs from that cake Cissie had given him mid-morning. He found a few and scattered them. The sparrow flew to a first-floor window ledge. The newsagent did not bother to see where he went; the sparrow was a cockney like himself; a sophisticate knowing his world. He would take what came his way in his own way and in his own time.
* * * * *
Jeremy wrote at such speed that his pen could not keep pace; weird hieroglyphics stood for words. It was a morning to remember. A morning when his mind seemed lit with a flame and what, on other days, he struggled so painfully to express, flowed out as easily as water from a tap. An occasion so exquisite and rare that in spite of his absorption he knew his fortune and snatched at it.
Freda flung open the study door; her eyes shone for she too, was having a morning to remember. Only half an hour ago she had sat opposite two men of the theatre. They had not had to tell her she looked desirable; it was written all over their faces. The half-hour she had spent with them had made her feel like a phœnix new-born from the flames. In a flash the drab years disappeared. Gone was Jeremy’s frightful home and his more frightful mother; she was back in the last of the nineteen-thirties, unmarried, Freda Bell, whose reputation outside the theatre was sufficiently dashing to make her worth exhibiting in the theatre, where people not only enjoyed looking at her but, even more, whispering to each other what they had heard about her. Until that magical half-hour she had wondered if the hell of the last years showed. She knew she was a shade fatter, but people said it suited her, and she had hoped that it was true. The moment she had walked into Dingo Flynn’s office she had known it was true. Dingo and A. L. Stone together, the two most important men in the theatre, staring at her and amused by her. Dingo had said, “Good gracious, Freda, you don’t look at all post-war, where’ve you been hiding yourself?” A. L. had said she was the perfect counter-irritant to a wet August morning. Dingo had added that she did not look as if she lived in a world of clothing coupons. Freda had taken an infinity of trouble not to look as if she lived in a world of clothing coupons. As far as the coupons went there was no reason why she should; she thought to attempt to live on clothing coupons the act of an idiot and bought what she required remorselessly, without a twinge of conscience, but she was troubled for money. Clothes, both the buying of them and the wearing of them, peace or war, were a large part of her life. She had spent hours preparing for her interview; she had aimed at looking as if she had stepped casually into one of a wardrobe of outfits. It had been immensely satisfactory to realise how far she had succeeded. She had come home so proud and happy that she acted quite spontaneously. She leant over Jeremy and put both arms round his neck.
“Darling, I’ve got a job. A superb job. Come and have a drink to it.”
Jeremy, fathoms deep in his book, did not take in what she said.
“Run along, old thing, I don’t want any lunch.”
Freda, fresh from the admiration of Dingo and A. L. was not prepared to accept offhand behaviour from Jeremy. She pulled at the paper on which he was writing; his fountain pen followed it, leaving a trailing ink mark across the page. Jeremy pushed her from him.
“For Christ’s sake get out of here and leave me alone. You’re always grousing that my books don’t make enough money, now, on the one day when I was doing a bit of decent work, you come in assing about.”
Freda was totally unprepared for his outbreak. She knew he hated being disturbed when he was writing, but her success of the morning had obliterated the years. In the nineteen-thirties Jeremy had been her lover; Jeremy had been jealous; Jeremy had adored her. She had fooled herself into believing that he would be excited at her news, would fly into the sitting-room and would miraculously produce a bottle of champagne. Her anger was as deep as his; her morning of ecstasy was equally to be treasured. She had not meant to do more than stop him writing in order that he should attend to her; now she felt vicious; he was spoiling her day. She slipped to the other side of his desk, picked up the sheets of manuscript piled and numbered that he had written that morning; she hummed Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” and danced, scattering the papers about the room. Jeremy’s feeling for Freda had since his marriage become a dull, smouldering loathing. He saw no way out. Even if he showed her cause to divorce him it was very unlikely that she would divorce him, and, in any case, there was Jane. Poor little beast! It was bad enough letting her be born a bastard, but it would be the end to leave her to Freda, and Freda, oddly enough, would insist on keeping her. Heaven knew why; she didn’t seem to have a scrap of interest in the child, was bored by her and tied by her, and yet nothing would make her allow his mother to have her. It was most unlikely Freda was being faithful to him, but he had never caught her out, blast her! That would be the moment; he’d sue for divorce fast enough then, and ask for custody of the child. Now, as he watched Freda skipping about the room, his loathing and contempt boiled over.
“Get out, you bitch, and leave my papers alone.”
Freda threw the last sheet of his manuscript into a corner.
“I don’t want your blasted book. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. Nobody will want to read it when you’ve written it. You go on as though you were Somerset Maugham instead of a hack who can’t even get a decent advance from a publisher. Thank goodness it doesn’t matter so much now, for I’m going to earn thirty pounds a week. Aren’t you a lucky boy to be kept?”
The anger died in Jeremy. It was true, bitterly, painfully true. He had started so well, had such wonderful notices for his first novel; the next had been scarcely noticed, and the third his publisher had refused. It was wartime then and paper was scarce, time scarcer; he had written one book about his experiences on the lower deck; his agents found him a new publisher for it but it was one of twenty books on experiences on the lower deck, and, as one reviewer said, “Jeremy Duke is unlucky. What he has to say has been better said by several other writers.” At sea he had time to think, time to sort out the lumber rooms of his mind. He had thought he had found something he wanted to say and he thought he saw the way to say it. It had been impossible in his father’s house, but here, with his own study, there seemed a chance. To-day was the first day he had been sure there was a chance. The fall from the heights to the depths is quick and forces all breath from the body. Jeremy had reached the depths. He felt lifeless and had scarcely the strength to pick up his papers.
“When does your play start?”
Freda resented his dull tone.
“Thanks for the interest. Rehearsals start in three weeks’ time, which relieves you from taking me for a holiday. I was wondering why I was to be the only woman in London who was not taking her first chance to get abroad, but now you won’t have to bother, you can get on with your bloody book.”
“What are you going to do about Jane?”
“You can’t send her to your mother’s so get that out of your head. I haven’t found a school, every school in the country seems full up; I shall probably pay Mrs. Parks to look after her, or you can be nursemaid, my sweet. You’d be a lot more usefully employed than you are writing.”
He looked up from his paper chase.
“You can’t leave her with Mrs. Parks. She’s working all the time, and the kid will pick up an accent. Can’t you get a nurse for her?”
“Yes, dear, a nurse, a butler, a footman, a cook and several parlour maids. I’m going to have that drink. I’ll celebrate alone as you’re in such a foul temper, and you might spend your afternoon going round the agencies looking for that nurse you talk about, and you might find a maid, otherwise, when I begin rehearsals, you’ll find yourself not only nurse but cook general.”
Jeremy picked up the last of the papers. He sorted them out. He came to the page on which he had been writing when Freda snatched it
from him. He took up his pen. He read through the last paragraph and tried to get back to the mood he had been in when she had interrupted him. Nothing came, his mind was a blank. After a moment he put down his pen and buried his head in his arms. “Oh, God!” he whispered. “Oh, dear God!”
Paula closed the door. She wished that a door cutting off one flat from another could be put between their flat and the Dukes’ flat in the same way as Lady Nettel had caused a door to be placed on the second floor at the top of the front stairs separating themselves from the flat above. It was not possible; the raised voices were coming down the back stairs, and, since all save the Nettels had to walk up the back stairs, doors were not to be thought of. Mr. and Mrs. Duke must be arguing either in the passage at the top of the stairs or perhaps in a room with the door open. The closing of the door did not entirely cut out the sound. Freda’s voice was raised and it seemed to pierce through the ceiling. Paula looked at the children. Irma, in her black tunic, socks and ballet shoes, was giving Jane a dancing lesson.
“No, Jane, such a child to keep its feet in so bad a position! See, this is right. The toes turned out, so.” Irma’s feet were placed firmly in the fifth position. Jane had on square-toed scarlet slippers with ankle straps. She tried hard, but she had not great control of her feet. Irma knelt beside her. “See, I will show. Such a child!”
Paula looked down proudly at Irma’s black curls. Irma was delightful with Jane, treating her as a doll. Irma’s dancing was wundervoll . . . She bit back her mistake slurring the offending word into wonderful.
Irma got up from the floor.
“There, armer kleiner Wurm, you may rest.”
Paula looked at Irma in horror. For herself slipped sometimes such an expression into the head; but that Irma, British Irma, should use it was deplorable.
“Irma! Why do you speak German?”
Irma was holding on to a chair and raising herself on to her points.
“At dancing the children do not think it harm to speak German. I’ve even spoken it to the dancing mistress, she doesn’t mind.”
Paula looked as she so often looked at Irma, with bewilderment and fright. How should she treat this so incredible child to whom she and Heinrich had mysteriously given birth?
“British children do not speak German.”
Irma changed the position of her feet and stood on one toe.
“I am British and I do speak German.”
Paula clasped her hands. How would such a child fare? How did the other children at the dancing school regard her? She was, of course, as she said, British. Lucky, lucky Irma, but she was also a Jewess. Too soon she would grow older. How would she, so confident and so sure, bear it when that strange look came over the faces of other girls, that look of having to bear with though disliking? That certainty that someone was saying condescendingly, “She’s a Jewess.”
Freda’s voice rose to a scream. The words could not be heard, only that she was angry. Paula hurried to the front room. Hans was at his piano. He was a conscientious boy; his father had decided he was a musician and so much money was being spent on his musical education, he was repaying it by doing his duty. So many scales with this hand, so many scales with that, so many exercises with both hands together.
“Hans,” said Paula, “you will play a tune for Jane to dance.”
Hans turned his large brown eyes on his mother.
“There are three more exercises for the left hand and two for both hands together.”
She whispered:
“Jane’s father and mother are having an argument. I do not wish she should hear.”
Hans went on with his exercises.
“Jane is so used to the noise that her mother makes and the things that she says that she will not care.”
Paula went back into the hall. Jane was once more struggling with the fifth position, her small face pink with the effort of concentration, but it was clear she was in no way disturbed by the goings on overhead. Paula was filled with humility. How good was God. That he should give her not only gifted children but sensible children. Far better they understood the little Jane than she did. Clearly they inherited much from Heinrich, for even without constant reminders by look and by word that she was a fool, Paula knew there was nothing in her to produce clever children. Truly Hans was docile, and docility must be inherited from her for it was not a quality belonging to Heinrich. It was strange that artistic talents such as music and dancing should be inherited from Heinrich, since Heinrich’s great gift was to see ahead and so make money when everybody else was poor, but these mysteries of heredity, this transmuting of one great gift for another, was for God to arrange and to be accepted unquestioningly and with gratitude.
A door slammed. There was silence in the Dukes’ flat. Paula, relieved on Jane’s behalf, left the children and went to her kitchen. The ham cooking for lunch needed looking at. There was cream to be whipped. A chicken to be prepared for the evening meal. Paula shopped for the vegetables, spent the points and purchased what was needed to clean the house. She was a poor shopper. Heinrich said, and she knew it to be true, that she was not even capable of keeping her proper place in a queue much less forcing her way to the head of it. Daily, as she stood in the greengrocer’s, or the grocer’s, and heard “Who’s next?” she tried to brace herself to say truthfully, if ungrammatically, “Me,” but somehow she scarcely ever said it; there always seemed to be care-worn, old or frail-looking people, with perhaps a baby. Nobody ever questioned Paula’s right to be in the queues or the shops, but, looking at the tired faces of the other women shoppers and the anxious look of those who sold in the shops, she felt humble. Was she not born a German? Would these faces be so tired or so anxious but for Germans? It was Heinrich who did the real shopping. Clever Heinrich could get anything. He explained to Paula that it was right they should take everything that they could get since they were children who, without the best, would grow up boneless and flabby. Paula never felt happy about so much food. Certainly Hans and Irma should be well fed, but so should all children. She hoped Heinrich was careful how he carried his parcels into the house. She hoped that Irma, so free with her tongue, never spoke to other children of such things as whipped cream. She tried sometimes to speak to Heinrich about the food, to tell him that he was buying too much, but she was afraid. When a wife deceived her husband, not once but every week, it was better not to say things which led to discussion of the running of the home. If Heinrich could know about the laundry. If Heinrich could know that she had asked that the laundry might call at the house not, as she had said, because she did not like him to be seen carrying it to and from his car, but because she wished to help Lady Nettel. Heinrich had been for once pleased with her. He had been loving almost in the way he had been when he was German and lived in Munich. He had pinched her ear and had told her it was right that a wife should be proud of the position of her husband. There had been a dangerous moment when the obvious thought had crossed his mind that she should carry the laundry up and down, but fortunately the thought had passed unspoken, and the laundry man was ordered to call at the flat. If Heinrich could know that the laundry man had been persuaded to take the Nettel laundry and say nothing about it by a bribe of five pounds stolen—there was no other word for it—from the housekeeping money.
Grass in Piccadilly Page 7