Coffee was served in the Lounge upstairs. The others followed Miss Steele one by one, their chairs squeaking on the parquet oilcloth as they rose, and squeaking again as they were self-consciously replaced under the tables.
6
She couldn’t stand it, she decided on the stairs. Tonight she simply couldn’t and wouldn’t stand it any more. All the same she would go into the Lounge for coffee. Why should she be done out of her coffee? She wondered whether the Americans, whom she had left behind in the dining-room, would be coming up into the Lounge. She could talk about America. She knew quite a lot about America, from what she had read, and from what her brother had told her. Perhaps, if she talked to them, she could eradicate or compensate for the stupidity and rudeness of Mr. Thwaites. Perhaps they were lonely in a foreign country, as lonely as she was in her own.
The Lounge was the same shape and size as the dining-room, but here Mrs. Payne, abandoning pink, had struck out whole-heartedly into brown, and made something of a hit. The wall-paper was of mottled brown, with a frieze of autumn leaves above the picture-rail: the carpet was brown: the lamps were shaded with mottled parchment of a brown tinge: and the large settee and two large armchairs were upholstered in brown leather. Cunningly slung over the arms of the armchairs were ash-trays attached to brown leather straps fringed at the ends. The room was heated by a big, bright, hot gas-fire.
Here, for two hours or more every evening, the guests of the Rosamund Tea Rooms sat in each other’s company until they were giddy – giddy with the heat, the stillness, the desultory conversation, the silent noises – the rattling of re-read newspapers, the page-turning of the book-reader, the clicking of the knitter, the puffing of the pipe-smoker, the indefatigable scratching of the letter-writer, the sounds of breathing, of restless shifting, of yawning – as the chromium-plated clock ticked out the tardy minutes. Finally they went to their bedrooms in a state of almost complete stupefaction, of gas-fire drunkenness – reeling, as it were, after an orgy of ennui.
Mr. Thwaites was, of course, noisy to begin with, but in due course the atmosphere went even to his head, and silenced his tongue.
As Miss Roach came in he was settling down in his armchair with a book and taking out his reading-spectacles from a case. Mrs. Barratt, getting her knitting ready, asked him what he was reading.
‘This?’ said Mr. Thwaites in a slightly shamefaced way. ‘Oh – only something I picked up at the library. What is known, in vulgar parlance, as a “thriller” or “blood-curdler”, I believe. It serves pour passer le temps.’
Miss Roach went over to warm herself at the fire, and Mr. Thwaites went on.
‘It may not be Dickens or Thackeray,’ said Mr. Thwaites, puffing at his spectacles and wiping them with his silk handkerchief, ‘mas il serve pour passer le temps.’ (Mr. Thwaites frequently adopted, among his many other roles, that of the linguist.)
Sheila now entered with the coffee-tray, but there was no sign of the Americans. Mr. Thwaites took it through again.
‘I’m not going to say it’s Dickens,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘and I’m not going to say it’s Thackeray. I’m not even going to say it’s Sir Walter Scott. But we’ve got to pass the time somehow.’
The Americans clearly were not coming up, and tonight she couldn’t stand it another minute. She left the room, strolling out with the casual air of one who leaves it for a moment. Mr. Thwaites glanced at her suspiciously, but had no idea what she was doing. She ran upstairs to her room, hastily put on her hat and coat, grabbed her torch, and came down the stairs again to the front door and went out into the black Thames Lockdon.
7
But what did she think she was doing and where did she think she was going now?
The black street resounded with the gloomy, scraping tramp of the boots of conscripted British soldiers far from their homes. There were some Americans about, too, further still from their homes. At this time of the evening they passed through Church Street on their way towards or returning from the public-houses over the bridge. Sometimes they shouted or sang, but for the most part they said nothing, giving expression to their slow sorrow and helplessness in their boots.
Where did she think she was going, amidst all these boots? She found herself in the narrow High Street, walking in the direction of the Station.
She had better walk as far as the Station, and then walk back and go in again. She had better try to look upon herself as one who had come out in a sane way for a short walk, not as what she really was, one who had rushed out on to the black streets of a small riverside town in a sort of panic.
Two Americans, lurking at a corner, spoke out to her invitingly, calling her ‘sister’. She walked on, conscious of having let them off – of having spared them the chill embarrassment which would have fallen upon them had they realised their ambition to talk to her and see her – conscious, therefore, of a blackness within the blackness of this fleeting street episode of which they, in common with other soldiers who accosted her under similar conditions, remained unaware.
Blackness. Cockroaches were black. ‘Miss Roach.’ ‘Old Cockroach.’ As the schoolmistress at Hove that had been her nickname – she had heard them using it more than once – so little fear did they have of her that they had almost used it to her face. She could never even keep proper discipline in class. And she had set out with such ideas, such enthusiasm, such grave, exhilarating theories in regard to ‘youth’ and ‘modern education’. She had thought she had found her gift and place in life. They had ‘liked’ her, however, though she couldn’t even keep proper discipline, and had abandoned her exhilarating theories within three weeks.
She passed the Station and went on towards the riverfront. She was now moving back towards the Rosamund Tea Rooms by the route she had used earlier in the evening.
Mr. Thwaites would be missing her by now, wondering what she was up to. Though he didn’t do much talking and bullying after dinner, he liked you to be there. He didn’t like anyone to be out. It filled him with angry curiosity and jealousy. He was never out, off duty, himself. He looked upon the Rosamund Tea Rooms as a sort of compulsory indoor game, in which he perpetually held the bank and dealt the cards.
She turned into Church Street again, and was again amongst the boots. What now? Go in and submit to Mr. Thwaites after all? Never. Or go to her room and try somehow to read and go to bed? No, no. Or stay out amongst the boots? Or go by herself to the Cinema? She had no desire to do so – in fact she hated the idea – but it was either that or the boots on the dark streets, and she had better go round and see if she could get in.
8
The quite recently built Odeon Cinema was in the narrow High Street. She pushed back the heavy door, and was dazzled by the light in the foyer, and smitten suddenly by the air of tension pervading the house – a tension which comes into being in the foyer of a crowded theatre anywhere, which centres around the inimical box-office, which repels the newcomer, and gives rise to a feeling of awe, of having to lower one’s voice and walk practically on tiptoe in deference to what is taking place inside.
She could only get the most expensive sort of seat – three and sixpence upstairs – and she was lucky to get this. That was the war. In the old days you could have strolled in at any time of the evening for ninepence. In the war everywhere was crowded all the time. The war seemed to have conjured into being, from nowhere, magically, a huge population of its own – one which flowed into and filled every channel and crevice of the country – the towns, the villages, the streets, the trains, the buses, the shops, the hotels, the inns, the restaurants, the movies.
She was given a seat in the gangway, and was no longer awed, because she was now herself taking part in the rites which had seemed so momentous from the foyer. The ‘News’ was on – war pictures, naturally – war, war, war . . . The war shone on to the lurid, packed, smoke-hazed, rustling audience, the greater part of which was dressed for war. The familiar, steady voice of the announcer threaded its way through the pictures
– a curiously menacing voice, threatening to the enemy, yet admonitory to the patriot, and on one tireless note. Through pictures of aeroplanes falling, guns firing, ships sinking, bombs exploding, this voice maintained its polite but hollow and forbidding character.
One studying Miss Roach’s face in the white darkness would soon have become aware that she had not given up her three shillings and sixpence for that for which most of those surrounding her had given up their money – that is, for entertainment. Such a student might well, indeed, have been at a loss to read correctly the feelings betrayed by her expression. From its tenseness, its unhappy and half-frowning absorption he might have guessed bewilderment, sorrow, commiseration for others, loneliness – and he would have been right in suspecting the presence, in some degree, of all these. But the emotion he would primarily have been watching was, in fact, nothing more complicated than the simple emotion of fear. Miss Roach stared at the screen with plain fear on her face – fear of life, of herself, of Mr. Thwaites, of the times and things into which she had been born, and which boomed about her and encircled her everywhere.
CHAPTER TWO
1
IT was a quarter past five in the afternoon, and she sat in the white darkness of the Odeon Cinema at Thames Lockdon.
It was Saturday. Three weeks had passed since she had rushed out from Mr. Thwaites and hidden herself in here, and this afternoon there was no expression of fear upon her face. She was still, however, looking at the screen without seeing what she was looking at. Beside her the American – ‘her’ American – Lieutenant Dayton Pike – sat silently.
‘Her’ American? . . . Yes, she believed she could, in an obscure way, claim him as ‘hers’. In the last astonishing three weeks it seemed that she had actually acquired her own American – just as every shop-girl, girl-typist, girl-clerk, girl-assistant, girl-anything in fact, in the town, had acquired her own.
The Americans had stormed the town. Those two shy Lieutenants who had been in to dinner that night at the Rosamund Tea Rooms had been two mere timid scouts sent on ahead of the reverberating, twanging, banging invasion. Of those two Lieutenant Dayton Pike had been one, and he was no longer timid. He was, indeed, very far from being timid.
‘Her’ American, then . . . But to what extent hers? And in what exact meaning of the word? That remained an enigma. Lieutenant Dayton Pike remained an enigma. He had begun as such, and he remained so.
She had soon learned that he was not as shy as he had appeared that night in the dining-room with his friend.
The next night she had caught an early train from London and had entered the Rosamund Tea Rooms at about six o’clock. He was coming down the stairs. ‘Good evening,’ he said, and grinned at her in the dim light of the hall. She smiled back, and said ‘Good evening,’ and went on up the stairs. But he called her back.
‘Say,’ he said, speaking in a low voice (the dimness of the light somehow caused one to speak in a low voice). ‘Are you coming round the corner?’
She did not get his meaning. ‘Corner?’ she said. ‘What corner?’
‘The Sun?’ he said. ‘Or whatever it’s called? They open up at six, don’t they?’
She now saw that he was inviting her to go with him to the public-house – the River Sun. She was taken aback, and said ‘Well, I don’t know . . . I was going upstairs to tidy up.’
‘Aw,’ he said. ‘Come on. You can tidy up round there – can’t you?’
‘Well . . .’ she said, and ‘Aw,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ And a moment later she was out in the blackness with him.
He guessed it was ‘kind of a dark night’, and he took her arm in the most natural way as they crossed the road. With equal naturalness he failed to relinquish her arm as they walked along on the other side. He asked her if she worked in London and she said that she did. She was completely bewildered and taken aback. She was too stunned to react to the situation or the man in any way, favourably or unfavourably. She was conscious, however, of a slight feeling of pleasure, pleasure at having the monotony of her evening blown to smithereens in this way, and at the thought of the minor tumult which this would cause in the boarding-house when it got to hear of it – the tumult, in particular, in the breast of Mr. Thwaites, who was no doubt at this moment complacently awaiting her return and booming away in the Lounge. She was also pleasantly conscious of the bigness of the man who held her arm in the dark. Finally she was conscious that the man, without being drunk, had been drinking during the afternoon.
They went into the bright Saloon Lounge of the River Sun and took a seat at a table in a corner near the fire. She asked for a small gin and french, and he went to the bar. He returned with a large gin and french and a large whisky and soda for himself. She now had a chance to look at him. He was big and broad in his uniform, and wore large spectacles. He had a fresh brown complexion, and at moments she thought that he was under forty and at moments she thought that he was over this age. His complexion, like her own, was at the moment glowing, with the cold weather. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and at moments she thought that this was due to the cold, and at moments she thought that this was due to his drinking alcohol regularly and heavily. He had gorgeous American teeth in a warm, broad American grin. He talked nineteen to the dozen.
Soon enough her heart, in occult collusion with the gin and french inside her, began to warm towards him, and she was aware of relaxing and enjoying herself whole-heartedly. The Rosamund Tea Rooms were mentioned, and he asked what the hell sort of a joint that was anyway? He just couldn’t get the hang of it. This attitude delighted her. She said that if it came to that, she couldn’t get the hang of it either, though she had been there more than a year. She explained that she had been bombed out of London, and that that was why she was living down here. He said he guessed that must have been pretty tough, and he looked at her with considerable awe and naivety. She felt a sudden, delightful, modest, gin and french pride in her experience as a 1940 Londoner. He said that he and his friend were billeted next door to the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and that they had come to an arrangement with Mrs. Payne to use the Lounge and have their evening meal there. They had thought it would be convenient, being next door, but they weren’t so sold on the idea now. He asked who was this Thwaites guy? He talked enough for five or six, didn’t he? She said he did, indeed.
He asked her if she was going to have the same again, and she said she really didn’t think she ought to have any more – that had been a big one. He told her not to start that sort of thing, and she said well then, she would, but a small one this time. As he went to the bar she found herself glowing through and through. Very little alcoholic spirit was required to cause Miss Roach to glow through and through.
He returned with a large gin and french and a large whisky and soda for himself. They continued to discuss the Rosamund Tea Rooms. She enlarged upon its many obscure evils, glooms, oddities, and inconveniences, and glowed more and more. He asked her questions and listened sympathetically and agreed. It was as though they had then and there resolved to found an anti-Rosamund Tea Rooms society, and were exhilaratedly rushing through its first rebellious motions.
She was now hardly capable of glowing more brightly within, but something he said made her do so. He said that, in spite of his dislike of the place, he had ‘spotted her first thing’ and that he had ‘made up his mind to meet up with her’. She was to think about this for many days to come. Indeed she was, really, to think about little else.
Then, all at once, everything went bad. His friend, Lieutenant Lummis, entered with two girls, and the tête-à-tête was transformed into an awkward yet noisy party of five. Miss Roach knew the two girls well by sight in the town: they worked in shops, and were not, as one’s mother would have said, ‘in her class’, and the meeting was therefore, from this point of view, ‘embarrassing’. Moreover, Lieutenant Lummis was drunk, and insisted upon buying her another large gin and french. This she hated, for she was already feeling giddy, hungry, and unhappy, but court
esy enforced her to drink it – courtesy, along with a deep-seated hatred of waste of money which Miss Roach’s simple upbringing and lack of experience completely disabled her from overcoming. Also the two girls, conscious of the conventions which would have existed for Miss Roach’s mother, were on the defensive, and would not talk to her, or even look at her, properly. They were voluble enough with the two Americans, however, and if Lieutenant Pike talked nineteen, Lieutenant Lummis talked ninety-nine to the dozen.
She was, in fact, almost completely left out of it, and her sole desire was to go home. Like a child anguishing to get down from table, she remained silent amidst the noise, and watched their faces, seeking an excuse to depart, and a moment to make her excuse. ‘Well, I must be off,’ she tried, but no one heard her, and three or four minutes passed before she had an opportunity of trying again . . . ‘Well, I really must be off,’ she said, and touched Lieutenant Pike’s arm. ‘Aw – don’t be silly,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘What’re you all having?’ ‘No – this is me,’ said Lieutenant Lummis, rising insecurely. ‘What’s it to be, folks?’
But the idea of being made to drink any more now put her into a kind of panic, and this brought her to her feet. ‘No – I really must go,’ she said. ‘I’m awfully sorry – I must go.’ The two men jeered at her, and Lieutenant Pike tried physically to force her down into her seat. But, while hiding her hideous embarrassment and feigning to be amused, she managed to remain standing, saying ‘No . . . no! . . . I really must go. I’m awfully sorry. I must go. Really! . . .’
Then there was an awkward, one might almost say a nasty, silence – the panic in her breast having been made manifest to the company. She saw the two girls staring at her, crudely and with a sour expressionlessness. Lieutenant Pike had the grace to rise and say ‘Well – if you must . . .’ ‘Yes, I really must,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much. Good night! And thanks so much!’
The Slaves of Solitude Page 5