The Nightingales Are Singing

by Monica Dickens

  No, thought Christine bleakly, but without bitterness, as they walked across the gravel space outside the hospital to their cars. I don't know what you would do without me. Aunt Jo solved the problem of Daddy before. Now I do.

  They took it for granted that her lot in life was now to stay at home and keep house for her father. Unknowingly, they had decided for her what she should do about Vinson. Perhaps, in that far-away time which was only yesterday when Aunt Josephine was still alive, she might have married him. Now she could not, and the idea of it was already a senseless dream.

  Roger was more cheerful now that he was outside the hospital. "Still got that pansy car, I see," he said, as Christine went towards the Buick. "That Yank must be pretty far gone to hand that smashing job over to a ham hand like my sister."

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  He wanted to make jokes now, to resume his position as funster of the family, and shake them out of their trouble.

  "I'll be giving it back," Christine said. "He's going away soon/'

  "Oh well," said Roger, "they come and they go. I don't suppose he'll be much loss to you, apart from the car. I must say, for one awful moment, we were afraid you might be going to marry him, weren't we, Syl?"

  "Hush, dear," she said. "You're making too much noise." She did not add "with Aunt Josephine only a few hours dead," but that was what she meant.

  Roger became grave again and helped his father dutifully into the Buick. Mr. Cope had not spoken much since the nurse had met them at the entrance to the ward and they had seen through the glass doors the bare springs of the bed from which the mattress had gone to be fumigated, and the lost, empty look had come down on his face and settled there.

  He was not irritable any more. He was not sarcastic or fidgety or self-centred. He was not even sad. He was just nothing. He muddled through the days, doing whatever Christine suggested, but she suspected that when she sent him into his study to work he spent most of the time staring out of the window.

  Their tragedy did not bring them closer. They were two people together in the overlarge house, but alone, with nothing to say to each other. Christine had not yet been able to find anybody to come and help her in the house, and she was busy all the time she was at home. She and her father rarely sat together, except at meals, which he did not enjoy, because she could not cook as well as Aunt Josephine.

  Mr. Parker had offered to give her a week's leave, but she refused. She did not want to stop working, It was all she had left of her old life, and there were people to talk to at the

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  shop. She could not bear the thought of being at home all day, and so she struggled on, with the house growing dirtier and more untidy, the animals getting out of hand, Aunt Josephine's possessions still unsorted, and herself getting more and more tired and discouraged at the idea of the future, which promised to go on like this for ever.

  Sooner or later she would have to see Vinson. She put him off with one excuse after another, but a few days after Aunt Josephine's funeral he arrived at Roselawn one evening when Christine was sitting in an overall in the kitchen, trying to sort out the tradesmen's bills.

  Vinson came in by the open back door, as he had learned to do since he became a frequent visitor to the house. Christine got up, pushing back her hair and conscious of her bedraggled appearance as he put his arms round her and kissed her.

  "What's the matter?" he asked, when she did not respond.

  "You know what's the matter." She turned away.

  "Sure. I'm terribly sorry about this. Christine, why wouldn't you see me before? You know how sorry I am for you, but it doesn't make any difference to you and me. I'm still there, honey. You can put your head on my shoulder and cry if you want to."

  The arrogance of him. The typical male arrogance, which thought that a loss could not matter to you as long as he was there. "I don't want to cry," she said quite crossly. "I finished crying some time ago. I don't need to howl all the time to show how much I mind about Aunt Jo. I wish you hadn't come. Please take the car and go away. I don't want to see you."

  As soon as she said this she was afraid. She had seen Vinson angry once or twice, and she did not like it. He became different and quite frightening, his slight body tense, and revealing the strength it did not normally seem to have.

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  She looked at him cautiously, but he was not angry. He was evidently going to humour her and treat her gently, and she despised him for it. She would have preferred his anger.

  "Now then," he said, putting his arms round her again. "Now then, darling. You're all upset, I know, but you mustn't be that way. It's all right. Everything will be all right when we're married."

  "But we're not going to be married!" Christine pulled her self away and went to the stove, where she began to stir the dogs' horsemeat furiously. "I can't marry you, Vin. I know I can't."

  "Look here," he said calmly. "This isn't good enough. You told me several days ago that you'd marry me. I believed you. I believed you meant it, and I'm holding you to your promise. I expect you to keep faith with me as I shall with you."

  "Oh, don't be pompous!" she said, resisting a theatrical desire to stamp her foot. She went on stirring, and the steam from the boiling horsemeat made her eyes smart. She would not turn round in case he thought that she was crying.

  "I'm not pompous," he said. "I'm damned mad, if you want to know."

  She risked a look at him, and he was angry now, his brows down and his mouth set. He looked like a Sicilian with a knife in his palm.

  "What do you think you're playing at?" he asked roughly. "One day you'll marry me, and the next you won't. This is a hell of a way to treat a man, and you'll have to learn you can't play that game with me. Come away from that goddamn stove. Come here."

  "I won't," she said, hearing her voice rising. "I've changed my mind. I told you. I can change my mind, can't I?"

  He dropped his voice. "I suppose it's because you think you can't leave your father now," he said, and because he had

  guessed most of the truth Christine turned round and said furiously: "Can't you understand — are you so conceited that you can't understand that I just don't want to marry you?"

  "I see.'' He picked up his uniform cap from the table and went out of the kitchen. Christine heard the Buick start, turn round and roar away, and she knelt on the floor and laid her face against the silky cheek of her dog, who always came to her when she was crying.

  She cried several times during the next few days. She cried for Aunt Josephine, because she was tired and discouraged. Aunt Jo had always been the one to go to when you were tired, or could not cope with something you had to do. Aunt Jo would say comfortably: "Leave it. It'll keep. Do it domani, like the Italians do." And she would put you to bed with a hot-water bottle and a bowl of soup, or take you out to see a silly film, either of which worked equally well.

  Margaret was away from work again. She had been ill and nearly lost her baby, and it was doubtful whether she would ever be able to come back to the shop. Mr. Parker, who hated new people in the department, clung to the idea that she would, and did not ask for anyone to replace her.

  Helen was on holiday, and Christine was sometimes too busy even to take her lunch hour. When she did she could not be bothered to go out. She trailed up to the canteen and ate what they called Vienna steak, and listened to the futile complaints of the people who were always saying what they were going to tell the management, and never did.

  In what she already thought of as The Old Days, when she came home from the shop, Aunt Josephine had always wanted to hear about her day and about the funny or irritating things that had happened. But her father did not want to hear. He was not interested in Goldwyn's. If she said that she had had

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  a hard day he would say: 'Well, why don't you give it up? You know I've never liked you being a shop girl/' although he could not possibly go on living in that absurdly big house on the little money his translations brought him, if Christine
gave up Goldwyn's.

  Now when she came home tired from the shop, dreading the thought of having to cook supper and do a mountain of ironing and clean the silver or wash the kitchen floor, or tackle any one of the hundred jobs that were piling up on her with no hope of ever getting done, there was no Aunt Josephine to make her go to bed early and say: "Do it domani."

  She found a woman to come and clean in the mornings, but she made a noise banging her brush against the stairs when Mr. Cope was working, and he fired her before Christine came home. She found another woman with a long wet nose and weak ankles, who brought with her a misshapen four-year-old daughter, who ate all the cakes and biscuits and broke a valuable vase. Christine forgave this, and the woman and child disappeared one day with the last of Vinson's American hams, a bottle of sherry and the orphanage box full of pennies. Christine did not have the time or energy to look for anyone else. She struggled on alone.

  She went to bed exhausted, and woke still tired. For the first time in her career she began to make mistakes at work. Alice, catching her out in a muddle over the cash register, said: "You must be in love, Miss Cope. That's what it is."

  In love! If only she was. . . . When she had been in love with Jerry she had been vague and unpractical, living only for the weekends when she could get up to Oxford; but it had not mattered. When you were in love the world conspired to help you, to take the boring practicalities of life off your hands so that you could get on with the charming business of being in love. Love glorified you and gave you an unfair advantage over other people.

  Rhona was in love again, with a Hungarian film director, with whom she was occupying herself while her husband was in Brazil. She came down to see Christine and was horrified by the mess and drudgery in which she found her. She took a duster and sat down at the kitchen table to help Christine with the silver, but she soon pushed her chair away from the table and forgot about the silver while she talked about the Hungarian.

  She was fond of Christine and warmly sorry for her, but at the moment she was more interested in the Hungarian.

  "It's really love this time/' she mooned. "I know now that it was never the real thing before."

  "Oh, you always say that, Ro. It's always the one and only real thing — until the next time."

  "Don't be horrid. You wouldn't say that if you knew Lajos. You must meet him." Rhona tipped her chair back against the dresser. "He's wonderful. I tell you he's made a different woman of me." All Rhona's new men made a different woman of her.

  "He's so brilliant. He's much cleverer than me, which is such a relief. I'm sick of men who pretend to think I'm cleverer than them, and sit around waiting for me to say something witty. With Lajos, you know, I sort of — sort of feel almost like a peasant girl." She laughed, looking less like a peasant girl than it was possible to imagine.

  "He dominates me, you see, and it's wonderful. It's exciting. You know, Chris, I believe that's how women really want to be treated."

  "You might try it with Dan some day," Christine said, thinking of Rhona's husband, who was a ball of fire in the business world, but a trained seal in his own home.

  "Oh, Dan!" Rhona said. "That's different. Don't let's talk about him, or I might start feeling guilty. Let's talk about

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  Lajos. Let's have an evening together soon and you'll see what I mean about him. You bring someone and well go dancing."

  "Oh, Ro, I don't think I can go out. Daddy doesn't really like being alone in the evening, and, anyway, I've got too much to do here."

  "Nonsense," said Rhona, "you're getting warped. We'll have a party. Who'll you bring? Why don't you bring that American you took to the film? What about him, by the way? How's that coming along?"

  "It isn't," Christine said. "It didn't work."

  "Oh well, too bad," Rhona lost interest, because she had looked at her watch and seen that it was time to go and meet the Hungarian. "I'll find you someone else, Chris darling. When I'm in love I always want everyone else to be in love too, and you can't go on playing at being a Victorian daughter for ever. You look ten years older already."

  "Thanks. That's a big help." Christine kissed her at the door and Rhona drove away, 'taking her light and excitement with her.

  Christine went back to the kitchen table and the pile of heavy old silver, which made her its slave instead of being a slave for her use. It was Saturday afternoon. Her father had announced at lunch that he had invited a friend for dinner, and presently Christine would have to go out with her shop ping basket and find something for them to eat.

  After dinner her father and Mr. Wilson, who dropped cigarette ash on his waistcoat and constantly cleared his throat, would sit and talk about the Labour Government, and Christine would wash the dishes and darn her father's socks. It would go on like this for years and years, and she would grow to look as drab as she felt now, and people would say what a good daughter she was, and call her that poor Miss Cope, who never married.

  She wanted to cry, but what was the use of crying if you had no one to be upset that you were upset enough to cry? If Rhona cried she would have the Hungarian to comfort her. There would be some point for her in crying, because it would stimulate the Hungarian to emotion too, and they could have quite a scene together. But you could not make a scene all by yourself.

  When Vinson came in at the back door she was still sitting with her hands among the silver, doing nothing.

  "Hullo," she said. "I look awful." Usually, you only said this to a man when you knew that you did not. Christine knew that she looked awful now in a sweater that had shrunk in the wash, with her hair straight because she had been too tired to set it last night; but Vinson was out of her life, and it did not matter.

  "That's O.K.," he said, not denying it. He was in civilian clothes, and he looked more at home in the kitchen than he did when he was in uniform. He sat down opposite her at the table, picked up a spoon and began to polish it carefully, as if that were his only interest in the world.

  "I told you not to come here again," Christine murmured, feeling that she ought to say that, although she was glad that he had come.

  "Oh, sure," he said, starting on another spoon. "I only came to see if you had the monkey-wrench from the car. I can't find it."

  "Oh yes. We used it when we were trying to unstop the wastepipe in the bathroom. Aunt Jo must have put it in our toolbox. I'm sorry. Til get it." She got up. Nowadays, when she got up from a chair, she had to push herself up with her hands, and he noticed it.

  "Don't bother now," he said. "It can wait. Let's you and me have a drink together first, what do you say?"

  "A drink?" She looked at the kitchen clock, made like a

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  frying-pan, which she had bought for Aunt Josephine last Christmas. "It's not five o'clock yet/'

  "So what? You British never raise a thirst before six o'clock because the law says you mustn't, but an American can raise a thirst any time. Can I go fix one for us?"

  "All right. You know where everything is. My father's out walking his dog/' They both knew that Mr. Cope would disapprove of the cocktail cupboard being unlatched at this hour.

  Vinson took out some ice, and when he had gone through to the drawing-room Christine hastily went to her bag and powdered her nose, put on lipstick and combed her hair. He caught her at the mirror when he came back with two strong whiskys on a tray. He always carried drinks and food as neatly as if he were a trained parlourmaid.

  "That's better," he said. "You're so pretty, Christine, you mustn't let yourself go. You've got thinner/' he said, as she came over to the table, where he had cleared aside the silver and put the glasses down.

  "Have I? That's a good thing then. I was too fat before."

  He did not answer this. He did not seem inclined to talk much. He sat there sipping his drink and smoking, and left it to her to make the conversation. She did not know what she should say.

  "I can't stay very long," she told him. "I've got to go out and get so
me food. Daddy has asked a friend for supper."

  "You've got too much to do," Vinson said.

  It was the first time anyone had said this to her since Aunt Josephine died. She had drunk half her glass of whisky, and it made her unable to resist saying: "Oh yes, Vin, I have. It's awful. I can't get anyone to help, and I just can't cope, and Daddy doesn't want to leave this house and get a flat, and I just don't know how I'm ever going to get straight. I can't see it ever getting any better."

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  "You're pretty unhappy, aren't you, Christine?" he said, looking at his glass.

  She paused, and then she said on a sigh: "Oh, Vin, I am." She knew she should not say this to him; but although he was there in the kitchen with her he was out of her life, and so perhaps she could admit it.

  "It's awful. I miss Aunt Jo so much, and I'm so tired, and it's so dreary because Daddy and I — well, he never wants to hear about the shop or anything. He doesn't like it if I go out, and I don't really want to, but I've got nobody to talk to. I've got nothing."

  She held herself from making the noises or the facial expressions of crying, but tears began to run down the side of her nose and into her mouth, and she kept her head down as she said: "Aunt Jo was always here, and she was my friend. But it's all so different now. I've got nothing."

  "You've got me," Vinson said quietly. It sounded like a line from a play, facile and just right, but when she looked up at him she saw that he meant it.

  "You've still got me," he said, and a warm flux of comfort began to flow through her as she let herself drift for a while on the tide of all the things he began to say to her in a quickened voice. He leaned across the table, twisting his empty glass round and round in his narrow hands, and told her that she was the sort of girl he had been looking for all his life and never found, and how his friends would be jealous of him, and how he would make her happy. He told her about America and the home they would have there together, and all the many splendid things he could offer her in his own country.