The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

by The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (retail) (epub)

  Hardly had Henry’s mother dealt Henry’s new-found friendship a blow from the right, when up came les jeunes filles and dealt it a knockout from the left. It seemed that they had busily decorated and furnished two flats for American friends of Rodney’s – one for Mrs Milton Brothers and one for Robert J. Masterson and family – and as these American people were visiting the Continent before settling in England, the bills had been given to Rodney to send to them. The bills were quite large because Rodney had told les jeunes filles not to cheese-pare. Now Mrs Brothers and Mr Masterson and family had arrived in London and it seemed that they had already given the money for les jeunes filles to Rodney plus his commission. Jackie said, ‘You can imagine what it makes us look like,’ and Marcia said, ‘Yes, really it is pretty grim.’ Then Jackie said, ‘We look such awful chumps,’ and that I think was what I agreed with most. Henry said he felt sure that when Rodney returned, he would have some explanation to offer. I didn’t think this likely and I didn’t think Henry did. ‘Well,’ said Jackie, ‘that’s just it. I’m not sure that Rodney ought to return because if Mrs Brothers goes on as she is now, I think there’ll be a warrant out for him soon.’

  I felt miserable when they had gone and so did Henry, but for different reasons. All I could find to do was to pray that Mrs Brothers should die in her bath before she could start issuing warrants. Henry said. ‘I only hope he doesn’t come near this house again, because I’m not sure what my duty would be.’

  Then, the very next morning, at about eleven o’clock the telephone rang and it was Rodney. I told him what Henry had said and we agreed that it was most important that he should come to the house when Henry was out. He came, in fact, just before lunch.

  I had expected him to look a little haunted like Humphrey Bogart sometimes used to in fugitive films; he did look a little hunted but it wasn’t quite like the films. Less to my taste. As I looked at him, I suddenly thought of something. So I made an excuse and ran upstairs and hid my jewel box. I would have hated to have been issuing warrants for Rodney. Then we had a long chat and something more. About that I will only say I have rather a ‘time and a place’ view and so it ended things as far as I was concerned with a whimper rather than a bang. As to the chat, I said that I had thought things over and the answer was no, very reluctantly. And when people say ‘you don’t know what it cost me’, I think it’s rather stupid because they could always tell you. So I will tell what this cost me – it cost me the whole of a possible, different life with someone very attractive. I shall always regret it when the life I am leading is particularly boring, which it often is. But that, after all, is the nature of decisions. The answer had to be no. And I do not despair of other chances. But life is, indeed, a cheat.

  What Rodney said after my negative answer was a pity. He went on again about how soon I would become a hard little bitch and rather depressing with all my ‘amusing’ talk. He even said, ‘I should think you might go off your head. People who get the idea that they can make a game of other people’s lives often do.’

  I must say that I thought, everything considered about Rodney’s own life, this was a bit too much. And in any case all this toughness and bullying was all right when Rodney was pressing his suit, but now that the suit had been pressed and sent back, I thought it all rather boring. And so I changed the conversation to the warrant that might be out at any moment. Rodney was well aware of this, he said, and he had almost enough but not quite to get abroad that night. I said I would see what I could find in ready cash, because obviously cheques would be no good. He didn’t seem sure about this, but I stuck to my point, emphasizing how little he understood money matters as evidenced in his life.

  While I was looking for what cash I had, he went upstairs to the lavatory and I heard him walking about in my bedroom so I was glad for his sake that I had hidden my jewel box. And I did find enough to help him overseas, because I had put some aside in case he turned up although I did not tell him this. Away, looking rather hunted but still very handsome, he went out of my life.

  It was all rather an anti-climax without Rodney, although his name was kept alive, what with Henry’s mother, and les jeunes filles, and the Americans, and Mr Brodrick furious at only having a first chapter, however brilliant, after paying so much in advances. But all this was not the same for me as Rodney’s physical presence, not at all the same.

  It was only a month later that it got into the papers in quite a small column that he’d been arrested for stealing some money at the house of the Marchesa Ghirlaindini in Rome where he was a guest. It mentioned also about Mrs Brothers’s warrant.

  Well, I did miss the excitement of life with him and the decision that I hated so much when I had to make it; so I got talking to an old friend of mine – Mary Mudie who writes a long, gossipy column in a Sunday newspaper. And sure enough there was a featured bit about him the very next Sunday. All about the well-known people he’d dined with and about Lady Ann Denton, how he was one of the ‘many fortunate young men of talent and charm who had profited by her friendship’, and how valuable she was as a bridge between her generation and the young. Then there was a bit about Rodney’s great brilliance as a writer and how few who knew him in this capacity realized his double life. It told us with what expectancy connoisseurs of the fresh and original in modern writing had awaited his new book and how ironic its title Honour and Civility now seemed. So brilliant was the first chapter of this, it said, that an old-established publishing firm, famed for its cautious policy, had gone to unusual lengths to assist its young author. Realizing the supreme importance to a writer of congenial surroundings in which to work, the enterprising junior partner Mr Henry Raven even installed their brilliant protégé as a tenant in his own house. Then came a block heading ‘More Friend Than Lodger’ and it was followed by a bit about me. ‘ “I can hardly believe that Rodney was leading this double life,” said almond-eyed, brunette June Raven, well-known young London hostess and wife of publisher Raven, “he was more of a friend than a lodger as far as I was concerned. He was not only clever and witty, but he had the rare gift of easy intimacy.” ’ Dear Mary followed this up immediately with a mention of Rodney’s first book, Cuckoo – ‘a study of married infidelity in history’s pages as witty as it was scholarly.’ The paragraphs went on with a little interview with Rodney’s parents. ‘ “Rodney never took to the building trade,” his father told me in the front parlour of his typical unpretentious little Scots “hame”, “he always wanted big things out of life.” ’ And then Mary ended on a moral note, ‘Rodney Galt got his big things – bigger perhaps than he imagined when an Italian court on Monday last sentenced him…’ It was a sad little article, but I did think it was clever of Mary to have made so much of what I told her.

  I’m afraid Rodney will be very upset by the piece about his parents, but he did say very nasty things to me. And Henry, too, won’t like the ‘more friend than lodger’ part, but Henry ought to pay for my being faithful to him too, I think. At least that’s how I feel, after life has presented me with such awful choices.

  Sure enough Henry read Mary’s article and got into a terrible rage. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s actionable,’ he said. So I looked very nonchalant and said, ‘I don’t think so, darling, because I supplied Mary with all the information.’ Then he looked at me and said, ‘I think you should be very careful, June. This sort of mischievous behaviour is frequently a danger signal. It may seem a strange thing to say to you but you’d only have yourself to blame if you went off your head.’ He was trembling when he went out of the room, so I think it likely that he’d known about me and Rodney for some time.

  Well, there you are – both Henry and Rodney take a ‘psychological’ view of me. But as I said before I often think that common sense views are wiser. I spoke before of my old nurse and what she used to say of me was, ‘Miss June wants to have her cake and eat it.’ Well, so do most people one meets nowadays. But I think perhaps I want it more than the rest, which makes me think that in the end I�
��ll get it.

  * * *

  JEAN RHYS

  * * *

  THE LOTUS

  ‘Garland says she’s a tart.’

  ‘A tart! My dear Christine, have you seen her? After all, there are limits.’

  ‘What, round about the Portobello Road? I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Ronnie said. ‘She’s writing a novel. Yes, dearie –’ he opened his eyes very wide and turned the corners of his mouth down – ‘all about a girl who gets seduced –’

  ‘Well, well.’

  ‘On a haystack.’ Ronnie roared with laughter.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll have a bit of luck; she may get tight earlier than usual tonight and not turn up.’

  ‘Not turn up? You bet she will.’

  Christine said, ‘I can’t imagine why you asked her here at all.’

  ‘Well, she borrowed a book the other day, and she said she was coming up to return it. What was I to do?’

  While they were still arguing there was a knock on the door and he called, ‘Come in… Christine, this is Mrs Heath, Lotus Heath.’

  ‘Good evening,’ Lotus said in a hoarse voice. ‘How are you? Quite well, I hope… Good evening, Mr Miles. I’ve brought your book. Most enjoyable.’

  She was a middle-aged woman, short and stout. Her plump arms were bare, the finger nails varnished bright red. She had rouged her mouth unskilfully to match her nails, but her face was very pale. The front of her black dress was grey with powder.

  ‘The way these windows rattle!’ Christine said. ‘Hysterical, I call it.’ She wedged a piece of newspaper into the sash, then sat down on the divan. Lotus immediately moved over to her side and leaned forward.

  ‘You do like me, dear, don’t you? Say you like me.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I think it’s so nice of you to ask me up here,’ Lotus said. Her sad eyes, set very wide apart, rolled vaguely round the room, whichwas distempered yellow and decorated with steamship posters – ‘Morocco, Land of Sunshine’, ‘Come to Beautiful Bali’. ‘I get fed up, I can tell you, sitting by myself in that basement night after night. And day after day if it comes to that.’

  Christine remarked primly, ‘This is a horribly depressing part of London, I always think.’

  Her nostrils dilated. Then she pressed her arms close against her sides, edged away and lit a cigarette, breathing the smoke in deeply.

  ‘But you’ve got it very nice up here, haven’t you? Is that a photograph of your father on the mantelpiece? You are like him.’

  Ronnie glanced at his wife and coughed. ‘Well, how’s the poetry going?’ he asked, smiling slyly as he said the word ‘poetry’ as if at an improper joke. ‘And the novel, how’s that getting on?’

  ‘Not too fast,’ Lotus said, looking at the whisky decanter. Ronnie got up hospitably.

  She took the glass he handed to her, screwed up her eyes, emptied it at a gulp and watched him refill it with an absentminded expression.

  ‘But it’s wonderful the way it comes to me,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a long book. I’m going to get everything in – the whole damn thing. I’m going to write a book like nobody’s ever written before.’

  ‘You’re quite right, Mrs Heath, make it a long book,’ Ronnie advised.

  His politely interested expression annoyed Christine. ‘Is he trying to be funny?’ she thought, and felt prickles of irritation all over her body. She got up, murmuring, ‘I’ll see if there’s any more whisky. It’s sure to be needed.’

  ‘The awful thing,’ Lotus said as she was going out, ‘is not knowing the words. That’s the torture – knowing the thing and not knowing the words.’

  In the bedroom next door Christine could still hear her monotonous, sing-song voice, the voice of a woman who often talked to herself. ‘Springing this ghastly old creature on me!’ she thought. ‘Ronnie must be mad.’

  ‘This place is getting me down,’ she thought. The front door was painted a bland blue. There were four small brass plates and bell-pushes on the right-hand side – Mr and Mrs Garland, Mr and Mrs Miles, Mrs Spencer, Miss Reid, and a dirty visiting-card tacked underneath – Mrs Lotus Heath. A painted finger pointed downwards.

  Christine powdered her face and made up her mouth carefully. What could the fool be talking about?

  ‘Is it as hopeless as all that?’ she said, when she opened the sitting-room door. Lotus was in tears.

  ‘Very good.’ Ronnie looked bashful and shuffled his feet. ‘Very good indeed, but a bit sad. Really, a bit on the sad side, don’t you think?’

  Christine laughed softly.

  ‘That’s what my friend told me,’ Lotus said, ignoring her hostess. ‘ “Whatever you do, don’t be gloomy,” he said, “because that gets on people’s nerves. And don’t write about anything you know, for then you get excited and say too much, and that gets under their skins too. Make it up; use your imagination.” And what about my book? That isn’t sad, is it! I’m using my imagination. All the same, I wish I could write down some of the things that have happened to me, just write them down straight, sad or not sad. I’ve had my bit of fun too; I’ll say I have.’

  Ronnie looked at Christine, but instead of responding she looked away and pushed the decanter across the table.

  ‘Have another drink before you tell us any more. Do, please. That’s what the whisky’s here for. Make the most of it, because I’m sorry to say there isn’t any more in the kitchen and the pub is shut now.’

  ‘She thinks I’m drinking too much of your Scotch,’ Lotus said to Ronnie.

  ‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t think that.’

  ‘Well, don’t think that, dear – what’s your name? – Christine. I’ve got a bottle of port downstairs and I’ll go and get it in a minute.’

  ‘Do,’ Christine said. ‘Let’s be really matey.’

  ‘That’s right, dear. Well, as I was saying to Mr Miles, the best thing I ever wrote was poetry. I don’t give a damn about the novel, just between you and me. Only to make some money, the novel is. Poetry’s what I really like. All the same, the memory I’ve got, you wouldn’t believe. Do you know, I can remember things people have said to me ever so long ago? If I try, I can hear the words and I can remember the voice saying them. It’s wonderful, the memory I’ve got. Of course, I can’t do it as well now as I used to, but there you are, nobody stays young for ever.’

  ‘No, isn’t it distressing?’ Christine remarked to no one in particular. ‘Most people go on living long after they ought to be dead, don’t they? Especially women.’

  ‘Sarcastic, isn’t she? A dainty little thing, but sarcastic.’ Lotus got up, swayed and held on to the mantelpiece. ‘Are you a mother, dear?’

  ‘Do you mean me?’

  ‘No, I can see you’re not – and never will be if you can help it. You’re too fly, aren’t you? Well, anyway, I’ve just finished a poem. I wrote it with the tears running down my face and it’s the best thing I ever wrote. It was as if somebody was saying into my ears all the time, “Write it, write it.” Just like that. It’s about a woman and she’s in court and she hears the judge condemning her son to death. “You must die,” he says. “No, no, no,” the woman says, “he’s too young.” But the old judge keeps on. “Till you die,” he says. And, you see –’ her voice rose – ‘he’s not real. He’s a dummy, like one of those things ventriloquists have, he’s not real. And nobody knows it. But she knows it. And so she says – wait, I’ll recite it to you.’

  She walked into the middle of the room and stood very straight with her head thrown back and her feet together. Then she clasped her hands loosely behind her back and announced in a high, artificial voice, ‘The Convict’s Mother.’

  Christine began to laugh. ‘This is too funny. You mustn’t think me rude, I can’t help it. Recitations always make me behave badly.’ She went to the gramophone and turned over the records. ‘Dance for us instead. I’m sure you dance beautifully. Here’s the very thing – Just One More Chance. That’l
l do, won’t it?’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ Ronnie said. ‘You go on with the poem.’

  ‘Not much I won’t. What’s the good, if your wife doesn’t like poetry?’

  ‘Oh, she’s only a silly kid.’

  ‘Tell me what you laugh at, and I’ll tell you what you are,’ Lotus said. ‘Most people laugh when you’re unhappy, that’s when they laugh. I’ve lived long enough to know what – and maybe I’ll live long enough to see them laugh the other side of their faces, too.’

  ‘Don’t you take any notice of her,’ Ronnie repeated. ‘She’s like that.’ He nodded at Christine’s back, speaking in a proud and tender voice. ‘She was telling me only this morning that she doesn’t believe in being sentimental about other people. Weren’t you, Christine?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you anything of the sort.’ Christine turned round, her face scarlet. ‘I said I was tired of slop – that’s what I said. And I said I was sick of being asked to pity people who are only getting what they deserve. When people have a rotten time you can bet it’s their own fault.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lotus. ‘You’re talking like a bloody fool, dear. You’ve never felt anything in your life, or you wouldn’t be able to say that. Rudimentary heart, that’s your trouble. Your father may be a clergyman, but you’ve got a rudimentary heart all the same.’ She was still standing in the middle of the room, with her hands behind her back. ‘You tell her, Mr What’s-your-name? Tell the truth and shame the devil. Go on, tell your little friend she’s talking like a bloody fool.’

  ‘Now, now, now, what’s all this about?’ Ronnie shifted uncomfortably. He reached out for the decanter and tilted it upside down into his glass. ‘It’s always when you want a drink really badly that there isn’t any more. Have you ever noticed it? What about that port?’

  The two women were glaring at each other. Neither answered him.

  ‘What about that port, Mrs Heath? Let’s have a look at that port you promised us.’