The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “I’ve been foraging for refreshments,” he said. “But all the biscuits and fruit and things seem to have been put away, and I’m blessed if I know where, though it is my own house …” My own house … I wasn’t hungry. I was shivering again. He made me drink some beer from his glass, holding me close to him. We went out and found a taxi on the rank and he took me to Etty’s door. It was five o’clock when I got to bed. Dead beat … I’ve seen Rollo tired, but never without his warm, dry, vital hand, never without his clear eye and fresh ruddy skin. His health is glorious. In his arms I feel an electric glow pass from him to me. How can Nicola be an invalid, living by such a warm source of vigour? If she slept with him … But she doesn’t, of course—that’s what it is … She won’t. Poor Rollo … But I comfort him, I always will.

  Then came the next week-end, the last we could have together for goodness knows how long; she’d be back the week after. Etty was in, so he didn’t call for me. I went with my suitcase to Paddington and sat on a bench on Platform One, and waited. He was half an hour late—a depressing start—A man in a bowler hat and stiff collar with wet lips and eager teeth sat down beside me and tried to engage me in conversation. He spat when he talked. An elderly crumpled woman with a brown stole and pince-nez walked up and down eyeing me, I got a mad idea she was the Girls’ Friendly or the Rescue and Preventive come for me; and when I saw Rollo at last I went to meet him in a stiff flurry as if everybody was looking, and guessing what we were up to. He only said, “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t help it.” I was prim with unuttered reproach.

  What a day—dark, sodden, ruined with rain since early morning­. We drove west. There was something between us, heavy, that wouldn’t disperse. We lunched in Oxford at the George; it was funny to go back there with Rollo. Afterwards we went into Blackwell’s and looked about. Rollo bought a huge illustrated book about Greek art, and I ordered a volume of poems by a new young man Jocelyn had told me about. We went on through Stow on the Wold—on … All that spacious sad green country with its beech groves and stone walls was beaten out by rain. It was like the end of the world; there seemed no way to deny or disregard its declaration of catastrophe. We wanted not to go to an hotel this time. I couldn’t face the register, and hotel faces staring again, we got too much attention. Rollo has the kind of English appearance and manner that makes waiters and porters press forward wherever he goes, expecting his tips to be liberal and his name quietly distinguished. He could never look like a medium-price standard traveller staying around with his wife … Our plan was to find a romantic little inn or a farmhouse that took in guests, and have two wonderful peaceful nights in rustic solitude, with perhaps cows and chickens and rural voices in dialect to wake us, and rosy-cheeked open wholesome country faces round us … Blue remembered hills, and perhaps the wood in trouble; never this infinite thick soup of rain … Oh, the rain!

  When it began to be dark we were far out on a country road the other side of Tewkesbury, the car began to splutter and check, going on the wrong number of cylinders. We drew up under trees and I held a torch in the rain while he did things inside the engine for what seemed ages. Then he went on; but soon she started to halt and cough again. “Poor dear,” he said. “She’s got a chill in her tummy. We’ll just have to crawl to the nearest garage if we can.” We crept on in low gear and after a mile or two we had the luck to find a lonely roadside wooden garage and workshop with a light on, and one man inside. We drove in under shelter and Rollo and the man poked about in the engine and fetched tools from the oily bench, and had a technical dialogue while I sat inside half in a stupor watching them stoop, straighten up in queer lights and shadows, seeing their lips move, hearing the hum of their voices like in a dream. He opened the door finally, and said:

  “There’s nothing for it, darling, we’ll have to leave her here till to-morrow. There’s quite a job of work to do on her, and he wants to knock off, it’s his Saturday night.” He spoke with indulgent regret; I knew he was quite pleased to be fussing with the engine, looking forward to more to-morrow. “He says there’s a little pub place about two miles on where they’d put us up. He’ll run us up in his tootler. He’s a nice chap. Shall we go and see what it’s like, darling? …”

  The man’s car smelt like Walker’s taxi used to, going to Meldon or Tulverton parties. The pub looked all right in the nearly-dark—square and whitewashed with a low dim stuffy bar full of wrinkled, grizzled men with pipes on wooden benches, and two young chaps throwing darts. Women weren’t allowed in the bar and I waited in the parlour beyond—a dun-coloured airless box with a table with a green plush cloth and an ash-tray on it saying “Smoke Player’s,” and a calendar for 1920 saying “Guinness” hung on the wall, and a pink egg-cup on the mantelpiece. Our man took charge for us in the bar, and there was a calling out into the kitchen and a consultation and a woman came in, and said doubtfully:

  “We ’ave got a room …”

  So I asked to see it, and she showed me up. It wasn’t too bad, just small and stuffy with a cottage smell, a mountainous iron bedstead and a tiny window looking out over fields. We’d be quite happy in it, I thought, with a fire and the window open. The woman had by no means an open apple-face, she was raw-boned and harsh and crooked, with untidy despairing hair-wisps and a pale long face both tense and vacant. The man came up from the bar and looked in—a little sharp man with false teeth and a cap on—and was familiar, perky, obsequious. Not a sympathetic couple. The dialect they spoke was Cockney … No bath, of course, I did long for one. When I went down again, Rollo was having a drink with his car chap in the bar, looking very cheerful and matey, so I went back to the awful parlour and waited. Soon I heard him say, “Well, good-night, and thanks so much. I’ll be along tomorrow morning …” And he came and joined me, and said again what a nice chap he was.

  “I think we’ll be all right here, darling, don’t you?” he said coaxing, in case I might be going to grumble—of course I didn’t, I never did with him. He often said I was the only woman who never did, his theory about women is they expect every damn’ thing and complain without stopping. I wonder does Nicola nag … How I loathe women who expect consideration because they’re women and give nothing back; who insist on the chivalry and yet hoot about sex-equality. I suppose with Ivor … I did go on at Ivor sometimes … Yes, I did. But there was tremendous provocation …

  Rollo soon got things going, as he always did; a fire in the parlour and drinks and supper ordered. The woman said she supposed she could cook us something, the man said: “Anything you fancy, you’ve only to mention it.” We had fried eggs and bacon, they tasted good with beer, Rollo had cold beef and pickles as well. I went up to bed, he stayed down and played darts with a local lad, making himself so popular with them all … Affable condescension like his mother and the rest … No, no, no, he’s not like that—never …

  The bed was remarkable—appalling, the sheets made of thick cottony stuff—is it twill?—faintly hairy and with a special smell. They were a bit damp. Outside in the black night the rain went on teeming …

  I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember how it started; I try, but I never shall. He was asleep long ago, I couldn’t sleep, I was so uncomfortable, and the other side of the wall someone snored, snored, hour after hour, a dull rhythmic boom with now and then a choke. It sounded so difficult, destructive, hostile, as if someone coarse and angry were hating human sleep, defiling it. And the rain going on seemed to be piling up something irrevocable around us—a doom. Rollo slept on his side, soundly, turned away from me … I started to cry, first quietly to myself, I was so on edge and tired—then sobbing and snuffling to wake him, he must comfort me. At last he turned over, and after a bit stirred and made a sleepy protesting noise, and murmured: “Oh, darling, don’t … What is it? I shouldn’t cry. It’s all right, you know. Go to sleep …” wanting not to hear, to be left in peace. I wondered if that’s how he talks to Nicola … I couldn’t let him not hear, I sobbed lo
uder.

  Suddenly he woke right up, astonished, incredulous, horrified. Poor Rollo. It was the first time he’d seen me cry, except for a few voluptuous tears … At Meldon he’d said so queerly: “Oh, but it’s such a luxury! Don’t you know that?” “Perhaps I’m not a crier,” I’d said demurely …

  “What’s the matter?” he said. “Why are you crying? Olivia!” He shook me. He never called me Olivia, always darling or something, the sound of it sobered me down. It all came out in a howling jumble—I couldn’t go on like this—I couldn’t—I loved him … Why should I stand aside, why should I never count? I realised now what his life was. I was outside and had nothing. I should lose him. In spite of boo-hooing so madly I felt quite clear in my head, not saying things I didn’t mean. Didn’t he know what love was? I said. Did he think I was satisfied, as he apparently was, seeing him once a week by stealth—did he ever think of it from my point of view? … Sobbing into the pillow till it was soaked, part of me thinking all the time of that horrible couple awake perhaps, listening, nudging each other, whispering: “Something funny up … I told you so …”

  Poor, poor old boy, he was appalled. “Stop, stop,” he kept saying, trying to turn me over. He lit a candle and got up and fetched his hanky to blow my nose. I blew it, and then I saw his face by candlelight, calm, thoughtful, severe almost; and I stopped crying. Was it worse than I thought then? Had I said something final, irrevocable? Would his voice say: “If you feel like that we must stop?” I shrank up into myself, flat on my back, to receive the blow he’d deal.

  “I must be very blind,” he said. “I’d no idea you weren’t happy, Olivia.”

  “I am—at least sometimes …”

  “I thought we were so happy.”

  “Perhaps we are really …” Imbecile, wanting to unsay it all now. “I know we are really.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “I didn’t know I felt it.”

  “Then what’s happened?”

  I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t … Jealous … I’ve seen your home, she’s real, I’m jealous of her; having said always I’m not jealous, not possessive. I said, “I suppose it’s been boiling up underneath. I’ve tried to suppress it, not worry you … But I get so frightened …” And I let out some more sobs.

  “You see—” He stopped. He’d said it before once, just like that, and stopped. I waited, terrified. The snoring went on and he seemed to hear it all of a sudden for the first time. He listened, and said, “God!” and gave a laugh. So I did too. After that it was easier. He took my hand and started stroking it, speaking very quietly.

  “Listen, darling. You know what my life is …”

  “Yes …” It began to be like being spoken to for one’s good by a kind firm elder, someone who expects you to be sensible enough to see their point of view, and there’ll be no appeal …

  “I’m married.”

  I could have cried out, hearing him state it like that, bald and direct for the first time.

  Anguish. I dug my nails into his hand, it must have hurt him, but he went on stroking.

  “Yes. You’re married.”

  “Well, there it is,” he said after a pause, and we were silent. There it is, there it is. He’s married. That was a fact when we started … It’ll teach you to get mixed up with a married man.

  “I can’t hurt her,” he said.

  “No.” Why shouldn’t she be hurt? I am …

  “And—whatever happens—as long as she wants me to stay— I couldn’t leave her.”

  “No.” She’s his wife, she comes first. “She does want you to stay then?” … Torture, getting that out.

  “Yes, she does.”

  “I see …” Well, there it is. After a bit I wrenched out, “Have you—have you ever talked of not, then?”

  Poor Rollo, he was suffering too. He didn’t know what to say, he was in an awful fix.

  “I suppose most married couples do some time or other … when they have difficulties. But she knows I never would—unless she wants it. And I don’t think she …she may some day, but I don’t think … She wants—she needs—to have someone she can count on …”

  “Yes, it’s nice for her …” I couldn’t help saying.

  We were silent. What was plain was what hadn’t been said. Never once, not even in the joyful, grateful, amazing beginning days, had he … no, not once … put her second—broken a plan made for, by, with her to stay with me … Not once. Nothing explicit said ever. Nothing crude or marital to hurt my feelings, but—well, there it is … I should have thought of it all before, I should have gone on being content with a half-share. I shouldn’t have gone to that house … He sat on the edge of the bed, holding my hand, his shoulders drooping forward, his face set, heavy and mournful-looking in the candle-light. Perfectly exhausted now, bled white, wanting only to rest, I said what hadn’t been said, knowing I wouldn’t feel any more pain much:

  “You love her.”

  “Yes, I do love her.”

  “Although she doesn’t—although it doesn’t work very well?”

  “No, it doesn’t work well at all.”

  He was struggling with things to say, not to say. It was agony for him, the whole thing, poor boy. He said:

  “But I thought you knew—I thought you understood all this.”

  “I suppose I did. One doesn’t think—tries not to …”

  He beat his fist in his hand, saying:

  “I’ve been the most bloody selfish swine that ever …You made me so happy. I never dreamt … I suppose I took it for granted you were happy, it was all right for you too … What am I to do?”

  “Don’t worry, I am all right. It doesn’t matter. As long as you …” Stopping, in case it was forcing him to say what he couldn’t say …what he did say.

  “Olivia, I love you.” Hardly ever saying it quietly like this. Often, “Darling, I do love you,” making love, but that’s quite different.

  “You do believe it, don’t you?” he said. “You must. Listen. I can’t change anything. I can’t change myself. I can’t shatter her. But I love you, I expect I always shall. If it’s worth it at all for you, don’t quite leave me.”

  The misery and despair were draining away like smooth dark water pouring away noiseless, without check, into a tunnel, gone … Life turned itself inside out again, like after a bad dream, showing its accustomed unsinister face. I thought I’d been mad. What on earth was the fuss?

  “I’m terribly happy,” I said. “If you love me nothing else matters. I can do without other things. And I promise,” I said, “I’ll never make a disturbance again.” I said, “Forgive me.”

  “Some day,” he said, “you won’t want me any more. Why should you? You’ll be fed up with me. Somebody will come along and marry you, and take you away from me. It’ll be only natural.” He was very sad. “You should marry again, I know you should. I tell myself so.”

  “It won’t happen,” I said.

  “Yes, yes. It will. You should have a home, you should have children. It’s such a waste you shouldn’t.” Terribly unhappy voice. “I’m so afraid of getting in the way of that. I dread it. You might want to marry and not like to tell me. Promise to tell me …”

  “Who on earth could I marry?” I smiled, pleased, he was feeling a qualm about losing me; it was that way round now.

  “That Simon you’re always talking about or someone …”

  I laughed out. He was jealous too. Why did he pick on Simon, I wonder? I hardly ever talk about Simon—more about Colin and the others if at all.

  “That won’t occur, I can guarantee. I could never persuade Simon to want to marry me, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I hope not!” Holding me. “I hope nobody will! I could not bear it. I wouldn’t be any good at being noble and unselfish. I want you for myself.”

 
So that was all right. I was exalted. The way he spoke of the future made it sound as if it was a thing going on till we were old: a woman on her own, I saw myself, with brave sad smiling eyes and a secret. Never any children. I thought I could manage. Rollo would die and I’d step forward afterwards and say I loved him too, and Nicola would turn to me for comfort, we’d set up together, I’d look after her … God knows what muck went through my head …

  “Perhaps when we’re very old,” I said, “we can be together.”

  “On my seventieth birthday,” he said, “we’ll have a night together, for old times’ sake. Is it a date?”

  We laughed about that. He soaked my sponge in cold water from the jug and brought it and bathed my swollen face for me. We lay with my head on his shoulder and went to sleep. What I must, must know hadn’t been said: I didn’t say it till next day. The threatening images faded and were harmless … But waking up was clouded, heavy. Of all things, I’d had to go and dream about Ivor and his mother: I was at her house and she came out of the front door to meet me, I was propitiatory, full of plausible explanations about why I’d left Ivor, she was friendly, and smiled a lot, I looked for sinister thoughts behind the smile but found none. I woke thinking: Well, I’m glad I’ve got that straight at last; and there was Rollo, up, half-dressed, wanting to get to his car.

  He was kind, but a shade off-hand, his mind on the job of work he was going to do. The rain had stopped, the day was dark, grey, cold and gusty—one or two tattered blue holes blown into the sky for a moment, then over-blown again. Flat fields out of the window. The features were a shed of pink corrugated iron, telegraph wires, some chicken coops and a new yellow stucco bungalow. He told me to rest, I looked pale. I took a look in my mirror; my God, I was a sight; dead looking, no eyes, even my lips pale, puffy.

  “Poor little one,” he said, absent, soothing. “You’ll be all right later:” making it plain what a bad business I was. He kissed me and went off cheerfully, saying he’d tell them to bring my breakfast up. I bathed my face and got it a bit deflated and put on rouge. After a bit the woman came in, harsh, with her noisy raking stride, and plunked a great unappetising tray on my bed. She stayed a bit and gossiped, but not in a friendly way—disgruntled, dyspeptic, whining. They’d only been there a year, they were Londoners, she hated the country. She was ugly, she made everything raw, strident, ugly. I dozed a bit more, but one couldn’t be comfortable in that bed, I ached all over. I was just dressed at lunch-time when Rollo came back, in good spirits, his hands black with oil. We’d have the car by three, he said; it was more of a job than he’d thought. We had a cut off the joint in the parlour, I could scarcely taste, all my senses numbed; I remember noticing my own voice gone light and small, my movements inert, languid. I’d meant to walk with him back to the garage, but a storm of rain came on, he went off again alone. I dragged myself upstairs and lay on the bed, and looked at his Greek sculpture book. Nearer four than three I heard the car; he came up and sat on the bed, and asked how I felt.