by Jean Rhys
‘What’s she talking about?’ the first one says, and the other one tells me, ‘You can’t make that noise here. Get along home. You’ve been drinking.’
I see that woman looking at me and smiling, and other people at their windows, and I’m so angry I bawl at them too. I say, ‘I have absolute and perfect right to be in the street same as anybody else, and I have absolute and perfect right to ask the police why they don’t even look for my money when it disappear. It’s because a dam’ English thief take it you don’t look,’ I say. The end of all this is that I have to go before a magistrate, and he fine me five pounds for drunk and disorderly, and he give me two weeks to pay.
When I get back from the court I walk up and down the kitchen, up and down, waiting for six o’clock because I have no five pounds left, and I don’t know what to do. I telephone at six and a woman answers me very short and sharp, then Mr Sims comes along and he don’t sound too pleased either when I tell him what happen. ‘Oh Lord!’ he says, and I say I’m sorry. ‘Well don’t panic,’ he says, ‘I’ll pay the fine. But look, I don’t think . . .’ Then he breaks off and talk to some other person in the room. He goes on, ‘Perhaps better not stay at No. 17. I think I can arrange something else. I’ll call for you Wednesday – Saturday latest. Now behave till then.’ And he hang up before I can answer that I don’t want to wait till Wednesday, much less Saturday. I want to get out of that house double quick and with no delay. First I think I ring back, then I think better not as he sound so vex.
I get ready, but Wednesday he don’t come, and Saturday he don’t come. All the week I stay in the flat. Only once I go out and arrange for bread, milk and eggs to be left at the door, and seems to me I meet up with a lot of policemen. They don’t look at me, but they see me all right. I don’t want to drink – I’m all the time listening, listening and thinking, how can I leave before I know if my fine is paid? I tell myself the police let me know, that’s certain. But I don’t trust them. What they care? The answer is Nothing. Nobody care. One afternoon I knock at the old lady’s flat upstairs, because I get the idea she give me good advice. I can hear her moving about and talking, but she don’t answer and I never try again.
Nearly two weeks pass like that, then I telephone. It’s the woman speaking and she say, ‘Mr Sims is not in London at present.’ I ask, ‘When will he be back – it’s urgent’, and she hang up. I’m not surprised. Not at all. I knew that would happen. All the same I feel heavy like lead. Near the phone box is a chemist’s shop, so I ask him for something to make me sleep, the day is bad enough, but to lie awake all night – Ah no! He gives me a little bottle marked ‘One or two tablets only’ and I take three when I go to bed because more and more I think that sleeping is better than no matter what else. However, I lie there, eyes wide open as usual, so I take three more. Next thing I know the room is full of sunlight, so it must be late afternoon, but the lamp is still on. My head turn around and I can’t think well at all. At first I ask myself how I get to the place. Then it comes to me, but in pictures – like the landlady kicking my dress, and when I take my ticket at Victoria Station, and Mr Sims telling me to eat the sandwiches, but I can’t remember everything clear, and I feel very giddy and sick. I take in the milk and eggs at the door, go in the kitchen, and try to eat but the food hard to swallow.
It’s when I’m putting the things away that I see the bottles – pushed back on the lowest shelf in the cupboard.
There’s a lot of drink left, and I’m glad I tell you. Because I can’t bear the way I feel. Not any more. I mix a gin and vermouth and I drink it quick, then I mix another and drink it slow by the window. The garden looks different, like I never see it before. I know quite well what I must do, but it’s late now – tomorrow. I have one more drink, of wine this time, and then a song comes in my head, I sing it and I dance it, and more I sing, more I am sure this is the best tune that has ever come to me in all my life.
The sunset light from the window is gold colour. My shoes sound loud on the boards. So I take them off, my stockings too and go on dancing but the room feel shut in, I can’t breathe, and I go outside still singing. Maybe I dance a bit too. I forget all about that woman till I hear her saying, ‘Henry, look at this.’ I turn around and I see her at the window. ‘Oh yes, I wanted to speak with you,’ I say, ‘Why bring the police and get me in bad trouble? Tell me that.’
‘And you tell me what you’re doing here at all,’ she says. ‘This is a respectable neighbourhood.’
Then the man come along. ‘Now young woman, take yourself off. You ought to be ashamed of this behaviour.’
‘It’s disgraceful,’ he says, talking to his wife, but loud so I can hear, and she speaks loud too – for once. ‘At least the other tarts that crook installed here were white girls,’ she says.
‘You a dam’ fouti liar,’ I say. ‘Plenty of those girls in your country already. Numberless as the sands on the shore. You don’t need me for that.’
‘You’re not a howling success at it certainly.’ Her voice sweet sugar again. ‘And you won’t be seeing much more of your friend Mr Sims. He’s in trouble too. Try somewhere else. Find somebody else. If you can, of course.’ When she say that my arm moves of itself. I pick up a stone and bam! through the window. Not the one they are standing at but the next, which is of coloured glass, green and purple and yellow.
I never see a woman look so surprise. Her mouth fall open she so full of surprise. I start to laugh, louder and louder – I laugh like my grandmother, with my hands on my hips and my head back. (When she laugh like that you can hear her to the end of our street.) At last I say, ‘Well, I’m sorry. An accident. I get it fixed tomorrow early.’ ‘That glass is irreplaceable,’ the man says. ‘Irreplaceable.’ ‘Good thing,’ I say, ‘those colours look like they sea-sick to me. I buy you a better windowglass.’
He shake his fist at me. ‘You won’t be let off with a fine this time,’ he says. Then they draw the curtains. I call out at them, ‘You run away. Always you run away. Ever since I come here you hunt me down because I don’t answer back. It’s you shameless.’ I try to sing ‘Don’t Trouble Me Now’.
Don’t trouble me now
You without honour.
Don’t walk in my footstep
You without shame.
But my voice don’t sound right, so I get back indoors and drink one more glass of wine – still wanting to laugh, and still thinking of my grandmother for that is one of her songs.
It’s about a man whose doudou give him the go-by when she find somebody rich and he sail away to Panama. Plenty people die there of fever when they make that Panama canal so long ago. But he don’t die. He come back with dollars and the girl meet him on the jetty, all dressed up and smiling. Then he sing to her, ‘You without honour, you without shame’. It sound good in Martinique patois too: ‘Sans honte’.
Afterwards I ask myself, ‘Why I do that? It’s not like me. But if they treat you wrong over and over again the hour strike when you burst out that’s what.’
Too besides, Mr Sims can’t tell me now I have no spirit. I don’t care, I sleep quickly and I’m glad I break the woman’s ugly window. But as to my own song it go right away and it never come back. A pity.
Next morning the doorbell ringing wake me up. The people upstairs don’t come down, and the bell keeps on like fury self. So I go to look, and there is a policeman and a policewoman outside. As soon as I open the door the woman put her foot in it. She wear sandals and thick stockings and I never see a foot so big or so bad. It look like it want to mash up the whole world. Then she come in after the foot, and her face not so pretty either. The policeman tell me my fine is not paid and people make serious complaints about me, so they’re taking me back to the magistrate. He show me a paper and I look at it, but I don’t read it. The woman push me in the bedroom, and tell me to get dress quickly, but I just stare at her, because I think perhaps I wake up soon. Then I ask her what I must wear. She say she suppose I had some clothes on yesterday. Or not? ‘
What’s it matter, wear anything,’ she says. But I find clean underclothes and stockings and my shoes with high heels and I comb my hair. I start to file my nails, because I think they too long for magistrate’s court but she get angry. ‘Are you coming quietly or aren’t you?’ she says. So I go with them and we get in a car outside.
I wait for a long time in a room full of policemen. They come in, they go out, they telephone, they talk in low voices. Then it’s my turn, and first thing I notice in the court room is a man with frowning black eyebrows. He sit below the magistrate, he dressed in black and he so handsome I can’t take my eyes off him. When he see that he frowns worse than before.
First comes a policeman to testify I cause disturbance, and then comes the old gentleman from next door. He repeat that bit about nothing but the truth so help me God. Then he says I make dreadful noise at night and use abominable language, and dance in obscene fashion. He says when they try to shut the curtains because his wife so terrify of me, I throw stones and break a valuable stain-glass window. He say his wife get serious injury if she’d been hit, and as it is she in terrible nervous condition and the doctor is with her. I think, ‘Believe me, if I aim at your wife I hit your wife – that’s certain.’ ‘There was no provocation,’ he says. ‘None at all.’ Then another lady from across the street says this is true. She heard no provocation whatsoever, and she swear that they shut the curtains but I go on insulting them and using filthy language and she saw all this and heard it.
The magistrate is a little gentleman with a quiet voice, but I’m very suspicious of these quiet voices now. He ask me why I don’t pay any fine, and I say because I haven’t the money. I get the idea they want to find out all about Mr Sims – they listen so very attentive. But they’ll find out nothing from me. He ask how long I have the flat and I say I don’t remember. I know they want to trip me up like they trip me up about my savings so I won’t answer. At last he ask if I have anything to say as I can’t be allowed to go on being a nuisance. I think, ‘I’m nuisance to you because I have no money that’s all.’ I want to speak up and tell him how they steal all my savings, so when my landlord asks for month’s rent I haven’t got it to give. I want to tell him the woman next door provoke me since long time and call me bad names but she have a soft sugar voice and nobody hear – that’s why I broke her window, but I’m ready to buy another after all. I want to say all I do is sing in that old garden, and I want to say this in decent quiet voice. But I hear myself talking loud and I see my hands wave in the air. Too besides it’s no use, they won’t believe me, so I don’t finish. I stop, and I feel the tears on my face. ‘Prove it.’ That’s all they will say. They whisper, they whisper. They nod, they nod.
Next thing I’m in a car again with a different policewoman, dressed very smart. Not in uniform. I ask her where she’s taking me and she says ‘Holloway’ just that ‘Holloway’.
I catch hold of her hand because I’m afraid. But she takes it away. Cold and smooth her hand slide away and her face is china face – smooth like a doll and I think, ‘This is the last time I ask anything from anybody. So help me God.’
The car come up to a black castle and little mean streets are all round it. A lorry was blocking up the castle gates. When it get by we pass through and I am in jail. First I stand in a line with others who are waiting to give up handbags and all belongings to a woman behind bars like in a post office. The girl in front bring out a nice compact, look like gold to me, lipstick to match and a wallet full of notes. The woman keep the money, but she give back the powder and lipstick and she half-smile. I have two pounds seven shillings and sixpence in pennies. She take my purse, then she throw me my compact (which is cheap) my comb and my handkerchief like everything in my bag is dirty. So I think, ‘Here too, here too.’ But I tell myself, ‘Girl, what you expect, eh? They all like that. All.’
Some of what happen afterwards I forget, or perhaps better not remember. Seems to me they start by trying to frighten you. But they don’t succeed with me for I don’t care for nothing now, it’s as if my heart hard like a rock and I can’t feel.
Then I’m standing at the top of a staircase with a lot of women and girls. As we are going down I notice the railing very low on one side, very easy to jump, and a long way below there’s the grey stone passage like it’s waiting for you.
As I’m thinking this a uniform woman step up alongside quick and grab my arm. She say, ‘Oh no you don’t.’
I was just noticing the railing very low that’s all – but what’s the use of saying so.
Another long line waits for the doctor. It move forward slowly and my legs terrible tired. The girl in front is very young and she cry and cry. ‘I’m scared,’ she keeps saying. She’s lucky in a way – as for me I never will cry again. It all dry up and hard in me now. That, and a lot besides. In the end I tell her to stop, because she doing just what these people want her to do.
She stop crying and start a long story, but while she is speaking her voice get very far away, and I find I can’t see her face clear at all.
Then I’m in a chair, and one of those uniform women is pushing my head down between my knees, but let her push – everything go away from me just the same.
They put me in the hospital because the doctor say I’m sick. I have cell by myself and it’s all right except I don’t sleep. The things they say you mind I don’t mind.
When they clang the door on me I think, ‘You shut me in, but you shut all those other dam’ devils out. They can’t reach me now.’
At first it bothers me when they keep on looking at me all through the night. They open a little window in the doorway to do this. But I get used to it and get used to the night chemise they give me. It very thick, and to my mind it not very clean either – but what’s that matter to me? Only the food I can’t swallow – especially the porridge. The woman ask me sarcastic, ‘Hunger striking?’ But afterwards I can leave most of it, and she don’t say nothing.
One day a nice girl comes around with books and she give me two, but I don’t want to read so much. Beside one is about a murder, and the other is about a ghost and I don’t think it’s at all like those books tell you.
There is nothing I want now. It’s no use. If they leave me in peace and quiet that’s all I ask. The window is barred but not small, so I can see a little thin tree through the bars, and I like watching it.
After a week they tell me I’m better and I can go out with the others for exercise. We walk round and round one of the yards in that castle – it is fine weather and the sky is a kind of pale blue, but the yard is a terrible sad place. The sunlight fall down and die there. I get tired walking in high heels and I’m glad when that’s over.
We can talk, and one day an old woman come up and ask me for dog-ends. I don’t understand, and she start muttering at me like she very vexed. Another woman tell me she mean cigarette ends, so I say I don’t smoke. But the old woman still look angry, and when we’re going in she give me one push and I nearly fall down. I’m glad to get away from these people, and hear the door clang and take my shoes off.
Sometimes I think, ‘I’m here because I wanted to sing’ and I have to laugh. But there’s a small looking glass in my cell and I see myself and I’m like somebody else. Like some strange new person. Mr Sims tells me I too thin, but what he say now to this person in the looking glass? So I don’t laugh again.
Usually I don’t think at all. Everything and everybody seem small and far away, that is the only trouble.
Twice the doctor come to see me. He don’t say much and I don’t say anything, because a uniform woman is always there. She looks like she thinking, ‘Now the lies start.’ So I prefer not to speak. Then I’m sure they can’t trip me up. Perhaps I there still, or in a worse place. But one day this happen.
We were walking round and round in the yard and I hear a woman singing – the voice come from high up, from one of the small barred windows. At first I don’t believe it. Why should anybody sing here? Nobody want to sin
g in jail, nobody want to do anything. There’s no reason, and you have no hope. I think I must be asleep, dreaming, but I’m awake all right and I see all the others are listening too. A nurse is with us that afternoon, not a policewoman. She stop and look up at the window.
It’s a smoky kind of voice, and a bit rough sometimes, as if those old dark walls theyselves are complaining, because they see too much misery – too much. But it don’t fall down and die in the courtyard; seems to me it could jump the gates of the jail easy and travel far, and nobody could stop it. I don’t hear the words – only the music. She sing one verse and she begin another, then she break off sudden. Everybody starts walking again, and nobody says one word. But as we go in I ask the woman in front who was singing. ‘That’s the Holloway song,’ she says. ‘Don’t you know it yet? She was singing from the punishment cells, and she tell the girls cheerio and never say die.’ Then I have to go one way to the hospital block and she goes another so we don’t speak again.
When I’m back in my cell I can’t just wait for bed. I walk up and down and I think, ‘One day I hear that song on trumpets and these walls will fall and rest.’ I want to get out so bad I could hammer on the door, for I know now that anything can happen, and I don’t want to stay lock up here and miss it.
Then I’m hungry. I eat everything they bring and in the morning I’m still so hungry I eat the porridge. Next time the doctor come he tells me I seem much better. Then I say a little of what really happen in that house. Not much. Very careful.
He look at me hard and kind of surprised. At the door he shake his finger and says, ‘Now don’t let me see you here again.’
That evening the woman tells me I’m going, but she’s so upset about it I don’t ask questions. Very early, before it’s light she bangs the door open and shouts at me to hurry up. As we’re going along the passages I see the girl who gave me the books. She’s in a row with others doing exercises. Up Down, Up Down, Up. We pass quite close and I notice she’s looking very pale and tired. It’s crazy, it’s all crazy. This up down business and everything else too. When they give me my money I remember I leave my compact in the cell, so I ask if I can go back for it. You should see that policewoman’s face as she shoo me on.