by Jean Rhys
But are you telling me the real secret, how to be exactly like everybody else? Tell me, for I am sure you know. If it means being deaf, then I’ll be deaf. And if it means being blind, then I’ll be blind. I’m afraid of that road, Miss Spearman – the one that leads to madness and to death, they say. That’s not true. It’s longer than that. But it’s a terrible road to put your feet on, and I’m not strong enough; let somebody else try it. I want to go back. Tell me how to get back; tell me what to do and I’ll do it.
‘And then,’ Miss Spearman said, ‘there’s another thing . . .’
Teresa leaned forward eagerly.
‘Olly Pearce,’ Miss Spearman said in a low mysterious voice, ‘is a medium.’
‘A what? . . . Oh, I see.’
‘We have sittings, sometimes at her place; sometimes here, sometimes at Mrs Davis’s. I’ve had messages, and I hear them at night, just before I sleep. Especially since I’ve grown so deaf. It always starts with a humming, twanging noise in my head.’
‘Yes, that’s how it starts, isn’t it?’ Teresa said, staring at her.
‘Was that the bell?’ Miss Spearman sat very erect. ‘It’s that slut Nelly. Excuse the word. Over two hours late.’
She went out into the hall, and Nelly could be heard, loudly explaining, arguing, and then becoming aggressive. And Miss Spearman’s shrill answers, which ended on a high, thin note.
She came back into the kitchen, looking triumphant.
‘Well, what are you going to do while your room’s being turned out? Why not go for a walk to Norton Street, and see what’s to be seen?’
‘No, I don’t think I will,’ Teresa said. In Norton Street a doll, or a dressmaker’s dummy, would stare blankly, a cigarette poster, untouched, flapping in the wind, would smile, beckon, wave a coy finger. The notice would say, ‘Danger: No Thoroughfare.’
She heard Nelly outside, shovelling coal violently into a scuttle.
‘Why, the old badger!’ said Nelly, ‘the bloody old . . .’
The radio next door began to sing defiantly ‘Now’s the time for Paradise, Paradise for two . . .’
4
‘I generally keep it locked,’ Miss Spearman said. ‘But I open it up and air it and light a fire every Tuesday.’
‘And it’s Tuesday today, of course,’ Teresa thought. ‘Always Tuesday . . .’
‘Captain Roper sits in here sometimes,’ Miss Spearman said, ‘so why shouldn’t you?’
She led the way through the white-painted door into another room – a long, narrow, pathetic room. Gold brocade curtains shut out the square, but the windows which led into the garden were open. There was a freshly lighted fire; no dust sheets – everything was spick and span.
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Miss Spearman said, pointing to a case of stuffed birds, neatly labelled in careful, slanting handwriting. There was a card in the corner, in the same writing: ‘I believe in the Resurrection of the Dead.’ A fanatic birdlover? A joke? Or had Miss Spearman picked it up and put it there to preserve the admirable sentiment?
Teresa came close and looked at the birds which would rise again – White Heron, Lapwing, Great Crested Grebe, Indian Cock Pheasant, Wild Duck and, in a corner, four humming birds. Four humming birds with fierce glass eyes.
‘Well, you’ve grown up now, haven’t you?’ she said to them. ‘You are having your own back.’
Miss Spearman was talking about the pictures in white or faded gold frames which covered the walls. Pictures of blue seas – but not too blue, not a vulgar, tropical blue – of white walls – but not stark – of shadows – but not too black. Pictures of gentlemen with powdered hair and ladies with ringlets falling on long, graceful necks, their mouths mournful, patient or smiling as the case might be. One was holding a violin, another a book.
There was a mirror in a silver-green frame, and glass paperweights through which could be seen roses, carnations and violets. There were white jade vases, and the Woolworth’s glass mats they were standing on were as touching as Miss Spearman’s red hands or make-up used by an ageing woman. (‘Must make the best of the poor old face.’)
‘Perhaps there’s a musical box,’ Teresa thought. ‘Perhaps it will play “Pink and blue, pink and blue, Do you know what love can do? Love can kill . . .”’
There was no musical box, but there were Japanese wind-glasses, again from Woolworth’s, hanging over the door into the garden.
‘You say you’re tired,’ Miss Spearman said. ‘Why not lie down and have a little rest? Have a little doze. The sofa’s quite comfortable.’ And left her.
She recognized one of the gentlemen now – the one with china-blue eyes – also the lady with the violin. There were portraits of them in her room, but here they hung straight, with no string visible, with no incongruous text between them – ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall lack nothing.’
She sat down on a gilt chair and saw that there was a small bookshelf behind a red and gold screen, the only gaudy thing in the room. And the right books were in it – The Heart of Rome, Wanda, All for the Czar, As a Dream When One Awaketh, From One Generation to Another. ‘Yes, this is paradise,’ she thought, and leant forward to touch the books. But next to innocent Wanda was a warning – No Orchids for Miss Blandish. ‘I bet old Cap Roper brought that in here. Not that I’ve got anything against the book. On the contrary, didn’t I win a quid ages ago when I bet it was written by an Englishman, judging entirely by internal evidence and confounding the experts?’
She began to walk restlessly up and down the room, thinking, ‘No, if I slept here I’d dream. I’d dream of monstrous humming birds, cellars, flowers under glass, gentlemen with china-blue eyes, ladies with smooth shoulders who will never lack the still pastures and the green waters, the peaceful death, the honoured grave – all this, and Heaven too – who will never, never lack the sense of superiority nor the disciplined reaction nor the proper way to snub nor the heart like a rock nor the wrist surprisingly thick. Nor the flower of the flock to be sacrificed.’
‘I must find somewhere else to sleep,’ she thought.
And then Miss Spearman opened the door and called ‘Ready.’
5
In the dining-room the glass cases round the walls were full of shepherds and shepherdesses, mandarins and small china portrait figures. ‘My sister brought me some new laid eggs yesterday. I do my best for you.’
‘You do indeed.’
There were two newspapers by the plate, one unfamiliar, and when Miss Spearman came in to clear away the meal she hovered.
‘Did you notice that paper? Very good, I think.’
‘Yes, awfully good.’
But Miss Spearman did not seem satisfied with this response, or she had not heard it.
‘You see,’ she said, taking up the paper and pointing to an article marked with two red lines, ‘it’s all quite simple and homely – anyhow at the start. Many people simply won’t believe they are dead, he says. He says it’s quite amusing, if one may use the word.’
‘If one may use the word.’
‘Of course, it gets more complicated later on.’
‘It always does get more complicated later on, don’t you think?’ Teresa said.
‘We’re going to try to sit tonight,’ Miss Spearman said. ‘We always get very good results after a raid. One learns not to question these things. Would you care to join us? Olly Pearce, Mrs Davis, myself and the lady who keeps the wool shop in Modder Street.’
‘No,’ Teresa said, ‘no. I’m sorry I can’t.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, laughing feebly. ‘Like the green suit, I’ll think about it.’
Although she was wearing her earphone Miss Spearman looked so bewildered that Teresa repeated, ‘No. Not yet.’
‘Of course,’ Miss Spearman said stiffly, ‘people mustn’t be forced; they must come of their own free will. Just as you like.’
Her friendliness seemed to float away in the act of putting the dishes on the tray and she slammed t
he door so violently that the pictures on the walls and the little figures in the cases trembled.
But silence came and patched up the rent. Olly Pearce’s young niece, wearing a blue overall, was in the front garden of Number Seven. She pushed her hair off her forehead, stretched, yawned. She was sleepy too. The ginger cat danced in the cold wind outside – three little steps one way, three little steps the other, backwards and spring.
Teresa lay down on the sofa and shut her eyes. The sound of the crash in her head became fainter. It was off on its journey, off on its travels, for ever and ever, world without end.
‘My little doze,’ she thought. ‘At last. My little sleep.’
The Sound of the River
The electric bulb hung on a short flex from the middle of the ceiling, and there was not enough light to read so they lay in bed and talked. The night air pushed out the curtains and came through the open window soft and moist.
‘But what are you afraid of? How do you mean afraid?’
She said, ‘I mean afraid like when you want to swallow and you can’t.’
‘All the time?’
‘Nearly all the time.’
‘My dear, really. You are an idiot.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Not about this, she thought, not about this.
‘It’s only a mood,’ she said. ‘It’ll go.’
‘You’re so inconsistent. You chose this place and wanted to come here, I thought you approved of it.’
‘I do. I approve of the moor and the loneliness and the whole set-up, especially the loneliness. I just wish it would stop raining occasionally.’
‘Loneliness is all very well,’ he said, ‘but it needs fine weather.’
‘Perhaps it will be fine tomorrow.’
If I could put it into words it might go, she was thinking. Sometimes you can put it into words – almost – and so get rid of it – almost. Sometimes you can tell yourself I’ll admit I was afraid today. I was afraid of the sleek smooth faces, the rat faces, the way they laughed in the cinema. I’m afraid of escalators and dolls’ eyes. But there aren’t any words for this fear. The words haven’t been invented.
She said, ‘I’ll like it again when the rain stops.’
‘You weren’t liking it just now, were you? Down by the river?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘no. Not much.’
‘It was a bit ghostly down there tonight. What can you expect? Never pick a place in fine weather.’ (Or anything else either he thought.) ‘There are too many pines about,’ he said. ‘They shut you in.’
‘Yes.’
But it wasn’t the black pines, she thought, or the sky without stars, or the thin hunted moon, or the lowering, flat-topped hills, or the tor and the big stones. It was the river.
‘The river is very silent,’ she’d said. ‘Is that because it’s so full?’
‘One gets used to the noise, I suppose. Let’s go in and light the bedroom fire. I wish we had a drink. I’d give a lot for a drink, wouldn’t you?’
‘We can have some coffee.’
As they walked back he’d kept his head turned towards the water.
‘Curiously metallic it looks by this light. Not like water at all.’
‘It looks smooth as if it were frozen. And much wider.’
‘Frozen – no. Very much alive in an uncanny way. Streaming hair,’ he’d said as if he were talking to himself. So he’d felt it too. She lay remembering how the brown broken-surfaced, fast-running river had changed by moonlight. Things are more powerful than people. I’ve always believed that. (You’re not my daughter if you’re afraid of a horse. You’re not my daughter if you’re afraid of being seasick. You’re not my daughter if you’re afraid of the shape of a hill, or the moon when it is growing old. In fact you’re not my daughter.)
‘It isn’t silent now is it?’ she said. ‘The river I mean.’
‘No, it makes a row from up here.’ He yawned. ‘I’ll put another log on the fire. It was very kind of Ransom to let us have that coal and wood. He didn’t promise any luxuries of that sort when we took the cottage. He’s not a bad chap, is he?’
‘He’s got a heart. And he must be wise to the climate after all.’
‘Well I like it,’ he said as he got back into bed, ‘in spite of the rain. Let’s be happy here.’
‘Yes, let’s.’
That’s the second time. He said that before. He’d said it the first day they came. Then too she hadn’t answered ‘yes let’s’ at once because fear which had been waiting for her had come up to her and touched her, and it had been several seconds before she could speak.
‘That must have been an otter we saw this evening,’ he said, ‘much too big for a water rat. I’ll tell Ransom. He’ll be very excited.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, they’re rather rare in these parts.’
‘Poor devils, I bet they have an awful time if they’re rare. What’ll he do? Organize a hunt? Perhaps he won’t, we’ve agreed that he’s soft-hearted. This is a bird sanctuary, did you know? It’s all sorts of things. I’ll tell him about that yellow-breasted one. Maybe he’ll know what it was.’
That morning she had watched it fluttering up and down the window pane – a flash of yellow in the rain. ‘Oh what a pretty bird.’ Fear is yellow. You’re yellow. She’s got a broad streak of yellow. They’re quite right, fear is yellow. ‘Isn’t it pretty? And isn’t it persistent? It’s determined to get in . . .’
‘I’m going to put this light out,’ he said. ‘It’s no use. The fire’s better.’
He struck a match to light another cigarette and when it flared she saw the deep hollows under his eyes, the skin stretched taut over his cheekbones, and the thin bridge of his nose. He was smiling as if he knew what she’d been thinking.
‘Is there anything you’re not afraid of in these moods of yours?’
‘You,’ she said. The match went out. Whatever happened, she thought. Whatever you did. Whatever I did. Never you. D’you hear me?
‘Good.’ He laughed. ‘That’s a relief.’
‘Tomorrow will be fine, you’ll see. We’ll be lucky.’
‘Don’t depend on our luck. You ought to know better by this time,’ he muttered. ‘But you’re the sort who never knows better. Unfortunately we’re both the sort who never knows better.’
‘Are you tired? You sound tired.’
‘Yes.’ He sighed and turned away, ‘I am rather.’ When she said, ‘I must put the light on, I want some aspirin,’ he didn’t answer, and she stretched her arm over him and touched the switch of the dim electric bulb. He was sleeping. The lighted cigarette had fallen on to the sheet.
‘Good thing I saw that,’ she said aloud. She put the cigarette out and threw it through the window, found the aspirin, emptied the ashtray, postponing the moment when she must lie down stretched out straight, listening, when she’d shut her eyes only to feel them click open again.
‘Don’t go to sleep,’ she thought lying there. ‘Stay awake and comfort me. I’m frightened. There’s something here to be frightened of, I tell you. Why can’t you feel it? When you said, let’s be happy, that first day, there was a tap dripping somewhere into a full basin, playing a gay and horrible tune. Didn’t you hear it? I heard it. Don’t turn away and sigh and sleep. Stay awake and comfort me.’
Nobody’s going to comfort you, she told herself, you ought to know better. Pull yourself together. There was a time when you weren’t afraid. Was there? When? When was that time? Of course there was. Go on. Pull yourself together, pull yourself to pieces. There was a time. There was a time. Besides I’ll sleep soon. There’s always sleeping, and it’ll be fine tomorrow.
‘I knew it would be fine today,’ she thought when she saw the sunlight through the flimsy curtains. ‘The first fine day we’ve had.’
‘Are you awake?’ she said. ‘It’s a fine day. I had such a funny dream,’ she said, still staring at the sunlight. ‘I dreamt I was walking in a wood and the trees were groaning
and then I dreamt of the wind in telegraph wires, well a bit like that, only very loud. I can still hear it – really I swear I’m not making this up. It’s still in my head and it isn’t anything else except a bit like the wind in telegraph wires.
‘It’s a lovely day,’ she said and touched his hand.
‘My dear, you are cold. I’ll get a hot water bottle and some tea. I’ll get it because I’m feeling very energetic this morning, you stay still for once!
‘Why don’t you answer,’ she said sitting up and peering at him. ‘You’re frightening me,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘You’re frightening me. Wake up,’ she said and shook him. As soon as she touched him her heart swelled till it reached her throat. It swelled and grew jagged claws and the claws clutched her driving in deep. ‘Oh God,’ she said and got up and drew the curtains and saw his face in the sun. ‘Oh God,’ she said staring at his face in the sun and knelt by the bed with his hand in her two hands not speaking not thinking any longer.
The doctor said, ‘You didn’t hear anything during the night?’
‘I thought it was a dream.’
‘Oh! You thought it was a dream. I see. What time did you wake up?’
‘I don’t know. We kept the clock in the other room because it had a loud tick. About half past eight or nine, I suppose.’
‘You knew what had happened of course.’
‘I wasn’t sure. At first I wasn’t sure.’
‘But what did you do? It was past ten when you telephoned. What did you do?’
Not a word of comfort. Suspicion. He has small eyes and bushy eyebrows and he looks suspicious.
She said, ‘I put on a coat and went to Mr Ransom’s, where there’s a telephone. I ran all the way but it seemed a long way.’
‘But that oughtn’t to have taken you more than ten minutes at the most.’
‘No, but it seemed very long. I ran but I didn’t seem to be moving. When I got there everybody was out and the room where the telephone is was locked. The front door is always open but he locks that room when he goes out. I went back into the road but there was no one there. Nobody in the house and nobody in the road and nobody on the slope of the hill. There were a lot of sheets and men’s shirts hanging on a line waving. And the sun of course. It was our first day. The first fine day we’ve had.’