by Jean Rhys
She looked at the doctor’s face, stopped, and went on in a different voice.
‘I walked up and down for a bit. I didn’t know what to do. Then I thought I might be able to break the door in. So I tried and I did. A board broke and I got in. But it seemed a long time before anybody answered.’
She thought, Yes, of course I knew. I was late because I had to stay there listening. I heard it then. It got louder and closer and it was in the room with me. I heard the sound of the river.
I heard the sound of the river.
I Spy a Stranger
‘The downright rudeness I had to put up with,’ Mrs Hudson said, ‘long before there was any cause for it. And the inquisitiveness! She hadn’t been here a week before they started making remarks about her, poor Laura. And I had to consider Ricky, hadn’t I? They said wasn’t his job at the R.A.F Station supposed to be so very hush-hush, and that he oughtn’t to be allowed –’
While her sister talked Mrs Trant looked out of the window at the two rose beds in the front garden. They reassured her. They reminded her of last summer, of any day in the summer. They made her feel that all the frightening changes were not happening or, if they were happening, that they didn’t really matter. The roses were small, flame-coloured, growing four or five on the same stalk, each with a bud ready to replace it. Every time an army lorry passed they shivered. They started shivering before you could see the lorry or even hear it, she noticed. But they were strong; hardened by the east coast wind, they looked as if they would last for ever. Against the blue sky they were a fierce, defiant colour, a dazzling colour. When she shut her eyes she could still see them as plainly as if they were photographed on her eyelids.
‘They didn’t stop at nasty remarks either,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘Listen to this:
‘People in this town are not such fools as you think and unless you get rid of that crazy old foreigner, that witch of Prague, who you say is a relative, steps will be taken which you will not like. This is a friendly warning but a good many of us are keeping an eye on her and if you allow her to stay . . .
This time next year . . .
You’ll be all very much the worse for wear.’
‘That was the first,’ she said. ‘But afterwards – my dear, really! You think who, in a small place like this, who?’
‘I might give a guess.’
‘Ah, but that’s the worst of it. Once start that and there’s no end. It’s surprising how few can be trusted. Here’s a beauty. Written on quite expensive paper, too.’
‘“A Gun for the Old Girls . . .” A gun for the old girls?’ Mrs Trant repeated. ‘What’s that mean?’
‘There’s a drawing on the other side.’
‘Well!’
‘Yes. When that came Ricky said “I can’t have her any longer. You must tell her so.”’
‘But why on earth didn’t you let me know what was going on? Malvern isn’t the other end of the world. Why were you so vague?’
‘Because it was vague. It was vague at first. And Ricky said “Take no notice of it. Keep quiet and it’ll all blow over. And don’t go and write a lot of gossip to anybody, because you never know what happens to letters these days. I could tell you a thing or two that would surprise you.” So I said “What next? This is a free country, isn’t it?” And he said there wasn’t much free nowadays except a third-class ticket to Kingdom Come. And what could you have done about it? You couldn’t have had her to stay. Why, Tom detests her. No. I thought the best thing was to advise her to go back to London.’
And hadn’t she tried to be as nice as possible and to speak as kindly as she could?
‘Laura,’ she had said, ‘I hate to tell you, but Ricky and I think it best that you should leave here, because there’s such a lot of chatter going on and it really isn’t fair on him. The blitz is over now, and there are all these divan rooms that are advertised round Holland Park or the Finchley Road way. You could be quite comfortable. And you can often find such good little restaurants close by. Don’t you remember the one we went to? The food was wonderful. The one where the menu was in English on one side and Continental on the other?’
‘What do you mean by Continental?’
‘Well, I mean Continental – German, if you like.’
‘Of course you mean German. This Anglo-German love-hate affair!’ she had said. ‘You might call it the most sinister love affair of all time, and you wouldn’t be far wrong . . . !’
‘She could be very irritating,’ Mrs Hudson continued. ‘She went on about London. “I daresay, Laura,” I said, “I daresay. But London’s a big place and, whatever its disadvantages, it has one advantage – there are lots of people. Anybody odd isn’t so conspicuous, especially nowadays. And if you don’t like the idea of London, why not try Norwich or Colchester or Ipswich? But I shouldn’t stay on here.” She asked me why. “Why?” I said – I was a bit vexed with her pretending as much as all that, she must have known – “Because somebody has started a lot of nasty talk. They’ve found out that you lived abroad a long time and that when you had to leave – Central Europe, you went to France. They say you only came home when you were forced to, and they’re suspicious. Considering everything, you can’t blame them, can you?” “No,” she said, “it’s one of the horrible games they’re allowed to play to take their minds off the real horror.” That’s the sort of thing she used to come out with. I told her straight, “I’m sorry, but it’s no use thinking you can ignore public opinion, because you can’t.” “Do you wish me to leave at once?” she said, “or can I have a few days to pack?” Her face had gone so thin. My dear, it’s dreadful to see somebody’s face go thin while you’re watching. Of course, I assured her she could have all the time she wanted to pack. If it hadn’t been for Ricky I’d never have asked her to go, in spite of that hound Fluting.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Mrs Trant, ‘was Fluting mixed up in it?’
‘Was he? But it was her own fault. She got people against her. She behaved so unwisely. That quarrel with Fluting need never have happened. You see, my dear, he was dining here and he said some of the Waafs up at the Station smelt. And he was sarcastic about their laundry allowance. “Pah!” he said. Just like that – “Pah!” Most uncalled for, I thought, especially from a man in his position. However, what can you do? Smile and change the subject – that’s all you can do. But she flew at him. She said, “Sir, they smell; you stink.” He couldn’t believe his ears. “I beg your pardon?” – you know that voice of his. She said “Inverted commas.” He gave her such a look. I thought “You’ve made an enemy, my girl.”’
‘I call that very tactless – and badly behaved too.’
‘Yes, but tactless and badly behaved on both sides, you must admit. I told her “It’s better not to answer them. Believe me, it’s a mistake.” But she thought she knew better. It was one silly thing like that after another, making enemies all over the place . . . And she brooded, she worried,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘She worried so dreadfully about the war.’
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Yes, but this was different. You’d have thought she was personally responsible for the whole thing. She had all sorts of crack ideas about why it started and what it meant.’
‘Trying to empty the sea with a tin cup,’ Mrs Trant said sadly.
‘Yes, just like that. “It’s too complicated,” I said to her one day when she was holding forth, “for you to talk about the why and the wherefore.” But she had these cracky ideas, or they’d been put into her head, and she wanted to try to prove them. That’s why she started this book. There was no harm in it: I’m sure there was no real harm in it.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard about a book,’ said Mrs Trant. ‘What book?’
Mrs Hudson sighed. ‘It’s so difficult to explain . . . You remember all those letters she used to write, trying to find out what happened to her friends? Through the Red Cross and Cook’s and via Lisbon, and goodness knows what?’
‘After all, it was very natur
al.’
‘Oh yes. But suddenly she stopped. She never had any news. I used to wonder how she could go on, week after week and month after month, poor Laura. But it was curious how suddenly she gave up hope. It was then that she changed. She got this odd expression and she got very silent. And when Ricky tried to laugh her out of it she wouldn’t answer him. One day when he made a joke about the Gestapo getting her sweetheart she went so white I thought she’d faint. Then she took to staying in her room for hours on end and he didn’t like it. “The old girl’s got no sense of humour at all, has she?” he said. “And she’s not very sociable. What on earth does she do with herself?” “She’s probably reading,” I said. Because she used to take in lots of papers – dailies and weeklies and so on – and she hung about the bookshops and the library, and twice she sent up to London for books. “She was always the brainy one of her family.” “Brainy?” he said. “That’s one word for it.” I used to get so annoyed with him. After all, she paid for the room and board and the gas meter’s a shilling in the slot. I didn’t see that it was anybody’s business if she wanted to stay up there. “If you dislike her so much, it’s all to the good, isn’t it?” I said. But that was the funny thing – he disliked her, but he couldn’t let her alone. “Why doesn’t she do this, and why doesn’t she do that?” And I’d tell him “Give her time, Ricky. She’s more unhappy than she lets on. After all, she’d made a life for herself and it wasn’t her fault it went to pieces. Give her a chance.” But he’d got his knife into her. “Why should she plant herself on us? Are you the only cousin she’s got? And if she’s seen fit to plant herself on us, why can’t she behave like other people?” I told him she hadn’t planted herself on us – I invited her. But I thought I’d better drop a hint that was the way he felt. And there she was, my dear, surrounded by a lot of papers, cutting paragraphs out and pasting them into an exercise-book. I asked what she was doing and if I could have a look. “Oh, I don’t think it will interest you,” she said. Of course, that was the thing that, when the row came, they had most against her. Here it is – the police brought it back. Ricky and I must destroy it, but I wanted to show it to you first.’
Mrs Trant thought ‘First those horrible anonymous letters, now a ridiculous exercise-book!’ She said, ‘I don’t understand all this.’
‘It’s what I told you – headlines and articles and advertisements and reports of cases in court and jokes. There are a lot of jokes. Look.’
The exercise-book began with what seemed to be a collection of newspaper cuttings, but the last pages were in Laura’s handwriting, clear enough at first, gradually becoming more erratic, the lines slanting upwards, downwards, the letters too large or too small.
‘It was only to pass the time away,’ Mrs Hudson said. ‘There was no harm in it.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
Mrs Trant turned to the handwriting at the end.
She said, ‘The top part of this page has been torn out. Who did that?’
‘I don’t know. The police, perhaps. It seems they had a good laugh when they read it. That must have been one of the funniest bits.’
Mrs Trant said ‘A forlorn hope? What forlorn hope?’
‘ . . . a forlorn hope. First impressions – and second?
An unforgiving sky. A mechanical quality about everything and everybody which I found frightening. When I bought a ticket for the Tube, got on to a bus, went into a shop, I felt like a cog in a machine in contact with others, not like one human being associating with other human beings. The feeling that I had been drawn into a mechanism which intended to destroy me became an obsession.
I was convinced that coming back to England was the worst thing I could have done, that almost anything else would have been preferable. I was sure that some evil fate was in store for me and longed violently to escape. But I was as powerless as a useless, worn-out or badly-fitting cog. I told myself that if I left London I should get rid of this obsession – it was much more horrible than it sounds – so I wrote to the only person whose address I still had, my cousin Marion Hudson, hoping that she would be able to tell me of some place in the country where I could stay for a while. She answered offering me a room in her house. This was at the end of what they called the “phoney war” . . .’
‘But she seems to be writing to somebody,’ said Mrs Trant. ‘Who?’
‘I’ve no idea. She didn’t tell me much about herself.’ Mrs Hudson added, ‘I was pleased to have her. She paid well and she was good about helping me in the house, too. Yes, I was quite pleased to have her – at first.’
‘ . . . the “phoney war”, which was not to last much longer. After I realized I was not going to get answers to my letters the nightmare finally settled on me. I was too miserable to bear the comments on what had happened in Europe – they were like slaps in the face.
I could not stop myself from answering back, saying that there was another side to the eternal question of who let down who, and when. This always ended in a quarrel, if you can call trying to knock a wall down by throwing yourself against it, a quarrel. I knew I was being unwise, so I tried to protect myself by silence, by avoiding everybody as much as possible. I read a great deal, took long walks, did all the things you do when you are shamming dead.
You know how you can be haunted by words, phrases, whole conversations sometimes? Well, I began to be haunted by those endless, futile arguments we used to have when we all knew the worse was coming to the worst. The world dominated by Nordics, German version – what a catastrophe. But if it were dominated by Anglo-Saxons, wouldn’t that be a catastrophe too? Then, of course, England and the English. Here everybody, especially Blanca, would become acrimonious. “Their extraordinary attitude to women.” “They’re all mad.” “That’s why.” And so on. Blanca’s voice, her face, the things she used to say haunted me. When I had finished a book I would imagine her sharp criticisms. “What do you think of that? Isn’t it unbelievable? What did I tell you? Who was right?” All these things I could hear her saying.
And I began to feel that she wasn’t so far wrong. There is something strange about the attitude to women as women. Not the dislike (or fear). That isn’t strange of course. But it’s all so completely taken for granted, and surely that is strange. It has settled down and become an atmosphere, or, if you like, a climate, and no one questions it, least of all the women themselves. There is no opposition. The effects are criticized, for some of the effects are hardly advertisements for the system, the cause is seldom mentioned, and then very gingerly. The few mild ambiguous protests usually come from men. Most of the women seem to be carefully trained to revenge any unhappiness they feel on each other, or on children – or on any individual man who happens to be at a disadvantage. In dealing with men as a whole, a streak of subservience, of servility, usually appears, something cold, calculating, lacking in imagination.
But no one can go against the spirit of a country with impunity, and propaganda from the cradle to the grave can do a lot.
I amused myself by making a collection of this propaganda, sometimes it is obvious, sometimes sly and oblique, but it’s constant, it goes on all the time. “For Blanca.” This is one way they do it, not the most subtle or powerful way of course.
Titles of books to be written ten years hence, or twenty, or forty, or a hundred: Woman an Obstacle to the Insect Civilization? The Standardization of Woman, The Mechanization of Woman, Misogyny – well, call misogyny – Misogyny and British Humour will write itself. (But why pick on England, Blanca? It’s no worse than some of the others.) Misogyny and War, The Misery of Woman and the Evil in Men or the Great Revenge that Makes all other Revenges Look Silly. My titles go all the way from the sublime to the ridiculous.
I could have made my collection as long as I liked; there is any amount of material. But why take the trouble? It’s only throwing myself against the wall again. You will never read this, I shall not escape.’
Mrs Trant, who had been frowning at the words Misogyny and War, exc
laimed indignantly ‘Couldn’t she find something else to occupy her mind – now, of all times?’
‘Do you know,’ said Mrs Hudson, ‘there are moments – don’t laugh – when I see what she meant? All very exaggerated, of course.’
‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Trant repeated, examining sketches of narrow, sharp-nosed faces in the margins of the last few pages.
‘I am very unpopular in this damned town – they leave me in no doubt about that. A fantastic story about me has gone the rounds and they have swallowed every word of it. They will believe anything, except the truth.
Sometimes people loiter in the street and gape up at this house. The plane tree outside my window has been lopped and they can look straight into my room, or I think they can. So I keep the curtains drawn and usually read and write in a very bad light. I suppose this accounts for my fits of giddiness.
Why do people so expert in mental torture pretend blandly that it doesn’t exist? Some of their glib explanations and excuses are very familiar. I often think there are many parallels to be drawn between –’
Here the sentence broke off. Mrs Trant shook her head and shut the exercise-book. ‘What a stifling afternoon!’ she said. ‘Too much light, don’t you think?’
She glanced at the roses again and decided that their colour was trying. The brilliant, cloudless sky did that. It made them unfamiliar, therefore menacing, therefore, of course, unreal.
‘It’s all very well to say that nobody liked Laura,’ she thought. ‘Judy liked her.’
Judy was her youngest daughter and the prettiest. But too moody, too fanciful and self-willed. She had stood up to her father about Laura. It had been amusing at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure – a girl ought to play safe, ought to go with the tide, it was a bad sign when a girl liked unpopular people. She imagined Judy growing up to be unhappy and felt weak at the knees, then suddenly angry.