Rosie Hogarth

by Alexander Baron

  It was not love with which he healed his wounds that evening, but self-importance. He swelled with pleasure at the quick look of welcome he received from Joyce as he walked in. He gloated over her servility at the supper table. He smothered in an effusion of vainglorious thoughts the unpleasant memory of yesterday’s humiliation.

  Perhaps he was merely intoxicated emotionally; he looked it, flushed and fierce, unnaturally loud and jolly, trying to show off his manliness. Perhaps he wanted to repair his vanity by proving the strength of Joyce’s devotion: or perhaps, obscurely, it relieved his hurt to trample on her. Whatever the reason, his behaviour was beyond his control. He knew that he ought to give thanks for his deliverance and safeguard his position by being grateful, conciliatory and gentle. Instead he tyrannized wildly. Inwardly he had the helpless, whirling feeling of a man swept along on a torrent. Outwardly he grew more and more boisterous.

  Joyce, who was clearly caught off her guard by his sudden change of temper, did not know how to cope with it. She played up to his mood, joyfully obeyed his commands, and laughed when he poked clumsy fun at her. But she must have felt the strain in him, for sometimes she reddened even as she laughed, and sometimes she would flash a furtive, apprehensive glance at him when she thought he was not looking. When she had finished washing up after supper (without any help from her mother, who was upstairs ‘giving her poor feet a rest’) she said, “I’ve got something to show you,” and slipped out of the room.

  Jack waited, pretending to glance at the paper, but in reality studying Mr. Wakerell, who was hunched over a book in his high-backed wooden armchair. Since supper Joyce’s father had appeared oblivious of everything that had happened in the room. Reading, to him, was a physical rather than an intellectual exercise. As he sat reading, he could be seen struggling to form words, with a glow of triumph shining and fading in his face like the light of a revolving beacon. Yet his eyes were empty of understanding, for once he had conquered each row of words he forgot them. He did not read in order to think, but to attain an inner stillness, an absence of thought, which to him, in an unpleasant world, was half the art of living. He gave the same impression when he was working in the garden. He was not a good gardener; not one of those little townsmen who produce prize roses. He would potter about behind the house, on a blighted little plot of black earth which looked more like the deposited grime of generations than the original soil, scratching with a blunt old rake, negligently treading a few seeds into the ground or slopping water around him. He was not interested in results; he only wanted to while away a little of his living time. In the same way he would wander off in summer-time, to the park, and stand in hour-long trances in front of the flower beds, as if his body’s only function was to absorb the pale violet beauty of the lupins, the clear bright colours of the tulips, the unbelievable blue intensity of the cornflowers and the soft, pure comforting yellow, with a moist and tender gleam on it, of kingcups in the grass. It seemed that no hurt could reach him in his retreat; none of the terrors of the great world; none of the drudgery of his work; none of the disappointments of his married life. He was so far away that other people’s words took a long time to reach him. Years of habitude had led to a state of affairs in the household in which, as tonight, he seemed unaware of the rest of the family while they behaved as if he were not there.

  Joyce came back into the room. “There,” she said, showing herself off, “look what I’ve bought.” She was wearing a hat. Her bodily attitude, and the gentle, expectant glow of appeal in her face suggested that she was hoping to touch a new spring of feeling in him. Jack was seared with relief that he, who had been so contemptuously cast out last night, could command this eager and attractive girl. The hat suited her, a tightlyfitting black cap with a white osprey spray on the right-hand side. The impulse to please her struggled in his mind, but he could only utter a jeering laugh. “Who d’you think you are? The Lord Chief Bloody Justice?”

  She answered with a silly, uncertain laugh. “What d’you mean, Jack?”

  “Slow on the uptake, ain’t you? Bloody black cap. ‘The prisoner will rise and face the bar.’ Whoops-a-daisy! Away with the mixer!”

  “Double Dutch to me, Jack.” Her smile was pleading and childishly pathetic. “Haven’t you got anything else to say?”

  “What d’you want me to say?”

  “Something nice would be a change.”

  “What?” He was trying, inwardly, to think of some compliment, but the insults continued to spurt out. “With that bunch of feathers sprouting out? It’s like a turkey’s arse on your head.”

  “Oh, Jack!” He heard tears, as well as laughter, in her thick cry of protest. His mind strove to form a sentence: slowly there began to form a clumsy phrase of endearment.

  He heard her saying, “Don’t you want me to be smart when I walk out with you? I thought you’d be proud of me. It’s just like a certain person wears.”

  “What certain person?”

  She looked coy. “You know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Rosie Hogarth. Don’t you remember, that day?”

  The conciliatory phrase flew to pieces in his head. He uttered a shaken, “Ha!” Anger swept compunction away, and he began to bait her without mercy, feeling increasingly miserable but deriving a mysterious satisfaction from the sight of her laughing hysterically with him and growing more and more flushed, alarmed and muddled behind her gaping smile. She bandied foolish quips with him, trying to make his mood harmless by entering into it. She was trying desperately to understand and calm him. The more spiteful he became, the more she laughed, and the more strained and shrill her laughter sounded.

  At last, when he had uttered some particularly vicious sally, she looked up at him with her face wide open in a foolish smile and, without warning, burst into tears. The suddenness of it knocked all the breath out of him. Fear and remorse flooded into him. He stood over her, helpless.

  “Here.” The deep voice, gentle and unconcerned, startled him. Joyce, too, paused in her weeping and looked up in surprise. Mr. Wakerell had lowered his book and was looking at them, with a mild and meditative expression. “I knew what I meant to ask you. What about coming up Collins’ with us next week? My treat. There’s all the old-timers on the bill. I was thinking of Saturday night.”

  Jack could not speak for a moment. The innocence of Mr. Wakerell’s gaze, the stupid solemnity of his heavy face, as he waited for a reply without the least indication that anything untoward had been happening, suddenly seemed fantastically funny. Jack sniggered, and Joyce laughed painfully with him. They looked together at Mr. Wakerell and then at each other, as if in joint recognition of his ridiculousness, and both burst out laughing again.

  Joyce said, “Oh, dad, you are a scream!”

  Mr. Wakerell continued to wait calmly.

  Jack managed to control himself, and said, “All right. Smashin’ idea. Only let me get the tickets.”

  “You can get them if you like. It’ll save me going up there. Only I’ll pay for them. I don’t want any arguments.” Mr. Wakerell lifted his book up again and shut himself off from them as effectively as if he had performed a vanishing trick.

  Jack was left with a weak, melted feeling. Mr. Wakerell’s absurd intervention had saved him and brought him to rest. Somehow he and Joyce were reunited.

  Joyce rose and said, “Oh, well.”

  “Where you going?”

  She smiled wanly. “To put this silly thing away.”

  He was about to call her back, but he checked himself and let her go. He waited contentedly, and when she came back he was very genial with her. The evening ended happily for both of them.

  This episode let the tension out of him. He was able to relax. He felt that he had ridden the storm and come out into calm waters, within sight of his anchorage. He kept close to Joyce, finding safety and comfort in her presence. His peace was founded on tiredness and disillusionment, but he welcomed this, for it left him without the desire to make
any more dangerous forays into the world beyond the front door.

  He felt benign towards everyone, and although he did not want to see Rose again — the thought of it terrified him — he wondered how to make his peace with her. It seemed wrong, in this new, calm life, to have any enemies, least of all the girl who was associated with some of the most precious memories of his youth; and besides, he could not avoid feeling a painful, obscure gratitude for her embraces. He made several attempts to write, but could not complete a letter. Finally he decided to ask Nancy to act as his messenger. He would only tell her that he had quarrelled with Rose, and that he now wanted to ask Rose to let bygones be bygones. With this in mind he went up to Nancy’s flat one evening, but she was out. Her husband explained that Gran Hogarth was ill, and was waiting to go into hospital. In the meantime Nancy was looking after her, cheerfully travelling back and forth every day to run two homes at once. Jack promised to call again.

  His new mood also led him to another good deed. He was on his way to Collins’ Music Hall to book the tickets, when he saw Barmy Naughton on the opposite pavement. Jack was often oppressed by the thought of Barmy’s loneliness, and he was delighted when he thought of inviting Barmy to join the theatre party. Barmy accepted, with a painfully happy smile, and Jack went on to get the tickets.

  To his surprise this led to a flare-up with Joyce. Subservient though she was, she wanted no interlopers in their private world. When Jack told her what he had done, she grimaced with displeasure.

  “What’s up, girl? I thought you liked to do a good turn.”

  “There’s a limit. We don’t have to cart loonies round with us.”

  “He ain’t a loonie. He’s a bloody good friend of mine.”

  “Well,” Joyce said, “he’s no friend of mine, so don’t sit him next to me, or I’ll have the creeps.” She avoided any further argument, but when he tried, later, to arouse her sympathy for Barmy, she shut her face up stubbornly and refused to answer. The visit to the theatre took place on the last Saturday night in October.

  The first part of the show consisted of cheap and boring turns. The huge, draughty hall was astir with fidgeting. Laughter and conversation floated down from the gallery, where the younger couples sat. The packed audience on the ground floor included innumerable family parties, within each of which refreshments were continually being unwrapped and exchanged, children were being audibly dissuaded from mischief, and babes in arms were giving voice to their woes. There were many old folk present, whose poor pinched lives on the old age pension could be guessed not only from their shabby clothes and from the care with which the menfolk scraped together their little spills of tobacco, but from the rapt and obstinate enjoyment their uplifted faces showed at even the most untalented performance — as if, against all odds, they were determined to wring enjoyment from the one bright evening they could afford in the whole week. There could be felt, in the audience as a whole, a current of kinship and tolerant sympathy for the performers. Some of the worst turns drew the loudest applause. When a pathetic little troupe of chorus girls, who all looked as if they had come straight from a hard week’s work in the laundry, pranced off the stage, a woman in front of Jack turned round and said to him, “Ah, poor dears, they do work hard, don’t they?” A red-nosed comic in a check suit provoked the remark from Mrs. Wakerell that “he ought to be in bed with that chest of his,” and when a man nearby shouted, “Lahsy!”, someone else retorted, “He’s doing his best,” and there was a violent outburst of clapping from roundabout as the comedian, looking relieved and surprised, took his parting bow.

  After the interval the old-timers appeared. Some of them were only the ghosts of their former selves. Others, aged as they were, showed themselves as capable as ever of filling the hall with their magical gusto. Each of them was greeted as an old friend, with people shouting delightedly, “Wotcher, Georgie boy!” or “Good ol’ Lil!”, or calling for favourite songs, or passing to their neighbours such remarks as, “He’s looking well, bless him! And seventy if he’s a day!”

  Jack and Joyce were not greatly impressed by these artists, and wondered why their elders had always made such a fuss about them; but they joined in the familiar choruses with pleasure. Mr. and Mrs. Wakerell were having a wonderful time, and Barmy was gazing at the stage with an unsmiling stare of such fixity that he did not hear when Jack spoke to him. Joyce whispered, “Look, he’s trembling,” and Jack replied softly, “Leave him alone.” The old folk looked as if they were in another world, especially the women. However old a woman is, there are certain moments when she is touched by a spontaneous emotion, and a miracle happens. For a little while the lineaments of her girlhood reappear from beneath the sagging wrinkled surface of her face. Her eyes become tender and ardent. Jack and Joyce could discern, though without understanding, the beauty and innocence that shone forth from a score of aged faces around them; they were moved, and nudged each other gently, without saying anything.

  There was an old man near them. He was square and solid, with a massive, grey-fringed bald head, a red face and a predatory nose. He sat hunched with his head cocked to one side and a hand cupped to one ear. His eyes were looking away into strange distances as if it were not the voice of the singer on the stage that he was straining to catch, but that of his own vanished youth, audible to no-one but him, echoing and receding, faintly and tantalisingly, from far away.

  The older people made no attempt to sing loudly. They sang softly and timidly, seeming afraid to disturb the faint voices of memory that they heard within them; and their singing was drowned by the roaring choruses that came, unnostalgic and cruelly strong, from the boys and girls in the gallery.

  The air was astir with emotion; with happiness and grief, love, regret, disappointment. Each of us becomes another being at each stage of life; that being dies, but haunts us to the grave, so that we are each followed through life by a train of ghosts, and all the ghosts are ourselves. These were the ghosts that stirred in the theatre, whispering in the ears of the middle-aged and the old.

  There was a prolonged ovation at the end of the show, and the people swarmed out of the theatre, some of them excited and talkative, some still quiet and preoccupied.

  Mrs. Wakerell said, “Ah, well, that was a real treat. I could just do with some supper now.” Barmy remained in his seat, staring at the safety curtain. Jack took him by the arm and said, “Show’s over, old son.” Barmy looked up as if at a stranger, then muttered, with a faint smile of recognition, “I reckon so,” and rose to follow the others down the aisle.

  On the way home Jack, in the midst of an excited conversation, noticed that Barmy was trailing behind, wandering along with his hands in the pockets of his dirty raincoat and his lips moving silently. Jack dropped back and fell in step with him. “What’s up, nob?”

  Barmy shrugged his shoulders.

  “Didn’t you enjoy the show?”

  Barmy nodded feebly but his expression did not brighten.

  “Well cheer up, tosh, you ain’t dead yet.”

  Barmy whispered, “Wish I was.”

  “Here, that ain’t the way to talk on a Saturday night.”

  Barmy did not answer. The others had slowed their pace, and they were all walking together again.

  Jack put his arms round Barmy’s shoulder. “Here, come on, boy, snap out of it. You can smile if you try. What’s on your mind? I don’t get it. Smashing show, good seats, a nice drop of wet in the interval — what more do you want?”

  “All that in there,” Barmy blurted, “I used to — with her — I used to go, we used to have a real good time. Only,” he turned to Jack and clutched his arm, “I was alive then. Here, I’ll tell you. I couldn’t feel nothing tonight. Dead, I am. You could stick pins in me. I couldn’t feel ’em. Walking the earth dead, I am. All in their graves, the only ones that wanted me. Me — that’s where I ought to be. One day nothing. Next day nothing. Next day nothing. Next day nothing. Here,” he shouted, his face working desperately, “three hundred
and sixty-five days in a year. Know that? I ain’t daft. I know! Three hundred and sixty-five. That’s only one year. I’ve had — millions of years, I’ve had. I tell you, I’ve had about enough!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,”Joyce said, “put his head in a bag, someone! The life of the party, an’ I don’t think! I told you what to expect.”

  “Quiet,” Jack muttered, “you’ll upset him.”

  “What about us?” she insisted. “I thought this was supposed to be our night out? You want to think of your own, you do, before you break your heart over strangers.”

  Jack said, “He’ll be all right.” He spoke to Barmy again. “Look, boy, I know, you’ve had a rough time. But you’ve got friends. You’ve got Mick, and you’ve got us.”

  Barmy leaned towards him, peering into his face. “Here, her — you know what she said? A loving heart. Can’t live without you find one, she said. A loving heart. That was her. She was the only one. Never mind Mick. Never mind you. She was the only one. Her, and the kids, and that kitchen.” His voice rose. “All them kids. They’re gone. All of ’em. Little Nance, and Alf, and Rosie, and Jackie.”