Rosie Hogarth

by Alexander Baron

  Behind the mask of obstinacy which Joyce wore, lay the real cause of her suffering, the confusion with which she was filled. She was frightened by what she had done. She was appalled at the thought of losing a chance of marriage. She wanted, as much as Jack did, to be settled and to have her own home. In the past week her passions, long dormant, had been inflamed, all her dreams had been let loose. She had been close to independence, had seen herself free of her mother at last, standing on her own feet, a ‘somebody’, a woman to be respected. She had let everybody see it; she had betrayed herself, with her elation, her boasts, her frantic attentions to her lover. How could she avoid disgrace, and secure the prize so nearly won?

  But how, on the other hand, could she make it up with Jack? She was tormented by a violence of character which no-one had ever suspected. It had always hurt her to be treated as a dull, obedient nonentity, her secret self insulted by even the most well-meaning gestures of those around her. She had always nursed her pride as a secret possession, throughout the years of servitude to her mother, throughout her humiliations with men. Now that she had publicly asserted her pride she could not betray it. It had brought her to life. She wanted to make peace, but the more Jack and her mother pressed her, the more she dreaded doing anything that might appear as bowing the knee to them.

  To be happy, to be a real woman, she needed Jack. But to be happy, to be a real woman with Jack, she needed to secure some recognition of her pride. This purpose lived only in her emotions. She had not been able to define it in the form of thought, and when she muttered, aware of it only as an expression of anger, “I’ll show him!” she did not know what she wanted to show him, or how.

  Imprisoned within her clumsy and inarticulate bodily self, she was tortured by this seemingly insoluble conflict. Once again she became aware how undeveloped she was, both mentally and emotionally. Her anger and illness were fed still more by shame at her inability to cope with a crisis. It was uncertainty that made her shut herself up in her room, shrink from everyone else, and work herself up, for hour after hour, into rages and fantasies that sometimes drove her thoughts beyond the frontiers of reason. She told herself, ‘I can’t go on like this’, but, seeing no way to save herself or even to relieve the explosive gathering of emotion in her, she continued to drift.

  Today the dull pain had flared up into a new fury. There had been some hope for her in the thought that Jack was suffering as she was, even though she did not know how to reach out to him. But this afternoon he had brightened up and gone to the football match with her father. How could he have done such a thing? The outside world no longer existed for her, and she could not understand why it should exist for him. If it did, surely it proved that he still did not take her seriously, that he regarded her present mood as nothing but petty tantrums, and that if she made any gesture to him he would only accept it as the surrender of an inferior, a submission that would condemn her to lifelong indignity. She felt trapped.

  Jack and Mr. Wakerell were in high spirits when they came in. They greeted the womenfolk noisily and were both too happy to pay attention to Joyce’s hostile stare. “What a game!” Jack said. “Eleventh on the trot they’ve won this season. Hoo! No stoppin’ ’em now!”

  They took their places at the table. Jack smote his hands together. “Kippers and cream cake! That’s the kiddie! I’m just in the mood for a blowout. Here” — he addressed Joyce, refusing to recognize her indifference — “you ought ha’ been there, Joycie. What a finish? One each and three minutes to go. Quiet? I tell you, I’d ha’ died of fright if a bloody sparrow ’ad sneezed. Then all of a sudden there’s a bundle round the goal mouth and —wallop! — old McPherson heads the ball in. Talk about noise! Sixty thousand people tearin’ their tonsils out and jiggin’ about as if it was raining pound notes. Then the final whistle blows. Phew, right in the nick of time that winning goal, I can tell you.”

  “Lovely grub!” Mr. Wakerell rumbled, referring to the game, not to the meal.

  Joyce sat upright, staring down into her teacup.

  Jack was still grinning. “Here, come on, girl. Your tongue’ll go mouldy if you don’t give it an airing. What about calling it evens and coming out with us tonight? Ah, come on, we can watch the bonfire, have a bit of a lark over there, then we can go up the pictures for the last house.” There was no reply. “Ah, come on, give us a smile. They ain’t rationed, you know.”

  Joyce looked up, her eyes dilated in an alarmed, wondering expression. She stared at Jack for some seconds and he, stubbornly maintaining his grin, stared back. She lowered her eyelids, and her face contracted again. Jack pulled a face expressive of defeat, and concentrated on the bones of his kipper. They went on with the meal in silence. Jack offered her the pepper cruet. She ignored him. A moment later he said, “Vinegar?” She gave no sign that she had heard.

  Her mother screamed, “Say something, you little bitch!”

  Joyce blinked, as if at a spasm of pain, recovered herself and continued to sit upright. A slight tremor became visible beneath the neckline of her dress.

  “You think too much of yourself,” Mrs. Wakerell shrilled, “you’re not too old to get my hand across your face, you know!”

  Joyce looked quickly about her. Her mother’s bulk was between her and the door. She sat trembling, staring straight in front of her with an obstinate, suffering look.

  Jack muttered, “Leave her alone.” Mrs. Wakerell, invaded by a maudlin rage, did not heed him, and moaned, “I’m sure I don’t deserve a daughter like this.”

  Joyce said softly, “Shut up!”

  “Listen to the way she talks to her own mother! After all the years I’ve slaved for her!”

  Joyce’s voice was more intense but no louder than before. “For God’s sake, shut up. I’m warning you!”

  “She treats me as if I was dirt beneath her feet. She — Joycie!”

  Joyce sprang to her feet, seized the edge of the tablecloth and swept it across the table in a single violent flurry. Mrs. Wakerell’s scream, the exclamations of the men and the backward crash of their chairs mingled with the noise of breaking china as knives, forks, food, crockery and flowers swept to the floor. Joyce cried, “Now shut up!” and stood shaking from head to foot with the edge of the cloth still in her paralysed grasp. She stared at the wreckage in astonishment until, understanding what she had done, she raised her head and faced the others in agonised defiance. She was full of tears but could not cry. She was terrified but unable to flee.

  Mrs. Wakerell uttered a prolonged, high wail of hysteria, advanced on Joyce and began to slap her face hard, using the front and back of her hand in alternate blows. She whimpered and wept as she did so, spitting insults at Joyce in a hurt, childlike voice. Joyce remained rigid, her head tilted back, taking the slaps as if she could not feel them.

  Mr. Wakerell pulled his wife away and pushed her into a chair, saying, “Here, that’s enough! You’re worse than she is.” Mrs. Wakerell subsided into a loud and tearful monologue of self-pity.

  Jack was looking at Joyce with a gentle, questioning expression that surprised her. He said, “All right, Joycie. I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I know when I’m licked. I’ll clear out, you won’t have to worry any more.”

  “You keep your mouth shut, boy.” Both Jack and Joyce, lost for a moment in a strange colloquy of the eyes which neither of them could understand, were startled by Mr. Wakerell’s intervention. In his deep, ox-like voice, he went on, “You go and change your trousers. Talk afterwards. You’re sopping wet with tea.”

  Jack continued to study Joyce. He appeared puzzled by the faint emanation of appeal that her bodily attitude suggested. Then the look of resignation came into his face again, and he grimaced. “I’m not worried about a drop o’ tea spilled over me.” He uttered a shaky laugh. “I knew you had it in for me, Joycie, but I didn’t dream you hated me. Not like this.” Joyce, looking piteous, make a little protesting movement of the hands, but did not speak. Mr. Wakerell was watching them both while,
with his handkerchief, he at once comforted his wife and muffled her complaints.

  “Well,” Jack said, “I’m all right, anyway. If I’m not wanted here I know where I am welcome. Back in the bloody Army. At least I’ll know where I am there. I won’t go mucking things up for myself and everyone else. I’ll have bloody mates I can count on, and a bloody job to get on with.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Mr. Wakerell said, “You’ll sign your life away while you’re out of your wits.”

  There was a knock at the street door.

  “Funny when you come to think of it,” Jack said, “I suppose they’ll shove me off to Malaya or somewhere, chase some poor sod round the jungle that never done me no harm. Well, I feel like sticking a bayonet up someone’s jacksey. Someone’s bad luck, that’s all. All right —” There had been another knock — “I’ll go.”

  Joyce and her father watched in silence while he went out. They heard him speaking at the street door. Voices were raised, then Jack slammed the door, came back alone into the hall and went up to his room.

  Mr. Wakerell said, “You know, you’ve done it all wrong, girl.”

  Joyce looked imploringly at him and murmured, “I know.” She drew her breath and forced out the words, “Good riddance to bad rubbish! Him and his football!” Her voice broke. “All he thinks of.”

  Mrs. Wakerell had recovered sufficiently to begin railing at her daughter again. Mr. Wakerell said, “Be quiet, Liz. You go and fill the kettle again, get some more tea on.” He pushed her into the scullery. “Go on, do as I tell you.”

  He said to Joyce, “You’re a funny kid, aren’t you? You’re like me. That’s why she doesn’t understand you. You live inside yourself. You can’t say what you want to, so you go and say the opposite.”

  Joyce muttered, “Clever all of a sudden.”

  “Not all of a sudden. Not so clever, either, for that matter. Or I’d have known what to say before now. But I didn’t, no more than you did. You ought to understand that, Joycie.”

  She refused to meet his eyes.

  “And here we are, strangers, after all these years. When I do try and get a word in edgeways, I suppose you think I’m interfering.”

  She shook her head violently, still not looking at him. He rested his hand on her arm, and she did not shrink from it. “There,” he said, “you just stay still and listen. That boy’s all right, take my word for it. I had a long talk with him, coming back from the match. I knew it was there, all bottled up. He kept on wanting to speak, but I left him alone, and then on the way back it all come out with a rush. I tell you, he’s broken-hearted. He reckons he’s just about done for. Ever since he come back, everything’s been strange, he felt out of it, and in the end he blew up. That’s all it was with this woman. It’ll be the finish of him if he gives up and runs off now. He’ll be a drifter for the rest of his life.”

  Joyce let her arm press a little closer to his hand, but she whispered, “Sorry for himself, that’s all.”

  “And what about you? I saw the way you were looking at him before. You’re eating yourself up with pride and misery. There’s the pair of you suffering, and for what reason I don’t know.” He slipped his hand down to her wrist and grasped it. “Come on, Joycie. Come with me.”

  She pulled her arm away. “Oh, what’s the use? If you’d all left me in peace instead of pushing me around I might have been able to think what to do.”

  He took her hand again. “Perhaps you’re right. We haven’t been much help. But never mind that now. Come on upstairs with me.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll find out. Come with me.” She resisted, but did not pull her hand away. “You think I don’t know you,” he said. “We’ve never said a word that mattered to each other in all our lives, have we? But I’m not such a fool as I look, Joycie. I know why you did that.” He indicated the wreckage on the floor. “You were at your wits’ end. If you’d been sure of yourself — I mean, if you’d really wanted nothing else but to see the back of him, you’d never have had to do it. We’re a funny lot. When we can’t sort it out in words we go and bust something up for fear of getting busted up ourselves. I smashed a chair up myself once.” He smiled sombrely. “With my bare hands. That’s shook you, eh? The last one to do his nut, your dozy old dad, eh? I’ve had my troubles, though. More like yours than you think. I found out something once that sent me crackers for a bit. Never mind what it was, it wouldn’t do you any good to know. I rampaged around in this kitchen, ready to do murder I was. Then I picked up a chair and pulled it to bits. I ripped it apart and stamped on the bits till there wasn’t enough left to plug a rathole with. And then I sat down, I was all weak and shaking, sweating like a pig I was, and I took a good deep breath and I thought, ‘That’s better. Now I must think it all out.’ And I decided, live and let live. Anything for a quiet life. None of us is a prize packet. We expect others to put up with us, so it stands to reason we’ve got to put up with them, for all their faults. I’ve managed to make the best of it ever since. Now you come on upstairs to his room and see what we can do about it.”

  She shook her head, fiercely but with longing.

  “You won’t regret it, girl.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t. I’d rather die than face him now.”

  “Come on, love. You’re a coward if you let your pride frighten you. Come on, I’ll come with you.”

  “And give us another lecture?”

  “I shan’t come in. I’ll put you in through that door and shut it from the outside.”

  She clutched his hand and looked up at him like a child. “But what’ll I say?”

  “It’s my guess you won’t say anything. The state you two are in, the pair of you, you’ll be surprised what’ll happen as soon as you take a good look at each other. I shall probably hear a lot of boo-hooing through the door, and then I’ll know it’s all right.” He smiled. “It’s marvellous what a tonic a good cry can be.”

  She made a helpless, repentant gesture towards the mess on the floor.

  “Never mind that,” he said. “Your mother can clear that up. It’ll do her good.”

  She replied with a pallid, painful smile. She wanted to make some demonstration of love and nascent understanding, but she could not.

  They heard Jack’s footsteps coming down the stairs. The street door banged.

  “He’s gone out,” she wailed. Without initiative, she clung to him and waited, like a child, for his instructions.

  “I suppose he’s gone to the bonfire. Put your coat on.”

  “But we can’t just hang about after him.”

  “We’ll see what we’ll see. A breath of air’ll do you good, anyway. You just tidy your face up and get dressed. Come along, love.”

  She obeyed gratefully.

  Chapter Two

  The outward aspect of Lamb Street changed with the seasons. In spring and summer there was a touch of the fairground about it. Doors were left open. The characteristic noises of each household issued forth to mingle in a cheerful background to the common life. Old folk sat in front of their doors, and the babies were put out in their prams to enjoy the long hours of sunlight. People gathered to gossip or came out to watch street entertainers. Children swarmed at their play. Boys and girls in their early ’teens, every one with a bicycle, congregated at the corner and set off from time to time on reckless, bell-jangling races round the block. Their elder brothers kicked footballs about, crouched in gambling schools (with sentries posted against the police), boxed playfully, or joined with the girls to flirt or sing.

  As the year drew to its end, darkness and bad weather drove the people indoors. After dusk, groups of lads huddled in shop doorways at the corners, conspiring quietly. A few pairs of lovers, whose courtships were not approved by their families, haunted the dark building site. Sometimes a group of kerchiefed girls, going out for the evening, would clatter arm-in-arm through the gloom, singing in chorus. Every afternoon the rattle of a barrow announced the arrival of the vegetable man, d
efying the drizzle or the dreary mist with his cheerful shout of, “LOVerly ripe tomatoes”, but looking so miserable as he plodded along that often a housewife brought him out a cup of tea or made an unnecessary purchase out of pity. Otherwise the street was quiet. Warmth glowed behind drawn curtains. Light and the muffled noises of life tempted through the ornately-patterned frosted glass windows of The Lamb. People hurried towards these refuges, let themselves in with an eager banging of doors, and left the dark, dismal pavements deserted.

  Families, crowding round their fires, took little interest in what went on elsewhere. It was only occasionally that, when some domestic friction had worn through the bonds of respectability, a household would so far forget itself as to divide in civil war, and the neighbours on each side would switch off their radio sets and listen delightedly to the commotion. There had been little excitement this autumn, except for an outbreak between Mr. Prawn and his sub-tenant Bernie Whiteflower. Mr. Prawn, unable to make ends meet on his pension, had tried to put Bernie’s rent up by half-a-crown, explaining his reasons in a long and flowery letter which included quotations about the cost of living from The Economist and The Daily Worker. Bernie had rushed into the street with the letter, and gathered his neighbours about him in an impromptu protest meeting, pointing to the unfortunate Mr. Prawn (who was watching in terror from his window) and shouting, “Gah! Calls hisself a Socialist! Bleed’n’ capitalist, that’s all he is!” Bernie had thereupon declared, and had since maintained, a rent strike, and Mr. Prawn had lived henceforth shut up in his kitchen, too upset to demand his rent, and only scurrying out from time to time to do his shopping, pursued by shouts from the upstairs window of, ‘Bloodsucker!’ ‘Parasite!’ ‘Shylock!’