And then I noticed her come in. Oh I love remembering how it was. Late in the evening she come in first and I didn’t think nothing of her trailing behind that woman. How she could and if I’d known then the things she’s told me since I’d never have let her come near me. Might have picked up all sorts of things. You could see what she was just looking at her even though they do say she’s got a heart of gold and’ll always help out anyone who’s a little down on their luck. Oh I knew, not all of course, and wondered what a nice-looking butch like Jonnie was doing tagging on. All them bright colours she wears and she’s no chicken. I like a bit of colour meself but not them low necklines almost slipping off her to go with it. I don’t reckon she’s got anything special to show off anyhow. Mine’s as good as hers any night of the week but she’s got all that cock-sureness from being so long on the game I expect and she don’t care who knows it. Jealous that’s what you are Sadie Knowles cos she got there first even if Jonnie swears blind she didn’t, that it wasn’t like that but she wasn’t crying out for it when she picked you up, was she now and what was it she said about never being long without a woman?
Stop it. You’re spoiling the story. Remember how it was properly without all this getting in between. Only another half hour to go and then you’re free. Maybe this afternoon when we’re sitting having our cup of tea, maybe if you’re good and Jon isn’t too tired before we get changed so it don’t mess me all up again. Who knows? Don’t let there be anyone else, please God not that. There you go again imagining things. And if there was it’d be your own fault for letting yourself get scruffy the way you have. You want to buck your ideas up. Stop all this dreaming and pull yourself together. And then what happened? Come on now, tell how it was. Well a couple of days after in she comes again only she’s by herself this time and I’m sitting in me same corner making one drink last the evening. It’s a Sunday evening and things are beginning to liven up. I watch her out of the corner of me eye because she looks different, looks nice and as if you could trust her, not like some and she stands there talking to a couple of friends, watching other people dance and making up her mind. I see her look across at me once or twice but I don’t make no sign cos I’m tired of it all, don’t want nothing to do with any of them. Suddenly, she decides, throws her fagend down on the floor, puts her foot on it and walks straight over to me. We take a few turns, swop names. Where do you come from? Are you by yourself? Then it’s a twist. Oh we twist lovely together and she really enjoys it you can see, with her eyes flashing and me I shake and quiver til the sparks fly. We sit down again in my corner and she gets us both a drink. I tell her a little about the family and then I find meself talking away as if I’d known her years. She’s nice to talk to, listens to what you say and you don’t feel it’s just because of what she’s wanting out of you afterwards. Charlie calls time to go and we arrange to go to the pictures next evening. I walk back to the room I’m still sharing, feeling it, hating it worse than ever though she’s been so nice to me since it almost hurts.
The next evening I’m there on time and she doesn’t come. It’s raining and wind that blows through you like a knife. I walk up and down to try and keep from freezing to death and I’m just giving her up and deciding it’s a damn good job I haven’t built nothing on it and how they’re all the same people not to be trusted when I see her hurrying along towards me and I’m so glad to be getting out of that perishing street that I hardly bother with what she’s saying about how come she’s so late. We go in and she’s not like some she lets you watch the picture and she never makes a move to hold your hand even. I like her better for that cos she’s treating me as a human being with feelings not just a lump of meat in the butcher’s window, something to be gobbled up to satisfy your appetite. When the pictures come out we go to a coffee bar and have coffee and them Danish pastries cos she says I look half starved. I tell her about losing me job and having to get out of me room and how I’ve got this job but the money isn’t brilliant and I’m trying to get enough together for a week’s rent in advance before I look for a place of me own. Then there’s a misunderstanding cos she thinks I’ve been living with this butch and I’m just looking for out so I have to tell her all about that night and she goes very quiet so I’m frightened she thinks I’m just a tart and she won’t have no more to do with me but it seems she’s only picking her words careful. ‘You can’t stay there,’ she says. ‘You can come and stay with me for a bit if you like. No strings attached and I won’t lay a finger on you til you really want me to. That’s a promise and I don’t break my word.’ I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her all dark and serious sitting there opposite me and I thought I’ll risk it cos I can’t be much worse off. ‘I’ll go back and get me things,’ I said and she said she’d come too and wait for me outside because she didn’t want to see that other one for fear she might get wild knowing what she’d done to me and she’d learnt one or two tricks in the army that could hurt so it wasn’t worth the risk.
She didn’t want me to go the other one when I got inside and she said again she was sorry and couldn’t we give it another try. I said there never had been nothing so how could we give it another try. I put me few clothes back in me case and away we went. I never speak when I see her down the House cos I know Jon’d go wild. It wasn’t a bad room with a bed and a couch and she slept on the couch so it was just like she’d said. I kept it up for a fortnight and everyday I loved her more and I wanted her to want me til I couldn’t stand it no longer and thought if she didn’t I’d have to go cos it was making me ill. At last she come back from the House one night when I’d been egging her on to get us quite a few drinks to screw me courage up and when it’s time for bed I say, ‘You can come in here if you want.’ ‘You sure?’ she says. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure,’ and I put the light out quick and lie there waiting me heart going crazy til I think I’ll choke and I feel her get in beside me and then I put me arms round her and …
God make it soon. God let it be alright. Not too late. Don’t let there be anyone else. Never too late to mend, mum’d say. All his fault the old bastard, never give any of us a chance, but mine too for not knowing when I’m well off. How could she go with a woman like that after the things she’s told me, things it makes you sick to think about, my Jonnie? Swears she never had her but how could she be in the room while she was doing all them things for them men all standing round watching and afterwards not do nothing? But I mustn’t say it, must keep me big trap shut or we’ll be rowing and the evening spoilt since she won’t hear a word against her as if she was the bloody queen or Lady Muck herself. Gawd help me to keep me mouth to meself and hang on to what I’ve got with both hands til I know I been crossed, hear it from her own lips. Move round the hands of the damn clock the last five minutes. Some of ’em sitting back already, packing it in. Poor old Edna looks as white as a ghost. Be lucky to see her in on Monday morning. Well that’s one thing we’re spared, and all this about what’ll happen when you’re old and alone, I don’t reckon we’re any worse off than anyone else. I mean how much will her kids care for her then? Besides who makes their life as if they was laying up for their old age? It’s enough just trying to get by from day to day for most of these so where’s the difference? See you soon, Jonnie, meet you outside and we’ll walk to the bustop together. Can you hear me Jon? Soon be home with Mitzi jumping all over you, glad to see us back. And I’ll try, I will try to keep me and the place looking decent so you need never be ashamed of us, never let you down. She lifted her head up then just as if she could hear. Laying her things neat like she always does. Nearly time. Wonder what’s on this afternoon while we’re having our dinner. Nothing but sport I suppose. A lot of silly schoolboys chasing a ball about. It’s films I like best. Old films though all them lovely women do spoil you for yourself. Have to find something to cheer meself up after sitting here all morning. Maybe there’ll be something later while we’re getting ready to go out before Rick comes with the car. Unless there’s anything more interesting go
ing on. But I won’t think about that, won’t bank on it and then I can’t be disappointed. Hallo Nan’s had enough, jacking it in, first on her feet. Now the others all following suit, all standing up, pushing their chairs under the benches, stretching, the tongues unloosed starting to wag. Who’s for home then eh? Open the cage man, we’re coming out.
IT IS early evening. Judy is at her toilet. All day has been devoted to the preparation of her exquisite body. This morning she got up late after an hour of conscious relaxation in the soft arms of blankets and mattress, slackening the muscles of eyelids and throat where the first wrinkles will appear. For today is Saturday. All week she goes to bed early, sleeps alone but tonight she will bring back the devotee who will be permitted to worship for one night and then sent away dazed before the neighbours are up in the morning. Rise slowly; there is no hurry. Hurry breeds carelessness, neglect. You have all day before you. She stands naked in front of the mirror, unpins her hair, wipes the remains of youthifying nightcream from her face with a tissue and surveys her country, turning from side to side to admire the contours; right hand on hip, left knee bent in a little; swing to left hand on hip, right knee bent. Not bad. Not bad at all. She touches her breasts with delicate finger tips. The nipples have thickened a little, grown darker, two shadowy circles blurr the white skin. She remembers when they were small and quite pink but many lovers have taken airy nourishment there, moulding them with their lips. She sighs a little. Even admiration, homage has its disadvantages and must be taken in small doses. She picks a matching set of underwear in coffee lace from the dressing-table drawer. Every day has its colour. Tonight she will be muted, subtle, whisper sadly in the shadows, decline to dance. She goes towards the bathroom, switches on the heater, runs the bath, begins to clean her teeth, spitting pink foam accurately at the plughole. She adds cubes and essence to the bathwater, swirling it with her hand until the fragrance dissolves and rises in a cloud around her then steps in and squats letting the warmth and steam absorb her. The water creeps over her ankles and rises up her thighs flushing her with hot pleasurable sensations and darkening the ginger fur. She wonders whether she should trim it or whether it will do for today, tonight that is. The water reaches waist level. Time to lie back and let the legs float detached from the submerged trunk so that the eyes can look down on them from above the coverlet of suds, deliberating the delicate questions of toenails and calloused heels, where to cut and how much and then what tints to lacquer on. Soon she will rouse herself to soap and smooth, to cream her armpits and brush the pads of her fingers over the thrusting prickles on her calves. They must be scraped with an abrasive mitt and the skin fed with skinfood to keep it soft. She must search it for blackheads and squeeze them out between sharp thumbnails. An hour later, clean and sweet, the water thickening and cooling, she steps out.
It would be delightful to follow Judy step by step through her day. It is always interesting to be in on the secret preparations behind any rite whether it’s a coronation or a simple tonsillectomy, a visit to the city hall or a trip round the brewery but there isn’t time and besides certain details of Judy’s day might be meat for the prurient. We would like to be told how it’s all done but we will let Judy keep her mystery inviolate until one day comes the all-mastering lover who will desecrate the holy places, refuse the command to leave with the light, move in on her hallowed bathroom and drop his clothes on the bedroom floor. We see her bending to pick them up, the priestess become a handmaiden.
Now at last she is at her dressingtable. She will be here for two hours, lighting candles at her eyes, anointing herself with unguent, sending up the savours of incense, and then the ikon itself must be retouched until it glows with rich colour, every detail of the face picked out, enhanced until it seems a true portrait of the goddess, the skin layered with flesh tints, cheeks and mouth vermillioned, the eyelids shaded with green, lashes brushed thick and dark. Pope’s young madam Belinda arraying herself for the fray was no better supplied with bottles, and wares, from the four corners of the globe than Judy. There is no need to describe them for you when they can be seen in any chemist’s window or displayed to perfection on the cosmetics counter of your smalltown Harrods. It is the number, the variety and the quality brandnames with the French flavour that would surprise you on a typist’s salary. The hands that perform the rite pound mindlessly five days a week in the typing pool for all this. The hands, the hands that perform the rite are the hands of a serving woman, of the sink and the scrubbing bucket. They are never used to make love for Judy only receives. She never gives. It is her lovers who are the blessed and who inherit her kingdom on Saturday nights.
She is ready. One last look to be sure then she rises from her stool, picks up her blue suede jacket and throws it almost carelessly over the silk shirt. The pockets are loaded with all she will need, purse, cigarettes in their sealskin case, comb a little greasy from the bright blonde hair, lipstick and a dash of powder if her face should begin to shine in the hot twilight of the House where she twists and beckons. She carries no handbag, her hands swing free from the shoulders or dive deep among the objects in her pockets. Other walkers turn and stare as she moves through them to the station, wondering who she is, what she’s doing brightening the dingy streets, where she’s going. Young lads nudge each other to call after her but their voices fall short, without conviction. Some instinct tells them she’s not for them and though she bristles with hatred for their clumsiness, their rough male lechery she doesn’t answer. Tonight perhaps will come the dark severe butch whose jacket and trousers we have foreseen on the bedroom floor. But she doesn’t know this yet. Judy is going out.
THEY left London under grey skies that seemed to drain the colour even from the branches of cherry and laburnum clustering their pink and yellow blossom in the suburban gardens that edged their route to the West.
‘There’s something about the quality of our light,’ Matt said as the road swung them out into more open country. ‘It’s denser, almost a substance in itself. I mean if this were the approach to Paris now we’d be driving straight through an Impressionist landscape, Pissarro say, a froth of fresh Spring pastels and it isn’t that he’s exaggerating, it really is like that; I’ve seen it but our light is thick so that you always get that Constable colouring. It’s the damp I suppose that makes the atmosphere opaque instead of clear.’
‘I may be quite wrong of course and it may simply be the illusion of childhood. No let me start again. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t remember it always being like this when I was young. I remember clear bright Springs, crisp winters and long hot summers when we seemed to spend every day on the beach. My uncle, who wasn’t much older than I was, made us a sort of truck that you pulled along.’
‘Like a modified version of the little carts made of a soapbox and two pairs of pushchair wheels that we used to drag each other up hill in so we could run down the other side?’
‘Yes, that’s the kind of thing and they’d load it up with the tent and picnic basket and buckets and spades and spend the whole day on the beach because of course living on a peninsula we had beaches on three sides. I used to join them after school. I suppose it is just looking at the past through rose coloured glasses.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I think you’re quite right. As a matter of fact I read an article about it the other day in some scientific journal. Apparently our climate really was warmer during the first forty years of this century, the culmination of a warming up process that started very slowly at the end of the seventeenth century after a very cold snap of a couple of hundred years, you know when they held an ice fair on the Thames and roasted an ox. Then the Middle Ages were different again, warmer. I always wondered how they managed to grow vines out of doors in this country and produce native wine. Then I used to worry about them in those draughty castles, what Keats said about aching in icy hoods and mail. He was living in a cold snap too of course. Really they weren’t as badly off as we imagine. The interesting thing is that we a
ll think the climate is static. We know about the ice ages of course and the periods of tropical forest but we think that’s all in the past, that since the advent of recorded history anyway the English climate has always been the same, one of the great immutables, and that our national characteristics are as they are because of it and therefore, by imputation, immutable too. The climate of thought doesn’t change because the geographical climate doesn’t either. It’s all part of being English and must always be so, amen. In fact the climate is open to quite an amount of temporary variation and I begin to wonder whether the national temperament is too. How much of the laissez-faire attitude of the upper classes and the alternation between attempted violent action and apathy of the poor in the early part of this century was encouraged by the good weather? And why was it characteristic of the Middle Ages for Englishmen to be as passionate and highly coloured as any Southern European? Anyway the point is it ought to teach us that ideas we’ve held as unassailable truths are as vulnerable and subject to change as anything else.’
‘All this from Uncle Henry making us a trolley to take our things down to the beach.’
Matt laughed. ‘Not really. It’s because I read that article and, oh yes, because I heard a talk the other night by an eminent man of science about the history of various scientific premises and it occurred to me, after listening to him on how bogged down they were for a long time over the question of whether the atom was the smallest particle of matter and that having once accepted as a law that it was it became in a sense a barrier to progress, I thought that the scientific mind isn’t as flexible and open to new ideas as it might be and this is one of the dangers of empiricism.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well I think this is inclined to bog us down in archeology too and in other fields, like the division between psychiatry and psychology which just shouldn’t exist. It’s the tragedy of the division of the cultures. The ideal mind would be a combination of the scientific and the artistic and I think you do get this among the leading men in every field but it isn’t applied enough to other levels, the mythical man in the street for instance. Our present education doesn’t teach it. It teaches compartmentalism and a vertical scale of value instead of a horizontal one or, even better a combination of the two. It’s no good just putting forward facts without some attempt to interpret them. That way they just don’t become accessible to society for its use and improvement. What does your friend Stag think of this kind of thing?’
The Microcosm Page 25