The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

by Beryl Bainbridge

  When she stood, she noticed him look at her legs, quickly and away again, not boldly.

  The bathroom was tiled and none too clean. There was a torn curtain of plastic slung sideways from the bath. The tub, similar to the one she used in Kentish Town, stood on cast-iron legs, old and rusted. Judging from the state of the toilet bowl, Americans didn’t know about Vim. Which was funny seeing the way Harold, the evening she had invited him in for a coffee, had rubbed his finger across her bedside table and commented on the grime.

  He’d been staying with her friends Polly and Bernard, and she’d been asked round for dinner to make a foursome. She hadn’t really wanted to go because of the name Grasse, which she reckoned sounded German. While she was still at school her class had been marched in crocodile to the Philharmonic Hall to watch a film to do with British soldiers tidying up a concentration camp. There were bulldozers raking up funny scarecrows and tipping them into pits. Later, Mavis, the head prefect, said they were dead bodies. Nobody could possibly be friendly with a Jerry, not when one knew what had happened to the Jews. But then Polly told her Washington Harold was himself Jewish, so that made it all right.

  After the meal, it was suggested that Harold should escort her home; the road past the bread factory was dark and some­ times drunks fell down in the gutter.

  Rose knew about men. She’d been on her own, off and on, in London since she was sixteen, and had often found herself in difficult situations. It was due to politeness, mostly. Mother had instilled in her that if you really wanted something, like a second piece of cake, you had to say no. And if the cake was awful and you didn’t want another piece, you said yes, so as not to offend. Once, a man had bought her drinks in a pub in South Kensington and then taken her to his room near the Brompton Oratory. It was a posh area, so she didn’t think any­ thing could go wrong. After all, it was only the dispossessed who needed to exert power. The man had forced her onto his bed, knocking a tooth out in his struggle to hold her down. Bloody-mouthed, she said she’d do whatever he wanted if he’d just let her use the toilet first. As she fled down the stairs he’d emptied a cup of water over the landing banisters, and she’d fancied he was weeing on her. She’d gone to the police, but as she was under age they wanted the address of her par­ ents. There was no way she was going to let Father know what had happened.

  Which was why it was all right to invite Harold into her bedsitter. She’d known he wasn’t the kind of man who needed to make an impression, at least not of that sort. Besides, he was a psychologist. That first evening, she’d even thought he hadn’t noticed her—apart from her being in the same room as Bernard and Polly—until he asked her about Dr. Wheeler’s photograph on her bedside table, that is. It wasn’t a very good photo and had been taken eight years before, the time Dr. Wheeler had come up to London to say his goodbyes before leaving England for good. It was her nineteenth birthday and he’d given her an old Brownie camera that he said had belonged to his sister. She’d snapped him standing outside Charing Cross station, capturing his image a second before he raised a hand to blot out his face. He was wearing his trilby hat.

  Washington Harold hadn’t told her he recognised Dr. Wheeler, simply stood there holding the framed picture to his chest as though accepting a bunch of flowers.

  The meal was ready when Rose returned to the kitchen. There wasn’t a tablecloth.

  She said, ‘That place where you bought the roof rack for the van—’

  ‘Camper,’ he corrected.

  ‘I thought I was in the cottage hospital having my appendix out.’

  ‘Odd,’ he said, but she could tell he wasn’t listening.

  While they ate he told her his plans for the following day. They would pack first thing and then go into town to see his broker; then they’d head off for Washington.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said, wolfing down the bubbling meat.

  He kept filling her glass with red wine and she drank it to make the time pass quicker. After a while she felt much better, was even confident enough to light a cigarette without asking permission. When she leaned back to blow out smoke he looked at her chest. She smiled and felt on top of things. Presently he said there were a lot of last-minute jobs that needed doing, but as she was obviously in no condition to be of assistance she better get to her bed. Though this was pos­ sibly a rebuke, she continued to smile. The bedroom, he told her, was the second door down the hall.

  She didn’t bother to clean her teeth, even though the brush was brand new. Changed into her nightgown, she stared at her surroundings. The room was devoid of pictures, of orna­ ments. There was a newspaper picture of a woman pinned to the back of the door, but she was too hazy in the head to read the caption. A vent in the skirting board blew out hot air; the pile of the carpet swam like dust across her toes. Peering through the shutters she saw a veranda with a rocking chair, the backs of some tenement houses, rubbish bins in rows, a great plane tree dripping water, and a black cat circling round and round the van; Harold was kneeling on its roof, the sky turning dark blue behind his head.

  There was a smell about the bed, a staleness. The sheets were clean but there was an odour of long ago dampness. She knew that smell. Years ago, suffering from toothache, she had got into Father’s bed for warmth. Normally she slept with Mother in the room with the statue of Adam and Eve on the windowsill, only the pain had made her whinge a lot and Mother had banished her onto the landing. She remembered the occasion, not on account of the toothache but because Father had been wearing nothing but a string vest, and when he turned in his sleep his thingie lolled against her leg. It stung, like a bee.

  She fell asleep with her hand cupped over her nose and woke with Harold lying alongside. ‘You,’ she exclaimed, as though it ought to be someone else.

  ‘I’ve fixed the luggage rack,’ he said, as if that explained the proximity.

  She sat upright and asked what time it was. He said, ‘Three o’clock, Rose.’

  ‘Night or day?’ she enquired, which made him laugh.

  He pulled her down, telling her she must have a good rest for the journey ahead. He didn’t attempt to put an arm round her, nor did he lie too close. She heard him scratching his beard as she sank again into sleep.

  TWO

  Harold woke to pale skies and nicked his forefinger when slicing bread for toast. Dwelling on the day before, he congratulated himself on the way things had gone. Rose had obviously enjoyed the visit to Sears Roebuck and been impressed by his apartment, unremarkable though it was. When he recalled the squalor of her Victorian bedsitter in London, this was hardly surprising. True, she hadn’t been of much help when it came to packing, but then she probably felt shy of handling his personal belongings, boxer shorts and such like.

  Remembering she hadn’t washed before going to bed—he’d been obliged to sleep with his head well above the covers—he ran a bath and attempted to rouse her. Her response was unexpected; she punched out at him and snuggled deeper under the covers. Reminded of Dollie, he left the room. Toast eaten and too agitated to fry his usual breakfast eggs, he busied himself stacking suitcases into the camper: the extra blankets, tinned foods and cans of gasoline he stored on the luggage rack, along with a leather case full of documents. Throughout his comings and goings Rose remained dead to the world, save for an audible wheeze to her breathing. He was on hands and knees inside the camper when his neighbour, Artie Brune, poked his head through the doors.

  ‘I guess she come,’ Artie said, eyes spiteful.

  Harold nodded.

  ‘She up for it?’

  ‘You bet,’ he enthused, and would have turned his back if he hadn’t thought Brune might later have reason to remember his attitude.

  Artie complained that his Ma wasn’t feeling too good. ‘She been taken to the hospital,’ he said.

  ‘That’s too bad,’ Harold murmured.

  Artie wasn’t sure how sick she was. She’d been a bad mother but if she was dying he should stick around, shouldn’t he?

  Har
old said he should.

  ‘When she humping men, she tell me sleep out on fire steps. Once in snow. That ain’t good, is it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Harold said. In his head he was going over what he would do when they got to Washington. Rose would have to go into the Stanfords’ apartment on her own. By way of excuse he’d tell her it wasn’t safe to leave the camper unattended, not with the disturbances still going on; after all, it was no more than the truth.

  An hour later, when he returned indoors, he caught Rose about to open a cardboard box he’d left on the table. He pushed her aside and, snatching it up, ran from the room. Stuffing it inside the pillowcase he’d prepared, he stowed it on the roof beneath the army blankets. When he’d fixed the tarpaulin in place he went back inside to make his peace with Rose. He reckoned she would be feeling pretty awkward, possibly tearful. He told her he was sorry for his roughness and meant it.

  She said, ‘Don’t mention it. I should have remembered that curiosity killed the cat.’

  He was thrown by her tone of voice, the defiant way she met his gaze, and heard himself giving reasons for his behaviour. ‘At night,’ he said, ‘when we make camp, there could be snakes, certainly poisonous insects . . . not to mention flies. We need powerful repellents.’

  ‘I don’t mind flies,’ she said. ‘All through my childhood we had sticky paper hanging from the light bulb.’

  Flustered, he told her they were almost ready to leave. When he knew her better he might confide that he preferred snakes to flies.

  He went into the bathroom to check he’d packed his tablets, and saw her toothbrush still in its wrapper. Taking it through, he was about to ask if she intended to use it, but stopped himself. It wouldn’t do to boss her around, not until he’d gained her confidence. All the same, it was important to keep her in her place. He said, mildly, ‘You were pretty out of it this morning. I’d run you a bath.’

  ‘I don’t need a bath. I had one before I left London.’

  ‘You swore at me. If I hadn’t stepped back you might have busted my nose.’

  ‘I thought you were my dad. He was always shaking me awake to get me off to school.’

  ‘I just wanted to give you time to get ready,’ he said. ‘We should get going. I’ve business to do at the bank, and with my broker.’

  She was smiling at him now, face flushed with anticipation, eager to know how many days it would take them to get to Washington.

  ‘Not days,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of hours . . . two or three at the most. It depends on how bad the disturbances were last night.’

  Bewildered, she asked him why they needed the van if they were so near.

  ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I doubt if Wheeler will still be at the address he gave you. I reckon he’s on the move.’

  Looking at her he was surprised at the sudden shadow of fear in her eyes. The pink had fled her cheeks. It occurred to him that she was not as bold as she liked to pretend and he felt protective; fear was something he understood.

  He didn’t tell her that he had got hold of a forwarding address for Wheeler when visiting Chicago, nor that the Stan­fords, occupants of the apartment outside Washington, were in possession of a letter which they refused to hand over to him, insisting they’d been told it should only be given to the girl from England. He would have offered them money but they weren’t that sort of folk.

  He asked Rose if she was ready to leave. She was wearing slacks and a creased blouse under a raincoat; she hadn’t brushed her hair. Perhaps he should have told her they were having dinner that night with the Shaefers.

  Artie Brune was lounging against the hood of the camper when they went outside. ‘I heard a lot about you, girl,’ he said, looking Rose up and down. It was obvious from the twist of his mouth that she was not the beddable woman he’d pictured.

  Rose climbed into the front seat and stared straight ahead. When Harold started the engine, she asked, ‘That man, is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, though it was an exaggeration; only Artie’s cat came under that heading.

  She didn’t utter another word as they drove into central Baltimore. He kept up a commentary of where they were, but when he glanced sideways she was looking down at her lap, twisting her top lip between her fingers, ignoring the gangs of workmen boarding up store windows and raking glass into the gutters. On 26th Street the doors to the synagogue had been blooded with red paint.

  ‘Dear God,’ he exclaimed, nudging her with his elbow. Her head jerked up, but still she remained silent. He couldn’t tell whether she was sulking or merely tired. He had to slow down as they approached Wild Bill’s Firearms store, on account of the number of police patrolling the sidewalk.

  He parked beyond the Medical Library and told her he would be as quick as he could. A fire was still burning at the lower end of St. Paul’s Street and he was obliged to make a detour. He left a letter at the bank, to be opened in the event of his death, and a copy with his broker. He took pride in keeping his life orderly.

  On his return he found Rose gone from the camper; she’d left her shoes behind. He strode up and down, and just as alarm was spiralling into anger spied her sauntering barefoot along the opposite sidewalk. ‘The camper,’ he bawled, ‘it isn’t locked.’ She waved at him, dismissively, and shouted back, ‘No need to get het up . . . I kept an eye open.’ He climbed into the driving seat and forced himself to remain calm.

  She took her time crossing the street and settling in beside him. She said, ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? A shop selling guns, like as if they were carrots and turnips.’

  He couldn’t reply, not civilly.

  ‘When I was little,’ she burbled, ‘I wanted a toy gun more than anything, but they weren’t making them because of the war. So I sawed Mother’s yard brush in two and tied a piece of elastic from one end to the other, with a cork at the top. It didn’t work very well but it was better than nothing. I ran around shooting Germans. Mother was cross . . . on account of her broom.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ he ground out.

  ‘Then one day I was playing in the back field when an enemy plane passed overhead. It had got lost from a previous raid or something. It came down so low I could see the airman. He started firing his machine gun . . .’

  A memory of Carl Bloomfield came into his mind, a secondyear freshman who swore that his father had been so addicted to the camera that he had paused to take a photograph when Bloomfield had gone under in a swimming pool, and again when he had smashed into a wall when learning to drive.

  Rose said, ‘My mother was in a window at the back of our house. She was screaming.’

  Only Shaefer had thought Bloomfield something other than a fantasist. He held that the expression in Bloomfield’s eyes nudged the truth.

  ‘I hid in the bushes,’ Rose said, ‘and heard the bullets slashing the grass.’

  Nobody had believed Shaefer, not until Bloomfield went home for Thanksgiving and gunned down his parents while the turkey was being carved.

  ‘No wonder Mr. Kennedy got killed,’ Rose said. ‘Or that Luther King.’

  ‘Tonight,’ Harold told her, ‘we’re having dinner with a man who was in the same hotel as Dr. King the day he was shot.’

  ‘Crikey.’

  He asked her if she was hungry; his own belly was growling. She said she didn’t care for food. ‘We all eat far too much,’ she told him. ‘It destroys the brain.’ She sat slumped beside him, bare feet propped on the dashboard, toenails rimmed with dirt. She was sucking her thumb.

  She was not an easy companion, that was for sure. He switched on the radio to subdue the silence. Someone was rasping out a jazz song . . . Here’s a photo of me when I was three . . . And here’s my pony too. Here’s a picnic we had. And Jane with dad . . . Here’s me in love with you. Embarrassed by the sentiments he reached forward to turn the dial.

  ‘Leave it,’ she cried, ‘it’s so lovely,’ and shoved his hand away with her foot.

  He wondered if it had cr
ossed Bloomfield’s mind to take a snapshot of his mother and father sprawled across the Thank­sgiving table.

  ‘The word photography,’ he said, ‘is from the Greek. It means drawing from light.’

  Rose didn’t respond.

  Here’s our house in Maine . . . and me again . . . that’s me in love with you, wailed the voice.

  Two blocks before they came to the freeway the camper was brought to a halt. An elderly woman, black fists punching the air, was being manhandled into a patrol car. He wound up the window to drown the screams spilling from her mouth.

  It took over three hours to reach the outskirts of Washing­ton. Having gone without his breakfast eggs he needed food. Stopping at a roadside diner near Gaithersburg he’d asked Rose to come with him, but she refused.

  When he got back behind the wheel he could tell she’d been smoking; he didn’t open the window because he liked the smell of tobacco.

  Most of the time Rose appeared to doze, until they passed the sign for Bethesda and she sat up and quite animatedly remarked that it was a name she remembered from scripture lessons at school. It intrigued him how often she mentioned things from her childhood. It struck him they were alike; the past had eclipsed the present.

  A sloping path bordered with cherry trees led up to the front porch of the Stanfords’ detached house. Rose didn’t immediately get out; she was fidgeting with her lip again.

  He said, ‘There was a famous architect called Stanford. He designed Madison Square Garden . . . in New York. He was murdered.’

  ‘By his wife?’ she murmured.

  ‘No,’ he retorted. ‘He was a womaniser, shot by an outraged husband. Women don’t kill.’

  Still she didn’t move. At last, opening the camper door, she surprised him by asking if he was coming with her.

  ‘Best not,’ he said. ‘It’s right you see him on your own . . . at first.’

  Watching her go up the path, shoulders hunched against the rain, he felt guilty at not telling her the truth. As soon as he saw her enter the house he drove further down the street.