by Henry Green
‘Gosh,’ she said, and meant it.
Mr Mead waited. He had expected Summers to be several days absent. Every morning a little list of those who were away was put on his desk, first thing. It surprised him to find that young Summers was back. For he thought it likely these young men coming home from the war might be a bit wild for a period, it would only be natural. He had considered the matter, foreseen that. He had even had a little talk prepared for Charley, who was the first to return. And now Corker was ready to deliver, even though the lad had only taken a day. For Corker was mustard.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Sit down. Well how’s everything? Cigarette?’
‘We’re late with the first plant,’ Charley said, hopelessly. ‘We’re nine weeks overdue.’
‘That’s nothing these days,’ Corker said. ‘We can stand it. No, I meant in yourself?’
‘I’m O.K.’ Charley said.
‘That’s fine,’ Corker agreed. ‘Bit difficult, I shouldn’t wonder, for you young fellows, after what you’ve been through?’
Charley did not answer. He was looking at the photo of Mrs Mead on his chief’s desk. She had a goitre.
‘Though, mind you, the war’s not been a surprise in this. The civilians have had their share, this time,’ Mr Mead went on, keeping strictly to what he had thought out. ‘Yes, we’ve had our share,’ he said.
There was no reply.
‘Would you fancy a few days off?’ he enquired, with no trace of sarcasm. ‘Takes time to settle down I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘No thanks, Mr Mead.’
‘Sure? Because you’d be welcome. Well don’t worry your head too much over that contract. You’re doing quite nicely, Summers. That’s all. But give us a ring next time.’
Again Charley said nothing, left without another word. That was one point Mr Mead did not like about the little talk. The other was, that he had not called him sir.
Miss Pitter nervously waited back in their room.
‘Well, you do look down,’ she began, at his face, when he came in. ‘He didn’t give you the sack, surely?’ she asked, to be playful. But he ignored her.
‘You were only away twenty-four hours, when all’s said. But in any case you’ve got your full six months, I mean you’re entitled to that, aren’t you, after discharge from the army?’ Her voice was more serious. She could not make him out at all. ‘They must keep you the full six months,’ she ended.
He said nothing. She lost interest. Then he did a thing he had never done. Taking up the receiver he said, ‘Excuse me. Private business.’
‘You’d rather I went out for a minute? Why sure.’
But she remembered the cupboard outside, from which you could hear anything in this room. She thought he was going to ring his girl, in which case there might be something that rated an eavesdrop. She shut herself in, unobserved.
He began hurriedly speaking.
‘Middlewitch?’ he asked, ‘Middlewitch?’
‘Middlewitch that you? I say about Rose . . .,’ then his voice stopped. If she could have seen him, she would have noticed he kept swallowing hard.
‘Charley Rose?’ Mr Middlewitch returned. ‘Ran across him the day before yesterday. We were talking about you. Why? D’you want him?’
‘Charley Rose?’ Mr Summers stammered, and with a sigh Miss Pitter left the cupboard. After all it wasn’t very nice to listen to someone else’s private conversation.
‘Must see you some time?’ Charley managed to bring out.
But Mr Middlewitch had pretty well had enough of Summers. In his shrewd opinion Charley was moonstruck. That time they had lunch together the man hardly behaved as if he knew what to do with his knife and fork, even. Here and now, on the phone, it was worse than ever. Long crazy silences. And not ten o’clock yet. So he said,
‘Why, my dear old boy, what a question. Any day you choose. Look, I tell you what. You ring me up next week. I’m a bit snowed under, just at present. Why, what on earth’s old Charley Rose been doing?’
‘Not Charley Rose,’ the voice came back, and seemed to be short of breath, ‘Rose,’ it said.
‘Got to go now. You give me a tinkle next week,’ and Mr Middlewitch rang off then. And he forgot.
So Middlewitch, in one manner or another, managed to avoid him. It was harder for Mrs Frazier to keep out of the way. But she was no help, for she seemed to know so very little. All she would admit, when he got at her, was that she had never met Rose, that, years ago, she was acquainted with Mr Grant, who had recommended Middlewitch, as he had recommended Charley. No more than that.
His work at the office began to suffer seriously.
Then, one afternoon, while Dot was doing her best to keep him straight with the correspondence, he again saw this whole thing as a whole. What he saw was that, somehow or other, Rose had, in fact, become a tart, gone on the streets.
Once he realized, everything seemed to fit. And he made sure he must deliver her.
He did not hesitate, he shot out of the office while Miss Pitter was in the middle of what she was saying. He did remember to mention he had a call to make. And then, with what he considered to be extraordinary cunning, he bought a cup and saucer to take along, intending that this should be his excuse when she answered the door.
He hurried. The shop girl had liked his eyes and wrapped the china up. He took this off while he was still on Miss Whitmore’s stairs. He knocked, carefully holding the crockery to his chest. Surprisingly enough she was up and in. She opened.
It was Rose again.
He forgot the plans he had made.
‘It’s about me,’ he said in haste, ‘about myself,’ he explained, slipping past her.
‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘Not now.’
‘I can’t help myself. I’m desperate.’
‘Well so am I, that is whensoever I see you. So get out.’ She held the door ajar, behind.
‘I brought the cup and saucer,’ he said. But it was probably the look in his eyes, like a dog’s. Anyhow she seemed to soften.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Thanks. Now then be off.’ She spoke as though she did not mean to deny him.
‘Had to do this,’ he explained.
‘There’s no more tea,’ she replied. ‘I’m short.’
He took heart at these last two words. But she had the door open yet. He felt and felt what to say. He said nothing.
It did the trick. She shut the door.
‘I can’t make you out,’ she said. ‘What is the matter with you? Why don’t you come out with it? Not that that will be any use,’ she ended, her voice hardening.
They stood facing each other.
‘Look we’ve got to do something over this,’ he began.
‘Over what?’
He could not go on.
‘Are you proposing to have another of your turns?’ she asked. ‘Well, I suppose you’d better sit then.’ He took a seat.
‘Oh Rose,’ he said.
‘Here we go round the old mulberry bush,’ she answered. ‘But at least this time you can’t do any damage now you’re seated. I hurt my side with you, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, obviously taken up with just gazing at her. She became quite gay.
‘I’m crazy really, that’s what I’m like on occasions.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘There you are, a stranger I’ve never seen but once, and then how, and here’s me entertaining you. What d’you think?’
He thought nothing. He took out a handkerchief, sat watching his hands as he dried them.
‘Now what about if I ask one or two questions since you are here,’ she said. ‘Just for a change? How did you get this address?’
He muttered a request to her not to be angry with him, keeping his eyes down.
‘No, go on,’ she said. ‘That other day you caught me bending. It doesn’t mean a thing. Why should it?’
‘Mr Grant,’ he explained, as though guilty. He was terribly confused.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What
about my old dad? And what is he up to, sending you? That is, if you’re to tell the truth?’
‘Then he is . . . you are . . . ?’ and he could not go on. He was looking at her in a way she could not understand.
‘Why stare at me like that?’ she said. ‘Don’t you smoke?’ He shook his head.
‘Here, what is the matter with your leg? Were you really wounded?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, eager. ‘Out in France.’
‘Then d’you know him? My dad, I mean?’
‘Of course I know him,’ he replied, suddenly abrupt. ‘Why I tell you . . .’
‘All right, all right,’ she interrupted. ‘I only asked, didn’t I? Because I thought it might be old Arthur up to one of his larks.’
‘Arthur?’
‘Arthur Middlewitch of course. You made out you knew him, last time.’
‘What about him?’ he wanted to be told. He was getting angry.
‘All right, don’t upset yourself,’ she said. ‘You think I’m Rose, don’t you?’ she said.
All he could say was, ‘What?’
‘Because I’m not, see. She was my half sister.’
‘Half sister?’
‘Were you very much taken up with her, then?’ she enquired, as though making conversation. Probably she did not want to appear too interested, but he was beyond taking in niceties. He began to dry his hands again.
‘You’re not,’ he said, low voiced.
‘Hark at him,’ she said with amusement. ‘Yes, you all fall for it hard.’
‘All fall for it?’
‘Well you don’t suppose you’re the first, do you? Still, I expect we’re most of us alike, it’s natural after all to consider you’re the only one on earth. That’s something I had to unlearn very early, I can tell you.’
‘And James?’ Charley asked.
‘The widower? Why bless me, no. It would be a bit of a surprise for him, though, wouldn’t it, if I dyed my hair red?’
He was disgusted, and showed it.
‘And the name I have is my mother’s,’ she added.
He obstinately stared at her.
‘It’s not very nice having a double, practically a half twin if you like,’ she went on. There had actually been very few to come up to her who had known Rose, but plainly it was not for her to give this away just now. ‘I’ve had trouble over it, all right. The first time I did listen.’ She laughed, and seemed to be going over this in her mind’s eye.
He saw everything a third time. She was a tart, and her father had sent him to redeem Rose because his hands were full at Redham. It was Rose right enough. But how different with the war. The troops must have been the cause? Made brutes out of women, that’s what Middlewitch said.
‘I had a time with him,’ she commented.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, run through with jealousy.
‘Here,’ she said coming back to Charley. ‘No names, thanks. No, I consider, being as I am, the dead spit of another, that I’ve a responsibility, I’m not like the common run. But I don’t give names away,’ she said, again with what seemed to be pride. ‘Only my father’s,’ she admitted, wryly. ‘But then what has he done for me to thank him?’ she asked. ‘No, I’m a special case,’ she said.
He looked at her. He wondered if, later on, he would be sick all over the carpet.
‘I had such a time with the man I mentioned just now that I had to make a rule,’ she went on. ‘To protect myself. I never admitted it again. Or hardly ever. Till you came along. It was your fainting did it.’
‘Did what?’ he demanded through his nausea.
‘Why tricked me into admitting, of course,’ she said. ‘What else?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ he brought out, nauseated. Oh how she could, he cried in his mind, his Rose that he’d loved?
‘Come as a bit of a shock to you, hasn’t it,’ she said. ‘Take no notice. The first two years are the worst.’ She actually laughed.
‘Rose, listen here,’ he began, with a stronger voice than he had used. But she broke in.
‘Look,’ she said sharp. ‘You aren’t sitting pretty here except on one condition. You’ll drop all this Rose stuff, or, if you can’t take it, stay silent. Otherwise out you go, this instant.’
He stayed silent.
‘I’m a respectable girl,’ she said.
He said nothing.
‘Even if I am living alone because my mum’s been evacuated. You ask anyone here. They’ll tell you about us.’
He remembered he had been informed that whores had old women who took the money and who called the police, got help if need be. She was in that kitchen this minute, most likely.
‘Yes it’s a bit awkward in my position,’ she began again. ‘I mean everyone has their own life, that only stands to reason, and here’s me has two, my own and someone else’s.’
He felt she might be trying to tell him she was sorry. He took heart again.
‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘I’ve a responsibility. You know why I did what I could for you the last time?’ She paused. All he could remember was, she had chucked him out.
‘Because this has hit you hard,’ she explained. ‘You never put that faint on, I could tell. So I didn’t send you packing like I should. I’ve a responsibility.’
‘A responsibility?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just said,’ she told him. ‘Although it’s none of my fault, I’ve got to be fair. If a man really mistakes me for another I have to let him down in a decent fashion. I can’t laugh right in his face, not straight off, any old how.’
‘I see,’ he said.
‘You don’t, from the looks of you,’ she replied. ‘Oh all right, take your time. You’ll get used to it. Don’t mind me. Be easy now.’
‘Has Mr Grant sent many to you?’
‘Here,’ she said harsh, ‘what are you insinuating? I told you before I won’t have his name mentioned, ever again.’ He had no recollection of this. He assumed that he must have forgotten, as he had with Mr Grant’s request not to disclose how he got her address.
‘I rang him up,’ she said. ‘I told him. “This is the first time you’ve done this,” I said, “and let it be the last. Haven’t you been enough trouble all my life?” I said. “And now if you’re to start sending people round, what will the others think? Why I’d be hounded out of these rooms.”’
‘What if Ridley came?’ he suddenly asked, with the air of a man who has produced the unanswerable, who is bringing the whole house of cards down.
‘Her little boy?’ she enquired, absolutely unmoved. ‘You know I’ve often and often wondered. Why, it would be cruel, wouldn’t it?’
‘You’ve said it.’
‘I’m not too sure I like your attitude,’ she complained. ‘Of course that would be cruel, but not my fault? I can’t help looking as I am, can I? Which is at my father’s door.’
He did not wait to consider this. He must have thought he had her pinned.
‘But if Mr Grant sent him?’ he asked. His face flushed, and it was plain that he was trying to hold her eyes with his own. She became agitated.
‘Why, he’d never,’ she cried. ‘Why, it wouldn’t be right. He’d never dare.’ She was truly indignant. ‘When the little chap thinks his mother’s away with the angels? I dream of it sometimes. Running across him in the street, I mean. Perhaps his grandma takes him up round the shops with her. I often wonder, wouldn’t that be awful if we met. But then it couldn’t be my fault, after all.’
‘Whose then?’
‘Why my dad’s of course.’
He now realized that she must be out of her mind, which would account for the change in her voice, and manner. He became terribly sad. Oh, this was not the old Rose, at all.
‘That’s what makes me do it,’ she explained.
‘Do what?’ he murmured.
‘Aren’t some men dense?’ she said. ‘You don’t suppose I’m talking to you, like I do, because I’ve nothing better, surely? I’m a working woma
n. I wouldn’t want to offend, of course. But as I told you before, I consider I have a duty by you and the others. Only when you said that my dad sent you, then I had to turn round at once. You see that surely?’
He felt he had best humour her.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you seemed to take it so hard I was sorry for you, and here we are,’ she said.
He had a wave of self pity.
‘It’s affected my work,’ he muttered.
‘You don’t want it to do that,’ she said. ‘You see, I’ve thought more about this than you can ever. If you like to put it that way, I’ve been brought up with the problem. It’s chance, that’s all, nothing more than bad luck. I’ve known since I was sixteen.’
That she’d leave the husband she had not yet seen, the unborn child, he cried out in his mind. He was sickened by it.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Are you going queer a second time,’ she wanted to know. ‘I mean about my half sister, naturally. They all say we might have been twins. What d’you think?’
‘There’s no telling you apart,’ he said, back to his idea of humouring her.
‘Yet it’s funny I never felt anything when she was ill, like twins are supposed to feel, you understand. Then of course we were never real ones. Still, it makes you wonder, when I tell you we came within three weeks of one another. The old devil,’ she said, with a hint of admiration in her voice.
‘Did he send Middlewitch?’ he asked, jealous again as soon as Mr Grant was mentioned.
‘Of course not. I said, didn’t I?’
‘How did you come across him, then?’
‘I’ll not have these questions. What’s come over you? I’ve a life of my own, haven’t I? It’s not my fault, is it? And if I’m being nice to you it’s only that I’ve the responsibility. Even if he did send you along so things wasn’t natural, like crossing one another in the street.’
He began to hate. He saw her, yet again, as a tart, and could not bear the idea of these men having her, night after night having the old Rose.
‘Oh no?’ he brought out, bitter.
‘What do you mean, thank you? I don’t quite fathom how I’m expected to take that, do you? Besides, I’ll tell you something. Just because you’re crazy, and a bit knocked off balance when you’re with me, you’re not entitled to pass remarks.’