To Room Nineteen

by Doris Lessing

  ‘Listen a minute,’ she began, persuasively – not unpleasantly at all, though every word wounded Jimmie. ‘I furnished this place. It was my furniture and my money. And I’ve got a hundred still in the post office in case of accidents – I’ll need it; now the war’s over we won’t be earning so much money, if I know anything. So far, I’ve not been …’ But here her instinctive delicacy overcame her, and she could not go on. She wanted to say that she paid for the food, paid for everything. Lately, even the rent. One week he had said, apologetically, that he hadn’t the cash, and that if she could do it this once – but now it was a regular thing.

  ‘You want me to give you the money so you can stay here with the kid?’ he inquired, cautiously. She was blushing with embarrassment. ‘No, no,’ she said, quickly. ‘Listen. If you can just pay the rent – that would be enough. I could get a part-time job, just the mornings. Jill goes to school now, and I’d manage somehow.’

  He digested this silently. He was thinking, incredulously: She wants to have a kid here, a kid’s always in the way – that means she can’t love me any more. He said, slowly: ‘Well, Rosie, if that’s what you want, then go ahead.’

  Her face cleared into vivid happiness and she came running to him in the old way and kissed him and said: ‘Oh, Jimmie; oh, Jimmie …’ He held her and thought, bitterly, that all this joy was not because of him, all she cared about was the kid – women! But at the back of his mind were two other thoughts: First, that he did not know how he would find the money to pay the rent unless he passed that examination soon, and the other was that the authorities would never let Rose have Jill.

  Next evening Rose was despondent. ‘Did you see the officials?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Yes.’ She would not look at him. She was staring helpless down from the window.

  ‘Wasn’t it any good?’

  ‘They said I must prove myself a fit and proper person. So I said that I was. I told them I’d known Jill since she was born. I said I knew her mother and father.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ he could not help interjecting, jealously. She gave him a cold look and said: ‘Don’t start that now. I told them her Granny was too old, and I could easily look after Jill.’

  ‘Well then?’

  She was silent, then, wringing her hands unconsciously, she cried out: ‘They wasn’t nice, they wasn’t nice to me at all. There were two of them, a woman and a man. They said: How could I support Jill? I said I could get money. They said I must show them papers and things …’ She was silently crying now, but she did not come to him. She stayed at the window, her back turned, shutting him out of her sorrow. ‘They asked me, how could a working girl look after a child, and I said I’d do it easy, and they said, did I have a husband …’ Here she leaned her head against the wall and sobbed bitterly. After a time he said: ‘Well, Rosie, it looks as if I’m not good for you. Perhaps you’d better give me up and get yourself a proper husband.’ At this she jerked her head up, looked incredulously at him and cried: ‘Jimmie! How could I give you up …’ He went to her, thinking, in relief: ‘She loves me better after all.’ He meant: better than the child.

  It seemed that Rose had accepted her defeat. For some days she talked sorrowfully about ‘those nosy parkers’ at the Council. She was even humorous, though in the way that made him uneasy. ‘I’ll go to them,’ she said, smiling grimly, ‘I’ll go and I’ll say: I can’t help being a surplus woman. Don’t blame me, blame the war, it’s not my fault that they keep killing all the men off in their silly wars …’

  And then his jealousy grew unbearable and he said: ‘You love Jill better than me.’ She laughed in amazement, and said, ‘Don’t be a baby, Jimmie.’ ‘Well, you must. Look how you go on and on about that kid. It’s all you think about.’

  ‘There isn’t no sense in you being jealous of Jill.’

  ‘Jealous,’ he said, roughly. ‘Who says I’m jealous?’

  ‘Well, if you’re not, what are you then?’

  ‘Oh, go to hell, go to hell,’ he muttered to himself, as he put his arms around her. Aloud he said: ‘Come on, Rosie girl, come on, stop being like this, be like you used to be, can’t you?’

  ‘I’m not any different,’ she said patiently, submitting to his caresses with a sigh.

  ‘So you’re not any different,’ he said, exasperatedly. Then, controlling himself with difficulty he coaxed: ‘Rosie, Rosie, don’t you love me a little …’

  For the truth was he was becoming obsessed with the difference in Rose. He thought of her continuously as she had been. It was like dreaming of another woman, she was so changed now. At work, busy with some job that needed all his attention, he would start as if stung, and mutter: ‘Rose – oh, to hell with her!’ He was remembering, with anguish, how she had run across the room to welcome him, how responsive she had been, how affectionate. He thought of her patient kindliness now, and wanted to swear. After work he would go straight to the flat, reaching it even before she did. The lights would be out, the rooms cold, like a reminder of how Rose had changed. She would come in, tired, laden with string-bags, to find him seated at the table staring at her, his eyes black with jealousy. ‘This place is as cold as a street-corner,’ he would say, angrily. She looked at him, sighed, then said, reasonably: ‘But Jimmie, look, here’s where I keep the sixpences for the gas – why don’t you light the fire?’ Then he would go to her, holding down her arms as he kissed her, and she would say: ‘Just leave me a minute, Jimmie. I must get the potatoes on or there’ll be no supper.’

  ‘Can’t the potatoes wait a minute?’

  ‘Let me get my arms free, Jimmie.’ He held them, so she would carefully reach them out from under the pressure of his grip, and put the string-bags on the table. Then she would turn to kiss him. He noticed that she would be glancing worriedly at the curtains, which had not been drawn, or at the rubbish-pail, which had not been emptied. ‘You can’t even kiss me until you’ve done all the housework,’ he cried, sullenly. ‘All right then, you tip me the wink when you’ve got a moment to spare and you don’t mind being kissed.’

  To this she replied, listlessly but patiently: ‘Jimmie, I come straight home from work and there’s nothing ready, and before you didn’t come so early.’

  ‘So now you’re complaining because I come straight here. Before, you complained because I dropped in for a drink somewhere first.’

  ‘I never complained.’

  ‘You sulked, even if you didn’t complain.’

  ‘Well, Jimmie,’ she said, after a sorrowful pause, as she peeled the potatoes. ‘If I went to drink with a boy-friend you wouldn’t like it either.’

  ‘That means Pearl, I suppose. Anyway, it’s quite different.’

  ‘Why is it different?’ she asked, reasonably. ‘I don’t like to go to pubs by myself, but if I did I don’t see why not, I don’t see why men should do one thing and women another.’

  These sudden lapses into feminism always baffled him. They seemed so inconsistent with her character. He left that point and said: ‘You’re jealous of Pearl, that’s what it is.’

  He wanted her, of course, to laugh, or even quarrel a little, so the thing could be healed by kisses, but she considered it, thoughtfully, and said: ‘You can’t help being jealous if you love someone.’

  ‘Pearl!’ he snorted. ‘I’ve known her for years. Besides, who told you?’

  ‘You always think that nobody ever notices things,’ she said, sadly. ‘You’re always so surprised.’

  ‘Well, how did you know?’

  ‘People always tell you things.’

  ‘And you believe people.’

  A pause, Then: ‘Oh, Jimmie, I don’t want to quarrel all the time, there isn’t any sense in it.’ This sad helplessness satisfied him, and he was able to take her warmly in his arms. ‘I don’t mean to quarrel either,’ he murmured.

  But they quarrelled continuously. Every conversation was bound to end, it seemed, either in Pearl or in George. Or their tenderness would lapse int
o tired silence, and he would see her staring quietly away from him, thinking. ‘What are you getting so serious about now, Rosie?’ ‘I was thinking about Jill. Her Granny’s too old. Jill’s shut up in that kitchen all day – just think, those old nosy parkers say I’m not a fit and proper person for Jill, but at least I’d take her for walks on Sunday …’

  ‘You want Jill because of George,’ he would grind out, gripping her so tight she had to ease her arms free. ‘Oh, stop it, Jimmie, stop it.’

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  ‘If you want to think it, I can’t stop you.’ Then the silence of complete estrangement.

  After some weeks of this he went back to the pub one evening. ‘Hullo, stranger,’ said Pearl. Her eyes shone welcomingly over at him.

  ‘I’ve been busy, one way or another,’ he said.

  ‘I bet,’ she said, satirically, challenging him with her look.

  He could not resist it. ‘Women,’ he said, ‘women.’ And he took a long drain from his glass.

  ‘Don’t you talk that way to me,’ she said, with a short laugh. ‘My boy-friend’s just got himself married. Didn’t so much as send me an invite to the wedding.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what’s good for him.’

  Her wide, blue eyes swung around and rested obliquely on him before she lowered them to the glasses she was rinsing. ‘Perhaps there are others who don’t neither.’

  He hesitated and said: ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Caution held him back. Yet they had been flirting cheerfully for so long, out of sheer good-nature. The new hesitation was dangerous in itself, and gave depth to their casual exchanges. He thought to himself: Careful, Jimmie, boy, you’re off again if you’re not careful. He decided he should go to another pub. Yet he came back, every evening, for he looked forward to the moment when he stood in the doorway, and then she saw him, and her eyes warmed to him as she said lightly: ‘Hullo, handsome, what trouble have you been getting yourself into today?’ He got into the way of staying for an hour or more, instead of the usual half hour. He leaned quietly against the counter, his coat collar turned up around his face, while his grey eyes rested appreciatively on Pearl. Sometimes she grew self-conscious and said: ‘Your eyes need a rest,’ and he replied, coolly: ‘If you don’t want people to look at you, better buy yourself another jumper.’ He would think, with a sense of disloyalty: Why doesn’t Rosie buy herself one like that? But Rose always wore her plain, dark skirts and her neat blouses, pinned at the throat with a brooch.

  Afterwards he climbed the stairs to the flat thinking, anxiously: Perhaps today she’ll be like she used to be? He would expectantly open the door, thinking: Perhaps she’ll smile when she sees me and come running over …

  But she would be at the stove, or seated at the table waiting, and she gave him that tired, patient smile before beginning to dish up the supper. His disappointment dragged down his spirits, but he forced himself to say: ‘Sorry, I’m late, Rosie.’ He braced himself for a reproach, but it never came, though her eyes searched him anxiously, then lowered as if afraid he might see a reproach in them.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she replied, carefully, setting the dishes down and pulling out the chair for him.

  Always, he could not help looking to see if she was still ‘fussing’ about the food. But she was taking trouble to hide the precautions she took to feed him sensibly. Sometimes he would probe sarcastically: ‘I suppose your friend the chemist said that peas were good for ulcers – how about a bit of fried onions, Rosie?’

  ‘I’ll make you some tomorrow,’ she would reply. And she averted her eyes, as if she were wincing, when he pulled the pickle bottle towards him and heaped mustard pickle over his fish. ‘You only live once,’ he remarked, jocularly.

  ‘That’s right.’ And then, in a prepared voice: ‘It’s your stomach, after all.’

  ‘That’s what I always said.’ To himself he said: Might be my bloody wife. For his wife had come to say at last: ‘It’s your stomach, if you want to die ten years too soon …’

  If he had attacks of terrible pain in the night, after a plateful of fried onions, or chips thick with tomato sauce, he would lie rigid beside her, concealing it, just as he had with his wife. Women fussing! Fussing women!

  He asked himself continually why he did not break it off. A dozen times he had said to himself: That’s enough now, it’s no good, she doesn’t love me, anyway. Yet by evening he was back at the pub, flirting tentatively with Pearl, until the time came when he could delay no longer. And back he went, as if dragged, to Rose. He could not understand it. He was behaving badly – and he could not help himself; he should be studying for his exam – and he couldn’t bring himself to study; it would be so easy to make Rose happy – and he couldn’t take the decisive step; he should decide not to return to Pearl in the evenings, and he could not keep away. What was it all about? Why did people just go on doing things, as if there were dragged along against their will, even against what they enjoyed?

  One Saturday evening Rose said: ‘Tomorrow I won’t be here.’

  He clutched at her hand and demanded: ‘Why not? Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to take Jill out all day and then have supper with her Granny.’

  Breathing quickly, his lips set hard, he brought out: ‘No time for me any more, eh?’

  ‘Oh, Jimmie, have some sense.’

  Next morning he lay in bed and watched her dress to go out. She was smiling, her face soft with pleasure. She kissed him consolingly before she left, and said: ‘It’s only on Sundays, Jimmie.’

  So it’s going to be every Sunday, he thought miserably.

  In the evening he went to the pub. It was Pearl’s evening off. He had thought of asking her along to the pictures, but he didn’t know where she lived. He went to his home. The children were in bed and his wife had gone to see a neighbour. He felt as if everyone had let him down. At last he went back to the flat and waited for Rose. When she came he sat quietly, an angry little smile on his face, while she chatted animatedly about Jill. In bed he turned his back on her and lay gazing at the greyish light at the window. It couldn’t go on, he thought; what was the point of it? Yet he was back next evening as usual.

  Next Sunday she asked him to go with her to see Jill.

  ‘What the hell!’ he exclaimed, indignantly.

  She was hurt. ‘Why not, Jimmie? She’s so sweet. She’s such a good girl. She’s got long golden ringlets.’

  ‘I suppose George had long yellow ringlets, too,’ he said, sardonically.

  She looked at him blankly, shrugged, and said no more. When she had gone he went to Pearl’s house – for he had asked for the address – and took her to the pictures. They were careful and polite with each other. She watched him secretly: his face was tight with worry; he was thinking of Rose with that damned brat – she was happy with Jill, when she couldn’t even raise a smile for him! When he said good night, Pearl drawled out: ‘Do you even know what the film was called?’

  He laughed uncomfortably and said: ‘Sorry, Pearl, got things on my mind.’

  ‘Thanks for the information.’ But she was not antagonistic; she sounded sympathetic. He was grateful for her understanding. He hastily kissed her cheek and said: ‘You’re a nice kid, Pearl.’ She flushed and quickly put her arms around his neck and kissed him again. Afterwards he thought uneasily: If I just lifted my little finger I could have her.

  At home Rose was cautious with him and did not mention Jill until he did. She was afraid of him. He saw it, and it made him half-wild with frustration. Anyone’d think that he was cruel to her! ‘For crying out aloud, Rose,’ he pleaded, ‘what’s the matter with you, why can’t you be nice to me?’

  To which she sighed and asked in a dry, tired voice: ‘I suppose Pearl is nice to you.’

  ‘Hell, Rosie, I have to do something when you’re away.’

  ‘I asked you to come with me, didn’t I?’

  They were on the verge of some crisis, and both knew it, and for several da
ys they were treating each other almost like strangers, for fear of an explosion. They hardly dare let their eyes meet.

  On the following Saturday evening Rose inquired: ‘Made a date with Pearl for tomorrow?’

  He was going to deny it, but she went on implacably: ‘Things can’t go on like this, Jimmie.’ He was silent, and then she asked suddenly: ‘Jimmie, did you ever really ask your wife to divorce you?’

  He exploded: ‘Hell, Rosie, are you going back to that now?’

  ‘I suppose you are thinking it’s not my affair and I’m interfering,’ she said, and laughed with that unexpected, grim humour of hers.

  Rose went off to Jill in the morning without another word to him. As for him, he went to Pearl. The girl was gentle with him: ‘If you don’t feel like the pictures, you don’t have to take me,’ she said, sympathetically. So they went to a café and he said, abruptly: ‘You know, Pearl, it’s no good getting to like me, women think I’m poison when they get to know better.’ He was grinning savagely and his hands were clenched. She reached out, took one of them and said: ‘It’s for me to say what I want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said at random, putting his arm around her, feeling that he had, by this remark, absolved himself of all responsibility for Pearl. He was thinking of Rose. She’d be back home by now. Well, it’d do her good not to find him there. She just took him for granted, and it was a fact. But after a restless five minutes he said: ‘I better be getting along.’ When he left her, Pearl said: ‘I love you, Jimmie, don’t forget that. I’d do anything for you, anything …’ She ran into the house, and he saw she was crying. She loves me, at any rate, he thought, thinking angrily of Rose. Slowly he climbed the long, dark stairs. He was very tired again. I must get some sleep, he mused, dimly, this can’t go on, it wears a man out, I’ll go straight to bed and sleep.

  But he opened the door on bright light; she was already in, seated at the table. She was still in ber best clothes: a neat grey suit, white blouse, brooch; and her hair looked as if she had just combed it. Her face was what held him: she looked tight-lipped, determined, even triumphant. What’s up? he thought.