To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

He talked to Rose, and suddenly the little cat showed its sharp and unpleasant claws. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she demanded coldly, after several clumsy remarks from him. ‘Well, Rosie – it’s that bloke George, you said you were going to marry him when you were a kid still?’

‘What of it?’ she said, giving him a cool glance.

‘You were together for a long time?’

‘Three years,’ she said flatly.

‘Three years!’ he exclaimed. He had not thought of anything so serious. ‘Three years is a long time.’

She looked at him with a pleading reproach that he entirely failed to understand. As far as she was concerned the delight Jimmie had given her completely cancelled out anything she had known before. George was less than a memory. When she told herself that Jimmie was the first man she had loved, it was true, because that was how she felt. The fact that he could now question it, doubting himself, weakened the delight, made her unsure not only of him but of herself. How could he destroy their happiness like this! And into the reproach came contempt. She looked at him with heavy, critical eyes; and Jimmie felt quite wild with bewilderment and dismay – she could look at him like that! – then that proved she had been lying when she said he was the first – if she had said so … ‘But, Rosie,’ he blustered, ‘it stands to reason. Engaged three years, and you tell me …’

‘I’ve never told you anything,’ she pointed out, and got up from the table and began stacking the dishes ready for washing.

‘Well, I’ve a right to know, haven’t I?’ he cried out, unhappily.

But this was very much a mistake. ‘Right?’ she inquired in a prim, disdainful voice. She was no longer Rose, she was something much older. She seemed to be hearing her mother speaking. ‘Who’s talking about rights?’ She dropped the dishes neatly into the hot, soapy water and said: ‘Men! I’ve never asked you what you did before me. And I’m not interested either, if you want to know. And what I did, if I did anything, doesn’t interest you neither.’ Here she turned on the tap so that the splashing sounds made another barrier. Her ears filled with the sound of water, she thought: Men, they always spoil everything. She had forgotten George, he didn’t exist. And now Jimmie brought him to life and made her think of him. Now she was forced to wonder: Did I love him as much then? Was it the same as this? And if her happiness with George had been as great as now it was with Jimmie, then that very fact seemed to diminish love itself and make it pathetic and uncertain. It was as if Jimmie were doing it on purpose to upset her. That, at any rate, was how she felt.

But across the din of the running water Jimmie shouted: ‘So I’m not interested, is that it?’

‘No, you’d better not be interested,’ she announced, and looked stonily before her, while her hands worked among the hot, slippery plates. ‘So that’s how it is?’ he shouted again, furiously.

To which she did not reply. He remained leaning at the table, calling Rose names under his breath, but at the same time conscious of bewilderment. He felt that all his possessive masculinity was being outraged and flouted; there was, however, no doubt that she felt as badly treated as he did. As she did not relent he went to her and put his arms around her. It was necessary for him to destroy this aloof and wounded-looking female and restore the loving, cosy woman. He began to tease: ‘Spitfire, little cat, that’s what you are.’ He pulled her hair and held her arms to her sides so that she could not dry the plates. She remained unresponsive. Then he saw that the tears where running down her immobile and stubborn cheeks, and in a flush of triumph picked her up and carried her over to the bed. It was all quite easy, after all.

But maybe not so easy, because late that night, in a studiously indifferent voice, Rose inquired from the darkness at his side: ‘When are we going to get married?’ He stiffened. He had forgotten – or almost – about this. Hell, wasn’t she satisfied? Didn’t he spend all his evenings here? He might just as well be married, seeing what she expected of him. ‘Don’t you trust me, Rosie?’ he inquired at last. ‘Yes, I trust you,’ she said, rather doubtfully, and waited. ‘There’s reasons why I can’t marry you just now.’ She remained silent, but her silence was like a question hanging in the dark between them. He did not reply, but turned and kissed her. ‘I love you, Rosie, you know that, don’t you?’ Yes, she knew that; but about a week later he left her one morning saying: ‘I can’t come tonight, Rosie. I’ve got to put in some work on this exam.’ He saw her glance at the desk she had bought him and which he had never used. ‘I’ll be along tomorrow as usual,’ he said quickly, wanting to escape from the troubled, searching eyes.

She asked suddenly: ‘Your wife getting anxious about you?’

He caught his breath and stared at her: ‘Who told you?’ She laughed derisively. ‘Well, who told you?’

‘No one told me,’ she said, with contempt.

‘Then I must have been talking in my sleep,’ he muttered, anxiously.

She laughed loudly: ‘“Someone told me.” “Talking in your sleep” – you must think I’m stupid.’ And with a familiar, maddening gesture, she turned away and picked up a dishcloth.

‘Leave the dishes alone, they’re clean anyway,’ he shouted.

‘Don’t shout at me like that.’

‘Rose,’ he appealed after a moment, ‘I was going to tell you, I just couldn’t tell you – I tried to, often.’

‘Yes?’ she said, laconically. That yes of hers always exasperated him. It was like a statement of rock-bottom disbelief, a basic indifference to himself and the world of men. It was as if she said: ‘There’s only one person I can rely on – myself.

‘Rosie, she won’t divorce me, she won’t give me my freedom.’ These dramatic words were supplied straight to his tongue by the memory of a film he had seen the week before. He felt ashamed of himself. But her face had changed. ‘You should have told me,’ she said; and once again he was disconcerted because of the pity in her voice. She had instinctively turned to him with a protective movement. Her arms went around him and he let his head sink on her shoulder with that old feeling that he was being swept away, that he had no control over the things he did and said. Hell, he thought, even while he warmed to her tenderness: to hell with it. I never meant to get me and Rosie into this fix. In the meantime she held him comfortingly, bending her face to his hair, but there was a rigidity in her pose that told him she was still waiting. At last she said: ‘I want to have kids. I’m not getting any younger.’ He tightened his arms around her waist while he thought: I never thought of that. For he had two children of his own. Then he thought: She’s right. She should have kids. Remember how she got worked up over that other kid in the blitz? Women need to have kids. He thought of her with his child, and pride stirred in him. He realized he would be pleased if she got pregnant, and felt even more at sea. Rose said: ‘Ask her again, Jimmie. Make her divorce you. I know women get spiteful and that about divorces, but if you talk to her nice –’ He miserably promised that he would. ‘You’ll ask her tonight?’ she insisted. ‘Well …’ the fact was, that he had not intended to go home tonight. He wanted to have an evening to himself – go to the pub, see some of his pals, even work for an hour or so. ‘Weren’t you going home tonight?’ she asked, incredulously, seeing his face. ‘No, I meant it, I want to do some work. I’ve got to get this exam, Rosie. I know I can take it if I work a little. And then I’m qualified. Just now I’m not one thing and I’m not the other.’ She accepted this with a sigh, then pleaded: ‘Go home tomorrow then and ask her.’

‘But tomorrow I want to come and see you, Rosie, don’t you want me?’ She sighed again, not knowing that she did, and smiled: ‘You’re nothing but a baby, Jimmie.’ He began coaxing: ‘Come on, be nice, Rosie, give me a kiss.’ He felt it was urgently necessary for him to have her warm and relaxed and loving again before he could leave her with a quiet mind. And so she was – but not entirely. There was a thoughtful line across her forehead and her mouth was grave and sad. Oh, to hell with it, he thought, as he went off. To hell with them all.

The next evening he went to Rose anxiously. He had drunk himself gay and debonair in the pub, he had flirted a little with Pearl, talked sarcastically about women and marriage, and finally gone home to sleep. He had breakfast with his family, avoided his wife’s sardonic eye, and went off to work with a bad hangover. At the factory, as always, he became absorbed in what he was doing. It was a small factory which made precision instruments. He was highly skilled, but in status an ordinary workman. He knew, had known for a long time, that with a little effort he could easily take an examination which would lift him into the middle classes as far as money was concerned. It was the money he cared about, not the social aspect of it. For years his wife had been nagging at him to better himself, and he had answered impatiently because, for her, what mattered was to outdo their neighbours. This he despised. But she was right for the wrong reasons. It was a question of devoting a year of evenings to study. What was a year of one’s life? Nothing. And he had always found examinations easy. That day, at the factory, he had decided to tell Rose that she would not see as much of him in future. He swore angrily to himself that she must understand a man had a duty to himself. He was only forty, after all … And yet, even while he spoke firmly to himself and to the imaginary Rose, he saw a mental picture of the desk she had bought him that stood unused in the living room of the flat. ‘Well, who’s stopping you from working?’ she would inquire, puzzled. Genuinely puzzled, too. But he could not work in that flat, he knew that; although in the two months before he had met Rose he was working quite steadily in his evenings. That day he was cursing the fate that had linked him with Rose; and by evening he was hurrying to her as if some terrible thing might happen if he were not there by supper-time. He was expecting her to be cold and distant, but she fell into his arms as if he had been away for weeks. ‘I missed you,’ she said, clinging to him. ‘I was so lonely without you.’

‘It was only one night,’ he said, jauntily, already reassured.

‘You were gone two nights last week,’ she said, mournfully. At once he felt irritated. ‘I didn’t know you counted them up.’ he said, trying to smile. She seemed ashamed that she had said it. ‘I just get lonely,’ she said, kissing him guiltily. ‘After all …’

‘After all what?’ His voice was aggressive.

‘It’s different for you,’ she defended herself. ‘You’ve got – other things.’ Here she evaded his look. ‘But I go to work, and then I come home and wait for you. There’s nothing but you to look forward to.’ She spoke hastily, as if afraid to annoy him, and then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him coaxingly and said: ‘I’ve cooked you something you like – can you smell it?’ And she was the warm and affectionate woman he wanted her to be. Later he said: ‘Listen, Rosie girl, I’ve got to tell you something. That exam – I must start working for it.’ She said, gaily, at once: ‘But I told you already, you can work here at the desk and I’ll sew while you work, and it’ll be lovely.’ The idea seemed to delight her, but his heart chilled at it. It seemed to him quite insulting to their romantic love that she should not mind his working, that she should suggest prosaic sewing – just like a wife. He spent the next few evenings with her, newly in love, absorbed in her. And he felt hurt when she suggested hurriedly – for she was afraid of a rebuff – ‘If you want to work tonight, I don’t mind, Jimmie.’ He said laughing: ‘Oh, to hell with work, you’re the only work I want.’ She was flattered, but the thoughtful line was marked deep across her forehead. About a fortnight after his wife was first mentioned she delicately inquired: ‘Have you asked her about the divorce?’

He turned away, saying evasively, ‘She wouldn’t listen just now.’ He was not looking at her, but he could feel her heavy, questioning look on him. His irritation was so strong that he had to make an effort to control it. Also he was guilty, and that guilt he could understand even less than the irritation. He all at once became very gay, so that his mood infected her, and they were giggling and laughing like two children. ‘You’re just conventional, that’s what you are,’ he said, pulling her hair. ‘Conventional?’ she tasted the big word doubtfully. ‘Women always want to get married. What do you want to get married for? Aren’t we happy? Don’t we love each other? Getting married would just spoil it.’ But theoretical statements like this always confused Rose. She would consider each of them separately, with a troubled face, rather respectful of the intellectual minds that had formulated them. And while she considered them, the current of her emotions ran steadily and deep, unconnected with words. From the gulf of love in which she was sunk she murmured, fondly: ‘Oh, you – you just talk and talk.’ ‘Men are polygamous,’ he said gaily, ‘it’s a fact, scientists say so.’ ‘What are women then?’ she asked, keeping her end up. ‘They aren’t polygamous.’ She considered this seriously, as was her way, and said doubtfully: ‘Yes?’ ‘Hell,’ he expostulated, half seriously, half laughing, ‘you’re telling me you’re polygamous?’ But Rose moved uneasily, with a laugh, away from him. To connect a word like polygamous, reeking as it did of the ‘nosy parkers’ who were, she felt, her chief enemy in life, with herself, was too much to ask of her. Silence. ‘You’re thinking of George,’ he suddenly shouted, jealously. ‘I wasn’t doing any such thing,’ she said, indignantly. Her genuine indignation upset him. He always hated it when she was serious. As far as he was concerned, he had just been teasing her – he thought.

Once she said: ‘Why do you always look cross when I say what I think about something?’ Now that surprised him – didn’t she always say what she thought? ‘I don’t get cross, Rosie, but why do you take everything so serious?’ To this she remained silent, in the darkness. He could see the small, thoughtful face turned away from him, lit by the bleak light from the window. The thoughtfulness seemed to him like a reproach. He liked her childish and responsive. ‘Don’t I make you happy, Rose?’ He sounded miserable. ‘Happy?’ she said, testing the word. Then she unexpectedly laughed and said: ‘You talk so funny sometimes you make me laugh.’ ‘I don’t see what’s funny, you’ve no sense of humour, that’s what’s wrong with you.’ But instead of responding to his teasing voice, she thought it over and said seriously: ‘Well I laugh at things, don’t I? I must be laughing at something then. My Dad used to say I hadn’t any sense of humour. I used to say to him: “How do you know what I laugh at isn’t as funny as what you laugh at?”’ He said, wryly, after a moment, ‘When you laugh, it’s like you’re not laughing at all, it’s something nasty.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘I ask you if you’re happy and you laugh – what’s funny about being happy?’ Now he was really resentful. Again she meditated about it, instead of responding – as he had hoped – with a laugh or some reassurance that he made her perfectly happy. ‘Well, it stands to reason,’ she concluded, ‘people who talk about happy or unhappy, and then the long words – and the things you say, women are like this, and men are like that, and polygamous and all the rest – well …’ ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Well, it just seems funny to me,’ she said lamely. For she could have found no words at all for what she felt, that deep knowledge of the dangerousness and the sadness of life. Bombs fell on old men, lorries killed people, and the war went on and on, and the nights when he did not come to her she would sit by herself, crying for hours, not knowing why she was crying, looking down from the high window at the darkened, ravaged streets – a city dark with the shadow of war.

In the early days of their love Jimmie had loved best the hours of tender, aimless, frivolous talk. But now she was, it seemed, always grave. And she questioned him endlessly about his life, about his childhood. ‘Why do you want to know?’ he would inquire, unwilling to answer. And then she was hurt. ‘If you love someone, you want to know about them, it stands to reason.’ So he would give simple replies to her questions, the facts, not the spirit, which she wanted. ‘Was your Mum good to you?’ she would ask, anxiously. ‘Did she cook nice?’ She wanted him to talk about the things he had felt; but he would reply, shortly: ‘Yes,’ or ‘Not bad.’

‘Why don’t you want to tell me?’ she would ask, puzzled.

He repeated that he didn’t mind telling her; but all the same he hated it. It seemed to him that no sooner had one of those long, companionable silences fallen, in which he could drift off into a pleasant dream, than the questions began. ‘Why didn’t you join up in the war?’ she asked once. ‘They wouldn’t have me, that’s why.’ ‘You’re lucky,’ she said, fiercely. ‘Lucky nothing, I tried over and over. I wanted to join.’

And then, to her obstinate silence, he said: ‘You’re queer. You’ve got all sorts of ideas. You talk like a pacifist; it’s not right when there’s a war on.’

‘Pacifist!’ she cried, angrily. ‘Why do you use all these silly words? I’m not anything.’

‘You ought to be careful, Rosie, if you go saying things like that when people can hear you, they’ll think you’re against the war, you’ll get into trouble.’

‘Well, I am against the war, I never said I wasn’t.’

‘But Rosie –’

‘Oh, shut up. You make me sick. You all make me sick. Everybody just talks and talks, and those fat old so-and-so’s talking away in Parliament, they just talk so they can’t hear themselves think. Nobody knows anything and they pretend they do. Leave me alone, I don’t want to listen.’ He was silent. To this Rose he had nothing to say. She was a stranger to him. Also, he was shocked: he was a talker who liked picking up phrases from books and newspapers and using them in a verbal game. But she, who could not use words, who was so deeply inarticulate, had her own ideas and stuck to them. Because he used words so glibly she tried to become a citizen of his country – out of love for him and because she felt herself lacking. She would sit by the window with the newspapers and read earnestly, line by line, having first overcome her instinctive shrinking from the language of violence and hatred that filled them. But the war news, the slogans, just made her exhausted and anxious. She turned to the more personal. ‘War takes toll of marriage,’ she would read. ‘War disrupts homes.’ Then she dropped the paper and sat looking before her, her brow puzzled. That headline was about her, Rose. And again, she would read the divorces; some judge would pronounce: ‘This unscrupulous woman broke up a happy marriage and …’ Again the paper dropped while Rose frowned and thought. That meant herself. She was one of those bad women. She was The Other Woman. She might even be that ugly thing, A Co-Respondent … But she didn’t feel like that. It didn’t make sense. So she stopped reading the newspapers, she simply gave up trying to understand.

She felt she was not on an intellectual level with Jimmie, so instinctively she fell back on her feminine weapons – much to his relief. She was all at once very gay, and he fell easily into the mood. Neither of them mentioned his wife for a time. It was their happiest time. After love, lying in the dark, they talked aimlessly, watching the sky change through moods of cloud and rain and tinted light, watching the searchlights. They took no notice of raids or danger. The war was nearly over, and they spoke as if it had already ended. ‘If we was killed now, I shouldn’t mind,’ she said, seriously, one night when the bombs were bad. He said: ‘We’re not going to get killed, they can’t kill us.’ It sounded a simple statement of fact: their love and happiness was proof enough against anything. But she said again, earnestly: ‘Even if we was killed, it wouldn’t matter. I don’t see how anything afterwards could be as good as this now.’

‘Ah, Rosie, don’t be so serious always.’

It was not long before they quarrelled again – because she was so serious. She was asking questions again about his past. She was trying to find out why the army wouldn’t have him. He would never tell her. And then he said, impatiently, one night: ‘Well, if you must know, I’ve got ulcers … ah, for God’s sake, Rosie, don’t fuss, I can’t stand being fussed.’ For she had given a little cry and was holding him tight. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I haven’t been cooking the proper things for you.’

‘Rose, for crying out aloud, don’t go on.’

‘But if you’ve got ulcers you must be fed right, it stands to reason.’ And next evening when she served him some milk pudding, saying anxiously: ‘This won’t hurt your stomach,’ he flared up and said, ‘I told you, Rosie, I won’t have you coddling me.’ Her face was loving and stubborn and she said: ‘But you’ve got no sense …’

‘For the last time, I’m not going to put up with it.’

She turned away, her mouth trembling, and he went to her and said desperately: ‘Now don’t you take on, Rosie, you mean it nicely, but I don’t like it, that’s why I didn’t tell you before. Get it?’ She responded to him, listlessly, and he found himself thinking, angrily: ‘I’ve got two wives, not one …’ They were both dismayed and unhappy because their happiness was so precarious it could vanish overnight just because of a little thing like ulcers and milk pudding.

A few days later he ate in heavy silence through the supper she had provided, and then sarcasm broke out of him: ‘Well, Rosie, you’ve decided to humour me, that’s what it is.’ The meal had consisted of steamed fish, baked bread and very weak tea, which he hated. She looked uncomfortable, but said obstinately: ‘I went to a friend of mine who’s a chemist at the corner, and he told me what it was right for you to eat.’ Involuntarily he got up, his face dark with fury. He hesitated, then he went out, slamming the door.

He stood moodily in the pub, drinking. Pearl came across and said: ‘What’s eating you tonight?’ Her tone was light, but her eyes were sympathetic. The sympathy irritated him. He ground out: ‘Women!’ slammed down his glass and turned to go. ‘Doesn’t cost you anything to be polite,’ she said tartly, and he replied: ‘Doesn’t cost you anything to leave me alone.’ Outside he hesitated a moment, feeling guilty. Pearl had been a friend for so long, and she had a soft spot for him – also, she knew about his wife, and about Rose, and made no comment, seemed not to condemn. She was a nice girl, Pearl was – he went back and said, hastily: ‘Sorry, Pearl, didn’t mean it.’ Without waiting for a reply he left again, and this time set off for home.

The woman he called his wife looked up from her sewing and asked briefly: ‘What do you want now?’

‘Nothing.’ He sat down, picked up a paper and pretended to read, conscious of her glances. They were not hostile. They had gone a long way beyond that, and the fact that she seemed scarcely interested in him was a relief after Rose’s persistent, warm curiosity – like loving white fingers strangling him, he thought involuntarily. ‘Want something to eat?’ she inquired at last.

‘What have you got?’ he inquired cautiously, thinking of the tasteless steamed fish and baked bread he had just been offered.

‘Help yourself,’ she returned, and he went to the cupboard on the landing, filled a plate with bread and mustard pickles and cheese, and came back to the room where she was. She glanced at his plate, but made no comment. After a while he asked sarcastically: ‘Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t eat pickles?’

‘Couldn’t care less,’ she returned equably. ‘If you want to kill yourself, it’s your funeral.’ At this he laughed loudly, and she joined him. Later, she asked: ‘Staying here the night?’

‘If you don’t mind.’ At this she gave a snort of derisive laughter, got up and said: ‘Well, I’m off to bed. You can’t have the sofa because the kids have got a friend and he’s got it. You’ll have to put a blanket and a cushion on the floor.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, indifferently. ‘How are the kids?’ he inquired, as an afterthought.

‘Fine – if you’re interested.’

‘I asked, didn’t I?’ he replied, without heat. All this conversation had been conducted quietly, indifferently, and the undercurrent was almost amiable. An outsider would have said they hardly knew each other. When she had gone he took a blanket from a drawer, wrapped it round his legs, and settled himself in a chair. He had meant to think about himself and Rose, but instead he dropped off at once. He left the house early, before anyone was awake. All day at the factory he thought: About Rose, what must I do about Rose? After work he went instinctively to the pub. Pearl stood quietly behind the counter, showing him by her manner that she was not holding last night’s bad humour against him. He meant to have one drink and go, but he had three. He liked Pearl’s cheerful humour. She told him that her young man was playing about with another girl, and added, as if it hardly concerned her: ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea after all.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, non-committally.

‘Well, we all have our troubles,’ she said, with a half-humorous sigh.

‘Yes – for what they’re worth.’ At this he felt a pang of guilt because he had been thinking of Rose. Pearl was giving him a keen look. Then she said: ‘I didn’t say he hadn’t been worth it. But now that other girl’s getting all the benefit …’ Here she laughed grimly.

He liked this cheerful philosophy, and could not prevent himself saying: ‘He’s got no sense, turning you up.’ He looked with appreciation at her crown of bright yellow curls, at her shapely body. Her eyes brightened, and he said good night quickly, and left. He mustn’t get mixed up with Pearl now, he was thinking.

It was after eight. Usually he was with Rose by seven. He lagged down the street, thinking of what he would say to her, and entered the flat with a blank mind. For some reason he was very tired. Rose had eaten by herself, cleared the table, and now sat beside it, frowning over a newspaper. ‘What are you reading?’ he asked, for something to break the ice. Looking over her shoulder he saw that she had marked a column headed: ‘Surplus Women Present Problem to Churches.’ He was surprised.

‘That’s what I am, a surplus woman,’ she said, and gave that sudden, unexpected laugh.

‘What’s funny?’ he asked, uncomfortably.

‘I’ve a right to laugh if I want,’ she retorted. ‘Better than crying, anyhow.’

‘Oh, Rose,’ he said, helplessly, ‘oh, Rose stop it now …’ She burst into tears and clung to him. But this was not the end, and he knew it. Later that night she said: ‘I want to tell you something …’ and he thought: Now I’m for it – whatever it is.

‘You were home last night, weren’t you.’

‘Yes,’ he said, alertly.

A pause, and then she asked: ‘What did she say?’

‘About what?’ It was a fact that he did not immediately understand her. ‘Jimmie,’ she said incredulously, under her breath and he said: ‘Rosie, it’s no good, I told you that before.’

She did not immediately reply, but when she did her voice was very bitter: ‘Well, I see how it is now.’

‘You don’t see at all,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Well, then, tell me?’ He was silent. Her silence was like a persistent question. Again he felt as if the warm, soft fingers were wrapping around him. He felt suffocated. ‘There’s nothing to explain, I just can’t help it.’ A pause, and then she said in the flat, laconic way he hated: ‘Yes?’ That was all. For the time being, at least. A week later she said, calmly: ‘I went to see Jill’s Granny today.’

His heart faltered and he thought: Now what? ‘Well?’ he inquired.

‘George was killed last month. In Italy.’

He felt triumph, then he said guiltily: ‘I’m sorry.’ She waved this away and said: ‘I told her Granny that I want to adopt Jill.’

‘But Rosie …’ Then he saw her face and quailed.

‘I want kids,’ she said fiercely. He dropped his gaze.

‘Her Granny won’t want to give her up.’

‘I’m not so sure. At first she said no, then she thought it over a bit. She’s getting old now – eighty next year. She thinks perhaps Jill’d be better with me.’

‘You want to have the kid here?’ he asked, incredulously.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘You’re working all day.’ She was silent, he looked at her – and slowly coloured.

‘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.’