Back by Henry Green
A country bus drew up below the church and a young man got out. This he had to do carefully because he had a peg leg.
The roadway was asphalted blue.
It was a summer day in England. Rain clouds were amassed back of a church tower which stood on rising ground. As he looked up he noted well those slits, built for defence, in the blood coloured brick. Then he ran his eye with caution over cypresses and between gravestones. He might have been watching for a trap, who had lost his leg in France for not noticing the gun beneath a rose.
For, climbing around and up these trees of mourning, was rose after rose after rose, while, here and there, the spray overburdened by the mass of flower, a live wreath lay fallen on a wreath of stone, or on a box in marble colder than this day, or onto frosted paper blooms which, under glass, marked each bed of earth wherein the dear departed encouraged life above in the green grass, the cypresses and in those roses gay and bright which, as still as this dark afternoon, stared at whosoever looked, or hung their heads to droop, to grow stained, to die when their turn came.
It was a time of war. The young man in pink tweeds had been repatriated from a prisoners’ camp on the other side. Now, at the first opportunity, he was back.
He had known the village this church stood over, but not well. He had learned the walks before he turned soldier, though he had met few of those who lived by. The graveyard he had never entered. But he came now to visit because someone he loved, a woman, who, above all at night, had been in his feelings when he was behind barbed wire, had been put here while he was away, and her name, of all names, was Rose.
The bus, with its watching passengers, departed. In the silence which followed he began to climb the path leading to those graves, when came a sudden upthrusting cackle of geese in panic, the sound of which brought home to him a stack of faggots he had seen blown high by a grenade, each stick separately stabbing the air in a frieze, and which he had watched fall back, as an opened fan closes. So, while the geese quietened, he felt what he had seen until the silence which followed, when he at once forgot.
But there was left him an idea that he had been warned.
Propping himself on his stick, he moved slowly up that path to the wicket gate between two larger cypresses. He felt more than ever that he did not wish to be observed. So he no longer watched the roses. As if to do his best to become unseen, he kept his eyes on the gravel over which he was dragging the peg leg.
For there was a bicycle bell, ringing closer and closer by the church, clustering spray upon spray of sound which wreathed the air much as those roses grew around the headstones, whence, so he felt, they narrowly regarded him.
Which caused him to stop dead when a boy of about six came, over the hill on a tricycle, past the porch; then, as the machine got up speed, he stood to one side, in spite of the gate still closed between the two of them. He sharply stared but, as he took in the child’s fair head, he saw nothing, nothing was brought back. He did not even feel a pang, as well he might if only he had known.
Charley was irritated when the boy, after getting off to open the gate and climbing onto his machine again, shrilly rang the bell as he dashed past. Then the young man started slow on his way once more. And he forgot the boy who was gone, who spelled nothing to him.
For Rose had died while he was in France, he said over and over under his breath. She was dead, and he did not hear until he was a prisoner. She had died, and this sort of sad garden was where they had put her without him, and, as he looked about while he leaned on the gate, he felt she must surely have come as a stranger when her time came, that if a person’s nature is at all alive after he or she has gone, then she could never have imagined herself here nailed into a box, in total darkness, briar roots pushing down to the red hair of which she had been so proud and fond. He could not even remember her ever saying that she had been in this churchyard, which was now the one place one could pay a call on Rose, whom he could call to mind, though never all over at one time, or at all clearly, crying, dear Rose, laughing, mad Rose, holding her baby, or, oh Rose, best of all in bed, her glorious locks abounding.
Oh well this would never do, he thought, and asked himself where she could be. For there was a large choice. While the church was small, this graveyard gaped deep and wide, densely stacked throughout its rising ground with mounds of turf and mottled, moss grown headstones. And, as he was forever asking himself things he could seldom answer, and which, amassing in his mind, left a great weight of detail undecided, the next question he put was, what he could say if a woman came while he searched, if she were to observe that he was lame who was of an age to have lost a leg, in fact what he should do if seen by a village gossip, who might even recognize him, but who, in any case, would have her sense of scandal whetted, so he felt, by a young man with a wooden leg that did not fit, searching for a tomb.
He thought how Rose would have laughed to see him in his usual state of not knowing, lost as he always was, and had been when the sniper got him in the sights.
Indeed, if he had not come such a distance, from one country at war to another, then home again, he might well at this minute have turned back. But as it was he went in the gate, had his cheek brushed by a rose, and began awkwardly to search for Rose, through roses, in what seemed to him should be the sunniest places on a fine day, the warmest when the sun came out at twelve o’clock for she had been so warm, and amongst the newer memorials in local stone because she had died in time of war, when, or so he imagined, James could never have found marble for her, of whom, at no time before this moment, had he ever thought as cold beneath a slab, food for worms, her great red hair, still growing, a sort of moist bower for worms.
Well the old days were gone for good, he supposed while standing by a cypress, holding a briar off his face. The rose, rocking from it, sprinkled held raindrops on his eyes as, with the other hand, he poked his stick at two dwarf box trees which had obscured what he now saw to be a marble pillow. He had time to read the one word, “Sophie,” cut with no name or date, when his glance was held by a nest the walking stick uncovered, and which had been hidden by thick enamelled leaves that were as dark as the cypress, as his brown eyes under that great ivory pink rose. Changing hands with the stick so the rose softly thumped his forehead, he pushed past to lean, to feel with a hand. But the eggs were addled, blue cold as moonlight.
He wiped his fingers. Paper crackled in a pocket, to remind him of the wire, “Report to Officers Rehabilitation Centre Gateacres Ammanford by 20 hours June 12th.” It was now the thirteenth. He supposed they would not shoot a chap because he had not gone, nor, out of spite, make him pay for the new limb waiting there numb and numbered in a box. “E.N.Y.S.” it was signed. More letters standing he did not know what for.
The prisoners’ camp had flowered with initials, each inmate decorated his bunk with them out there, to let it be known what he taught. Such as “I.T.” which stood for Inner Temple, at which Marples, this very afternoon perhaps, was still teaching Roman Law. The idea had been to make the clock’s hands go round.
And now that he’d come, he told himself, all he was after was to turn them back, the fool, only to find roses grown between the minutes and the hours, and so entwined that the hands were stuck.
His felt thoughts began to wander. Of course he was lucky to have a job, his seat kept warm. There were plenty still over on the other side would give the cool moon to stand in his shoes. And they would get on with it if they were here, not spend as he was doing a deal of money on travelling to old places. Then there was the coupon question. What should he do? All he had was this suit he stood up in, which he had bought, and which the tailor had not delivered, but had kept safe till he got back. The rest was looted. Oh, he was lost in this bloody graveyard. Where could she be? Rose that he’d loved, that he’d come so far for? Why did she die? Could anyone understand anything? Perhaps it would have been best if they had killed him, he felt, if instead of a sniper’s rifle in that rosebush they had pooped off something heavier at him. Rose would never have known, because she had died some time about that identical week. God bless her, he thought, his brown eyes dimmed suddenly with tears, and I hope she’s having a jolly good rest.
Then he found it was raining. He must have stood there so lost he had never taken in the first few drops. He started to drag as quick as he could for the path, to shelter in the church porch. But he had to go sideways, brushing against cypresses, getting his neck scratched once or twice, having roses spatter in his ears because he could not lift his leg properly, and did not wish to pull it over the green, turfed graves, to scar them with the long souvenir he had brought back from France.
Misery kept his mind blank until he turned the porch. Then he had a bad shock when he found who was sheltering before him. For of all people, of all imaginable men, and fat as those geese, was James. They stared at each other.
“Why good Lord,” James was saying, “why, Charley, my good lad,” he said. Speechless, Charley looked over a shoulder to find whether this widower had been in a position to see where he had been searching for the grave below. “Why, Charley, then they’ve sent you back. Good Lord, am I glad to see you, man.”
“Where’ve you been all this time?” James began once more, as Charley still found nothing. “In Germany?” he went on, not waiting for answers. “Why it must be all of five years. Now how are you?” and he pump-handled Charley who had said not a word. “They often tell us, ‘Wait till the boys come back.’ Well this is it, isn’t it?” James asked. “I mean you’re really home for keeps, for better or worse, richer or poorer, aren’t you? And what’s it like with the enemy? I suppose they put you in hospital, what? How’d they treat the boys, Charley? Pretty rotten I shouldn’t wonder, when all’s said and done. Well you haven’t come back to much I can tell you. My, but I’m glad to see you, man.”
“It’s my leg,” Charley explained. He drawled rather when he spoke.
“Yes, well there you are,” James said.
“There it is,” Charley agreed. One of those pauses followed in which the fat man’s upper lip trembled.
“Well I’d never have guessed if you hadn’t mentioned it, bless my soul I shouldn’t. Never in the world. But they do marvellous things in that line of country now, or so they tell me. Medical science comes on a lot in a war, you know. I often say it’s the one use there is in such things. Terrible price to pay, of course. But there you are.”
“You’re right there,” Charley said.
“But look, how on earth were you going to have a bite to eat? Bit difficult these days, you know, what with the B.R.N.Q., the V.B.S. and the P.M.V.O. Since the war started, no, I’m wrong, it was after the invasion of Holland and all that. Well now we haven’t even got a village bus. They still send the children in to school, of course the C.E.C. see to that, though the whole job is run very inefficiently in my opinion. But you’ll come down now and take pot luck with me, won’t you? As a matter of fact we’ve begun a pig club in the village. P.B.H.R. it’s known by, everything’s initials these days. Only time the people in these parts have got together within living memory. So there’s a piece of ham left over. Tell you the truth I haven’t started the ham, not yet. Oh and I expect we’ll find a little bit of something to go on with.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Don’t mention it, old man. Least one can do, if you know what I mean. No, but you’ll be really welcome, Charley. You got my letter, didn’t you? Must have been about the time you were taken prisoner. It’s made a big difference. But then there’s a lot of changes these days, and there’ll be many more I shouldn’t wonder. Lord yes. But this’ll be a damn good occasion to start that ham. Why on earth didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
Charley muttered something the other could not catch.
“I know,” James went on, “I realize how it is. I remember after the last war when I got home.” He described a visit he had paid, which meant nothing to Charley.
There was a pause.
“Now they’ve hit it with one of their damned bombs,” James continued. “But, look here, you didn’t happen to run across my nipper on his bike, did you? He’ll get soaked through in this rain.” It was teeming down, with the sound of a man scything long grass. As James went on talking, and almost at random, for this had been a shock to him as well, Charley did not catch a word because of what had been revealed.
He was wondering if his face had gone white while his stomach melted, for there had been more than a question between Rose and himself, at the time the baby was on the way, as to whether it could be his own.
He was appalled that the first sight of the boy had meant nothing. Because one of the things he had always hung on to was that blood spoke, or called, to blood.
So the child he’d had to step aside for was Ridley; poor kid to be called by such a name.
Now he wanted to sit down. Then his guilt made him listen to what James was saying, in case the man had noticed. But James was going on just the same.
Finally Charles was altogether taken up by a need to see the child a second time, to search in the shape of the bones of its face for an echo of Rose, to drag this out from the line of its full cheeks to see if he could find a memory of Rose laughing there, and even to look deep in Ridley’s eyes as though into a mirror, and catch the small image of himself by which to detect, if he could, a likeness, a something, however false, to tell him he was a father, that Rose lived again, by his agency, in their son.
Wrought up into a sort of cunning, he waited for a break in the fat fellow’s conversation. When this came he said so calmly that he was surprised, “What time d’you lunch, James?”
“Look, old boy, there’s one or two things I must do in the village first. You make your own way down to my place. In the meantime,” he went on, in the same voice, “it’s over here, follow me.” Charley began to drag after, unsuspecting. But he could not go fast, with the result that he was far behind when James halted to doff his hat at an object. “See you later,” James called, as he made off. Charley hobbled along. Then, behind the cypress where James had uncovered himself, there lay before his eyes more sharp letters, cut in marble beyond a bunch of live roses tied in string, and it became plain that this was where they had laid her, for the letters spelled Rose. So Charley bowed his head, and felt, somehow, as if this was the first time that he had denied her by forgetting, denied one whom, he knew for sure, he was to deny again, then once more yet, yes thrice.
Rose’s parents, Mr and Mrs Grant, were still at Redham, one of London’s outer suburbs. They had known, and liked, Charley as a possible husband to their only child some time before she was married to James. Mrs Grant, in particular, had had a soft spot for him because of his great brown eyes. So, when old man Grant heard that Charley was back, he phoned up to ask him over for the evening.
He met Charley in their front garden.
“You’ll find a wee bit of a difference in the wife,” he said, once the first greetings were over. “It’s merciful in a way perhaps, but I wouldn’t know. You see she doesn’t remember so very well as a rule, nowadays. What it may be is that nature protects us by drawing a curtain, blacks certain things out. Rose’s going as she did was a terrible shock to her naturally. So I thought I’d better warn you to carry on as though you didn’t notice. Just in case.”
“Of course,” Charley said. It was a blue and pink late Saturday afternoon. Once more he felt how grand it was to be back.
“Although this does bring you to wonder,” Mr Grant was saying. “Nature’s cruel, there’s no getting away from her laws. She won’t let up on the weak, I mean. When the doctor went into it with me, his idea about Amy was it might be nature’s way to protect her by letting her forget. I didn’t say much. You can’t argue with them, Charley boy.”
“You’re right there,” Charley said.
“Yes, I expect you’ll have found that over your leg. But you can set your mind at rest, no one would tell if they hadn’t been told.” He nodded his white, old head, up and down. “Isn’t it a glorious evening? Where was I now? Yes, well, I took leave to doubt that doctor. Nature’s cruel I said to myself, you can’t expect mercy in that quarter. So d’you know what? I’ll tell you. I thought maybe it wasn’t the best thing for Amy to forget Rose.”
Charley coughed.
“Well, once you begin to lose the picture of this or the other in your mind’s eye, it’s hard to determine where things’ll stop,” Mr Grant continued. “I knew a man once, in the ordinary run of business, who started to misremember in that fashion. Wasn’t long before he’d lost all his connections. Even came to it they had to shut him away. Because when all’s said and done you can’t go on like it, can you? So I tried talking to Amy about Rose.”
Charley wondered how he could get out. He looked around him. But he knew he was back now, all right.
“No,” Mr Grant continued, “nothing I could say was any use. And then I went into things. You see my firm has put me on a pension, now I’m retired, and once the housework is done, which doesn’t amount to a great deal, there’s not such a lot to do but think. Well, we’re not so old as all that, thank you, Amy and me. I mean there’s a few years usefulness in us yet, what with the work I do unpaid on the H.R.O.N., and Amy who’s still fit enough to go down to the A.R.B.S., and put in a few hours each week. So I said, ‘Gerald,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to get a move on. It mayn’t be the best thing, not by a long chalk, for her to forget her own daughter.’ Mind you, Charley, she doesn’t even know her grandson now. And, as a woman begins to age, the toddlers play a great part, Charley boy, or they should do, that’s only human nature after all. So to cut a long story short, I made up my mind I’d call on Charley Summers. Not that we wouldn’t have been glad to see you, any day. After what you’ve been through. You mustn’t misunderstand me, please. But just to find whether she would …” and his voice trailed off as, turning his back, he began to move towards the house. Charley sullenly followed. “So don’t be surprised if you notice a big change,” Mr Grant ended over his shoulder, in so loud a voice that Charley was afraid.
But how dead selfish of the old boy, Charley felt as he stood in the porch of their villa while Mr Grant shouted for his wife. After all, here was a man who had no need for coupons, who couldn’t have to buy anything new. Because surely he had done enough, Charley thought, once more coming back to himself. When all was said and done he had risked his life, lost a leg, spent the best years of his prime in prison behind barbed wire, and, now that he was back, they had a use for him as a guinea pig on Rose’s mother.
Mr Grant shouted again.
“I’m coming dear,” she piped in a quiver, and there was Mrs Grant, too neat, scuttling down the stairs. She came straight on, never hesitated, flung her old arms round Charley’s neck, went up on her toes to do it, and sung out “John, John,” twice.
“No it’s not John, dear, it’s Charley, back from the war,” Mr Grant announced at her towered white head of hair, which she was leaning on Charley’s neck as the young man lightly touched her elbows.
“They are very cruel to me, John,” she said. From her round cheeks he found that she was crying.
“Now dear, this is Charley Summers,” Mr Grant repeated.
“Don’t you worry,” Charley mumbled.
But she would not have it. She was most natural.
“John, to think you’re back at last,” she said.
“There you are,” the husband explained, “she thinks you’re her brother who was killed in seventeen.”
Charley hardened his heart.
“Why my little baby brother John,” Mrs Grant exclaimed in rather a happier voice and stood back, laying hands gently on his forearms. She looked yearning into his face. She was much too neat. But for two tear drops under the chin, and a wet run to each from out the corners of her eyes, which were intensely bright, everything was mouse tidy, except it seemed her wits.
“Now Amy,” her husband begged.
“But you mustn’t stand here. I don’t know where my mind is, I’m sure,” she went on, preceding him into their parlour. As he sat down he felt she did not seem so sure of him after all. In fact he did not like the way she shaped, complaining as she now was that it must be the war, that ever since the Russians gave up she had felt tired. “This terrible war,” she ended, and screened her eyes with a hand as if he were seated opposite nude.
“Look dear,” the husband said, “you rest yourself while I go fetch our tea. I shan’t be a minute,” he explained to Charley, who did not want to be alone with her, who opened his mouth to ask him to stay but was too late, as happened so often.
“So cruel,” Mrs Grant murmured, once they were alone. There was then a silence while she still held a hand on her eyes. Charley asked himself if it was safe for them to be left together, and then for no particular reason remembered that he had forgotten to buy the tie he’d meant to get in the morning.
“You’re not John, are you?” she said, when he looked up.
But he did not have to answer because her husband came back just then, wheeling the tea trolley. “Here we are,” this man genially announced. “John always had cream with his,” she said, her eyes on the small, half empty jug of milk, “Oh, but of course, I forgot,” she went on. “You’re not, are you. It’s my memory,” she explained. “Sometimes I get a bit tired.”
Mr Grant began to pour. “Seems queer,” he said to Charley. “Rose always used to do this. D’you remember?” Charley remembered, but he did not say so. “Insisted on it way back in the days when she had her hair in pigtails. Made such a commotion that we had to let her. This is Charley Summers, dear,” he said briskly to his wife. “Surely you recollect him, Amy? Used to come to tea in the old days, – and she wore pale pink bows in the plaits,” he added, his mind turning a corner. There was a pause. When he spoke again his voice was flat. “You know him I’ll be bound,” he said. “It was Rose he used to come down and see, and now here he is to pay a call on her old people.”
Charley sat silent, kept an eye on his empty cup.
“Why you aren’t eating,” was what she answered. “I’m sure I get so bewildered sometimes.” The young man glanced at her to find she was offering him cake. “You must excuse us, you know. We live very quietly, oh so quietly.”
“I hear you do work for the A.R.B.S., Mrs Grant,” he asked.
“Yes, dear, dear, and what a business that is. Sometimes I think it will be too much for me, Mr … Mr …, so stupid, I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch your name.”
Charley noticed that she never seemed to address Mr Grant directly.
“Charley Summers, dear,” Mr Grant said, brisk.
“Of course. Mr Summers. You know we’ve had some terrible Zeppelin raids round about, lately. Some have been in daylight as well, so daring don’t you think Mr …, Mr …” He looked at her. When she saw this she dropped her eyes quick, and put a hand on her mouth as though about to belch.
“She will insist it’s the last war,” Mr Grant explained in a normal voice.
“Of course,” Charley said.
“How’s things over in Germany these days?” Mr Grant enquired, ignoring his wife. “I expect you had a pretty rotten time, eh? What I say is, I can’t see any end to this lot. But I mean, did they treat you badly? What part were you, anyway?”
Charley felt the old man was almost being sharp with him. He supposed it to be irritation at his life partner. But the nausea, which had recently begun to spread in his stomach whenever prison camps were mentioned, drove all else out of his head.
“Rather not speak of it,” he replied, indistinctly.
“I’m sorry, Charley boy. You don’t want to pay any attention to us old folks,” he said. “The plain fact is, we’re past it. You’ll find out as you grow older. You seem to lose grip somehow. Worst of all is, you don’t seem to notice. But the hard part must have been the ladies, eh? Because it’s not natural to be without them, after all. And then not even seeing one. Why, you must have been in a pickle,” he ended with genuine sympathy, unable, it seemed, to realize how odd, or, if you like, how charming this was in him to speak so in front of his sick wife.
“Might I have another cup?” Charley asked Mrs Grant.
“Why, whatever am I about?” Mrs Grant said, bright, as she snatched his saucer. “You mustn’t heed me,” she went on. “I’ve been so forgetful lately. You’d never believe.”
“But you aren’t eating, Charley boy,” Mr Grant told him. “Yes, it must be rotten for a young man in those places. Unnatural. But then there’s a deal in life you don’t understand at the time. You’ll find that out later. Why, sometimes, when I’ve done the housework and seen to Amy here, I just sit where I am, and remember. That’s what she’s missing. Because it’s not all bad what’s happened to you. Not by a long chalk.”
“Who are you, then?” Mrs Grant unexpectedly asked.
“Why he’s Charley Summers, dear,” Mr Grant replied. “You remember him,” he said, with confidence. “He used to come in to see our Rose. Yes, it does feel a long time, eh Charley?” But the young man did not reply.
“Everything’s initials these days,” the old man said, abruptly changing course. “You can’t even pay the public house a call of an evening any more. Of course you go there just the same, but it’s an anniversary of the Home Guard being stood down that takes you, or the H.R.O.N. having a reunion, and so on, and so forth. I’ll wager it strikes anyone as a bit different to come home to,” he suggested. Charley merely said it did.
“And how d’you manage with your coupons?” Mr Grant went on, while his wife seemed to recollect herself behind the hand she now held over her eyes, “Do they give you a supply so you can get a stock up?”
“There you are,” Charley said, thinking about a dressing gown.
“I suppose it’s what you could term necessary,” Mr Grant commented, “but it’s damnable, boy, in a free country such as we were supposed to be. To think of a man like you, who we should all be grateful for, having to pass through that rigmarole makes you ask yourself what we’re fighting to finish, doesn’t it? I could tell you tales would make you really wonder. Why, down at the B.D.S. offices, there’s a man in charge who, before the outbreak, if I’d gone to him holding a few potato peelings, he’d have eaten them out of my hand right before my face, that same individual is sitting behind a telephone and it’s ivory coloured, who I knew in the old days when he was with Thomsons, a despatch clerk, that’s all he was. Well now, if you should want anything, he’s the man Charley. From a toothbrush right up to a typewriter. And sitting there just to say no. As a matter of fact, with Amy in the state of health she’s in,” and his wife did not flinch, “as things are with her, the doctor gave a prescription for a bit extra of this or that, or whatever it might be, and I had to go down to George Andrews, because that’s the man’s name, to get him to countersign the diet sheet the doctor had made out. You could never imagine the time I had with him.”
“Is that so?” Charley said.
“You aren’t John, are you?” Mrs Grant objected, between her fingers. But Mr Grant saw fit to let this pass.
“Yes, if I was to tell, you’d never believe,” he said to the young man. “This, that, and the other,” he said.
“Then who are you, then?” Mrs Grant asked quietly.
“Now, dear, don’t take on so,” Mr Grant said. “You’ve forgotten, you don’t remember, that’s all it is. Yes,” he continued to Charley, “men I wouldn’t have engaged as office boys when I was in charge of the department, lording it over us now, heads I win, tails you lose.”
“What are you doing here?” Mrs Grant demanded, looking at Charley between her fingers, and cringing.
“He’s come to take a cup of tea with us, dear,” the husband said. This time he glared. She did not notice because she never took her eyes off Charley.
“I don’t like it,” she muttered.
“I’m very sorry,” Charley Summers said to Mr Grant.
“Just pay no attention,” this man replied. But it was not to be as easy as all that, for Mrs Grant took control by throwing herself back into the sofa to thrust her head into one of its soft corners, from which she began to shriek, muffled by upholstery.
“Amy, stop that this minute,” Mr Grant said firm. “You’re not a child after all. It’s just the habits she’s been getting,” he explained to Charles. “It’ll pass in a moment, you’ll see.” Upon which Mrs Grant took her nose out of the arm and the back, and screamed, not very loud. Charley saw his chance.
“I really must be getting on,” he said.
Mr Grant was remonstrating, “Now Amy,” as though with an awkward child. He had gone to sit beside his wife, who had hidden her face again, and he was patting a shoulder. Charley thought she moaned something, but he could not be certain. In any case he was on his way. And Mr Grant called to him,
“But wait for me, Charley boy,” he begged, “I won’t be a minute. Now mother, there. By the road, out of sight. I’ve something I must tell you,” he ended, to Charley’s back. And Charley waited behind a tree, dreading a renewal of those small shrieks and cries. He heard no more however, and, after ten minutes, he saw Mr Grant hurrying down the path.
He was very sorry, he told Charles, and it had not been much of a welcome back after his experiences abroad, he said. But he knew Charley would not mind, the doctor had decided they ought to try it. Now that they’d made the attempt there was nothing to be done. Perhaps rest and quiet would put her right. Charley said he was not to worry. Mr Grant said it was white of him, to which Charley, marvelling at his own falseness, replied that it was the least he could do.
“Well, matters are like this,” Mr Grant made an end. “I never was one to saddle another with my troubles, but there was just the chance everything might come back to her, in which case she could’ve had a good cry on your shoulder, and you wouldn’t have known the difference. But I’d never have brought you all this way for nothing,” he said. “I’ve a surprise for you. Go to this address,” and he gave Charley a number in a street, “and you’ll find someone who knew Rose. She’s just the age Rose was, maybe a month or two younger. She wants to meet you. She’s a widow.”
Charley did not even consider it. He thanked Mr Grant, and made off fast for the District Railway.
When he got out at the other end he followed a strange girl with red hair the best part of three miles, back to what may have been her home, without trying to strike up an acquaintance.
Another morning, in London, in which he worked, Charley ran across a man by the name of Middlewitch, whom he had met, in July, at the Centre where he had been to have his new leg fitted.
“Why,” this gentleman said, “it’s Summers, isn’t it, my companion in arms and legs? I’m just off to get me a bite of lunch. D’you know that place across the street? Funny,” he remarked, as he piloted him through the traffic with a chromium plated arm under his black jacket, while Charley dragged the aluminium leg in a pin striped trouser. “Before the old war we’d be going to have a coffee about this time. Now we’ve to dash into some place before all the grub is gone. ‘Les grands mutilés,’ that’s the name the French have for us, and it’s good enough to get to the head of any queue out there. But not in this old country. Not on your life.” He laughed with real pleasure. All this time Charley had not said a word. “Here we are,” Mr Middlewitch explained, diving into a gap before the bar. “What’s yours?” he asked. And, before he could expect an answer, this man was getting hold of John, the head waiter, to keep a table for two, as well as greeting acquaintances in the crowd. In this way he had ordered a couple of double whiskies before enquiring what Charley might like better. Summers hardly ever touched spirits.
“Here’s luck,” Charley said, to speak for the first time.
“All the best,” Mr Middlewitch replied. He offered a cigarette with his good hand, then went into an elaborate drill to light a match. “I can’t bother with lighters,” this man explained. He put the box up under an armpit, to dab with a match at the
millimetre of sand paper that was left exposed. But the barmaid dropped everything she was doing to give him a light. “Thanks Rose,” he said.
It gave Charley a jolt. He had not been paying attention. He looked, but the girl was fair haired.
“Well,” Mr Middlewitch said, as he turned this way and that. “And how’s the world been treating you? You know I wish they wouldn’t do what she did. Light matches for one, I mean. But it can be a sight awkwarder at more intimate moments, eh? Lord yes. Mine squeaked the other day, just when I was putting it round her fattest bit. And a bloody sight more awkward for you I shouldn’t wonder. Never fear though, they like it.”
Mr Summers quacked a laugh.
“Women are extraordinary,” Middlewitch went on, in a loud voice. “There’s my sister in law, now. So quiet she makes you ask yourself if by any chance she knows what’s what, but then, as they say, still waters run profound. But to get on with what I was saying, I remember the time they were married, and the usual jokes got flying. It’s seven years back now. She sat there as though she had no idea in a million what it was all about. And afterwards the same, mind you. You know how things have a way of cropping up. In the ordinary run, I mean. Well whenever there’s anything the least bit rude, not dirty, mind, but a trifle on the risky side, she sits there like she was miles away. Yet the moment I got back repatriated, and they had a little do in my honour, she was on at me the whole evening. I thought at first she had changed, for with all respect to Ted (that’s my old lady’s other boy), she never seemed to be what I’d call a passionate woman. Now I’ve seen more of her, I’m dead certain she’s just the same as ever. No, it’s women’s curiosity, Summers, there you are. Wanted to know what we did about girls all that time behind the wire. Kept on coming back to it, too. Did I feel embarrassed, and I’m not a man who colours easily! Then Ted, when he saw I was getting a bit hot under the collar, he chipped in as well. Gave me an insight into their married life for the first time, I can tell you. If you follow me, there was something in how they backed each other up, so as to make me speak out.”
Charley cleared his throat. He had a faint glow from the whisky, was beginning to enjoy himself. He was thinking that, in another quarter of an hour, he would be liberated, free to talk. Because he had something, a sort of block in his stomach, which, in the ordinary way, seemed to stand between him and free speech. He looked at his empty glass. “Have another,” he said.
“Thanks, I will. Extraordinary meeting you like this,” Mr Middlewitch replied. “No, it’s curiosity,” he went on, “they’re the same as cats, when you scratch with your finger under the newspaper, which have to come and see what you’re about. They’re like this. They know you’ve lived the most unnatural damned life through no fault of your own for years, so want to get under your skin. Because it wasn’t only Yvonne. Practically every girl I know had a go at me. Turned it to very good advantage, too, I did, on more than one occasion, I can tell you.”
Charley grunted.
“Perhaps that’s what they intended,” Mr Middlewitch said. “You never can be certain. There’s that about the little ladies, you never know, not even afterwards.”
“It’s not only the women,” Charley rather surprised himself by bringing out, as he paid for his round of drinks.
“Oh that other kind, men like that,” Mr Middlewitch announced, “I’ve no time for ’em. Sticking their noses into other people’s private affairs like one of those horrible little dogs, poms they’re called, aren’t they, that go snuffling and yapping at every bit of dirt on the side. But you’re one of the quiet ones, Summers. They must go for those big eyes of yours in a big way, the ladies, I mean. What about a bite to eat now? John has the table ready, they look after me in this little place. Yes,” he said, and it appeared as if he spoke only out of civility, for his voice was entirely free from any note of interest, “I’ll bet you could tell
a true story or two on that score. But I know your type,” he said, looking round the dining room for acquaintances, and he waved a hand, “I know your type,” he repeated. “Mum’s the word where you’re concerned,” he said.
After Charley had asked for beer and had been overruled, his host making the point that, when there was whisky, it was a sin not to drink it, he ventured on a remark.
“It’s funny your mentioning what you did just now,” Charley said. “I had an experience just the other day.”
“I know your sort,” Mr Middlewitch replied, hardly listening, still on the look-out round this crowded room for old mugs, or pretty faces.
“Done nothing about it,” Charley continued. He took a long pull at his whisky and soda, then warned himself he’d be drunk in a minute.
“Have you met old Ernest Mandrew?” Mr Middlewitch demanded. “He’s a big noise these days.”
But Charley, like any very silent man, was not to be put off once he had begun.
“Asked me to come down to see them,” he drawled. “Parents of a girl I used to meet. Wasn’t much of a party. But as I was leaving the old man up and slipped me an address. Just like that. You see I was friends with the daughter, who’s dead now.” Here he paused. Then out it came. “Had a child by her as a matter of fact,” he boasted, denying Rose a second time. “Yet there he was, giving me the address of a widow.” Charley took another gulp, leant back unburdened.
“A widow?” Mr Middlewitch echoed. “Oh boy. I say, remind me to go across to Ernie Mandrew when we’re through, will you? I’ve got a bit of news will interest him, only I’m so damned forgetful these days. What were we saying?”
But Charley, for the time at any rate, had had his say. He was staring at the glass he held. His face, it is true, was very sad, but his mind was a concentrated blank. He felt the relief in his stomach.
Mr Middlewitch glanced at him.
“Yes,” he said, “we all of us came back to what we didn’t expect. There’s a number of people dropped out in everyone’s lives. I’m not sure, but they do seem a long time over our soup.”
He tried to catch the waitress several times, while Charley looked about, well satisfied.
“A widow you said, eh?” Mr Middlewitch began once more. Summers nodded. “Dark or fair?”
Mr Summers had never considered this.
“Red,” he replied, from habit.
“Oh boy, a redhead.”
“At least I don’t know. Haven’t seen her,” Charley mumbled.
“Haven’t seen her still?” Mr Middlewitch echoed. “Then you must be getting your oats, right enough. Of course, I grant there’s a lot of it around. That’s only human nature, with the numbers of men there are overseas. But a redhead with freckles, I don’t understand you, man?”
Charley was not to be drawn. He sat there, smiling.
“Well, any time you feel like,” Mr Middlewitch continued, “just pass over that address to me. I can’t say I’ve a lot of free time on my hands, but no doubt she could be fitted in, at a pinch. I don’t doubt at all, really.”
As the waitress brought their soup, he ordered two more whiskies.
“Steady,” Charley said.
“Well it all comes out of E.P.T., doesn’t it? Carry on. Don’t stint. Lord knows we’ve done without more than Scotch these last few years. Reminds me of the first girl I saw, when I got off that Swedish boat they sent us home in. You know, the first ordinary girl. She was a wizard blonde.”
If Charley had not had the whiskies he might have let this pass, but as things were he said, “Ah.”
“Well, I mean to say,” Mr Middlewitch took him up, sensing a response at last. “After all those years without a taste of it, nothing but men, getting to realize there’s damn all in human nature, don’t tell me you didn’t find that out, that there’s not a man, when you get down to bedrock, isn’t a twirp through and through, well then, to step off that boat of repatriated maniacs gone a bit crazy for having been released, and then to see a blonde out shopping, or whatever she was about, and free as air, I ask you. There was such a howl went up I thought the dock buildings would blow down.”
“And her?” Charley asked, becoming talkative.
“She never turned a curl. I’ve often thought about this since. She was used to it, you see. Very likely she might be the dock superintendent’s daughter, anyway she seemed to have the run of that place. You on to what I’m getting at? All the hundreds of thousands of service men coming and going in a port. Well, I mean, it’s war isn’t it, c’est la guerre. Makes brutes out of women.”
“Certainly does,” Charley agreed.
“Why, there’s no question but,” Mr Middlewitch said. “When we were over in Hunland, thinking of home, didn’t you and I imagine summer evenings and roses and all that guff, with a lovely little lump of mischief in the old car of course, but most of the time we were like kids dreaming for the moon, and perhaps for a little accident to happen to them with a girl. And what happened when we did get back? Why, we got stinking tight, old lad, and catted it all up.”
“That’s right, we did,” Charley agreed again, who had not got drunk particularly.
“And why?” Mr Middlewitch asked. “Because we found everything different to what we expected.” He pushed his plate of soup away, as though in disgust. Then he laughed. “Though I wouldn’t have been doing that with this grub out there,” he said.
Charley leant forward, but kept his eyes on the glass. His blood was soaring under the whisky.
“My girl died while I was out there,” he said, “the one I mentioned. I’ve been down to the place they buried her but everything’s different.”
“That’s just what I mean. Yes, there you are. That’s it. But, boy, are there compensations, eh? Not but what I fancy you should take a grip on yourself, Summers. We’ve been through it. We know. So I can speak to you as I wouldn’t to my best friend perhaps, just because you don’t know me from Adam, and I don’t know you. You see, I’ve kept in touch with some of the lads from our lot, and one or two have drawn their horns in, gone inside of themselves, if you follow me. Now that’s dangerous. All you’re doing is to perpetuate the conditions you’ve lived under, which weren’t natural. Well, my advice to them and to you is, snap out of it.”
“Of course,” Charley said, and looked at him unseeing. He’d hardly heard.
“My God, but they’re being a long time with our bunny,” Mr Middlewitch replied. “You’d think they had to take it out of its hutch, kill it, get the skin off, cook the little blighter, and then dish him up, by the time they’re taking.”
“I went down to the graveyard and, damn me if I didn’t run into her husband,” Charley told him.
“That must have been awkward,” Mr Middlewitch agreed. “What happened then? Did you cry with your two heads together over the monument? You speak as if you knew the lad.”
“He’s all right,” Charley said, seemingly a bit daunted. “We had a bite to eat after.” Mr Middlewitch did not notice the reaction.
“And you had a bit of a chat? Compared notes eh?”
“No,” Charley said. He frowned.
“I remember I was in a situation like that once,” Mr Middlewitch explained. “Very awkward too. It was soon after I left school, and I’d got in with a girl about my own age in the same road. Of course there was nothing to it, we were kids, see. But she went down with something or other, I forget, I believe it was meningitis, that can be a terrible thing, and when she died I had to spend most of every evening for weeks on end comforting the mother. Nice bit of stuff the mother was as well, but I was too young in those days to tumble the way the wind lay. Not that I wasn’t well developed for a boy mind you.”
There was no response from Summers.
“No, it’s the opportunities missed that get you down as you grow older,” Middlewitch went on, with the wisdom of his prison camp. “Take this rabbit before us now. If I’d ever known I was to have so much coney, why I’d ’ve never cancelled those steaks I used to in the old days, thinking a heavy meal at this hour did me harm. I went regular to the old George at the corner of Wood Lane, which is blitzed down, because most any day you could get a portion of rabbit there. If I’d known then what I do now. But that’s life.”
As for Charley, he did not care by this time what he was eating. And, when Middlewitch called their waitress for cheese and coffee, Rose was no more than a name to him. All the girls at this place were called alike. He concentrated, greedily, on the widow Mr Grant had mentioned.
“Shall I give her a tinkle?” he asked into the silence that had fallen, in a sighing covey of angels, above their table.
But Mr Middlewitch was bored. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll take you over and introduce you to old Ernie. He might do you a bit of good one of these days. What’s that we were saying? Ring her? My dear good lad, do no such thing,” he said. He had forgotten his earlier advice. “Drop in, boy. There you are. Then they can’t say no. Because women are practised on the telephone. Drop in unexpected, that’s my advice, drop in,” he said.
Mrs Frazier sat beside Charley, in front of a roaring fire, in the bed sitting room he hired from her.
“No coal, no nothing,” she remarked. She was about fifty and thin.
He grunted.
“Enjoy this while you have the opportunity,” she said, “take what pleasure and comfort you can, because who is there to tell what may befall. When these new bombs he’s sending over, turn in the air overhead, and come at you, there’s not a sound to be had. One minute sitting in the light, and the next in pitch darkness with the ceiling down, that is if you’re lucky, and haven’t the roof and all on top. But as to our coal, that’s certain. ‘Coal?’ my own merchant said the last time. ‘Coal, Madame? Never heard of it.’ And you don’t catch a sound when they crash, everyone that’s had one, and come out alive, speaks to that.”
He sat vaguely wondering about chances of promotion in the office. Then about his coupons.
“Which is quite different from the last war,” Mrs Frazier continued. “And what a difference, oh my lord how different. Always heard them coming in the last war, and so gave the men time to cast themselves flat. I remember Mr Frazier telling me. But of course in your case you didn’t have long to form a judgement. They took you prisoner within a fortnight of your landing over on the other side, as you informed me. So enjoy this scuttleful while you may,” she ended with relish, “for there’s not another in the cellar. I said to Mary, ‘Let Mr Summers have it, Mary,’ I said, ‘We owe him that for all the poor man’s been through.’ ‘And what about your own fire, Madam?’ ‘Why I’ll sit with Mr Summers, Mary, and see the last fire out we shall have this winter for the gentleman.”’
She said this with an easy mind, who had a ton and a half stowed safe in the other cellar.
She chanced a look at those great brown eyes. He continued to ignore her. But his expression was very pleasant.
“I can’t make up my mind why you don’t go out more often,” she went on. “At the age you are as well, and after what you’ve been in. Find a young lady I mean,” she said.
He gave a happy laugh.
“Laugh?” she asked. “You may laugh but I’m serious.”
He did not take this up.
“Now Mr Middlewitch,” she said, looking into the fire, “that was another kettle of fish, with that man. Why I never had one like it. In the end I was obliged to tell him. Well, I mean to say.”
“Middlewitch?” Charley asked. “Who works in the C.E.G.S.?”
“Oh I couldn’t be certain, I’m sure,” Mrs Frazier answered, but she then gave a description which agreed exactly. “Perhaps you’ve met each other in the way of business?”
“Same man,” Charley said.
“Why I often wonder what’s become of him.”
“Didn’t know I knew him?” Charley enquired.
“Every year you live the world shrinks smaller,” Mrs Frazier replied. “Fancy you knowing Mr Middlewitch. I didn’t intend anything. It’s only that some are different from others. I believe it really was that he thought he’d suit himself best near the Park, in Kensington. Took a fancy to run before breakfast, or suchlike. Whichever way it was, he left here. Paid what was due quite all right. Oh yes, there was nothing of that sort about the gentleman, even if there was a bit too much of the other. You understand I wasn’t altogether sorry to see the back of him. But I wish the gentleman well, oh yes, I wish him quite well. It was a Mr Gerald Grant recommended Mr Middlewitch.”
Charley was so surprised he spoke sharp.
“Elderly? Lives out at Redham?”
“The same,” Mrs Frazier answered. “Now, of course, you do know him. Why, he recommended you. Very lucky you were, too, even if it is me that says so. If you hadn’t had your experiences I shouldn’t wonder but I might have refused.”
“Of course. I forgot,” Charley mumbled.
“I daresay you think it’s a lot of nonsense,” she said, looking at him with open irritation, “but, when you’ve been back a while longer, you’ll find conditions very different to what you remember of when you went off. Decent flatlets are hard to come by these days. There’s not many roofs left in this whole town, for one thing. So, when Mr Grant rang me, I said, ‘It’s not another Mr Middlewitch, is it?’ ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘as different as chalk from cheese.’ Because that man. Well I’m a married woman, I’m as broadminded as most, but that gentleman’s love life defied description.”
“Never knew the two were acquainted,” Charley explained, aghast.
“What is there strange in that?” Mrs Frazier enquired, irritable still. “Once you start on coincidences why there’s no end to those things. I could tell you a story you’d never believe but it’s as true as I’m here,” and she at once began a long tale. He hardly listened.
He could not explain it to himself, but the fact that old Mr Grant knew Middlewitch made him deeply suspect. He even asked himself what he suspected, only to find that he could not think.
He saw round and round it in his head.
“So I said, ‘it’s the same person,’” Mrs Frazier was bringing the story to an end. “Look out,’ I said, ‘I’m going to faint away,’ I said, and she came forward to take me by the arm. For they
were as like as two peas,” she finished, with a glance of triumph at Summers.
“Good lord,” he said, not taking it in.
“But you want to brisk yourself up,” Mrs Frazier went on. “There were plenty like it after the last war. Sat about and moped. Of course it was understandable, but then most things are, and when all’s said and done that’s no credit to anyone, to mope,” she said. “Yes, it draws sympathy, going on like that does, but not for long. There’s the rub. Well I mean no one can be expected to put up with it, not for ever. You want to go out and find yourself a nice young lady. There you are.”
“Talking of resemblances,” Mr Summers suddenly began, and he was still staring at the fire. “Children, and their fathers and mothers. Would you say they looked like?” he enquired.
“Nothing in it,” Mrs Frazier said, favouring him with yet another long glance of interest, “nothing at all.” She went into a detailed account of nephews and nieces, while he thought of Ridley. And then blamed himself that he did not think oftener of Rose.
The telephone rang down in the hall, cut Mrs Frazier short.
“I’ll go,” he offered, for he was willing. Curiously enough, it was for him. Odder still, it was Mr Grant wished to speak.
“And Mrs Grant?” Charley asked.
“Mustn’t complain, mustn’t complain at all,” Mr Grant replied. “When you come to consider, there’s compensations in not remembering, as I dare say you’ve found, eh Charley?” His voice was thin. “No, but what I meant to ring you about was this. Did you ever call round on that little lady I mentioned? I’ll tell you why. You’re one of the diffident sort, unsure of yourself. I’ll be bound you’ve done nothing.”
“It slipped me,” Charley admitted.
“Look,” Mr Grant said, “I’m older than you. I can put forward things that perhaps you would never allow from a man your own age. I didn’t altogether make that suggestion just casually as you might say. There was a reason behind.”
“Well thanks,” Charley answered.
“That’s all right,” Mr Grant ended.
When Charley got back to his room Mrs Frazier spoke of rising prices. “Why,” she said, “they rose, they’ve rose …” and the words, because he had not paid attention, the words pierced right through. He held his breath for the pain to which he had grown accustomed, particularly in Germany, he waited for it to break over him, as he sat isolated by Mrs Frazier’s voice he did not listen to as she rasped on. For he was as sure he would feel the ache as he had, on his one early holiday before the war, been certain that he would hear a cuckoo each walk he took, each occasion he passed an open window. It had been the right time of the year for cuckoos. And now, it seemed, was autumn, for he felt nothing at all at her mention of Rose. Nothing. He was amazed. He blamed himself. But he felt nothing whatever.
“No warning,” he brought out in surprise at this new condition in himself, cutting across the landlady’s tideless flow of talk.
“A warning?” Mrs Frazier echoed, agitated. “I never heard the sound. It can’t be our syrens, then.”
“My mistake,” Charley Summers told her. “Talking to myself again.”
She watched him. He was quite unconscious, with a bewildered look on his face.
“Speaking to yourself?” she asked. “Now Mr Summers, you want to watch out. Not at your age. Why,” she said, “your voice rose,” and again, as this word came through, he not even experienced guilt. “You spoke loud,” she said. “Take care, you can do that when you get to my age, but for a young man like you, well …”
There was a silence while he sat there, avidly listening now.
“Take the price of flowers,” Mrs Frazier continued, back to what she had been discussing, “tulips, daffodils, chrysanths, even violets of the field,” and Charley waited, waited for another sign, “why, they’re out of all reason, they’re black market charges right in the light of day. It’s wrong,” she said.
“There it is,” Charley encouraged her. She thought that, when in the end he did regard you out of those great eyes, they seemed to grow from his head, and float in the air before your own. She was actually breathless with them.
“Yes well …” she tried to go on, then hesitated. But her subject carried her forward. “Yes, you say that, you’re like all the others, you take it for granted,” at which, still thinking of his girl, he smiled, her last remark seemed so absurd. “But you do nothing, the next pay day you’ll go in and buy her a bunch; when you find her, that is, which you won’t by sitting here listening to me. I tell you, when I saw the prices they charge round the corner, my gall rose,” she said, and he heard Mrs Frazier no more. He fastened on this word. Once more he waited. But he felt nothing, nothing at all.
Rose was gone.
So he was in a mood to look about, when S.E.C.O., a government department in charge of the contracts on which he was working, found him Miss Dorothy Pitter as his assistant.
The other girls in the office had had to do his typing as and when they could, on top of their own work. Through the weeks that he was losing Rose they were continually saying to him, “When is this new one expected?” Or, “Don’t S.E.C.O. take a time?” He was popular because of his leg, but the office was critically short of staff, and he could not always find a typist to stay late. As a result he could hardly trust his ears when, a few days after this last talk with Mrs Frazier, a member of the counting house met him one morning to say, “She’s in.”
Then, as he went to his room and saw her, he had once again the experience inseparable from government procedure, he had before his eyes the product of a prolonged correspondence; that is, first the discouraging replies, followed by official consent to there being a vacancy, after which a notification that the vacancy would be filled, then, at last, the name of a person to be directed to fill it, then, finally, that wait, a deadly pause of weeks, before, without warning, these letters, these forms and the reference numbers bloomed into flesh and blood, a young woman, with shorthand, who could type.
She was fair, rather untidy. She seemed absolutely null and void. But he was so pleased to see her, he got almost talkative.
“Well, Miss, it’s been quite a time,” he said.
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “They had me out of where I was working before you could say Jack Robinson. And not a word to warn you.”
“That’s strange,” he said. “They told us they were sending five weeks ago.”
“That’s S.E.V.E. all over.”
“We’re under S.E.C.O. here,” he said.
“S.E.C.O.?” she gave a little scream. “Are you sure there isn’t some mistake?”
“Oh no Miss,” he said, and showed her the papers. He’d kept them, as a sort of talisman, on top of everything else, in the left-hand drawer of a kitchen table they’d given him for a desk.
“That only shows,” she exclaimed. “It’s been going on for weeks, you can see from the dates here, and there’s me been doing everything so I could get forty-eight hours leave, to visit my mum up north.”
“You’ve got your mother away?”
“Yes, she’s evacuated with some relations near Huddersfield. You wouldn’t think they’d miss me for that little time, while I was changing jobs, would you?”
“There it is,” he said. “But we might be able to manage you the trip. We do a deal of travelling around.”
“D’you really mean it? Why,” she almost grumbled, “that would be nice.” She did not seem to want to go now. “What are you on here?”
“Process plants for parabolam,” he replied.
She did not know what this was, so she tried him out.
“Why, fancy that, with me that’s been on penicillin.”
“On the production side?” he asked.
“I was in the lab,” she said. “With the card indexing. But I’ve never worked with one of those,” she complained, pointing to the two long and narrow steel cupboards that flanked his desk, to the system he had installed, and which had kept him sane throughout the first re-flowering of Rose.
“That’s my visible system,” he explained. “If you’d like to draw up your chair,” he went on, and did this for her. “It’s like this.” He could always be glib at his work. “We’re a firm of engineers and we’ve no factory, it was burned to a cinder in the blitz. So we have to get everything we do made out,” he said. “Everything, down to the last nut and bolt. Well, of course, in times like these, when each engineering firm’s got more on its plate than it can manage, we’d be out of business if it wasn’t for the Government thinking we’re so important that they make other companies turn out our work for us. So we get S.E.C.O. support, which is pretty high, as you’ve found yourself, for a start. We do all the designing and drawing, and we’re responsible for the performance when the finished plant is installed. Also it’s our end of it to follow up the stuff while it’s being made, to see that things don’t get behind, or that the Admiralty, or M.A.P., doesn’t nip in ahead and put ours back in the list. So everything that we order goes onto these cards, one card to each item, with the due date for delivery, and who it’s to go to.”
“Oh dear,” she said.
“And there’s the index. And here’s the cross index. The whole thing’s visible. Tell at a glance, I don’t think. It may seem loopy to you but this is the one way our particular job can be done.”
“I see,” she said, while he sat back, having talked too much for him. “I wonder if I could meet one of the other girls,” she said.
“I say, you must excuse me,” he begged. “You want to know where to put your things?” And he took her out to the friendliest typist, in the Board Room office.
It was a great relief to have her. The main advantage was, it let him get back to his digs at a reasonable hour each night, and that at a time when he had got over Rose, that is to say when he could keep quite a bit relaxed. But he found he never seemed to do much in the evenings, all the same. He had explained it by making out that his staying sorry for himself about Rose, and his being overworked, prevented him going off free at nights. Yet now that he was so much freer, he seemed rather at a loose end.
So he began to look about him. Even in the office; in spite of the saying, “Never on your own doorstep.”
It began one afternoon, over the tea and bun at three thirty, as they sat side by side.
“I wonder if you’d mind,” she said. “I get so muddled. What is what we’re doing for?”
He took a sip. “Steel,” he replied.
“Oh, they make steel in them, then?”
“No. Parabolam,” he told her once again. “Used in special steels.”
“Sounds strange,” she commented, and sniffed. She was drearily untidy, but there was something there, he thought.
“What’s parabolam, then?” she asked, to keep the ball rolling.
“Comes from birds’ droppings.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Here,” she said, “you wouldn’t be having me on, by any chance?”
“Word of honour,” he said. She waited.
Like any silent man he talked technicalities freely, once he got started. “It was an accident,” he began, “like it was with stainless steel, when the heads were on an inspection round the foundry yard and one of ’em spotted something he’d noticed before, a bit of bright scrap through the rain. So they had it analysed, and there you are. Now it’s what you cut your meat up with.”
“Well, I never knew that,” she said.
“It was exactly similar with parabolam,” he went on, “only this time it was birds’ droppings. The swallows used to nest under the staging, where they charged the furnace. One day the foundry manager had all the nests cleared out, together with the filth below. And the labourer he gave the job, was too tired to take the mess down, he shovelled it in with the charge into the cupola. And what came out with their molten metal was so hard they couldn’t machine the casting.”
“I can’t hardly believe you.”
“Well I may have been exaggerating a trifle. Anyway, they all got to work and it was isolated. In the end, they discovered there was a higher percentage of what it takes where sea birds roost. So we ship it in the raw state from South America, and the stuff is burned in those retorts we buy from Dicksons. In burning, a gas is released, which is treated in the catalysts. From there the vapour passes to those cooling chambers, that come from the A.B.P. people, and then the cold gas deposits its crystals onto what you won’t believe, you’ll think I’m play acting, onto ordinary common or garden laurel leaves they place on those long racks which Purdews make us.”
“I know a girl named Laurel. Hardy we call her.”
“I knew one called Rose.” Each time he said her name he noted he felt nothing any more, so much so that he hardly bothered to watch himself these days. He went on. “After which the leaves are washed, and it’s got to be laurel because of the chemical properties in the leaf. Then we take the water out on a Bennetts evaporator. And bob’s your uncle. Sells for £250 a ton into the bargain. That’s roughly the lot. If you wanted it in detail you’d have to question Corker.”
Corker was the technical director who designed this plant.
“I’d never ask him in my life,” Miss Pitter said, with reverence.
“He’s mustard,” Mr Summers muttered, relapsing into silence. But he watched her. In the five minutes they had before the phone began to ring again, she could get no more out of him.
There definitely was something, he thought.
That night, she came from the girls’ washroom just as he was on his way out of the office.
“What’s it like in the air?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet,” he said.
“Oh, you are comical,” she laughed, and was really amused. He began to feel excited, nervous in his stomach. He told himself he had never been like this before the war. She was complaining about something in the office. He did not pay attention, he was noting his inside. They came to the bus stop.
“No one here tonight,” she said. He did not answer.
“One of the girls told me you had the M.C.?”
“Me?” he asked. “Not me.”
She waited. He said no more. They got on the first bus.
“But they said you’d been a prisoner of war?”
“That’s right.”
“It must get you right down, being cooped up like it?”
He made no reply. She gave in.
“What number is this?” she asked, when they stopped.
“A nine,” he said.
“Gosh, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m sure,” she cried. “See you tomorrow,” and was gone. He thought about her that night as he lay awake for hours.
The next day, at the first opportunity, she began again. As she started she asked herself, “Well what’s the odds?” After all, she knew she was quite uninterested.
“That was queer, my getting on the wrong bus with you, wasn’t it?” she said. She was leaning against the card index system. “Since mum’s been evacuated I’ve caught myself doing daft things, really, ever so often. It’s the loneliness.”
He looked at her.
“Not that we don’t have good times at my hostel,” she went on, “but mum and me, we were good companions. You know, got on together. Not like mother and daughter at all.”
“Yes, that’s it,” he said.
“‘Dot,’ she’d say, because that’s my name, Dot and no comma, ‘What’s on round the corner?’ and with that we’d drop whatever it was we were doing, and go out to the movies. But she couldn’t stand the bombing.”
Charley was spared any necessity to reply because the telephone began to ring. It kept on pretty well all day.
And he began to notice.
He was not frank about it, he shied away in his mind, but there were her breasts which she wore as though ashamed, like two soft nests of white mice, in front. Their covered creepiness, in this hot summer, nagged him. And, every time he looked, he felt she knew, as she did.
Most of the working day she sat at his side marking up the cards, or turning up references as he phoned the suppliers. Often, she had to lean across to get at the second cabinet. He began to take in her forearms, which were smooth and oval, tapering to thin wrists, with a sort of beautiful subdued fat, also her hands light nimble bones with fingers terribly white, pointed into painted nails like the sheaths of flowers which might at any minute, he once found himself feeling late at night, mushroom into tulips, such as when washing up, perhaps.
He dreaded getting into this condition.
Or sometimes, while he dictated, it was the softness there must be on the underside of her arms which caught his breath, and that he remembered after, and then the finished round of muscle, where the short sleeves ended, as he read out to her, “Their ref. CM/105/127 our ref. 1017/2/1826,” because he would not leave the girl to copy these from the correspondence on her own.
Prison had made him very pure. His own name for all this was lust. It shook him. But he did nothing whatever about it. Perhaps because all of her seemed a contradiction. Those arms came out of frocks that did not hang properly, from below untidy hair her blue eyes were sharp, yet worried, and also too self sure; her legs were quite customary, yet the arms were perfect; and ever more uneasily he watched those breasts.
He imagined he could see her arms without her noticing, so he was more open with these. But he did not touch.
Her arms built great thighs on her in his mind’s eye, while she might be asking him, “About those needle valves in stainless …”, made her quite ordinary calves into slighter echoes of what he could not see between knee and hip, as she might be saying, “Now those break vacuum cocks …”, but which, so he thought, must be unimaginably full and slender, when she wanted to know where the “accessible traps” came from, white, soft, curving and rounded with the unutterable question, the promise, the flowering of four years imprisonment with four thousand twirps. And he would lift his great brown eyes, and say, “They come from Smiths,” while she wondered, “Are my stockings straight, I wonder?”
It made him ashamed the way he felt about her.
But this was the sole promise there was in being alive. Hopelessly turned over to himself, as well as conscientious to a degree, so careful in his work there were occasions she could have shrieked at the way he wrote, time and again, to the same firm holding them to the last promise they had made, so careful with his words, tactfully nagging, letter after letter, never leaving them alone, so Dot was the only carrot in front of his nose, because he found of an evening, when he got back, that he barely existed, lived in a daze now that Rose was over.
Sometimes he would dream of red-haired fat women. But they were not at all like Rose.
As for Miss Pitter, she sniffed when one of the girls back at the hostel asked how her new place was shaping. “I don’t know what they took me away from my old job for,” she said. “This is a Fred Karno war, if you ask me. And the man I work with is dippy.”
She never mentioned his great big eyes.
Nevertheless, she began to get involved with the card index system. The main thing was, she found it dead accurate. She had thought Charley so wandering, the first few days, that she at once did a check through with the order book. There was not an item wrong. Then, as fresh orders were issued each day through the drawing office and she had to enter up the particulars on the cards, together with the details of what had been delivered, which she took from the advice notes, she began to be more and more frightened she would make a slip. Without knowing, she was becoming enslaved by the system.
Until one afternoon it occurred.
He was on the telephone as usual. He was speaking to Braxtons. She turned the card up, on which she had marked the number of items already delivered.
“Is that your ref. BMO/112?” he asked. “Summers, here, of Meads. It’s in connection with our order number 1528/2/1781. We want those joint rings you promised this week. To go to Coventry.”
He waited. He laughed. “No, we shan’t send you there,” he said. He waited again. He closed his eyes. He always did this when hanging on for an answer.
“What?” he said. “We’ve had ’em?” He looked at her. She was surprised at herself. Her heart had given a great jolt. “Oh no,” she couldn’t help saying. “What date?” he asked into the receiver. “Well thanks, old man, I’ll give you a ring back.”
“September the 10th,” was Charley’s reproach to her.
She went out to search through the files. Of course she’d had a bit of a bust up with Muriel, the night before, at the hostel. But when she found an advice note from Braxtons for the joint rings in question, and saw that she had not initialled it, and, therefore, that she had never seen the thing, and consequently, that Mr Pike, the chief draughtsman, must have kept it back on purpose – when she came into his room again she leaned her head on that beastly green card cabinet, and cried.
This upset Charley, because he thought someone might be getting at him by tormenting her. Anyway he felt the whole thing was a shame. So he got to his feet right off and clumsily kissed one of her temples through a drift of yellow hair. But he did not put his hands up. She warmed a bit, blamed herself aloud for being silly, and said no more.
Yet he found that anything so simple as placing his head against a woman’s, was not so ordinary in practice. For he stood gawping there, like an Irish navvy. He had forgotten what it was like. The last time had been such a long while back.
He got much more that he had not remembered.
He was, for the moment, saved from greater torture by the telephone ringing once again. But when the office closed that night he thought he would walk home, rather than take a bus, so as to see girls, the day’s work done, as they made their way back through streets.
So it was that he found himself, by chance, within a few yards of the address Mr Grant had given.
The door was open.
He went in. He climbed stairs. He began to regret it.
Then he was outside an inner door, on which was written her name. Her name was there on a card.
He read her name, Miss Nancy Whitmore, in Gothic lettering as cut on tombstones. He noticed the brass knocker, a dolphin hanging by the tail. He ran his eye over this door which was painted pink. The wall paper he stared at round the door, was of wreathed roses on a white ground. He looked again. Someone had wiped the paint down so often, it was so clean that the top coat was wearing thin. In the moulding round the panels a yellow first coat grinned through at callers. And her card was held in place by two fresh bits of sticking plaster, pink.
With a melting of his spine, he felt she must be a tart.
The moment he realized this, his first idea was to go, to come back another day perhaps, but to get out of it for now.
Yet he knocked.
She opened, almost at once. He looked. He sagged. Then something went inside. It was as though the frightful starts his heart was giving had burst a vein. He pitched forward, in a dead faint, because there she stood alive, so close that he could touch, and breathing, the dead spit, the living image, herself, Rose in person.
When he came round, he was flat along the floor with his head rested on an object. Curled up above, on a chair, there was a tortoiseshell cat that watched him, through great yellow eyes with terrible black slits. He knew no cat. It meant nothing. He could not make out where he was until he tilted himself, to find Rose kneeling at his head, which was in her lap. Then he remembered.
“Darling you’ve dyed your hair,” he brought out, proud to be so quick, for the room was dark. Apart from this one detail he knew it was all right at last, was as it had been six years back.
“That’s better,” she said.
He rested. He lay on. He was content. He felt his blood flow all over the inside of him. There was just one point; her voice sounded rather changed.
Her moon cool hands were laid about his temples. The cat shut its eyes and dozed. And he shut his.
“Take it easy,” she said. Again the voice which had changed.
“Darling,” he murmured.
“That’s enough of that,” she said, but although she spoke sharp it barely came through to him, in his condition. Because this, he felt, as he now was, must be what he had been waiting for these years, the sad soldier back from the wars.
“Why?” he asked, absolutely trusting her, and still shuteyed, and in a humble voice.
“You’re telling me,” she said.
He began not to understand. He looked. He saw the cat was
there no longer. A kettle was boiling. He tilted again. Her dear face did not even seem to belong, he thought. But he knew it must be all right.
“Here,” she said, reaching for a cushion. “Put this under you.”
He shut his eyes again. He sighed in deep content.
“Have a quick rest now, then get to hell out of here,” she said, rising to her feet.
He heard this right enough, but thought she was joking. When he shakily sat up to be fetched a kiss, he found she was gone, that she was next door in the kitchen.
He dragged himself off the floor, and sat on a chair because he did not feel so good. He was empty, and ill, and the room began going round once more, with the cat, which had come back. Still, he found he could focus after a few minutes. He watched it settle down opposite, start to wipe the side of its mouth.
Then he watched the opening to the kitchen. He thought he was stronger, and he had so much to ask Rose he did not know where to begin.
She came back with two cups of tea. Except for the hair, which was black, she was now exactly like again.
“I was only making myself one when you came,” she said. He half rose, but his hands shook so badly she put his down on the table.
“Doesn’t seem possible,” he started. He stopped. There was something he could not fathom in her face, as she watched over the rim of her cup.
“What exactly is the matter with you?” she asked.
Then he knew what it was. She was an enemy. She couldn’t have heard about him. She thought he had given her up. Everything must come all right. But he dreaded it so, that he could not bring himself to speak.
“How you people manage to dress as you do,” she said, in a hard voice, at his city suit. He thought “Oh what have I done?
She’s out of her mind.” His mouth went dry as he realized, next, that she was completely self-possessed. He reached for his cup. He did not know how he would be able to lift this. He tried to take heart because she had given him a saucer with it.
“That’s right. Drink that, then go,” she said.
“My God,” he said as he dropped it. He had been afraid he would. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, and rushed out into the kitchen for a dish cloth. “Here,” she said, throwing this. He mopped at his trousers. “And what about my covers?” she asked. He stumbled to his feet, began dabbing at the chair.
“Rose,” he said low, his back still turned to her.
“What’s rose?” she asked frantic.
Then he had another thought. That she’d lost her memory, same as her mother. He knew he must take things slowly. He worked on the chair.
“Think it’s all right now. Terribly sorry,” he said.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she complained, but in an easier voice. The suit had taken all he had spilt.
“Careless of me,” he said, with such a hang dog look she must have felt sorry. Perhaps it was to hide this up that she said, “I expect there’ll be a drop left in the pot.”
He sat on. When she came back with another cup, this time without a saucer, he said,
“I’ll get you a replacement.”
For a moment she did not understand this phrase, which came from the jargon of production engineers, but as soon as she realized he meant to buy her a cup and saucer in place of what he had just broken, she put her foot down hard.
“You won’t, thank you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you in here a second time, thanks very much. Not to get to be a habit. I’d never have done this, only I happened to know Mr Middlewitch was in across the landing.”
“Middlewitch?” He spoke out in real horror.
“Now then,” she said, beginning to look frightened.
“Middlewitch?” he repeated, absolutely bewildered.
“Just because I give you the name of someone who lives in these digs, don’t you start wondering if you’ll strike lucky twice,” she said.
“Me strike lucky?” he mumbled.
“It’s rationed now, you know,” she insisted.
This was too much. He almost laughed he was so frantic.
“That’s rich,” he said.
“What’s rich?” she wanted to know. “And cups aren’t easy to come by these days, either,” she went on, “though I’m not accepting anything from strange men, you can be sure of that,” she said.
She sat there, looking. She was cold, cold with hostility.
“Middlewitch, who’s with the C.E.G.S.?” he asked, clutching at the straw, but suspicious.
“You drink yours up, then go.”
“Not before you tell me if it’s the same.”
There was a long pause while he watched her. He could tell nothing new from her face.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said at last, but so cautiously that he could tell it was the very same.
He put his cup down with care. His hands were much steadier. Middlewitch was something to hang on to.
“Don’t you know me at all?” he asked. Putting this question, however, was so dreadful that he again began to tremble all over.
“Now, don’t you start,” she said. She looked really frightened.
“Oh dear,” he said. There was another pause.
“D’you do this for a living, then?” she began, almost as though to give herself confidence by making awkward conversation. But he gave no answer.
“It’s getting cold,” she said of his tea, it must have been to hurry him up. “I’m telling you.”
“I’ve seen Ridley, Rose,” he said. He watched her as he spoke, as a dog sits up for a bone.
“There you go, more riddles. And who’s Ridley?”
He looked at her idiotically.
“Don’t stare at me,” she said, looking more frightened than ever. Then she gave way. She explained.
“It’s not the first time,” she said. “Why don’t you take things as they come, and get out of here?”
“Not the first time?” he echoed, gaining confidence.
“I’ve had people stop me in the streets. Who hasn’t anyway? I suppose I’ve a double somewhere in this town all right. Though why I’m telling you I can’t think.” She smoothed her skirts.
“My dear, you’ve lost your memory,” he said, trying to smile.
She shot out of her seat.
“Here,” she shouted, “d’you want me to call the police? I’ve had about enough of this. Who d’you take me for? Anyway, why aren’t you in the Army? I’m not your dear. Who d’you fancy I am?” She had gone over by the door, and was holding it open. “Or d’you want me to fetch Mr Middlewitch? He’ll soon make up his mind how to put you to rights.”
“Yes,” he replied, braving it out, the colour coming back to his face. “He knows me.”
She bit her thumb.
“He’s not in,” she said, suddenly like a small girl. “That was to get rid of you.”
Charley sat down, put his head in his hands, almost defeated now he had won his point.
“You haven’t been keeping watch here, by any chance?” she asked, as if she were shy. “Until you know who’s in and out? Oh, you’re a worry. Now will you go?”
He sat there hiding his face.
“Now what?” she said.
“You say you’ve been mistaken for someone?” he slowly asked.
“Well, who hasn’t?” she said, half on the landing.
“Lately?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “not for ages.”
He looked at her again. He became excited.
“That’s exactly it,” he said. “That’s what I’m after. So you haven’t been taken for her lately?” What he meant was, it must be all of five years since Rose was said to have died, in which time she could have been forgotten. It did not make sense, but he hung on to it.
“What’s that got to do with me? And who are you any way?” Yet she shut the door, possibly because he looked so queer, and came back in the flat. “It’s I should be making enquiries about you, I fancy,” she said in a strong voice. “Coming in here, fainting right in my arms. I shouldn’t wonder if I hadn’t strained my side when I tried to lift you.” She came right up to him. He could not bear her near, like this. He hid his face a second time.
“Oh Rose,” he mumbled, “how could you?”
“Here we go once more,” she said bright. “What did you say your name was?”
But he made no reply.
“I’ll have a real laugh with mum over this.”
“You won’t,” he said.
“That’s the limit,” she said, loud. “Look I’m fed up, thanks.” She moved away from him impatiently. “Will you stop telling me? Who d’you think you are to say how I’ll laugh with my own mother?”
“You could. I hadn’t thought.” What had come to him, was that this might only be too possible, mother and daughter both suffering, as they must be, from lost memories. In that case they might very well, the two of them, twist their guts inside out with laughing.
“Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now will you please get along. I don’t know where we’re coming to with the war effort, but I can’t find time to nurse strangers.”
He sat on, his head in his hands. He could not face it.
“All you want is a good feed,” she said. “You try the Army. A month or two in that, and you’ll be as right as rain.”
“I’m discharged. I lost my leg. I wrote you.”
She opened her mouth to reply, and by the look on her face he was going to catch it, when her eyes followed, down one of his legs, the creased cloth which lay as this never does over flesh and bone. It silenced Miss Whitmore.
“They repatriated me in June,” he mumbled.
It came over her that he was going to cry.
“You’ve been a prisoner, then?” she asked.
He did not answer. He was quite still.
“Well, I mean,” she said softer, “you’re back now, after all? Must be a change after what you’ve been in. Look,” she said quite soft, “there’s nothing terrible about this, is there? I mean there’s others have come up to me in the street, respectable people mind, and have fallen into the same error. And when I’ve put them right they’ve always gone off about their business. I mean, be reasonable,” she said. “I had to close the door just now so you couldn’t be seen in the state you’ve gotten into. Why don’t you just pull yourself together, and go?”
“Did they call you Rose?” he asked. She knew he was watching her again, desperately. And she could not look at him, or reply, because they had indeed. So she just stood there.
“It was your father sent me, Rose.”
Again she could not speak.
“Mr Grant, Rose,” he said.
She whirled herself round, turning her back on him, so he could not see her face. He took what he imagined to be his advantage.
“You wouldn’t deny him, Rose?” he softly asked.
“What is your name, then?” she said in a low voice.
“Charley Summers.” He spoke confidently.
“Never heard of it,” she answered right out, turning round. He saw this was the truth, yet there was something here he had never seen in Rose, that he hadn’t ever known of her, and it was shame. Then he realized she was now so angry as well that she
could not stoop to a lie. “What?” she said, “You come along, you play some dirty trick to get in, pretending to faint?” and she stamped her foot, while keeping her arms rigid at her sides, “Then you bring his name up?” she said, in a voice breaking with rage and something else, “Him?” she cried, “Why you aren’t a man, a real man would never do a thing like that. And how did you ferret his name out?” she shouted. “What is he to me? What’ve I had in my life from him, from Mr Grant?” and she burst into tears, spreading a small handkerchief to cover as much as possible of her mouth and eyes.
“Rose,” he said, shocked, “you’ve forgotten yourself.”
She cried uglily. He did not dare go near. When she was a little recovered, she turned her back on him once again.
“Now look what you’ve done,” she stammered. “Won’t you be content? Now won’t you go?”
“Rose darling,” he said, “you’re not yourself.”
“I’m not your Rose,” she wailed, crying noisily once more, “and I never was, nor ever could be. Oh I rue the day that man had me, was my father,” she mumbled. “Didn’t give me his name,” she added, cried noisily, then began blowing her nose. Charley stood apart, absolutely flummoxed, yet a bit triumphant.
“But your mother, Mrs Grant,” he said, archly.
“That’s enough,” she shouted, “that’s enough. You don’t suppose I let you in here to talk over my affairs, do you?” She had taken him by the shoulders. She seemed beside herself. “Come on out of it.” Her face was terribly twisted. But she did not look at him. She hustled him out. The last thing he saw before she slammed the door shut was her cat, tail up, treading the carpet, treading the carpet.
He stumbled out in the street. He walked for hours. This time he did not look at the girls who passed.
He loved Rose desperately and despairingly now.
He gave the office a miss next day. He did not even ring them to say he would not be in. They were surprised. He had always been so careful in the few months he had been back. But they let him be.
He left the lodgings at his usual hour for going to work so that Mrs Frazier did not know; his bed, which had been an unquiet grave all night, disclosed nothing to the maid, Mary.
He fled Rose, yet every place he went she rose up before him; in florists’ windows; in a second-hand bookseller’s with a set of Miss Rhoda Broughton, where, as he was staring for her reflection in the window, his eyes read a title, “Cometh up as a flower” which twisted his guts; also in a seed merchant’s front that displayed a watering can, to the spout of which was fixed an attachment, labelled “Carter’s patent Rose.”
For she had denied him, and it was doing him in.
A woman behind said, “They’re like flies those bloody ’uns, and my goodness are they bein’ flitted.” Then he saw Rose as he had once seen her, naked, at sunset, James away, standing on the bed which was so soft it nearly tumbled her down, laughing and flitting mosquitoes on the ceiling above, and with her hair which, against the light, on the edges of it, shook and trembled in a flaming rose.
He rushed off so he should hear no more, and in trying to go fast he limped exaggeratedly. Rose that he’d loved, and who could not be explained.
“Lost ’is leg in the war I’ll bet,” another voice came, and he knew Rose as she had been one afternoon, a spider crawling across the palm of a hand, the hair hanging down over her nose, telling him how many legs they had, laughing that red spiders were lucky, dear, darling Rose.
He got so that he did not know what he was about.
When he came to once more, it was still the same day and he was gazing into a tailor’s, at a purple overcoat, worrying about his coupons. What had brought him back, sharp, was a song oozing out next door, from a wireless shop, a record through loud speakers of “Honeysuckle Rose.” He felt extreme guilt that he could have forgotten her again. Then, for the first time, that he must get hold of old Grant. Because why had that fiend out of hell sent him on the visit? They could not all be out of their minds in that family? So they had used him as a guinea pig once more? It was vivisection? And Rose must have good reason for acting as she did. Wasn’t for nothing that she’d sent him packing. It was Grant’s fault.
There was a queue before the telephone booth, and, as he came up, the girl within was just coming out. He did not know what he was about but he went to the head, said to a man with white hair, who was the next customer, “Excuse me won’t you. A favour. Just back from Germany. Repatriated, wooden leg,” and went in. As he dialled the Redham number, he saw this man calm the others behind. He knew it because they were all looking down at his limb, yet he had no idea of what he had just done. Indeed his impression was that he had been standing his turn in the queue for hours.
However, when Mr Grant answered, Charley did not find himself so glib. It was rage cut him short. While the old man said “Hullo,” all Charley could get out was, “I say,” twice. At last he did manage, “Summers speaking.”
“Oh it’s you, my boy,” Mr Grant returned. He voiced this acidly. “Most unfortunate,” he said. “The fact is, mother’s not so well this morning. I’m expecting the doctor any minute. So you went to that address after all,” he continued. “I must say I did think you would respect my confidence.” At this Charley gaped into the receiver. “It’s the least I’m entitled to,” Mr Grant went on, “or that’s my opinion, and we’ve got a right to our opinions, you know, oh yes. Because I particularly asked you not to say where you got her address,” and Charley thought, you lying bastard, was even about to say it, but he listened instead. “Now, my boy,” Mr Grant was continuing, “that’s just what you did do, and the moment you got there. Look, this is the doctor. I must be about my business. But I must say – yes I’m coming – it was – oh well, good day to you.” And Mr Grant rang off.
“You bastard, you bastard, you bastard,” Charley began to shout down the dead line. Then someone tapped on the glass. It was the man with white hair, who just shook his white head.
The next thing Charley knew he was by a church. He found himself reading a poster stuck up on the notice board outside, which went, “Grant O Lord,” then said something about a faithful servant. The first word shook him. He cried again, “The bastard,” right out loud.
Then he connected Mrs Frazier with the house at Redham. It came to him that he must at once put this to her, that she was in league with Mr Grant. That it could only be white slave trading?
He looked about for a taxi, damn the expense for he had no time. He ran across traffic at a cab moving the other way, and, as he went, it was like a magpie with a broken wing, he flopped along, but the flag was down, the taxi taken. He straggled back to an island. He leant on one of the posts that bounded it, stabbed with a finger out of his closed fist at each cabby passing. A policeman began to watch.
But then he got one.
After he had given the address, he leant forward in case he should see Mrs Frazier shopping, although he was more than a mile outside her district. Because he could not wait.
It was only about the third time in his life he had taken a cab.
When he got back, Mary, the maid, thought she was out after the rations, and explained where to find the fruiterer’s Mrs Frazier had told her she was off to, the rumour today being that there had been a special delivery to Blundens. He limped towards this shop. He was beginning to look very untidy, very staring. Then he saw her, a thin dark monument, the landlady, halfway in the queue.
When he got up to her he had nothing to say that he could get out. He stood dumb. As usual, she talked first.
“Why, Mr Summers,” she exclaimed, “what are you doing on a weekday? Don’t tell me one of those dreadful new bombs has brought your place of business down about your ears?” She spoke in mincing fashion, so as to impress the others in this queue. But every one of the women had her eyes fixed on the veg, watching for what she wanted to be gone, finished before it was her turn to be served, watching with eyes that seemed to pin down prizes in the shop’s open tea chests, pin them with long pointed pins of steel the length the eyes were from these cherished beans, or peas, or harico vers, or, more terribly, watching for what was not displayed, for what those already served were carrying off in covered shopping baskets. What that was not one of the others knew because no one had been told for sure, as they stood hoping for the extra special under the counter, a dwindling stock of something unknown to them which they sought after, with steel cupidity forged in their old eyes.
“Now if you had gumption you’d pass to the head with that war injury, and do my buying for me,” Mrs Frazier said, arch. “If I was to tell you were my nephew, back from Germany with what you’ve got, I dare say they’d let it go, just the once,” she said.
“I never,” he brought out. He had forgotten the phone booth.
“Why, Mr Summers,” she warned him in a low voice. “Why you’re not quite yourself. And look at you,” she added.
“Look,” he said, averting anguished eyes. Why, she thought,
he’s like a dumb animal. “Most important,” he stammered. “Rose’s …, Rose’s …,” and he could get no farther. He kept swallowing.
“Roses,” she half whispered, when he could not go on, afraid the queue might take notice. “What about them? You won’t find many now, and the price. They grow those under glass. The shrapnel’s got the most of that, Mr Summers.”
“No,” he said, “it’s Mr Grant …,” and he could not finish.
By now she was afeared, almost.
“Look Mr Summers, not in the street,” she said. “I can’t discuss private affairs while I’m in the middle of my business, thank you.”
“I’ve got to ask this,” he said, quite clear. His brown eyes were on her now. She thought no, they’re black. “Did he lose his daughter?” he managed, in a sort of gasp.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have any idea. Now why don’t you let Mary fetch you a nice cup of tea, at home, till I’m ready. It’s the strain,” she said in a louder voice, perhaps for the others. “I get like it sometimes.”
“No now,” he said.
“What? With me only four from the shop?”
“I must,” he said. He was whining.
“Why you’ll have a treat tomorrow when you take the cover off the dish. I don’t know I’m sure, only Mrs England passed the word there was a special in at Blundens. Mr Blunden is always good to me.”
“Most important,” he said, quite clear. “About the daughter. How d’you know she died?” His voice was rising. One by one, those nearest began to click those yards long hatpins back inside chameleon eyes. They turned from what might be in the shop, from what was unseen, onto what might be in this young man, click click they went at him, and Mrs Frazier noticed.
“I can’t have this,” she said firm, “not possibly. I’m a respectable married woman I’d have you know. And I couldn’t say what became of his daughter. How would I? We were never related,” she said. “But if you don’t think to ask him, there’s Mr Middlewitch,” she said to rid herself of Charley Summers. It did the trick.
“Middlewitch,” he stammered, with renewed dread. And made off fast.
When he got to the next call box, he rang this man at the C.E.G.S. But he was out. Then Charley walked a great distance unseeing. Until he found himself by a park. He awkwardly sat under a tree. He collapsed at once into deep sleep. And, when he woke some hours later, he was a little recovered, but so sad and excited he could hardly bear it.
It was the last good sleep he was to have for some time.
He went back to the office next morning. He had only been gone a day. Watching himself in a mirror in the lavatory, because he always washed face and hands the moment he arrived, he could see no change. It was a shock that he did not look different.
“Oh there you are,” Miss Pitter said. She was made harsh by the relief she unexpectedly felt at the sight of him.
“Yes,” he said.
“I thought perhaps you’d gone off to Birmingham, then when I looked in your engagements, there was nothing,” she went on, still sharp. “And yesterday we had that special batch of reminders.”
He did not reply. He was pawing through his mail.
“Oh, and Purdews phoned,” she said with relish. “They’ve had the Admiralty down. Those trays are put right back. Their Mr Ricketts is very sorry but they’ve had to sign an undertaking. Number something priority, he said, way in front of ours.”
He passed no comment.
“I explained you weren’t here,” she went on to get some reason out of Charley, “I told him you’d had to go to Birmingham. And then I tried to get any kind of a promise, I mean about when we could expect the trays, or racks, or whatever you call them,” she interpreted herself, quite unnecessarily, “and d’you know what? He just laughed. Quite the comedian.”
She was leaning now on one of the card indexes, gazing at the top of his head. He went on handling the post. She lowered a forearm down along the green steel front, perhaps so he could notice. But he didn’t.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
He looked at her. There was something dreadful in his eyes. She saw that. She wondered the more.
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“I only asked,” she said. “So I told him you’d be bound to ring back when you got in, when you did come, I mean. I know I shouldn’t, but I do get worried,” she lied, because she must find out what was up.
He lowered his eyes again to the mail. There was a pause. She powdered her nose.
“Because I’m not fretting to be left alone with this lot,” she said, and gave the card indexes a sour look, “with you away ill or unable, not little Dot, thanks all the same,” she said.
She did not know him well enough to ask such questions, but she couldn’t leave things where they were. He had been so dependable. It had come as a shock not knowing where he was yesterday, and now doubly so on account of his eyes. Yet she told herself it was only she would not be left alone with those cards if she could help.
“What were you doing yesterday? Did you go out with a girl, and celebrate, or what?” she said.
He gave her a frightful look, which she misinterpreted on purpose.
“Is that what a hangover is, then?” she trilled. “You know I’ve never had one of those. Of course I’ve been a trifle dizzy now and again, but not enough for mum to spot when I came in. And what mum doesn’t notice where I’m concerned is nobody’s business.”
He sat on. She could see he was not pretending.
“Just two glasses of port,” she said, “and something went through my nose right up to my head, I suppose it was the fumes rose …” she said, then fell silent as she saw the spasm pass across his face.
“Are you all right?” she enquired.
“A bit faint,” he said.
“Put your head between your knees, then, while I get you a glass of water.” He sat hunched there. When she came back she said,
“Well, all I can say is, after seeing the effect it’s had on you, that I’ll pass it up,” she lied, referring to the hangover she pretended to suspect.
“Thanks,” he said. He did not drink the water. She was silent for a bit.
Before she could begin again the telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver, put it to his ear and waited.
“That you Dot?” asked Corker’s secretary.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh Mr Summers. Good morning Mr Summers. Mr Mead says can you spare him a moment.”
“When?” he said. “Now?”
“Yes please. Thank you,” she said, and hung up. Mr Corker Mead was the boss.
“Corker,” he told Miss Pitter in explanation as he walked out.
“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 shares” 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 in 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 carried 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 woman. 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.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Wanting to know where I’d met Arthur Middlewitch. The sauce.”
The one thing he could not have, was for her to send him away. If she believed she had a responsibility, in the state she was in, then how much the greater was his own.
“Forget it,” he said. And, with a great effort, he returned to his normal manner of speaking, “Bit awkward for the rest of us, you see. The dead come to life,” he said.
“You are cheerful, aren’t you?”
“Bad about Mrs Grant, isn’t it?” he began. “Loss of memory can be a terrible thing.”
“I don’t want to hear about them, I’ve already told you.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I can’t seem to keep off the subject.”
She moved impatiently in her chair. “I’ve got my own life, as I mentioned before,” she explained. “It’s not exactly cheerful for a girl, is it, to talk of someone losing their memories when I’m a sort of walking memory to other people, complete strangers in every case? It’s only natural I suppose, but you men, that used to know her I mean, with her red hair you all talk about, I suppose you’re dead easy to think only of yourselves?”
Suddenly frantic, he looked about for the bed, to torture himself with the sight. She must have guessed, and guessed wrong, because she drew her skirt down over her knees, although she had not been showing too much leg, or no more than is usually shown.
“You’ll have to go in another minute,” she said, “and that’s meant to mean what it says.”
“I’ll go now before … before …,” but he could not finish. He rushed out, grabbing his hat, and slammed the door.
“Was there ever any girl as unlucky as me,” she wondered. “But I like his brown eyes. Oh well that’s all over, and I shan’t see him again, thank God,” she thought.
The next morning, after about the worst night he had ever had, he telephoned Mr Grant. He did not bother to ask Dot to leave the room. She was all the more certain something must be very wrong when she heard him insist that he should meet Mr Grant the same evening. He even fixed the time he would be there. And it did not help him, she noticed, for his work still suffered terribly all day.
When Charley got out to Redham, straight from the office, he found Rose’s father hanging around in the front garden.
“She’s better,” this man began at once. “Mother’s much better today. Tell you the truth I can’t make her keep to her bed, she will begin running downstairs the whole time. So I shan’t take you inside, if you’ll overlook it. Not after the recent occasion.”
He said this in such a way as to make it appear that he blamed Charley for the last visit, when Mrs Grant had been so upset to see what she understood to be her brother John. And Charley found himself tongue tied.
“So I presume you’ve come to apologise, my boy, eh?” Mr Grant said, walking up and down past Charley on the small patch of lawn. “But there, we mustn’t blame you young fellows. I know. You’ve been through a whole lot, and we all ought to be grateful. What’s more you’re not looking too fit in yourself. Gone thin. Lost weight? You want to take things easy at first, believe me. I’ve no doubt it’s the food. You’ve been on starvation diet out there so long that, when you are back, even the little we get is too rich for your stomach. I shouldn’t wonder if that wasn’t it.”
But Charley, as usual, was some sentences behind.
“I’m sure I’d never … I mean, if I’d known, I’d not have let Mrs Grant see …,” he mumbled, to protect himself from the unexpected charge of its being his fault that he had made Mrs Grant so much worse.
“Don’t give the matter another thought, boy,” Mr Grant said. “It was partly my error, I’ll confess. When I’m in the wrong, or not entirely in the wrong because things aren’t often black or white, life’s not so simple as you’ll find when you grow older, no, when I consider I’ve been the least bit in the world to blame, then I’m the first to admit the fact, that’s me. But giving me away to Nancy is a different kettle of fish altogether.” And he halted before Charley, who, in confusion, lowered his eyes.
“I can’t understand that even now,” Mr Grant accused, staring at him.
“I never …” Charley tried to begin, only he looked so guilty it encouraged Mr Grant.
“Now see here, my boy,” he said, “I’m older than you, I’ve had more experience. What I’m going to tell you will be of benefit in your job. Never divulge a confidence. That’s all. Never. I’ve had men come to me in business, competitors, who’ve let something drop which if I’d liked was not less than putting a hundred pound Bank of England note right in my hand. But what they’d done was in confidence, mind. They just used those few words to start with, that changed the whole conversation from a useful tip to something sacred. There you are. And it’s paid me. Many’s the time, even when I couldn’t see what value there might be. I still kept silent. For why? Because it was a trust.”
A voice quavered from the house. “Gerald,” it called twice, thin and fretful.
“We’d best keep out of sight,” Mr Grant remarked, leading the way out of his front garden. “We don’t want Amy to have another of her turns.”
Once they were behind the tree, where he had given Charley Miss Whitmore’s address with no word about keeping the source dark, Mr Grant began to lecture again. The injustice of all this absolutely silenced Summers.
“Mind, I appreciate your coming down, though of course you can’t tell how difficult it is for me to get outside the house, even just for now, with Amy in the condition she’s in. We all have our troubles, right enough. The only difference there may be, lies in how much we talk about ’em. There’s another truth for you. No, I appreciate it that you felt you had to say you were sorry. Shows you have the right stuff in you, Charley boy.”
“I’m sorry, but …,” Charley said, and Mr Grant interrupted him.
“I tell you it pays hand over fist, keeping a confidence. That’s what life’s taught me.”
“But why did you send me?” Charley got out at last.
“To be a bit of company for her, of course,” Mr Grant said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “She’s living alone now. She had her husband killed out in Egypt, and changed her name back. She’s a plucky little thing,” he said. “Because what you have to remember, Charley boy, is that you’re one of the lucky ones. You’re back. I know I reminded myself of that, come the finish of the last war, when I couldn’t seem to understand at certain times, just after I got out of France. You see I trusted you. It’s not everyone I’d give her address. And I trust you still, if I may have been mistaken in one respect. Don’t you younger fellows ever think of others? There’s that little lady been alone now for close on two months, ever since the fly-bombs got so bad. Of course I thought of you.”
“When did she marry, then?” Charley managed to ask.
“While you were in Germany,” Mr Grant answered, bright. “That’s all the life they had together. In 1943 it was. They had three leaves, then he was gone. And once he was killed it seemed to turn her bitter towards me. Life is like that sometimes.”
A bigamist, Charley thought. Would this awful thing never stop? His jealousy got hold of him again.
“There’s Arthur Middlewitch living right across the landing,” he said, so bitterly there was no mistaking it.
“Middlewitch?” Mr Grant cried out. “Who’s with the C.E.G.S.?”
Charley was beyond an answer.
“How do you know?”
“She told me,” Charley said, with a sort of satisfaction.
“Are you acquainted with Arthur Middlewitch?” Mr Grant enquired, cautiously.
Charley did not reply, which seemed odd to Mr Grant.
“Do you know him, then?” he repeated, sharp.
“He was where they fitted my last leg.”
“And you took him along to her?”
“Me?” Charley brought out, with such disgust that the older man could see he had done no such thing.
“I should hope not and that’s a fact,” Mr Grant agreed. “It’s true I recommended Arthur to your landlady, the same as I done for you. There’s a number of you young fellows I’ve served a good turn when I had the chance. That’s what we’re here for, after all. But not that man for Nance. You’d hold a funny opinion of me to think I’d introduce them. Because you might as well confess up. That’s what you’re supposing, isn’t it?”
“Well …”
“I may have been mistaken in you,” Mr Grant said, as if wondering aloud. “It’s not often I am, but then no one’s infallible, you can’t have all my experience without you learn that. But what sort of a man d’you take me for? The things Ann Frazier told me, after he hadn’t been in her house above three weeks, opened my eyes, I can tell you. To send a chap of his bent along to a decent girl? If I were a younger man, I’d knock you down for it.” He had become truly indignant.
“I didn’t send him,” Charley said, behindhand again.
“And I never thought you did. Maybe I’m a bit inclined to leap to conclusions,” Mr Grant said, in a more amenable sort of
voice. “Things aren’t easy,” he went on, “not now particularly. What with Amy, and me not being able to leave her for an instant, I’m liable to dash at things. But she should be warned. She’s only young after all. She hasn’t much experience. Someone should tell her the sort of dirty hound the man is. She’s so sore with me at this moment she’d never listen. But I’ll wager you told her, eh Charley?” Mr Grant was almost pleading with him.
“I didn’t get the chance.”
“That’s bad, Charley, that’s bad, yes. Mind, I’m not blaming. I know. Look, someone must have the job, and it can’t be me, just now, as things are between us.”
“She won’t listen to me, Mr Grant.”
“When you get to learn as much of their ways as I have, my boy, you’ll never say anything so definite about women. There’s no man can tell one way or the other. Not one. But she’s got to be warned.”
Charley was sharp enough to see where this was tending.
“I doubt if she’d see me a third time,” he said.
“What’s that?” Mr Grant enquired, at his most suspicious. “And has she a reason?”
Charley could not answer.
“I may have been wrong about you,” the unconfessed father went on, “but surely not in this way, Charley boy? You never offered her an incivility?”
“I did not.”
“Well, all right. I knew better than to think it. What was it, then?”
“I fainted away,” Charley said, ashamed.
“Oh but you mustn’t let a little thing like that upset you. Good Lord no. Of course I realize it’s awkward at the time. While we’re on this topic I could tell you a thing or two, little mishaps which have come to pass before my very eyes. Lord yes. But you’ll mention it when you get back, eh, Charley boy? You’ll do that for me, surely?”
“It’d come better from you.”
“There you are, don’t you understand?” Mr Grant said, with impatience. “You’re the very man has made it impossible for me to speak. Because, as I keep on telling you, she won’t see me since my confidence was betrayed. It’s a long story, but she’s funny that way.”
“I see,” Charley said.
“I can rely on you, now, can’t I?” Mr Grant asked, wheedling.
The one thing Charley knew was, he did not wish to see the girl he still took to be Rose, ever again. He considered she had dug her knife too deep into him and turned it too often, by being the same in so many ways. And, after all, who was Mr Grant to ask favours on top of having done him this injury, which he would never get over, not if he lived to the end of his life. Because from the moment he had seen her, a painted tart, from the moment this man here sent him, Charley considered he was as dead as if he were six feet down, in Flanders, under the old tin helmet. So he couldn’t help himself, he spoke right out.
“I’d have thought, if anyone should tell her, it would be her own father,” he said.
Mr Grant was flabbergasted. The boy spoke as though near to tears. What had the kid done? Fallen in love? But what was Charley doing, knowing about him and Nance? He began to get as angry as Summers already was.
“Who told you?” he demanded.
Charley stayed silent. It was all he could do, now, not to hit this old man.
“I’ve a right to know, haven’t I?” Mr Grant shouted, quivering with rage, his voice rising high until it was like his wife’s.
“She told me herself,” Charley said, truthfully.
“Good God,” Mr Grant yelled. They stood there, careful not to look at one another.
“Who would you be if you weren’t?” Charley mumbled.
“Who would I be if I wasn’t,” Mr Grant echoed, choking with anger. “What are you insinuating? This is what comes of offering a kindness. And I have to stand here in my own front garden, or nearly, and listen to this? You must be mad, boy. That’s it. What you’ve been through has unhinged you. Mind, I’m denying nothing,” he said, with a lunatic sort of leer. “Why should I? But when you reach my age you’ll realize that some secrets aren’t our own. God bless me and I should think so, too.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Charley said, glaring straight at him as he said it. Was being a tart so secret?
“Have you no delicacy?” Mr Grant demanded. He was actually hopping from one foot to the other.
“Delicacy?” Charley asked, soft with contempt.
“That’s what I said, delicacy,” Mr Grant took him up. “Don’t you know the meaning of the word?” As if in comment, there came again from the house his wife’s voice, calling “Gerald,” twice. “Where we might even be overheard,” Mr Gerald Grant added.
“Don’t make me laugh,” the young man said, and left.
Charley walked off anywhere, so blind with anger he did not know where he was going.
In his good nature, for he was a kind-hearted man, James decided he would look Charley up when next in London. He thought Charley, who had been such a friend of Rose, would be glad to see him for old times’ sake, and besides he was touched that Charley should have come down to find her grave the moment he was back from Germany. Her dying, which he was forgetting, had been the saddest point in his life. Summers was a link between them.
Because Mrs Grant was now too queer to travel, and Mr Grant insisted on her seeing the grandson at least every six months in case she remembered, the next time James was to bring him up for two nights, he wrote Charley. He said nothing of the boy, only that it would be grand if Charley could come along that evening.
When Summers got the letter, a day or so after his scene with Mr Grant, and at a moment when he was arguing in himself whether he should see Rose just once more, if only to warn her against Middlewitch, he saw what he took to be his opportunity to clear the matter once and for all. He also realized it was his duty to bring Rose and her husband together again. If it worked, then she would be saved from the life he was sure she led. So he sent word that he would be round at the hotel by tea time.
It was a bad shock that Ridley should be present, and at first Charley did not attend to James he was so busy in the quest of a likeness to himself, this time, in this boy who might be his own but who, unknown to him, was nothing to do with him at all, except in so far as he was a reminder of his Rose. For in point of fact Rose had been mistaken, perhaps on purpose. In any case she had never been definite as to when she started the child. But Summers thought he now knew the boy was his, and looked for an echo of his own face in those cheek bones, whereas, immediately after he got back, he had searched for a return of Rose, of whom, now he thought he had found her, he wanted nothing more to remind him, much less the curve of a lip, or its corners when smiling.
At the same time he knew it would be too drastic to confront Ridley with Rose. He also had the idea he would keep this somehow up his sleeve. So, while James was running on with the usual questions, and making great cautious, anxious play with how ill he found Charley looked, Charley had become occupied with the manner in which he could get the husband away to meet the wife, thereby to prove what he now took to be Grant’s ignominy, for, in the last few days, Charley had even come to believe that the father was sharing the daughter’s immoral earnings, possibly because Mrs Grant’s illness came so expensive.
“So I thought I’d look you up, old man,” James was saying for the third time, “for old times’ sake,” he said, “and see how you were looking after yourself, after your experiences, I mean. Because I didn’t think you looked too grand when you were down my way, you know, old chap.”
Ridley sat opposite, right back in an armchair, his head sideways along the back, eyelashes thick as a hedge, watching the people in the corner. Summers thought the boy wouldn’t be so bored if he knew about his mum. And he held it against James, that this man had let Rose get away.
“Something I want to show you,” he brought out at last, with great difficulty.
“Why, of course,” James agreed at once, but Charley was looking with significance at the child.
“Right you are,” James said. “I say, Ridley,” he went on, “I left my handkerchief in our room. You remember which that is, don’t you now? You’d never believe what a bad memory he has,” James said to Summers, like a woman, “there are times I send him for something, and he forgets all about it while he’s on the way. It’s 56. You won’t lose that will you?”
“What, now?” Ridley demanded rude.
“If you wouldn’t mind, old chap. Your dad wants to blow his nose.”
At this Ridley looked full at Summers, so that this man’s heart jumped right up into his neck. Charley dropped his eyes, but not before he had recognized contempt in what he took to be his son’s.
“Oh all right,” the boy said, and slouched off.
“Lord, he reminds me at times of his mother,” James began when the child could not hear. “He’s got just the way she had when she didn’t want to do something. D’you catch it now and again? But you wanted to ask me? What is it?”
“A certain person,” Charley said, distracted.
“Why, my dear good lad,” James said, looking about him. “Where? Not in this lounge, surely?”
“Only ten minutes off,” Charley said.
“Someone we used to know?” James asked, as though suddenly talking of a brothel.
“They’re usually in about now,” Charley said, because he could not explain.
Meantime Miss Whitmore, who would soon be off to her work, was feeding the cat and worrying about her mother. Now that her mum was evacuated, Nance came under the heading of mobile labour, which is to say that, if the Ministry officials got to know she was alone, she could be sent anywhere in England, even be put in uniform and packed off where the Japs might get at her. Of course she had not told the Ministry when her mother went, who had bought her own ticket and agreed not to claim the evacuation money, to save Nance from the consequences.
But, all the same, the girl was worried. Her mum was on her own, having quarrelled some years back with Mr Grant, and if anything should happen there was only herself left. So the girl did not want to be sent away. Besides they were comfortable on what she made each week, and the small bit Mr Grant still contributed every Saturday. And the day before, one of her friends said she’d had a visit from the officials. Oh, they’d been perfectly polite of course, nothing anyone could take exception to, if it wasn’t that they’d more or less forced their way in, as if to search the premises. And they’d explained it was only that the country was so short of mobile women, so they were driven into coming to people’s homes, now their records had been lost in the bombing. Yes, they’d made themselves pleasant, and been perfectly respectful. But then Ellen had her mother, large as life. What would she do herself if they came here? She’d been so nervous all day she’d hardly been able to sleep, waiting for the knock on her door.
She was just saying aloud to the cat, “And what’d become of you, Panzer?” when there was the knock, like a rap right on her heart. Her mouth fell open. She covered it with a hand, as Mrs Grant had done.
Charley had easily been able to persuade James to come along without having to tell him who, or what, he was to find. One of the reasons was that James did not want to lose sight of Summers. At one time he could have thought Charley was seeing too much of Rose, but he now found Charley would be the main link left with the happy days which were fast slipping into the past. Also he considered him affected by his war experiences.
As he rang, Summers got behind so that, when she answered the door, her heart pounding, all she saw was the stranger. She took it very hard.
“So it’s come,” she said, dead white, and made way.
Charley naturally imagined this to be her reaction at being exposed. He could not understand, but he felt desperately
ashamed of his part in bringing them together again. And, as James moved forward, Charley wished once more that he could be unseen.
But of course, the moment Miss Whitmore saw Charley she knew the stranger could not be a Ministry snooper, and she was so relieved that she grew angry.
“So it’s you, is it?” she said.
With acute dread and anxiety Summers slowly raised his eyes to James’ face. He was terribly frightened to see on it the last expression he had expected. So that he was made to feel crazy. For James stood, just watching, polite and lost, though his upper lip trembled.
Then Charley knew he was back in a trap.
“What is it now?” she asked him.
He could not answer.
James thought the best thing was to introduce himself.
“I’m James Phillips,” he said, quite ordinarily.
“Rose’s husband?” she said. It was obvious that she was profoundly shocked. “You?”
“That’s right,” he said, with what seemed to be complete calm. “Why, did you know her?”
There was a pause. Charley listened to his heart thumping.
“I’ll tell you what this is,” she said then, violently, yet as if searching in herself. “It’s not proper, that’s all.”
“What?” Charley said. He could not believe his ears again.
She turned on him. “Bringing this man here,” she shouted, and slammed the door shut, so she could not be heard on the staircase. “Think of it. Him that’s met his wife naked in bed with him, and you bring him along to me. Oh, it’s not proper,” she repeated.
Mr Phillips had gone rather white in his turn. But he kept his temper.
“I don’t see that you’re at all alike,” he said with truth and absolute conviction.
But Charley was beside himself. They must be playing some frightful game, and he blamed it on her. He remembered her bigamy that, as he thought, Mr Grant had spoken of.
“All very well acting the innocent,” he said, trembling all over, “but you’ve been married, haven’t you?”
“You swine,” she yelled, coming up to him. “You keep Phil’s name out of this, d’you hear? He died fighting for you,” she shouted and, bringing her hand up, she slapped his face hard, and it hurt.
“Here, that’s enough of that,” James said, pushing his way between them. But the harm was done. Charley sat down, quick, in the chair over which he had spilt the tea on another occasion, covered his face with his hands, and began uncontrollably trembling. “Died for me?” he kept on repeating.
“He’s been out in it, too,” James said quietly. “He’s just been repatriated.”
She burst into tears.
“What’s a girl to do?” she wailed.
Mr Phillips thought he was the most hurt of them all. Everything considered it was he who had been widowed, who had to look after their son, who could only show the boy microfilms of his mother. And what was this about? The girl was not like his Rose, quite apart from her dark hair. Certainly she did not behave in the least like. But he said gently,
“Well, my word, this is a party I mean to say …”
“Never knew such filth existed,” Charley muttered recovering.
“That’s plenty now,” James objected.
“Well it’s right, isn’t it?” Charley Summers asked.
“You’re not yourself, Charley, old man,” Mr Phillips said. “And I’m thinking there’s the little lady we should apologise to,” he added. “My dear, this is the war. Everything’s been a long time. Why only the other day in my paper I read where a doctor man gave as his opinion that we were none of us normal. There you are.”
“I’m not your dear,” she answered. “And I’m not his lost one, as he seemed to imagine the last time.” She showed, by her look at Charley, who it was she had in mind. This direct reference to Rose, and to Charley’s possible relations with her, was too much for James. Yet he still remained polite.
“Well I’ve got to get back now. I’ve someone waiting for me,” he said. He closed the door gently behind him. And his last words made Miss Whitmore pity herself the more. She began to cry again, this time quietly, and with zest.
Charley felt ten years older, cynical as never before.
“What filth,” he repeated, as though from a great height.
She cried on.
“The end of my life,” Charley said, thinking aloud. “That’s what it is. I’m finished,” dramatising it.
Still she cried.
“Well, I’m off, Rose,” he said. “You’ll not see me again, now.”
He got up to make his way out.
“No, don’t go,” she said.
He waited. She blew her nose vigorously.
“I’ll have this out with you, if it’s the last thing I do,” she began. Apparently she had got over her rage with him.
“What can you say?” he asked, helpless.
“It was what Mr Phillips told me about your having been out there as well,” she began. “Maybe I’ve misjudged you. Were you blown up or what?”
“I was not.”
“All right, a girl can only ask, can’t she? And when she finds a man making a fool of himself, perhaps ruining his whole life, it’s only natural if she wants to put him wise, even when that man is a cracked stick like you. After what you’ve done to me I’d be justified in just showing you the door, now wouldn’t I?”
“What have I done?” Charley asked, injured. He would not look at her, and wore an absurd expression of dignity.
“Bringing Mr Phillips like you did. How d’you suppose it makes a girl feel?”
“Up to some low game, the two of you,” Charley muttered, beginning to get frantic.
“Being the man you are, I didn’t suppose you’d get it. Why, you’re so proud you can’t see out of your own eyes. If it wasn’t for that thought, I doubt if I’d be sitting here trying to get the truth. No, it was a dirty wrong to bring that individual to me, to be reminded of his own son’s mother. It was vile.”
She spoke with dignity, while he thought of her as a dirty double crosser. Actually she was intensely proud of the terrible likeness to her late half sister, and had been ever since she first learned of it. Then he had another idea which flooded all over him, he was so sure it was right.
“You’re in this together,” he shouted.
She burst into tears again. “All right, I’ve tried, haven’t I?” she brought out between sobs and hiccups. “They ought to lock you up. Yes, well then, go now as you said, and I never want to see you more.”
He went. It was not until the room was empty of him that she remembered to be afraid. For she saw he must be a shell shock case, and dangerous.
The whole thing had been so unpleasant for James that he decided to put it out of mind. But the evening he got back from London he picked up one of the literary reviews his wife had liked, and to which he had kept up the subscriptions after marriage while hardly ever reading. And he came on a translation which seemed so close to Charley’s situation that he thought he would forward it, even though he was sore at the man. Accordingly he wrote on the cover “Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,” signed his initials, drew attention to the story with a cross, and sent the thing to Summers, whom he forgave the moment he had posted the packet.
Meantime Charley had gone sick. He told the office he had ’flu. He kept to his bed. What he thought of himself was, that he was going to lose his reason.
When Mary carried up the thick envelope, he recognized this review as one that used to lie about in the old days, missed what James had written, ignored the date, which was recent, and, uninterestedly, turned over the pages until he came to the cross with which James had marked the place. His heart gave a twist. Just for a moment he thought it must be an old kiss from Rose. Then he asked himself why it could have been sent. Finally he was not even going to look through the thing, he felt too ill, when his eye caught a bit about a girl fainting. So he turned back to the beginning, and went into it, as it is printed here:
“From the Souvenirs of Madame DE CREQUY (1710–1800) to her infant grandson Tancrède Raoul de Créquy, Prince de Montlaur.
“I must tell you about Sophie Septimanie de Richelieu who was the only daughter of Marshal de Richelieu and the Princess Elizabeth of Lorraine. She was far more sensible of the honour that was hers from her mother’s side of the family than she was of her father’s ancestors. Indeed she did not always bother to hide this from her father, for which he occasionally gave her a rap over the knuckles.
“Septimanie was indefinably gracious. You could say she held a mirror to all that was the France of old days. She was a mixture of wit, of manners, with a sense of tradition, yet always absolutely herself. She had exquisite ways. She had a kind of full dress elegance but underneath there was all the time a hint of the dreadful death in store for her so soon. She was tall and lithe; she had brown black or grey eyes according to the mood she was in. There have never been eyes like hers to show changes of mood more brilliantly or, for anyone lucky enough to be under their spell, to make a gift of such a magical effect.
“My grandmother thought to marry her to the son of Marshal de Bellisle, the Count de Gisors. This young man was in his day what you are going to be we hope, the best looking, the finest, and the most lovable of them all. But Septimanie’s father did not think a great deal of the family. ‘Really,’ he said to my grandmother with malice, and this is to show you what sort of a man he was, ‘the two young people can always meet after Septimanie has a husband.’ And so it was that, against her will, Septimanie became Madame d’Egmont.
“Her husband Casimir-August d’Egmont Pignatelli was the most reverential, silent, and most boring of men.
“Thus it came about that Mademoiselle de Richelieu, my very dear friend, became Countess d’Egmont, with all that this means, and that is, as we have the simplicity and good taste to say nowadays, that she had married into a family which was one of the best connected in Europe. In other words she was a Princess de Cleves and of the Empire, Duchess de Gueldres, de Julliers,
d’Agrigente, as well as a Grandee of Spain by the creation of Charles V, and therefore on the same footing as the Duchesses of Alba and Medina-Coeli, who are of course the first ladies in Europe. I could run on for four pages more with the titles belonging to the great and mighty house of d’Egmont, which is descended in a direct line from the Reigning Dukes de Gueldres, and which the great aristocracy in all countries has had the mortification to see die out for want of an heir. And afterwards it was always said that this was Mademoiselle de Richelieu’s fault.
“However Madame d’Egmont got on quite well with her husband. No more than that. And, in the meantime, a marriage was arranged between a Mademoiselle de Nivernais and Monsieur de Gisors. But the young man was killed a few months after the ceremony.
“So the two lovers never had the chance to meet after Septimanie had a husband.
“But Madame d’Egmont could so little forget him that she fainted if his name came up in conversation. This actually happened when the Prince Abbot de Salm purposely named him, and the young woman was taken with appalling convulsions on the spot; after which all decent people shut their doors to that wicked old hunch back.
“Now there was at this time an old man, a member of the well-known family de Lusignan who, if no one knew him by sight, was at least familiar to everyone by name. He was called the Vidame de Poitiers. It was generally understood that he vegetated away in a great house, but he was never seen because he was so extremely eccentric. So you can imagine the Countess d’Egmont’s surprise when one day she had a letter from the Vidame asking her to be so good as to pay him a visit, in order that he might put before her a matter of some importance. He said he could not wait upon her in her own home as he would have wished because, as he put it, he was not ‘transportable’; a phrase which, as things turned out, and if you have the patience to read your old grandmother to the end, was, as you will come to realize, ever afterwards of significance at the Richelieu’s.
“Madame d’Egmont did not want to go, but rather unexpectedly her father the Marshal insisted, and she had to give in.
“So one afternoon she started off, in her carriage with six horses, only to find the outriders did not know the way because no one went there any more. But she arrived at last and when she was shown in at the door she found, without giving the least idea of it from the outside, that the Vidame’s house was nothing more or less than a kind of dream palace. Used as Madame d’Egmont was to the elegance of her father’s residence, and to the magnificence of her great uncle, the Cardinal’s, mansion which is unequalled, she was amazed at what she now saw. The entrance hall and marble staircase were stately with statues and evergreen shrubs, the antechambers were full of liveried footmen drawn up in two ranks, all the saloons were of an unparalleled grandeur and led to a long, high gallery in the form of a winter garden along which, under a vault of orange, myrtle, and flowering rose trees she was escorted towards nothing less than a sort of rustic retreat raised above floor level. Even the steps up were formed out of the trunks of forest trees, with a handrail of gnarled branches. She was left to climb this alone, and she found herself in a sort of elegant cowshed, in which was an old gentleman fast asleep on a little bed, with his head carefully wrapped up. Madame d’Egmont felt dreadfully embarrassed. Then, while she waited for the Vidame to come out of his sleep, she looked about. The walls were whitewashed, and there actually were five or six cows feeding peacefully in their stalls. A few pieces of simple furniture were between his bed and one wall. She particularly noticed that everything was spotlessly clean. All this affectation of a peasant simplicity in the centre of Paris, and in a palace, began to amuse Madame d’Egmont. She sat down on a little cane-bottomed chair to wait. After a quarter of an hour she coughed, then she coughed louder, until at last she threw modesty to the winds and coughed as loud as she could, enough to make her spit blood. In the end when she saw it was no use, and that the old gentleman would not wake up, she thought it would be comic to go away without saying anything to the Vidame’s page who was waiting for her below.
“We were all waiting for Madame d’Egmont at the Richelieu’s when she got back. While she was telling us, and we were in shouts of laughter, her father the Marshal unexpectedly came in. All at once he began working his little mouth and shutting his eyes, a sure sign that he was displeased. ‘Countess d’Egmont,’ he brought out in his nastiest voice, which is saying a great deal, ‘in my opinion you should not have behaved as you did before a man of his age, as well born as he, ill as he is as well. I advise you to go back no later than tomorrow morning.’
“‘Alas Monsieur,’ she replied, making her voice, that was always so soft, even softer, and turning on him her eyes which literally enchanted you, and which, on this occasion, were half appealing and half malicious, ‘but how am I to set about waking the gentleman?’
“In the end Madame d’Egmont had to agree, after which the Marshal tried to change the conversation without, however, being able to hide his anger. As soon as he left the room, which he did at the first opportunity, Madame d’Egmont complained that she thought he was being most frightfully difficult. She said it would prove to be almost impossible to avoid laughing in the Vidame’s face, and that in any case she would find herself with the old man in the undignified position of a little girl who has played a trick. But then she went on to put her real reason, which was that she had been overcome by a presentiment of evil, that evil must result from a second visit to the Vidame.
“The second time she visited him she found the old gentleman sitting up in bed. But he seemed very poorly, so much so that with a real feeling of horror she realized he could not have long to live. However he did not appear at all embarrassed by what he had to tell, and set about it at once, and quite methodically.
“After thanking her in the most respectful way for calling on him, without referring to the previous visit which he had slept through, Monsieur de Poitiers handed Madame d’Egmont a bundle of old letters from the late Count de Gisors addressed to himself, and begged her to read them. She found, poor thing it nearly suffocated her, that they were all almost entirely about herself. The Count de Gisors wrote of her so passionately, as she told me afterwards, that she felt as though her heart were in a vice. But there was also mention of an unhappy child his father, the Marshal de Bellisle, had abandoned, and for whom the young man desired the Vidame to do what he could. ‘I shall not come back, I am sure of it, I shall not come back from this war,’ he had written in the last letter, ‘and I call on you to look after Severin, that I may die easy at least on that.’
“Madame d’Egmont cried her heart out for some minutes by the old man’s bed. When she was a little easier the Vidame opened his eyes which he had kept shut all this time.
“‘Madame,’ he said, ‘he for whom you are weeping, and whom we both regret, had no secrets from me. For he left behind him a young fellow, of about his own age, who is his double’. The old gentleman went on that this boy, Monsieur de Guys, was believed to be the natural son of the Marshal de Bellisle. Finally the Vidame said he wished to do something for this young man, because he did not think that he himself had long to live. He desired Madame d’Egmont, appealing to the love they both had for the dead Count de Gisors, to take certain bearer bonds and, as soon as he himself passed on, to hand these over to Monsieur de Guys. He explained that this was the only way to circumvent his creditors and heirs at law, and begged Madame d’Egmont not to say a word to anyone, repeating once more that she was the only person left whom he could trust. Madame d’Egmont reluctantly agreed to do as the Vidame asked, subject to certain safeguards with which I do not propose to trouble you, and within five or six days the Vidame had died.
“About this time the Queen of Portugal departed this world. There was a Memorial Service for her at Notre Dame. I had to attend in waiting on the Royal Princesses, although I certainly owed no obligation to Louis XV, or his court, for which, if I may do so without seeming too proud, I thank God in His mercy.
“The Queen of Portugal had actually, and even obviously, been put away by poisoning. Nevertheless Madame d’Egmont, as she told me, felt obliged to make an appearance at the ceremony because, through her husband, she was a Grandee of Spain. As such she had the right to take her place in the front rank, with the wives of the Dukes. But, when I came up the aisle with my Princess, the seats reserved for these Duchesses were almost empty. There was only a shapeless bundle, not fully under control, which must have been Madame de Mazarin, then a sort of gatepost, so stiff and immovable it could only have been the Duchess de Brissac, and last, a little bat-like creature in perpetual motion, flinching and fluttering throughout the ceremony, which told us this was no less, or more, of a person than the Countess de Tessé. I could not see a soul in the least like Madame d’Egmont, and I had told my Princess, whose train I was carrying while my aunt de Parabère bore mine, to look out for her, explaining that no one could mistake Madame d’Egmont. It was a real disappointment for the Princess Louise and the rest of us. Because Septimanie curtseying in the full glory of Court dress was unforgettable. I have only seen two women do it to equal her. One was Queen Marie Antoinette, and the other (saving the respect due to a Queen of France), Mlle Clairon of the Comédie Française.
“After the Absolution, at which the Princesses and peeresses are never present, we were told, when we got back to the Archbishop’s, that Madame d’Egmont had been taken ill as she came up the aisle, and that she had cried out as she was falling.
“I found her waiting for me at home. She was deathly pale. She could only just speak. All I could get out of her was that, as she was about to take her place by the catafalque, she thought she had seen the Count de Gisors. ‘You won’t laugh at me will you?’ she begged, ‘I saw him, I know I did, and it almost killed me.’
“I told her that Monsieur de Nivernais had spoken of a young private soldier exactly like Monsieur de Gisors, and that it was probably this man who had been on guard at the catafalque. Septimanie burst into tears. ‘Don’t you see, it must be Severin his younger brother,’ she sobbed, ‘the boy I’m to give the Vidame’s legacy to. I promised. Now that I have to see him again I’m terrified.’
“From this point onwards you will not find me so well informed, my child, and I confess to you that it would ill become me if I were. However, Madame d’Egmont did tell me some months later, in an embarrassed sort of way, that she had summoned Monsieur de Guys, secretly, to a church. She had joined him on foot, without any of her servants, and had handed over the £10,000 given to her by the Vidame for that purpose. But I saw a blush on her forehead as she was telling me. I had an idea she wanted to say more, and that I was not having the whole story. But I was careful to do nothing to persuade her to go any further with me, for I feared she might find herself confiding, or even attempting to explain away, certain things that I should have been embarrassed to learn. Because I did not wish to encourage her in this affair, which in any case, I imagined, was over and done with. All I said was, I could only be surprised and vexed that she had met him in church …. My child, she lowered her great eyes at that, and bit her lip. Then I changed the subject abruptly. It hurt me to do this. But I could see she understood, and from that time on I saw less of poor Septimanie. Indeed it must have been five or six months before I heard tell of Monsieur de Guys again.
“I had gone to dinner at the Richelieu’s. I remember it was the night of a great storm. The Marshal asked me if I meant to pay my respects at Versailles the next day, and dine with their Majesties. I told him I had planned to do so. ‘My daughter ought to go,’ he said. ‘Which of you will take the other?’
“I had always had a very good idea that I was the person with whom he best liked his daughter to go out, and I thought I saw that the sharp old man had noticed how we were no longer quite what we had been to each other. What he had in mind was to put us in one carriage. He imagined this was all that was needed to bring us together again. We exchanged looks, and smiled, his daughter and I.
“As we travelled down to Versailles the next day in her state carriage, I thought I had never seen Madame d’Egmont in such brilliant looks, or more superbly dressed. She was wearing the family pearls, those on which the Republic of Venice once lent such a large sum to Count Lamoral d’Egmont, to finance the war against King Philip, and which were without price, they were so valuable. But I flatter myself her jewels were not the only ones to attract attention that day. For I had brought out the diamonds you will inherit with the family heirlooms. The moment she set eyes on them the Queen sent for me to get a closer view of the Lesdiguière diamond. It was then and there admitted that this was a far finer stone than any of her twelve Mazarin diamonds. Commander d’Esclots, my uncle, and who was making the circle, was so absolutely delighted that it was only after some little trouble that I could persuade him not to write to the Queen to thank her for what she had said. The good old man belonged to a generation when the least word from royalty was too valuable for anything. But he was the old-fashioned sort of Frenchman. He died without having been persuaded it could be a fact that Madame Lenormand d’Etioles had ever had an apartment in the Palace of Versailles, nor, above all, that she could, by any fantastic stroke of the imagination, have been ennobled under the title of Marquise de Pompadour.
“At State dinners in those days the public came quickly in by one door, and were hustled out by the other, thus making a quarter circle round the royal table. We were seated on the right of the King, near the door the public was let in by. Madame d’Egmont was next me, and last in the row. That is to say she was nearest to the flow of people.
“The first thing I knew was a kind of awkward murmuring, which was kept low, no doubt out of respect. Then, when I looked up, I saw the officer in charge of the King’s Guard speak to a private soldier who was one of the public, but who kept on staring fixedly at Madame d’Egmont. He was a beautiful young man. His face and appearance, in spite of his rank, were brilliant, and would have graced anyone in the kingdom. Can you doubt who it was? But because I was not continually thinking about Monsieur de Gisors, and that I never wondered about Monsieur de Guys, I was not, at that instant minute, struck by how alike they were.
“I instinctively turned to Madame d’Egmont. I could not whisper on account of the hoops we were wearing, and the space, left in accordance with what was usual at Court, between the stools on which we were seated. Because the poor lady was so upset that it was plain for all to see. Her eyes were glazed, and she was even holding a fan half across her face (a thing which could not be done at Versailles in my day, for one never took the liberty of opening one’s fan before the Queen, except to use it as a salver if one had occasion to hand anything to her Majesty). Meantime the young man, not bothering about the King’s presence, and without paying the slightest attention to the officer in charge who was ordering him to move on, was frozen before the lovely Septimanie in her black Court dress. He was holding up the people behind by standing where he was, as well as getting in the way of the gentlemen waiting at table. He did not listen and knew nothing at all of it. In the end they were obliged to drag him from the room. Then it was that Madame d’Egmont could control herself no longer. She moaned. I felt quite desperate for her.
“The King, who, through the secret police, always knew everything going on in Paris, even to love affairs, his Majesty, at this moment, acted with that instinct for the right thing which ever distinguished and honoured him. ‘Monsieur de Jouffroy,’ he said to the officer in charge loud enough to be heard by all, and turning his head in our direction without, however, looking at Madame d’Egmont, ‘Monsieur de Jouffroy it must be the style in which our meal is being served has surprised him,’ and then he added, bowing to the Queen, with an adorable smile, ‘or perhaps he was lost when he saw her Majesty. Leave the young man alone, run and tell them to let him go in peace. At the same time I thank you for what you have done.’
“Madame d’Egmont sighed. She seemed relieved. She began to look a little better. But people had started whispering, and the Marshal de Richelieu could not forbear to glance angrily at her once or twice.
“I felt most miserably sorry.
“Then, as we got into our carriage to go away I heard, over on the side she was sitting, a deep, trembling, man’s voice say, almost in terror, ‘it’s you – it’s truly you.’ I could not see who this might be, and I did not catch what Septimanie answered. All I know is she said no word on the drive back to Paris. In fact she did nothing but cry her eyes out the whole way.
“The next morning I was just going to the Richelieu’s to see Madame d’Egmont when they came to tell me her father was downstairs. He was a cunning old man. No doubt he counted on catching me unawares, to surprise me into telling what little I knew. But Marshal de Richelieu was not the sort of person with whom I cared to discuss anything of that kind. Dissolute men of his type are invariably wrong, on these occasions. They imagine that any sympathy, which may be expressed for a person in love, must include tolerance of what, in this instance, was something unquestionably underhand. Then they cannot grasp ordinary, nice-natured good wishes. In fact they can never explain, to their own satisfaction, how there may be a halfway house between absolute austerity and open acquiescence. So they make the most abject mistakes about honest women.
“Accordingly, all I did was to tell him for quite half an hour about a tiresome law suit we had against the Lejeune de la Furjounières, at the end of which time he was driven away, as I had hoped he would be. It was a mistake on my part, as it turned out, because he became convinced that I had given his daughter up. And this at a time when everyone was beginning to talk, including the Grammonts!
“In the end it was Septimanie herself who came to ask if I would use my influence with her parent in favour of her Severin. What had happened was that his father, the Marquis de Bellisle, had had him thrown out of the army, and was proposing to have him sent for good to Senegal, where no member of the white races lives longer than twelve months.
“‘Come,’ Richelieu begged me maliciously when I sent for him, ‘tell me more about your case against the Lejeune de la Furjounières.’ I did not let him get away with that, and, once I had made him talk of Monsieur de Guys objectively, I soon saw, with his years old hatred of Marshal de Bellisle, to whom in any case he was senior, that he would not be averse to helping the young man. To cut a long story short he did what I asked, the boy stayed in France, and what is more I saw him myself. He could not have been more charming. Monsieur de Créquy came to love him like his own son, and my great aunts adored him. But, alas, one day, he mysteriously disappeared. There can be no doubt he was done away with. He was not heard of, or seen, again.
“Septimanie did not recover. She lingered a few months and then she died of a slow fever.
“All my life I shall never forget this twin attachment, these two extraordinary passions she somehow found a way to lavish on two men who were entirely different and yet at the same time exactly similar, on the living and the dead, on the brilliant Count de Gisors, and an obscure young man. Nor can I ever forget her last moments when, with both lovers gone, she seemed, as she in her turn lay dying before my eyes, to fuse the memory of these two men into one, into one true lover.”
After he had read right through to the end, Charley said aloud, “Ridiculous story.” Nevertheless, when he switched out the light, he had his first good night’s rest for weeks.
That same day the following letter was in the post to Messrs. Mead, addressed “Attention Managing Director.” It was read by Corker first thing next morning.
PARABOLAM PLANT
DEAR SIRS,
When last autumn at the instance of the Ministry, Section S.E.C.O., we accepted your esteemed order no. 1526/2/5812 for 60 (sixty) size N.V. Rotary Extraction Pumps and 60 (sixty) size O.U. Centrifugal Feed Pumps, we pointed out both to your goodselves and to Mr Turner of S.E.C.O. that we could only undertake this contract on the clear understanding that you would be in a position to urge through sufficient quantities of the pump body castings, which are to be in the secret acid resisting metal to your special requirements.
If you will refer back to the letters which passed between us at the time this order was placed, you will see that we covered in the correspondence exactly the eventuality which has now arisen, namely the non-delivery of these parts, which is seriously impeding our production programme not only for the pumps in question, but for all the other work passing through the particular shop involved, and which is on S.E.V.B., S.E.P.Q., and S.O.M.F. priorities.
Repeated appeals to your office (ref. C.S./D.P.) having had no favourable outcome, we regret to inform you that we have today been instructed by the last-mentioned Ministry office, namely S.O.M.F. (ref. MIS/POM/1864), that we are to discontinue manufacture of your order until such time as we can be assured of sufficient supplies of the items in this special metal, so as to avoid setting up the lathes each time.
We are now seriously behind with our S.E.V.B., S.E.P.Q. and S.O.M.F. contracts, and unless we can get a clear run at these without, as at present, having to break off to machine the few castings we do receive from you, and we never know when these are coming in, we have today been warned that we shall seriously prejudice the war effort.
Regretting the real necessity we are under to write in such terms to so old and valued a connection as your goodselves, but the matter is right out of our hands.
Yours faithfully,
ROBERT JORDAN,
Director, Henry Smith & Co. Ltd.
Mr Mead sent for the files and for Pike, the chief draughtsman. Then he did some telephoning. After which he summoned Charley.
“Read this, Summers,” he said.
Charley had realized there was trouble when they came for the files. Nevertheless, when he went through the letter, word by word, it dazed him. After he had finished, he just sat on. Corker waited. At last Charley said,
“I can’t believe my eyes, sir.”
“I can. I have to.”
There was a pause.
“So do you,” Mr Mead went on. “Of course you do.”
“Not from Smiths,” Charley objected. He handed the letter back. His fingers were trembling. “It’s not true,” he added.
“Truth or lies, it’s written here, Summers.”
“Can’t believe that of Smiths,” Charley said. He felt betrayed on every side. “Not after what they promised.”
“Take a good look,” Mr Mead continued, passing the correspondence in its folder. “Turn up your letter of six weeks ago to the foundry.”
“Yes sir,” Charley said, when he had found the place.
“They couldn’t get those castings right. Had a lot of wasters.”
“What d’you want us to do? Kiss ’em?”
But, when this was suggested, such a look of distress passed over Charley’s face that Mr Mead tried another approach.
“Listen to me, lad,” he started. “After five years of war, and all the S.E. this and thats which the Ministry have created to their own ends, everyone in this game is case hardened, punch drunk if you prefer it.”
“That fourth paragraph of Smiths doesn’t seem to make sense, sir,” Charley broke in, misunderstanding the drift.
“What’s that got to do with it? I’ve known Rob Jordan all my life, haven’t I? We served our apprenticeship together. He thinks we don’t want this job, that’s all. And I must say, if I was in his shoes, I’d come to the same conclusion. What’s happened here? He’s got his own men chasing castings through the various foundries. And they’re doing it right, they’re going down themselves, not writing letters. One of ’em was shown this wet thing of yours. Rob told me so, I’ve just phoned him. Because it was wet what you wrote, sloppy. You don’t want to encourage people to turn out wasters. You have to threaten ’em, when we’ve the priorities we’ve got at the back of us. What firm’s supplying these castings?”
“Blundells.”
“Then they showed one of his snoopers your letter. Look, don’t worry too much,” Mr Mead said. “I fixed it with Rob just now. I gave him a ring. But do something for me, will you? Get back to your own room and write Blundells such a letter that will burn the fingers of whoever takes hold on it. Threaten them with the Minister in person if Smiths don’t receive the balance, and in a month. Then go down, for God’s sake see them. We shan’t be too late yet. And Charley?”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to take things at face value. You were wrong about Jordan’s letter. He was only covering himself in case he got the blame. There’s just one other point. Keep lively. Don’t think that everything’s a try on because of this single instance.”
Summers collected the files and the letter, and went back to his room.
“Read this,” he said to Dot.
She skimmed through.
“Well, that’s that,” she said when she had finished.
“It’s not, then,” he replied, more violent than she had known him.
“If S.O.M.F. say so, I should think it was. We came up against them when I was on penicillin.”
“Nothing but a try on,” he announced.
“O.K.,” she said, pert.
“Turn me up the cards.”
On these cards were recorded actual deliveries of the parts from Blundells to Henry Smith and Co., together with brief particulars of the letters that had passed. He did not check the detail.
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
She stood there.
“Everything seems to come at once,” he added, riding his feelings on a loose rein.
She said, brightly, that it never rained but it poured.
“The lying bastard,” he cried, once more reading Mr Jordan’s letter, as if it had been a note from Mr Grant.
“Well we can’t expect the impossible, can we?” she asked.
“Look, Miss,” he said, and he had recently been calling her Dot, “this letter’s a try on, doesn’t mean what it says. I saw that the minute I set eyes on it. I’ve had some lately. There was a time I believed everything I had under my bloody nose, like you seem to, but I don’t now. Excuse me, of course.”
“This has got you upset, hasn’t it?” she said.
Then, without warning, he surprised himself by coming out with his own story.
“Well what would you say if a woman you’d known most of your days told you she wasn’t herself? Not sick or ill I mean, but another person all at once.” Because he had never before discussed anything outside the office, she was intensely curious.
“What?” she asked.
“No one will ever believe that,” he said.
“Well I believed this letter, didn’t I, which you saw through at once, or so you said.”
“Which letter?” he wanted to know.
“Why the one from Smiths, of course, to do with those blessed castings. But you’ve had something on your mind, lately. You’ve been different.”
This drew no reply.
“I’ll say you have,” she went on. “My mum always tells the world, ‘If there’s anyone to understand a person it’s Dot.’ Of course we have rather a wonderful relationship really, mum and me. Not like mother and daughter at all.” There was a long pause.
“Back from Germany,” he started, as though thinking aloud, then stopped, looking very queer, so she thought.
“Yes then?” she encouraged.
“A girl I used to know says she’s not that girl,” he brought out, with difficulty.
“The self-same girl?” Miss Pitter did not know if she mightn’t laugh out loud.
“Dyed her hair,” he explained.
“Well what about her handwriting? Has she changed that when she sends you a line?” Dot asked him, with what is known as a woman’s intuition.
“Oh dear,” he said. He had never considered this. “Oh dear,” he said, in anguish.
Then the telephone went. For a time they were very busy. It brought him back to office life. As soon as there was a lull he carried Smiths letter, and the files, out to Mr Pike.
“Can you spare a minute?” he asked this man.
“Read this, Mr Pike,” he offered the correspondence over. Mr Pike perused it, without in any way letting on that he had looked into the whole matter only an hour or so ago.
“There’s two points I don’t like, Summers,” Mr Pike began, then halted. He was like an owl in daylight.
Charley waited.
“This mention of parabolam, here, for one,” Mr Pike started, slow again, “and then his quoting your reference.”
“Yes, Mr Pike.” A pause.
“Of course it’s a try on.”
“That’s so.” A long pause, while Charley waited.
“Which stands out a mile,” the chief draughtsman continued at last. “Another thing. This is a secret process, Summers. We don’t want any special metal associated with parabolam.”
“No, Mr Pike.”
“And, you know, I don’t care for their quoting your reference. That’s nasty, that is. Right oh,” he ended. “Thanks for showing me.”
But Charley’s feelings got the better of him. “You don’t consider someone may have forged it?” he asked, on impulse.
Mr Pike stayed quite still. Charley blushed.
“Silly I know,” he said, “but I just wondered. Noticed some strange things lately. One of those handwriting experts could tell.”
“The old man and Mr Jordan served their apprenticeship together at the same bench,” Mr Pike said at last, to dismiss Charley. And, when the young fellow was gone, the chief draughtsman could not get down to his work. He was disheartened with the times he lived in. “They’re coming back nervous cases, like they did out of the last war,” he repeated to himself, and thought that, in that case, then everything was hopeless.
As Charley got back to his own room he found Miss Pitter bending to reach an object she had dropped. Seen from behind her short skirts were lifted, while she stretched, to show an inch or so of white flesh above the stockings. He noted that to have come upon this a few weeks back would have meant more than somewhat.
“It was plain as a pikestaff I’ll be bound?” Miss Pitter asked.
“He agreed this is a try on,” Charley answered.
“Yet that doesn’t prevent his department holding out on us with the advice notes, so I can’t keep our cards up to date.”
He stayed silent.
“Oh well I don’t imagine he does it on purpose, or I don’t suppose anyone would, for that matter?” She had recently come round to thinking Mr Pike rather an old dear.
He glared at nothing in particular.
“You are taking things to heart, aren’t you?” Miss Pitter said, to be sympathetic. “Was Mr Mead upset, then? I’ll tell you what. You have a good night’s rest and it will seem different in the morning.”
He looked at her as though she were insane. Then his telephone rang. As soon as the conversation was over, and while she was marking on the appropriate card what he had just been told, he said, half to himself,
“How do I get her to write?”
“Don’t you worry,” she replied. “She’s worrying her wits this very instant, I’ll bet, to find an excuse to do just that very thing.”
He gave such a cynical laugh that she turned round to look.
“Oh well, if you’ve quarrelled, that’s another matter,” she went on. “You can’t expect her to run after you, can you now? A girl’s got to keep her self respect, when all’s said and done,” she said.
“Self respect?” he echoed scornfully. The telephone rang once more. She could have kicked it.
“And no mention of parabolam from this time forward,” he said to her, as he put back the receiver. “Even if I forget when dictating, don’t take that down. Mr Pike doesn’t like it.” Charley had almost escaped from his obsession. But she brought him back.
“I’ll tell you something you don’t care for,” she replied, relentless. “The mention of her name.” He started up out of his chair at this cruel shock, this searchlight on a naked man, but she went on. “Oh I’ve known for ages. It’s Rose, Rose she’s called, isn’t it Rose?”
“No,” he lied, and went straight out of the room to the lavatory, in case he should have to vomit.
He used to think that no one could ever take from him his trust in Rose which, when the time came, Rose had snatched away herself in a moment.
As soon as he was in bed of an evening, he would literally writhe while he remembered how they had been together.
He grew more and more sure this whole thing was a plot, like the affair with Blundells.
So he set himself one morning in the roadway, a beggar with his stick, to have a word with Middlewitch while the man was off for lunch.
He was more and more jealous of the relations he felt certain that Middlewitch must have had with Rose, and was probably still having.
Arthur saw Charley from afar. He knew it was a nuisance, but the chap was obviously in dire trouble. What they shared of the war, that is the experiences they’d each had on their own, was a bond between them, if only of aluminium, pulleys, and elastic. He thought there was nothing for it but to take Charley along with him.
So he greeted Summers exuberantly, and Charley, with bad grace, accepted the invitation he had hoped for, finding little to say at first while this man rattled jovial, patronizing tit bits in his direction.
“Rose, Rose,” Mr Middlewitch called to the waitress once they were seated.
“Reminds me,” Summers said quiet. “D’you know Nance Whitmore?”
“My dear old boy? Why she lives across my landing. Grand girl Nancy.”
“Used to be Phillips,” Summers said.
“What did?”
“The name. Phillips.”
“Is that so?” Mr Middlewitch replied, uninterested. “Well it’s a small world. Fancy you coming across young Nance. You’ve kept a bit dark about that, surely? You never told me, I mean.”
And what about your not saying a word, Charley thought. He chewed this over in scornful silence for a while.
Mr Middlewitch considered that Summers was looking very strange.
“Of course I haven’t known her long,” he said at last. “Only since I was felt hatted, and went to live in digs. Now Rose, darling, don’t say it has to be bunny again. We’ve had a proper dose of that this week.”
“Oh Mr Middlewitch,” she said. “Oh Rose,” he gave her back. Both of them laughed.
Charley began to feel sick in spite of the whisky.
After more had been ordered Charley said,
“Her name was Rose.”
“Whose name?”
“Rose Phillips.”
“You’re telling me a lot about this Rose Phillips, old man,” Mr Middlewitch complained, “but I’ve never had the honour, have I?” He was continually looking round the luncheon room for acquaintances.
“It’s Nance Whitmore.”
“What was her name, then, before she married Phillips?”
“Nancy Whitmore was Rose Grant.”
“You’re wrong there, old chap. Nance lost her husband in the war. He wasn’t called Phillips. Then she changed her name back by deed poll. But her hubby was Phil White. Is that what you were thinking of? Phil and Phillips? He got his at Alamein.”
This was more than Charley could stomach.
“What’s the penalty for bigamy, even when the second husband’s dead?” he demanded, choking.
“Bigamy, old boy? Why ask me? Never marry ’em, that’s my motto. Best thing too.”
“She’s a bigamist,” Charley insisted, almost draining his second whisky at a gulp. Middlewitch looked at him with disgust.
“Steady,” he said, “steady, old man. I’ve known the little lady in question ever since I got back.”
“Old Grant introduce you?”
“Gerald Grant? Here, what is this? If they know each other it’s the first I’ve heard. And I suspect it’s none of my business.”
“She’s a bigamist,” Charley said. All this time he had kept his eyes on the table. Middlewitch took it for a sign that the fellow knew he was lying. “Now see here, Summers, you’ll be getting yourself into a peck of trouble one of these fine days.” Then he began to lose his temper. “And in any case,” he went on, “I say damn a man who says what you’ve just done about a lady and doesn’t look you in the eye as he speaks. Even if it is about a girl, and they’re capable of anything. You can’t tell me,” he ended, appreciating the sally.
But Charley raised his eyes to Middlewitch for the first time, who could only stare at what was opened to him in them.
“I see,” Mr Middlewitch said uncomfortably.
“Well, there you are,” Mr Middlewitch exclaimed again.
Charley finished the whisky, laughed, and said, “Yes, there it is,” with a sort of satisfaction.
“But look here, Summers,” Arthur started, once something, he was not sure what, had begun to sink into him, “why she’s straight as a die, you know, straight as a die. I’d stake my life on that. Nancy Whitmore. Good lord yes.”
“Did you know about her son?”
“My dear good chap you’re mistaken there, I can assure you. Why, after they’ve been in the straw they’ve a brown
line down their little tummies. Well she hasn’t, so what d’you know?”
“And how did you learn?” Charley brought out, in such a voice that Middlewitch swallowed, then, when he did reply, began to bluster.
“Why, I went swimming with her of course,” he lied. “Last summer it was. Took the girl down to Margate.”
“With mines on the beach?”
But Arthur had recovered himself.
“In the Palais de Swim, or whatever they call the place, naturally,” he answered. “Look, you’ll excuse my saying this, old man. You may even think I’m a funny sort of host. But let’s change the subject, shall we? I mean the little lady’s quite a pal of mine. It’s strange. You’ve got the wrong side of one another some time, I know. But that’s nothing to do with this chap,” he said, pointing a finger at himself, “if you get me.”
Then, through his rising, nauseating misery, Summers had, as he thought, a brain wave.
“A written apology is what she should send,” he announced.
“O.K. Enough’s enough. Now what’s to follow? Rose,” Arthur called to the waitress, his patience with the whole subject at an end, “Rose.”
“Sorry,” Charley said. “Suppose I’m a bit upset.”
“I can see that, old man.”
“Her name was Rose. That got me started.”
“All right Summers,” Middlewitch replied with unction, his position restored now Charley had weakened, “all right, but I can’t use any other name for the waitresses, can I? Or call Nance by any other than what I know? See here, old chap. You sit on as you are. Simmer down.” He laughed. “There’s old Ernie Mandrew across the room I must have a word with. And while I’m away I may be able to get hold of Rose to bring us what’s to come. You’ll have another drink of course?” He got up and left.
He managed to stop their waitress. “Look, darling, I’ve got to go,” he said. “See to my friend,” he asked. “He’s more than a bit queer, had a bad war,” he added, “was repatriated, after me as a matter of fact. Fetch him another whisky, like a good girl. I shall be in again tomorrow. He’s stuck on a girl called Rose. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” He went off laughing.
An hour and three whiskies later, Charley paid the bill and left. When someone else was put in Arthur’s place, at their table, he had hardly noticed.
After Middlewitch got home that night from the office, he was still angry with Summers. As soon as he’d had a wash, however, he began to see the whole matter in a rosier light. The chap had had a rotten time. Girls like Nance should appreciate what Charley, and he, had been through. He would have a chat with her. If he went across now, she would not have gone to work yet. So he knocked at her door.
She did not open up, but called out to ask who might it be.
“Only Art,” he said.
“Why Art,” she said, letting him in. “There’ve been some queer customers around lately,” she explained. “I’m in a state of siege now, I promise.” She was laughing.
“Customers?” he enquired archly, as he settled himself in the best chair. “But Nance,” he said, “you ought to watch out how you express yourself, or you’ll be misunderstood.”
“Well then,” she replied, “don’t you misunderstand for a start. You can’t tell what I’ve had to sit here and listen to these last few weeks. And what’s become of you in all that time? It must be months since I’ve seen you, Art.”
“Oh I’ve been around, here, there, and everywhere, like the scarlet Johnny,” he said. “And by the way, I came across someone who claimed your acquaintance.”
“Go on? What colour was his hair? Ginger?”
“You’re joking,” he objected. “No, it was a chap with me, where they fitted us with our limbs. He was repatriated a bit
later than me, as a matter of fact. Charley Summers’ the name.”
“You too,” was all she said, and seemed disgusted. Arthur considered, perhaps this was more serious than he had thought.
“Look Nance,” he said, rushing it, “you and me’s known each other for some little time past. Strictly speaking this is none of my affair. He never told what all this was about. Charley Summers may be a queer card but he’s straight as a die, Nance old girl, straight as a die. And he’s been through a tough, rotten period. I’ve had some in those prison camps. You’d only to go in the guard room and sneeze in front of one of Herr Adolph’s portraits, and it was off to the dark in solitary confinement, right away. They called it inciting the glorious Wehrmacht to revolt. Things may be a bit different, now they see the writing on the wall, but that’s how it was when we were out there. He’s had it Nance, il l’a eu, as our French cousins say. Now, maybe the old lad’s done something to upset you, I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t get anything out of the man myself. But if he did, I shouldn’t take too much notice.”
She sat there.
“Have you finished?” she asked.
“Now what have I said?” he enquired, a bit daunted.
“Did you send that damned lunatic my way?”
“I?” Mr Middlewitch cried. “Not on your life.”
“That’s all right, Art,” she said. “But, you’re a witness to the fact that, since Phil was killed and Mum went off out of these flying bombs, I’ve lived on here very quiet. I’m all right. I don’t need company. Then someone tells this man out of Colney Hatch my address, and the way I am these days I daresn’t open the door for fear it’s him again. It’s my nerves won’t let me. The first time he came he fainted, and the next – oh well, you’ve said it, he’s not normal.”
“This is none of my business, Nance, you needn’t tell me and I respect you for it, but things weren’t easy for us chaps out there. Drop him a line like a good girl.”
“Sakes alive, is that the time?” she cried. “I must be off or I shall be late.” The next day she wrote Charley a note. All it said was, that she did not want to leave things tangled.
She was a good-hearted girl.
