“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.