She said: “I can’t help what you don’t believe.” She added: “You
said
it was funny he’d stopped coming.”
Len’s eyes, without a glitter, looked dark and sunk further in. “You
don’t mean, he comes when I’m not – ”
“No, he won’t do that. We go out in his car; we – ” Rene
stopped.
11
Len suddenly shouted: “Shut up: I’m not asking you anything!”
“I’m not telling you,” she said, equally angrily.
“You are, you’re trying to tell me that, that – ”
“Yes, that I’m going to Alec.”
“Why?” Len said, suddenly facing round, in a voice as though he
had not spoken before.
“Why am I going, or why am I telling you?”
“I just said, why?”
“I’ve just got back from seeing Alec,” she said.
“You mean, you’d got the house nice for Flora and got those tulips
before you saw Alec?”
“Yes, Len,
yes
, Len: that’s what I keep saying.” Rene hardly ever
wept: with hysterical quietness she now ran her right hand fingers
up her temple and lifted her hair. “He telephoned me just at tea
time,” she said. “He brought the car up to Wood End for us to talk.
Since – since we knew we must go, he’s been trying to sell the
garage: he’s got an offer today. So it’s now or never, he says.”
“I’ve got to see Alec.”
“No, no,
no
.”
12
Flora stepped smartly down the station incline beside Len, who
carried her cowhide case. It was three o’clock on Saturday after
noon; she had just got out of the London train. The wet weak
February sunshine fell on the white palings: Flora, who had spent
holidays here as a girl, said the place had not changed at all, so far.
“It’s grown,” Len said.
“It would do that, naturally. Where you live will be new on me.”
“Yes, it’s where Bent’s Farm was.”
“Pity that farm went.”
“Our garden’s got a bit of the old orchard . . . You look fine,
Flora.”
“Oh, I’m feeling fine, thank you.” Flora shot at Len one of her
sharp but calm looks. “You don’t look much: how’s business?”
“Business is all right.”
“Oh well, life doesn’t get any easier, does it. How’s Rene?”
“Rene’s all right.” They passed under the railway bridge, walked
uphill, turned to the right again. Len shifted Flora’s substantial case
from one hand to the other.
“How’s your car?” Flora said.
“Oh, it’s all right; I thought you might like the walk.”
“Oh,
I
do,” she said. “But I ought to have packed lighter. Talking
of cars, how’s Alec?”
“Oh, Alec’s all right.”
Flowers Will Do
M
rs. Simonez and her daughter Doris occupied the
top flat in one of those London houses that have ornate frontages
and high steps. Mrs. Simonez called the neighbourhood Chelsea,
but it was really Fulham, as Doris knew. The house had not been
made over, simply leased out in floors. Up where they lived, the
Simonez had a room each, and a bathroom blocked by a dresser. By
day, their divan beds were got up with fancy cushions; they cooked
on the landing and ate off a folding table in Mrs. Simonez’ room.
The mother was hard put to it, keeping these close quarters at once
“artistic” and fresh. Their furniture dated from better days; it was too
large for the flat and they bumped into it constantly, when they
were not bumping into each other, but it showed they had been
accustomed to live in style. They kept themselves to themselves and
never spoke to anyone on the stairs. Mrs. Simonez prided herself on
keeping this little home for Doris – who worked in an office. They
had a few, but not very many, friends.
At half-past ten one muggy February evening, Doris sat on her
divan side by side with Sydney – her first at all serious young man.
The hanging light, through its shade, shed an orange glow. Nothing
showed that this was where Doris slept: the wall cupboard was
latched on her shoes and dresses; frilled shelves concealed her
brushes and pots. Sydney, whose evening calls had become regular,
no longer took notice of anything. He leaned back, one elbow stuck
in the cushions, his head propped on the wall. Doris now sat upright
on the edge of the divan: they had been holding hands but had just
let go – one more of those disturbing currents of feeling had made
her sharply disconnect from his touch. An aluminium coffee pot on
the gas ring still sent out a smell of hot metal and coffee; on an
Indian table pulled close to the divan stood cups, a messy ashtray
and a saucer in which two chocolate biscuits still were. The packet
of Gold Flake Doris had bought for Sydney was wedged down in
the cushions; smoke thickened the air. Doris had got up once to
open the window, a second time to turn down the gasfire.
“How you fidget,” he said. “You’re like a cat on hot bricks.”
She combed back the wing of hair from her forehead. “It gets
close in here,” she said. “It’s the stuffy night.”
“Well, it would get close; there’s not much room to turn round. I
don’t know how you manage, you
and
your mother.”
“We like it all right,” she said touchily.
“Oh, you’ve got it all very nice; I don’t say you haven’t,” said
Sydney, rolling his head on the wall. “But with all these new
inexpensive flats going up, I’d have thought you might have done
better, for the money.”
“If you don’t like it here, you don’t have to come.”
“Well, you don’t have to bite off my head, do you? I can’t help
taking an interest, can I?”
“Can’t you?” said Doris, immovably.
“You know I can’t,” Sydney said, on a deep note. He smacked the
springs of the divan between her back and his body, to make her
lean back close beside him again. But that made her spine stiffen;
she dug her heels in the carpet; her rather frozen face continued to
loom forward into the air. She was handsome, heavy, naturally pale,
twenty-six and more than ready to marry; her big limbs showed
through her black afternoon dress. The more her manner became
cautious and rigid, the more her whole being said: “What next?” Her
hopes of Sydney were, by evenings and evenings, being warped into
contempt for him. Humiliation and anger stood in her voice as she
said: “Well,
I
don’t see why you come.”
“
I
see why I come,” he said, giving her shoulder an equivocal look
that she, slightingly, did not trouble to see. The jerry-built house
shook as the street door shut, down below. She said: “That’ll be
mother.”
“She’s popping back early.”
“Doesn’t much matter, does it?”
Sydney, however, got up from the divan and primly settled
himself in the armchair. She brushed ash out of the trough he left in
the cushions, then had time to give him one expressionless look –
they heard her mother on the last flight of stairs. Mrs. Simonez
coughed, then nosed brightly into the room.
1
“Why, hullo, Sydney,”
she said. She was a foxy-faced, dressy little woman, letting out
sparkles from three marquisite clips.
2
A velvet tricorne with rather
rubbed corners was set forward correctly on her waved white hair.
3
The glass eyes of her fox fur glittered some way under her own with
an air of complicity. She glanced round the room as though looking
for something, then sat down beside Doris, where Sydney had
been. Mother and daughter could not have been more unlike. Mrs.
Simonez removed from the divan cushions the almost empty packet
of cigarettes. Having loosened her fur, she glanced in her sharp,
marked way at the two chocolate biscuits left in the saucer; then she
put her veil up, took one and nibbled it. “Well, here I am back,” she
said. “They put the big picture early, and Mrs. Lewis and I didn’t
care to stay for the comic.”
“Nice picture?” said Sydney.
“Clark Gable,” said Mrs. Simonez. “There’s too much nonsense
about him. But he’s a manly man, and one doesn’t see many now.”
Sydney glanced at his wristwatch, started moving his feet. He
said: “Well, I must be getting along.”
“Oh, don’t let
me
drive you out.”
“No, I must be getting along.”
Mrs. Simonez gave a faintly insulting smile. Doris went out to the
landing to look for Sydney’s hat. Sydney rose and shook hands with
Mrs. Simonez. “Well, if you’re in really
such
a hurry . . .” she said.
Doris saw him to the top of the stairs, then came back into her
room, shutting the door. With heavy movements, suffering and
defensive, she emptied the ashtray into a screw of paper, then
started to clear up the coffee cups. She disposed of the last biscuit
by swallowing it. Mrs. Simonez sat on the divan, watching. She put
up her hand to her head, and then took her tricorne off; she said:
“My goodness, it’s close in here. It’s not right for you to sleep in. You
ought to air the place out.” As Doris pulled back the curtains,
opened the windows wider, Mrs. Simonez said: “Well, did you and
Sydney have a nice time?”
“Oh, it was all right,” said Doris, shifting her bust and shoulders
inside her tight silk dress.
“I daresay,” said Mrs. Simonez, “it was all right for Sydney. Oh,
Sydney knows where he’s well off. Sydney knows where he gets
something for nothing – lounging round like a lord, with you
running round after him.”
“Shut up, mother,” said Doris. She kicked her high-heeled shoes
off, opened the cupboard, got her felt slippers out.
“And what did he bring you this time?” said Mrs. Simonez. “My
goodness,” she said, pointing round into space, “one simply can’t see
the place for chocolates and flowers. Did he ever bring you so much
as the evening paper he’d read on the bus? No, Sydney thinks he’s
conferring a big favour by dropping in and guzzling biscuits and
coffee and smoking your cigarettes and messing your divan up –
don’t tell
me
he spent all his time in that chair: why, he took half
your distemper downstairs on his back.” Mrs. Simonez screwed her
head round and looked hard and bitterly at the wall over the bed.
“Look at that greasy patch his head’s starting to make,” she said.
“This is going too far, Doris. It’s not nice.”
“We just sit,” Doris said.
“Oh,
I
know you’re a good girl. As for Sydney – well, I’d really
think better of him if he
were
more of a man. Oh, Sydney’s careful,
all right. Oh, Sydney knows where he is – just because he’s only got
a pair of women to deal with, he thinks he’s free to lounge in and
out as he likes. My goodness, Doris, your father’d soon have shown
him the door. As it is, though, Sydney’s got me to reckon with – and
I think he felt it this evening, shooting off out like that. Well, I have
enough
4
of this, Doris: if you haven’t, I have. I’ve got my pride, if
you haven’t. What
is
all this leading to?”
“Boys are slow these days; boys have got to think,” said Doris.
“You’ve got to give them time.”
“Well, you waited round long enough. It’s a year since he started
coming. He’s never once taken you out.”
“He’s saving up,” said Doris. “Sydney’d have to save up, if – ”
“Yes,
if
– ” said Mrs. Simonez. “But has that ever been mentioned?
Has
Sydney said one word to you about . . . that?”
“Not straight out. But – ”
“He’s getting good money, you say. He’s in a position to – he’s got
prospects, I mean – ”
“Oh yes, they think well of him.”
“Oh, they do?” Mrs. Simonez said, with infinite bitterness. “Well,
then that’s more than I do. Sydney’s not half one man.
5
He should
be ashamed of himself – yes, and so should you be, Doris. If you
can’t do better, at your age – dressing yourself up for him, evening
after evening, turning out your own mother, wet or fine, spending
money we skimp for for him to smoke the place out with dirty
smoke. Oh, it makes me mad!” cried Mrs. Simonez, smartly striking
at the head of the fur on her knee as though she meant to decapitate
the fox. “Why, when I was a girl I had men down on their knees.
If I’d had to go like that after your father – well,
you
wouldn’t be
here – ”
While all this was being said, Doris had gone on like someone
shut up with an electric drill. She defended her nerves with a screen
of movements – stolidly getting out her face cream pots and her
brushes, unzipping her dress, and peeling her stocking off. She
dragged herself out of her clothes with a weary immodesty, not like
a girl undressing before her mother. When she had tied the sash of
her dressing gown, she wheeled round to the divan: the taut
contemptuous mother and stolid suffering daughter faced each other
at last. “Would you mind moving, mother, I want to strip my bed.”
Mrs. Simonez picked up her fur and got up: Doris, with a series of
strong-armed movements, stripped off the divan-cover and flung the
taffeta cushions in a pile on the rug. She worked like someone
digging their own grave. “You keeping on like that, you always
watching,” she said, “won’t make Sydney more likely to marry me.”
“You’re all nerves,” her mother said. “You’re all over the place.”
“Yes, I get fed up, all right,” Doris confessed.
“I don’t want to upset you, dear, but I can’t help worrying, can I?”
“I’m tired,” said Doris. “I just want to get to sleep.”
Mrs. Simonez went out and lit the ring on the landing to heat up
her glass of milk. Mother and daughter, in their alike kimonos, their
hair in setting caps for the night, jostled each other in and out of the
bathroom. At last the two doors shut; the last light was snapped out.
Through the thin