Authors: Doris Lessing
‘Goodness! You gave me a start, Mary …’
Mary Brooke was quietly knitting beside the stove. ‘Thought I’d drop in,’ she said.
Annie Blake pulled off her hat and flopped a net of bread and vegetables on the table; at the same time her eyes were anxiously inspecting her kitchen: there was an unwashed dish in the sink, a cloth over a chair. ‘Everything’s in such a mess,’ she said irritably.
Mary Brooke, eyes fixed on her knitting, said, ‘Eh, sit down. It’s clean as can be.’
After a hesitation Annie flopped herself into the chair and shut her eyes. ‘Those stairs …’ she panted. Then: ‘Like a cuppa tea, Mary?’
Mary quickly pushed her knitting away and said, ‘You sit still. I’ll do it.’ She heaved up her large, tired body, filled a kettle from the tap, and set it on the flame. Then, following her friend’s anxious glance, she hung the dish cloth where it belonged and shut the door. The kitchen was so clean and neat it could have gone on exhibition. She sat down, reached for her knitting, and knitted without looking at it, contemplating the wall across the room. ‘He was carrying on like anything last night,’ she observed.
Annie’s drooping lids flew open, her light body straightened. ‘Yes?’ she murmured casually. Her face was tense.
‘What can you expect with that type? She doesn’t get the beds made before dinnertime. There’s dirt everywhere. He was giving it to her proper. Dirty slut, he called her.’
‘She won’t do for him what I did, that’s certain,’ said Annie bitterly.
‘Shouting and banging until early morning – we all heard it.’ She
counted purl, plain, purl, and added: ‘Don’t last long, do it? Six months he’s been with her now?’
‘He never lifted his hand to me,
that’s
certain,’ said Annie victoriously. ‘Never. I’ve got my pride, if others haven’t.’
‘That’s right, love. Two purl. One plain.’
‘Nasty temper he’s got. I’d be up summer and winter at four, cleaning those offices till ten, then cleaning for Mrs Lynd till dinnertime. Then if he got home and found his dinner not ready, he’d start to shout and carry on – well, I’d say, if you can’t wait five minutes, get home and cook it yourself, I’d say. I bring in as much as you do, don’t I? But he never lifted a finger. Bone lazy. Men are all the same.’
Mary gave her friend a swift, searching glance, then murmured, ‘Eh, you can’t tell
me
…’
‘I’d have the kids and the cleaning and the cooking, and working all day – sometimes when he was unemployed I’d bring in all the money … and he wouldn’t even put the kettle on for me. Women’s work, he said.’
‘Two purl, plain.’ But Mary’s kindly face seemed to suggest that she was waiting to say something else. ‘We all know what it is,’ she agreed at last, patiently.
Annie rose lightly, pulled the shrieking kettle off the flame, and reached for the teapot. Seen from the back, she looked twenty, slim and erect. When she turned with the steaming pot, she caught a glimpse of herself; she set down the pot and went to the mirror. She stood touching her face anxiously. ‘Look at me!’ She pushed a long, sagging curl into position, then shrugged. ‘Well, who’s to care what I look like anyway?’
She began setting out the cups. She had a thin face, sharpened by worry, and small sharp blue eyes. As she sat down, she nervously felt her hair. ‘I must get the curlers on to my hair,’ she muttered.
‘Heard from the boys?’
Annie’s hand fell and clenched itself on the table. ‘Not a word from Charlie for months. They don’t think … he’ll turn up one fine day and expect his place laid, if I know my Charlie. Tommy’s after a job in Manchester, Mrs Thomas said. But I had a nice letter
from Dick …’ Her face softened; her eyes were soft and reminiscent. ‘He wrote about his father. Should he come down and speak to the old so and so for me, he said. I wrote back and said that was no way to speak of his father. He should respect him, I said, no matter what he’s done. It’s not his place to criticize his father, I said.’
‘You’re lucky in your boys, Annie.’
‘They’re good workers, no one can say they aren’t. And they’ve never done anything they shouldn’t. They don’t take after their dad,
that’s
certain.’
At this, Mary’s eyes showed a certain tired irony. ‘Eh, Annie – but we all do things we shouldn’t.’ This gaining no response from the bitter Annie, she added cautiously, ‘I saw him this morning in the street.’
Annie’s cup clattered down into the saucer. ‘Was he alone?’
‘No. But he took me aside – he said I could give you a message if I was passing this way – he might be dropping in this evening instead of tomorrow with your money, he said. Thursday
she
goes to her mother’s – I suppose he thinks while the cat’s away …’
Annie had risen, in a panic. She made herself sit down again and stirred her tea. The spoon tinkled in the cup with the quivering of her hand. ‘He’s regular with the money, anyway,’ she said heavily. ‘I didn’t have to take him into court. He offered. And I suppose he needn’t, now the boys are out keeping themselves.’
‘He still feels for you, Annie …’ Mary was leaning forward, speaking in a direct appeal. ‘He does, really.’
‘He never felt for anyone but himself,’ snapped Annie. ‘Never.’
Mary let a sigh escape her. ‘Oh, well …’ she murmured. ‘Well, I’ll be getting along to do the supper.’ She stuffed her knitting into her carryall and said consolingly: ‘You’re lucky. No one to get after you if you feel like sitting a bit. No one to worry about but yourself …’
‘Oh, don’t think I’m wasting any tears over
him.
I’m taking it easy for the first time in my life. You slave your life out for your man and your kids. Then off they go, with not so much as a thank you. Now I can please myself.’
‘I wouldn’t mind being in your place,’ said Mary loyally. At the door she remarked, apparently at random, ‘Your floor’s so clean you could eat off it.’
The moment Mary was gone, Annie rushed into her apron and began sweeping. She got down on her knees to polish the floor, and then took off her dress and washed herself at the sink. She combed her dragging wisps of pale hair and did each one up neatly with a pin till her face was surrounded by a ring of little sausages. She put back her dress and sat down at the table. Not a moment too soon. The door opened, and Rob Blake stood there.
He was a thin, rather stooping man, with an air of apology. He said politely, ‘You busy, Annie?’
‘Sit down,’ she commanded sharply. He stooped loosely in the doorway for a moment, then came forward, minding his feet. Even so she winced as she saw the dusty marks on the gleaming linoleum. ‘Take it easy,’ he said with friendly sarcasm. ‘You can put up with my dust once a week, can’t you?’
She smiled stiffly, her blue eyes fastened anxiously on him, while he pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, Annie?’
To this conciliatory opening she did not respond. After a moment she remarked, ‘I heard from Dick. He’s thinking of getting married.’
‘Getting married, now? That puts us on the shelf, don’t it?’
‘You’re
not on any shelf that I can see,’ she snapped.
‘Now – Annie …’ he deprecated, with an appealing smile. She showed no signs of softening. Seeing her implacable face, his smile faded, and he took an envelope from his pocket and pushed it over.
‘Thanks,’ she said, hardly glancing at it. Then that terrible bitterness came crowding up, and he heard the words: ‘If you can spare it from
her
.’
He let that one pass; he looked steadily at his wife, as if seeking a way past that armour of anger. He watched her, passing the tip of his tongue nervously over his lips.
‘Some women know how to keep themselves free from kids and responsibilities. They just do this and that, and take up with anyone they please. None of the dirty work for
them
.’
He gave a sigh, and was on the point of getting up, when she demanded, ‘Like a cuppa tea?’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He let himself sink back again.
While she worked at the stove, her back to him, he was looking around the kitchen; his face had a look of tired, disappointed irony. An ageing man, but with a dogged set to his shoulders. Trying to find the right words, he remarked, ‘Not so much work for you now, Annie.’
But she did not answer. She returned with the two cups and put the sugar into his for him. This wifely gesture encouraged him. ‘Annie,’ he began, ‘Annie – can’t we talk this over …’ He was stirring the tea clumsily, not looking at it, leaning forward. The cup knocked over. ‘Oh, look what you’ve done,’ she cried out. ‘Just look at the mess.’ She snatched up a cloth and wiped the table.
‘It’s only a drop of tea, Annie,’ he protested at last, shrinking a little aside from her furious energy.
‘Only a drop of tea – I can polish and clean half the day, and then in a minute the place is like a pig sty.’
His face darkened with remembered irritation.
‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ she went on accusingly, ‘she lets the beds lie until dinner, and the place isn’t cleaned from one week to the next.’
‘At least she cares more for me than she does for a clean floor,’ he shouted. Now they looked at each other with hatred.
At this delicate moment there came a shout: ‘Rob. Rob!’
She laughed angrily. ‘She’s got you where she wants you – waits and spies on you and now she comes after you.’
‘Rob! You there, Rob?’ It was a loud, confident, female voice.
‘She sounds just what she is, a proper …’
‘Shut up,’ he interrupted. He was breathing heavily. ‘You keep that tongue of yours quiet, now.’
Her eyes were full of tears, but the blue shone through, bright and vengeful. ‘“Rob, Rob” – and off you trot like a little dog.’
He got up from the table heavily, as a loud knock came at the door.
Annie’s mouth quivered at the insult of it. And
his
first instinct was to stand by her – she could see that. He looked apologetically
at her, then went to the door, opened it an inch, and said in a low, furious voice: ‘Don’t you do that now. Do you hear me!’ He shut the door, leaned against it, facing Annie. ‘Annie,’ he said again, in an awkward appeal. ‘Annie …’
But she sat at her table, hands folded in a trembling knot before her, her face tight and closed against him.
‘Oh, all right!’ he said at last despairingly, angry. ‘You’ve always got to be in the right about everything, haven’t you? That’s all that matters to you – if you’re in the right. Bloody plaster saint, you are.’ He went out quickly.
She sat quite still, listening until it was quiet. Then she drew a deep breath and put her two fists to her cheeks, as if trying to keep them still. She was sitting thus when Mary Brooke came in. ‘You let him go?’ she said incredulously.
‘And good riddance, too.’
Mary shrugged. Then she suggested bravely, ‘You shouldn’t be so hard on him, Annie – give him a chance.’
‘I’d see him dead first,’ said Annie through shaking lips. Then: ‘I’m forty-five, and I might as well be on the dust heap.’ And then, after a pause, in a remote, cold voice: ‘We’ve been together twenty-five years. Three kids. And then he goes off with that … with that …’
‘You’re well rid of him, and that’s a fact,’ agreed Mary swiftly.
‘Yes. I am, and I know it …’ Annie was swaying from side to side in her chair. Her face was stony, but the tears were trickling steadily down, following a path worn from nose to chin. They rolled off and splashed on to her white collar.
‘Annie,’ implored her friend. ‘Annie …’
Annie’s face quivered, and Mary was across the room and had her in her arms. ‘That’s right, love, that’s right, that’s right, love,’ she crooned.
‘I don’t know what gets into me,’ wept Annie, her voice coming muffled from Mary’s large shoulder. ‘I can’t keep my wicked tongue still. He’s fed up and sick of that – cow, and I drive him away. I can’t help it. I don’t know what gets into me.’
‘There now, love, there now, love.’ The big, fat, comfortable
woman was rocking the frail Annie like a baby. ‘Take it easy, love. He’ll be back, you’ll see.’
‘You think he will?’ asked Annie, lifting her face up to see if her friend was lying to comfort her.
‘Would you like me to go and see if I can fetch him back for you now?’
In spite of her longing, Annie hesitated. ‘Do you think it’ll be all right?’ she said doubtfully.
‘I’ll go and slip in a word when
she’s
not around.’
‘Will you do that, Mary?’
Mary got up, patting her crumpled dress. ‘You wait here, love,’ she said imploringly. She went to the door and said as she went out: ‘Take it easy, now, Annie. Give him a chance.’
‘I go running after him to ask him back?’ Annie’s pride spoke out of her wail.
‘Do you want him back or don’t you?’ demanded Mary, patient to the last, although there was a hint of exasperation now. Annie did not say anything, so Mary went running out.
Annie sat still, watching the door tensely. But vague, rebellious, angry thoughts were running through her head: If I want to keep him, I can’t ever say what I think, I can’t ever say what’s true – I’m nothing to him but a convenience, but if I say so he’ll just up and off …
But that was not the whole truth; she remembered the affection in his face, and for a moment the bitterness died. Then she remembered her long hard life, the endless work, work, work – she remembered, all at once, as if she were feeling it now, her aching back when the children were small; she could see him lying on the bed reading the newspaper when she could hardly drag herself … It’s all very well, she cried out to herself, it’s not right, it just isn’t right … A terrible feeling of injustice was gripping her; and it was just this feeling she must push down, keep under, if she wanted him. For she knew finally – and this was stronger than anything else – that without him there would be no meaning in her life at all.
Rose’s mother was killed one morning crossing the street to do her shopping. Rose was fetched from work, and a young policeman, awkward with sympathy, asked questions and finally said: ‘You ought to tell your Dad, miss, he ought to know.’ It had struck him as strange that she had not suggested it, but behaved as if the responsibility for everything must of course be hers. He thought Rose was too composed to be natural. Her mouth was set and there was a strained look in her eyes. He insisted; Rose sent a message to her father; but when he came she put him straight into bed with a cup of tea. Mr Johnson was a plump, fair little man, with wisps of light hair lying over a rosy scalp, and blue, candid, trustful eyes. Then she came back to the kitchen and her manner told the policeman that she expected him to leave. From the door he said diffidently: ‘Well, I’m sorry, miss, I’m really sorry. A terrible thing – you can’t rightly blame the lorry-driver, and your mum – it wasn’t her fault, either.’ Rose turned her white, shaken face, her cold and glittering eyes towards him and said tartly: ‘Being sorry doesn’t mend broken bones.’ That last phrase seemed to take her by surprise, for she winced, her face worked in a rush of tears, and then she clenched her jaw again. ‘Them lorries,’ she said heavily, ‘them machines, they ought to be stopped, that’s what I think.’ This irrational remark encouraged the policeman: it was nearer to the tears, the emotion that he thought would be good for her. He remarked encouragingly: ‘I daresay, miss, but we couldn’t do without them, could we now?’ Rose’s face did not change. She said politely: ‘Yes?’ It was sceptical and dismissing; that monosyllable said finally: ‘You keep your opinions, I’ll keep mine.’ It examined and dismissed the whole machine age. The young policeman, still
lingering over his duty, suggested: ‘Isn’t there anybody to come and sit with you? You don’t look too good, miss, and that’s a fact.’
‘There isn’t anybody,’ said Rose briefly, and added: ‘I’m all right.’ She sounded irritated, and so he left. She sat down at the table and was shocked at herself for what she had said. She thought: I ought to tell George … But she did not move. She stared vaguely around the kitchen, her mind dimly churning around several ideas. One was that her father had taken it hard, she would have her hands full with him. Another, that policemen, officials – they were all nosy parkers, knowing what was best for everybody. She found herself staring at a certain picture on the wall, and thinking: ‘Now I can take that picture down. Now she’s gone I can do what I like.’ She felt a little guilty, but almost at once she briskly rose and took the picture down. It was of a battleship in a stormy sea, and she hated it. She put it away in a cupboard. Then the white empty square on the wall troubled her, and she replaced it by a calendar with yellow roses on it. Then she made herself a cup of tea and began cooking her father’s supper, thinking: I’ll wake him up and make him eat, do him good to have a bite of something hot.
At supper her father asked: ‘Where’s George?’ Her face closed against him in irritation and she said: ‘I don’t know.’ He was surprised and shocked, and he protested: ‘But Rosie, you ought to tell him, it’s only right.’ Now, it was against this knowledge that she had been arming herself all day; but she knew that sooner or later she must tell George, and when she had finished the washing-up she took a sheet of writing-paper from the drawer of the dresser and sat down to write. She was as surprised as her father was: Why didn’t she want to tell George? Her father said, with the characteristic gentle protest: ‘But, Rosie, why don’t you give him a ring at the factory? They’d give him the message.’ Rosie made as if she had not heard. She finished the letter, found some coppers in her bag for a stamp and went out to post it. Afterwards she found herself thinking of George’s arrival with the reluctance that deserved the name of fear. She could not understand herself, and soon went to bed in order to lose herself in sleep. She dreamed of the lorry that had killed her mother; she dreamed, too, of an enormous black
machine, relentlessly moving its great arms back and forth, back and forth, in a way that was menacing to Rose.
George found the letter when he returned from work the following evening. His first thought was: ‘Why couldn’t she have got killed next week, after we were married, instead of now?’ He was shocked at the cruel and selfish idea. But he and Rose had been going together now for three years, and he could not help feeling that it was cruel of fate to cloud their wedding with this terrible, senseless death. He had not liked Rose’s mother: he thought her a fussy and domineering woman; but to be killed like that, all of a sudden, in her vigorous fifties – He thought suddenly: ‘Poor little Rosie, she’ll be upset bad, and there’s her Dad, he’s just like a big baby; I’d better get to her quick.’ He was putting the letter in his pocket when it struck him: ‘Why did she write? Why didn’t she telephone to the works?’ He looked at the letter and saw that Mrs Johnson had been killed as long ago as yesterday morning. At first he was too astonished to be angry; then he was extraordinarily angry. ‘What!’ he muttered, ‘why the hell – what’s she doing?’ He was a member of the family, wasn’t he? – or as good as. And she wrote him stiff little letters, beginning
Dear George,
and ending,
Rose
– no love, not even a sincerely. But underneath the anger he was deeply dismayed. He was remembering that there had been a listlessness, an apathy about her recently that could almost be taken as indifference. For instance, when he took her to see the two rooms that would be their home, she had made all kinds of objections instead of being as delighted as he was. ‘Look at all those stairs,’ she had said, ‘it’s so high up,’ and so on. You might almost think she wasn’t keen on marrying him – but this idea was insupportable, and he abandoned it quickly. He remembered that at the beginning, three years ago, she had pleaded for them to marry at once; she didn’t mind taking a chance, she had said; lots of people got married on less money than they had. But he was a cautious man and he talked her into waiting for some kind of security. That’s where he made his mistake, he decided now; he should have taken her at her word and married her straight off, and then … He hastened across London to comfort Rose; and all the time his
thoughts of her were uneasy and aggrieved; and he felt as anxious as a lost child.
When he entered the kitchen it was with no clear idea of what to expect; but he was surprised to find her seated at her usual place at the table, her hands folded idly before her, pale, heavy-lidded, but quite composed. The kitchen was spotless and there was a smell of soapsuds and clean warmth. Evidently the place had just been given a good scrub.
Rose turned heavy eyes on him and said: ‘It was good of you to come over, George.’
He had been going to give her a comforting kiss, but this took him by surprise. His feelings of outrage deepened. ‘Hey,’ he said, accusingly, ‘what’s all this, Rosie, why didn’t you let me know?’
She looked upset, but said, evasively: ‘It was all over so quick, and they took her away – there didn’t seem no point in getting you disturbed too.’
George pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. He had thought that there was nothing new to learn about Rose, after three years. But now he was giving her troubled and apprehensive glances; she seemed a stranger. In appearance she was small and dark, rather too thin. She had a sharp, pale face, with an irregular prettiness about it. She usually wore a dark skirt and a white blouse. She would sit up at night to wash and iron the blouse so that it would always be fresh. This freshness, the neatness, was her strongest characteristic. ‘You look as if you could be pulled through a hedge backwards and come out with every hair in order,’ he used to tease her. To which she might reply: ‘Don’t make me laugh. How could I?’ She would be quite serious; and at such moments he might sigh, humorously, admitting that she had no sense of humour. But really he liked her seriousness, her calm practicality: he relied on it. Now he said, rather helplessly: ‘Don’t take on, Rosie, everything’s all right.’
‘I’m not taking on,’ she replied unnecessarily, looking quietly at him, or rather, through him, with an air of patient waiting. He was now more apprehensive than angry. ‘How’s your Dad?’ he asked.
‘I’ve put him to bed with a nice cup of tea.’
‘How’s he taking it?’
She seemed to shrug. ‘Well, he’s upset, but he’s getting over it now.’
And now, for the life of him, he could think of nothing to say. The clock’s ticking seemed very loud, and he shifted his feet noisily. After a long silence he said aggressively: ‘This won’t make any difference to us, it’ll be all right next week, Rosie?’
He knew that it wasn’t all right when, after a further pause, she turned her eyes towards him with a full, dark, vague stare: ‘Oh, well, I don’t know …’
‘What do you mean?’ he challenged quickly, leaning across at her, forcibly, so that she might be made to respond: ‘What do you mean, Rosie, let us have it now.’
‘Well – there’s Dad,’ she replied, with that maddening vagueness.
‘You mean we shan’t get married?’ he shouted angrily. ‘Three years, Rosie …’ As her silence persisted: ‘Your Dad can live with us. Or – he might be getting married again – or something.’
Suddenly she laughed, and he winced; her moments of rough humour always disconcerted him. At the same time they pained him because they seemed brutal. ‘You mean to say,’ she said, clumsily jeering, ‘you mean you hope he gets married again, even if no one else’d ever think of it.’ But her eyes were filled with tears. They were lonely and self-sufficing tears. He slowly fell back into his chair, letting his hands drop loosely. He simply could not understand it. He could not understand her. It flashed into his mind that she intended not to marry him at all, but this was too monstrous a thought, and he comforted himself: ‘She’ll be all right by tomorrow, it’s the shock, that’s all. She liked her ma, really, even though they scrapped like two cats.’ He was just going to say: ‘Well, if I can’t do anything I’ll be getting along; I’ll come and see you tomorrow,’ when she asked him carefully, as if it were an immense effort for her to force her attention on to him: ‘Would you like a cuppa tea?’
‘Rose!’ he shouted miserably.
‘What?’ She sounded unhappy but stubborn; and she was unreachable, shut off from him behind a barrier of – what? He did not
know. ‘Oh, go to hell then,’ he muttered, and got up and stamped out of the kitchen. At the door he gave her an appealing glance, but she was not looking at him. He slammed the door hard. Afterwards he thought guiltily: She’s upset, and then I treat her bad.
But Rose did not think of him when he had gone. She remained where she was, for some time, looking vaguely at the calendar with the yellow roses. Then she got up, washed her hands, hung her apron on the hook behind the door, as usual, and went to bed. ‘That’s over,’ she said to herself, meaning George. She began to cry. She knew she would not marry him – rather,
could
not marry him. She did not know why this was impossible or why she was crying: she could not understand her own behaviour. Up till so few hours before she had been going to marry George, live with him in the little flat: everything was settled. Yet, from the moment she had heard the shocked voices saying outside in the street: Mrs Johnson’s dead, she’s been killed – from that moment, or so it seemed now, it had become impossible to marry George. One day he had meant everything to her, he represented her future, and the next, he meant nothing. The knowledge was shocking to her; above all she prided herself on being a sensible person; the greatest praise she could offer was: ‘You’ve got sense,’ or ‘I like people to behave proper, no messing about.’ And what she felt was not sensible, therefore, she could not think too closely about it. She cried for a long time, stifling her sobs so that her father could not hear them where he lay through the wall. Then she lay awake and stared at the square of light that showed chimney-pots and the dissolving yellowish clouds of a rainy London dawn, scolding herself scornfully: What’s the good of crying? while she mopped up the tears that rose steadily under her lids and soaked down her cheeks to the already damp pillow.
Next morning when her father asked over breakfast cups: ‘Rosie, what are you going to do about George?’ she replied calmly, ‘It’s all right, he came last night and I told him.’
‘You told him what?’ He spoke cautiously. His round, fresh face
looked troubled, the clear, rather childlike blue eyes were not altogether approving. His workmates knew him as a jaunty, humorous man with a warm, quick laugh and ingrained opinions about life and politics. In his home he was easy and uncritical. He had been married for twenty-five years to a woman who had outwardly let him do as he pleased while taking all the responsibility on herself. He knew this. He used to say of his wife: ‘Once she’s got an idea into her head you might as well whistle at a wall!’ And now he was looking at his daughter as he had at the mother. He did not know what she had planned, but he knew nothing he said would make any difference.
‘Everything’s all right, Dad,’ Rose said quietly.
I daresay, he thought; but what’s it all about? He asked: ‘You don’t have to get ideas into your head about not getting married. I’m easy.’ Without looking at him she filled his cup with the strong, brown, sweet tea he loved, and said again: ‘It’s all right.’ He persisted: ‘You don’t want to make any mistakes now, Rosie, you’re upset, and you want to give yourself time to have a good think about things.’
To this there was no reply at all. He sighed and took his newspaper to the fire. It was Sunday. Rosie was cooking the dinner when George came in. Jem, the father, turned his back on the couple, having nodded at George, thus indicating that as far as he was concerned they were alone. He was thinking: George’s a good bloke, she’s a fool if she gives him up.
‘Well, Rosie?’ said George, challengingly, the misery of the sleepless night bursting out of him.
‘Well what?’ temporized Rose, wiping dishes. She kept her head lowered and her face was pale and set hard. Confronted thus, with George’s unhappiness, her decision did not seem so secure. She wanted to cry. She could not afford to cry now, in front of him. She went to the window so that her back might be turned to him. It was a deep basement, and she looked up at the rubbish-can and railings showing dirty black against the damp, grey houses opposite. This had been her view of the world since she could remember. She
heard George saying, uncertainly: ‘You marry me on Wednesday, the way we fixed it, and your Dad’ll be all right, he can stay here or live with us, just as you like.’