Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (27 page)

‘That’s according to
Inside
Information,’ said Mr. Sounder, trying again. . . .

To which the Governor, once more, replied ‘Yes. . . .’

The afternoon was dark and foggy. He was at the appointed place at the appointed time, and five minutes later she came strolling along. This was the second appointment she had not broken, and, seeing her smiling on him again, he could almost believe that she was beginning to take this affair in earnest.

‘Where shall we go?’ he said, in the noise of the Haymarket traffic.

She explained that she wished to meet a girl friend in Soho and that they could have tea in a little place she knew. . . . Having no idea of what kind of place this was, and being naturally interested in her backgrounds, he consented. She took his arm, and they walked along in silence.

‘I’m afraid I ain’t got that job,’ she said. . . .

He had expected nothing else, and found himself grateful, even, that she had regarded the matter so seriously as to bring it up for discussion so early.

‘I didn’t think you would.’

‘I’m ever so sorry,’ she said.

‘Yes. It is a nuisance. Not your fault, though.’

‘I ’phoned them up, just as you said, an’ they said it had gone.’

They were walking up Wardour Street.

‘I’ll have to give you back that ten pounds,’ she said, ‘now.’

‘Ohno. No need for that.’

‘Ohyes there is.’

‘No, there ain’t. Perhaps you’ll get another job soon.’

‘Well, I’ll try. I’d do anything for you, Bob. You know that – don’t you?’

What was this? She had never volunteered anything quite like that before. Was it possible that, after all his great travail, his reward was coming? Could it be that he had won through, that he had earned, by persistence, her love? It almost looked like it. Twice running she had kept her appointments. Twice running she had relented thus.

‘I wonder,’ he said.

‘Well, I would, so there,’ she said. ‘And you
know
I love you – don’t you? – you know I love you
now
. . . .’

Now! The word was charged with breathless potentialities. It endorsed his new hypothesis: it at last gave realism to her declarations! Never before (and he had known it only too well) – but
now
, perhaps!

‘Only now?’ he said.

‘P’raps so,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see it?’

‘Oh, darling,’ he said, foolishly, and felt for her hand. Immediately it was intertwined with his own. ‘Silly old Bob,’ she said, and he bathed in a roseate and all-surrounding happiness. He forgot all else, and for the moment there was no alloy. He recognized the scene: he had seen it on the stage, read of it in books – the wearied lover at last rewarded, the wayward girl at last succumbing.

‘Oh, darling!’ he said, again, and pressed her hand. ‘It’s you that’s the darling,’ she said. ‘And I’ll darling you all right when we go away.’

‘Are we going away?’

‘Well, you said we were. You said we was going after Christmas.’

‘Oh, Jenny – we can! If you’ll come! An’ do you realize it’s only next Wednesday, Boxing Day. I’ve got a week from then.’

‘That’s right. An’ where’re you going to take me?’

‘Well – anything wrong with Brighton?’

‘Oo! – I’m not so sure about Brighton.’

‘Why not, Jenny?’

‘Too many girls at Brighton. I don’t think I’d have my Bob safe enough.’

‘Oh, Jenny. I’m safe anywhere with you.’

‘If any girl comes along,’ said Jenny, solemnly, ‘an’ tries to steal my Bob, I’d tear her eyes out.’

‘Oh, Jenny. They couldn’t.’

‘Well,’ said Jenny, ‘they’d better not try.’

This was growing absurd. To think, that in one brief walk, from the Haymarket to Soho, he could be lifted from an inferno into heaven! He had not a care in the world! She loved him at last! This was the final climax of all.

‘You haven’t reckoned with me,’ said Jenny, exceeding excess in her bestowal of bliss. ‘I’ve got a very jealous nature.’

‘Oh, Jenny. I’m willing to take it on.’

‘An’ you don’t know what you’re takin’ on, Bob, I can tell you. I hope you won’t regret it.’

It had come to that. She was dubious of the future. All the barriers were down. They were as good as wedded. They were reckoning with their temperaments.

‘Oh, Jenny – tell me you love me.’

‘I love you a whole lot too much, that’s what’s the matter with me. And you’ll know it, all right.’

So had the tables turned, that he became almost afraid. Perhaps, one day, this dreadful flower of the underworld actually would tear other girls’ eyes out. Perhaps he would be unable to cope with her violence. He remembered Prunella and Sammy. To what was he committing himself?

These vague misgivings were not decreased as she stopped outside a little curtained window (inscribed ‘Coffee Bar’) in Soho – told him that this was them, and led him through a door to what he immediately recognized as something perfectly typical of her own haunts – to wit, a thieves’ den, and full of thieves.

A
NARROW, LONG, DREARY
, bareboarded, and resounding little den, with marble-topped tables each side, and one gas mantle at the back, lit against the fog and darkness of the afternoon. On Jenny’s entrance there was a kind of ironic cheer of welcome.

‘Seen Petal?’ she asked, but was answered with guffaws. Of Bob, an interloper, no kind of notice was taken.

At the back, under the light, was a bar, and on it two silver urns, steaming with coffee and tea – also cheese cakes, sandwiches, and a bowl of sugar.

Little could be seen of the bar, however, it being temporarily under the dominance of that noisiest of the criminal elements – a gang of lusty young Jews, who boasted, laughed, postured, Charlestoned, and scrapped humorously amongst themselves in their habitual high-spirited manner. Wearing breathlessly tight suits, silken (but far from spotless) shirts, and soft collars (with perpendicular stripes) to match, they were juvenile and as yet more or less amateur – the type that aspires to Cars, but is making do at present with fur coats, brooches, scarves, watches, and is not above an occasional umbrella. All this was done, however, rather in the ebullience of youth than in any studied and intentioned felony: they were young brigands rather than crooks, and would probably end, not in jail, but business.

The rest were seated at the tables. There was a painted young woman of about fifty-two, with a figure about three times the size of that of the ordinary woman, and such as only the impecunious taxi driver could love: there were one or two young things as slim and fresh as Jenny, though more Glaring (as she would say): and the men varied accordingly, and were of all classes. There were paper sellers, unemployed mechanics, pickpockets, Jews, a gentleman resembling a bruiser, and two or three nondescript down-and-outs. In the corner was a clean-shaven, neatly dressed little man in a bowler hat, described later by Jenny as a Confidence Man, and now talking (confidentially) to a sly youth of about thirty
who looked as though he lived upon the immoral earnings of women, and did.

‘Petal,’ for whom Jenny had asked, was not there, but there was a table vacant, and Jenny asked Bob if he minded staying, as she wanted to see her bad about a dress. He went to the bar, and brought her tea. They could hardly hear each other in all the noise but she endeavoured to entertain him.

‘This place is called “
Billy
’
s
,”’ she said. ‘I often come in here.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Rather a Rough Crowd, I’m afraid. But that’s the sort of life I lead.’

He answered courteously, but secretly wondered whether any crowd, outside a jail, could be rougher. It had already cast the old gloom over his soul, and the old, old question beset him. Would this ever end? It seemed as though she were some alluring and irresistible pilot, leading him on and downwards (for his sins and weakness) through every circle of hell – to atmospheres which formed her own sorrowful lot, but in which he could hardly breathe.

Why had he pitted himself against all the accepted facts? Any fledgeling could have told him from the first what he was now learning with such cost and pain – that women of the streets were of and for the streets, and that love of such was inconceivable – unnegotiable – mere despair and degradation. She had even told him so herself when he first knew her. And yet, like a child of eighteen, he had thought that in his own case it would be different.

But had he not been justified? She had promised to be his, and his alone. But what did that mean? The briefest analysis revealed the unreality of it all.
When
was she going to be his – and how? What intentions, prospects, had either of them? It was a foggy afternoon, and in an hour he would have to return to work. . . . She sat there so calmly. . . . What on earth were they both doing in this place?

The same old thoughts – on and on – round and round.

‘Oh, Jenny,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Can’t we get out of here? I hate it.’

‘What – don’t you like it?’

‘No. Jenny. I don’t.’

‘All right, then. We’ll go. Come along.’

And, to his infinite astonishment, she rose.

‘I
WANTED TO DO
some shopping in any case,’ she said, and again took his arm. They walked on in the direction of Berwick Street.

‘I want to get you away from all that sort of thing, Jenny,’ he said. ‘I want to take you right away.’

‘I know, dear. An’ you’re goin’ to – aren’t you?’

‘Yes. An’ we’re goin’ away next week, aren’t we?’

‘That’s right, dear.’

‘Just for one week. An’ I’m goin’ to make you real happy. You see if I don’t.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes. Just to show what it might be. I don’t mind how much money I spend – so long as you’re happy. An’ after that you’ll come back, an’ get a job, an’ everything’ll be different.’

‘I won’t let you spend too much money,’ said Jenny.

‘I will, though. This holiday means everything. We’ll be all alone, an’ together, an’ we can talk it all out. We don’t know each other yet, Jenny. But we will when we’ve done.’

‘I know quite enough about my Bob already.’

‘Darling. . . .’ His own words had expanded him. This holiday idea was tremendous. It was near and real – credible. It offered a week’s calm – haven from the rough storms of his passion. But it was more than that – it might very well be the salvation of the situation. He would be with her constantly, and they could survey themselves, talk it out.

And there was more than that, too. Jenny herself – his own sweet drug, his lovely and tantalizing poison – transcended
every other consideration. For a week she would be his – his own. He could barely think about it.

‘Oh, Jenny, dear.’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘I don’t know what’ll happen when I get you to myself.’

‘Don’t you?’

And she drew up closer to him, with sweet promise of herself.

They had reached Berwick Street. In love there are few things more tender, pleasant, and intimate than to go shopping with the one you love. ‘I ain’t half got a lot of things to get,’ said Jenny (who had a list), and the words thrilled him. To be thus taken behind the scenes, to follow her round in shop after shop, to be made to carry her flippant purchases (for nothing that so pretty a woman could buy could be anything but flippant); to have revealed, in so confidential a way, all her unimagined and yet so ordinary requirements – it was all exhilarating beyond measure. It was an excursion into a new side of her personality.

And, indeed, this was a new Jenny. She was methodical but civil, economic but affable, precise in manner but radiant in beauty. There was Cocoa, Apples, Oranges, Stamps, to Call for Prunella’s Jumper, and Notepaper. Nobody could play any tricks on her, but nobody could desire to. She knew what she wanted, and in what order she wanted it, but looked for a long while in windows, and deferred to Bob on knotty points. And all the shopkeepers saw how lovely she was, but she was his. By the time she was done, Bob was laden with parcels (the very chains and weights of pure domesticity) and with a clearer and more healthful soul than he had had for months.

By this time, also, he had only twenty minutes more, but they were going to walk together up to ‘The Midnight Bell.’ She took his arm, carried some of the parcels, displayed every conceivable charm, and suddenly told him that Christmas Eve was her birthday.

‘What – Christmas Eve?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Jenny. I’ll have to get you something great for that.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not to get me anything. You’ve got to save your money now.’

‘I’ll get you something, all the same.’

‘No you won’t. Listen to me – if you go and get me something I’ll throw it away. There.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Yes. I will.’

‘No you won’t.’

‘Yes I will.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Bob. ‘They’re giving me Christmas Eve off. I’ll take you out for a birthday party, shall I? We’ll go somewhere real nice.’

‘Oo – where’ll you take me, Bob?’

‘Never mind,’ said Bob. ‘It’ll be a real surprise. An’ then we’ll go on an’ dance. What about that?’

‘Fine. Only you’re not to spend too much money.’

And walking along Bob honestly believed that the dawn had come.

A
T SIX THIRTY, ON
Christmas Eve, Bob dressed in his little room.

Christmas Eve – the anniversary of an apparently meaningless, wicked, and obscure event – Jenny’s birth in the world!

But only so apparently, for love, which achieves all things, had mended her ills. In his love for her, and her love for him (thought Bob) she was redeemed. She had been born, not to sin and death, but to light and console, with the brightness of her beauty, and the gentleness of her being, the existence of another. He redeemed her, and she redeemed him: and she was his own dear Jenny.

He had only this afternoon been down to the bank and cashed a cheque for twenty-five pounds. A hideous amount, he knew – but he did not regret a penny of the expenditure. For a week life was to be his, and there were going to be no mistakes. He rejoiced in his expenditure.