A Day Off Page 3

  Some women would have skinned him properly, and serve him right. They deserve to be skinned for the way they treat us, married to them or not married, it’s all the same. If there’s a meaner creature on God’s earth than a man I only hope I never meet it.

  Upright, she looked about her with a bold unheeding stare. Her eyes were gipsy brown and hard. They had seen everything and nothing, so that behind them were stored innumerable copies of the same object, of no further use, collecting dust.

  The warmth pressed in on her through the mesh of the leaves. Looking up, she could see the edges of leaves drawn with a hard line on the blue. The intense burning colour poured round them like molten lava. Flies hovered, falling and rising, in the sunlight below the shaggy pent of the trees.

  For some reason she felt less angry with George. Her mind had been bumbling round like a bee in a clover-field, now it knocked clumsily against something—against the hot, draughty shop in Tottenham Court Road and her meeting George. People came and went, the door swung, opened, shut; each time she moved forward to serve she felt a knife through her feet. She tried pressing her hands on the counter to take the weight. But it was no use, they throbbed worse every moment, and the only thing she could do was to stand and pray for closing time. “Crawl home on me hands and knees,” she whispered to Miss Lewis, who knew what she was going through. She nodded and said Thuh! That was sympathy and a fat lot of good it was. Oh they were chronic.

  The door opened again and a man came in. He looked, fingering them, at a pile of gloves. “I want some gloves, please.” He had a low, easy voice.

  She pulled the box nearer. “These are slightly marked. See?” Glancing over his shoulder she could see his back reflected in the glass. Holds himself badly, she thought. She felt an immediate interest in him when he opened the door and now, watching him furtively, she saw that he had a white romantic face, dark eyes, dark hair brushed back with oil. It lay in thick glossy ridges raked by the comb. He took up gloves and laid them down again, anxious and doubtful.

  “What is it you want?” she asked, speaking to him in a low confidential voice. You’re not used to this, I can see. Wife died lately, perhaps, you miss her. “Kid or suede? Brown?”

  “I don’t know,” he said petulantly.

  “See here’s a pair hardly touched. One yellow stain. See? Like them?”

  He looked at her. “You choose me something.”

  She glanced round her. Miss Lewis had gone with a customer to the far end of the shop. “Very well,” she said quietly, looking into his face, quietly smiling. “You’ll have to tell me your size, though.”

  “But I don’t know that, either.” He was half laughing himself and held his hand out for her to measure.

  She turned it over gently. “Double your fingers.” He did nothing, letting his hand stay limply on the counter. With another swift glance to see that Miss Lewis was still occupied she took hold of it and doubled the fingers under. “Now,” she said, giving him a light pat. She tried the glove over his knuckles. Long lovely fingers he had, with two lines of fine black hairs on the back of his hand. “These go right the way up?” she asked, smiling into his face.

  “Like to see?”

  “Like to show me?” It was all easy, and the usual thing. She had nearly forgotten how bad her feet were until they reminded her. But the gloves fitted. She eased them onto his hands, buttoned one, and gripped the edge of the counter.

  “What time d’you close, eh?”

  My feet, she thought quickly. I’ll have to bear it. I—“Why, about seven,” she said in a low voice.

  “Not before then, eh?”

  “We stay back an hour to clear the shop,” she lied.

  He pulled his lip. “All right. Where’ll I see you?”

  She asked him to wait for her near the tube station. When the old ape came through the shop at six, to lock the door, she had her hat on, ready. She had a pair of new fawn stockings in her pocket. “I haven’t seen you waiting outside to start in the mornings,” he said, looking at her as nasty as you’d want. If he could hear what I think of him, the nasty old ape; for two pins I’d tell him would I—here Miss Lewis came up to her with a sickly smile and offered to help her home. No thanks, I said. The other woman looked at her queerly.

  Lips pressed to keep back the groans she walked down the street to the tube station and asked the woman there in the lavatory if she could soak her feet. The woman knew her from a year ago. “I’ve been on them all day,” she said, letting out a groan. “That’s something cruel, isn’t it?” the woman agreed.

  “Cruel. It is that.” They were twice their size, with veins like twisted bits of string. The feel of the cold water on them was heaven for the first minute, and then no good, but she dried them and rubbed soap over the worst places and then in the new stockings first standing then walking cautiously she could about manage.

  He was waiting, and she saw the quick look he gave her, from waist to toe. Of course he had had to take the lower half of her on trust as it were. Hope I suit. A sick doubt ran through her underneath her surface boldness.

  The heat had been terrible that day, and now a leaden sky boxed London in on all sides. A single clap of thunder exploded suddenly, like a hand clapped against the hollow box. “Don’t let’s go far,” she said, really afraid.

  They went to the new Corner House in Oxford Street. Sitting there, in the big glittering room, an orchestra in one corner playing I Love My Baby and My Baby Loves Me, people talking, laughing, reading evening papers, she felt happier than she had felt for months. I knew this morning something would happen. Now I remember the spoons were crossed, and “That’s for you,” Miss Lewis said, giggling. And the Sunday before, in bed turning the cards, the same dark man came out again and again. It meant something.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?”

  “If you’re happy it is.”

  “Well, I hope you aren’t unhappy. Never conk out till you’re. You don’t have to.”

  “Who told you?”

  “No one. Go on, men can always have a good time,” she said, with a softened glance at him. She saw that he didn’t want her to be gay, not yet. He wants a little pity first, that’s it. An emotion less definite than contempt crossed her mind; a sudden recognition, vague and familiar. They’re all alike, she thought swiftly; as soft as butter if they’re respectable. ‘I’m in a terrible way. I get these moods, and y’know my wife doesn’t care a thing about me since we married.’ They think we get our pleasure listening to their lies. Old as the hills. Older. More fools us always to do it, then.

  “My wife’s left me,” he said slowly. He stared away from her.

  Go on! You don’t say so. “That must be terrible for you,” she answered, in a quiet voice.

  “Waiter. Bring us two more Guinnesses.” He sighed deeply, with resignation. “Yes. It’s more than a month since, but somehow I haven’t got used to it.”

  “You must be lonely.”

  His fine, dark eyes clouded up. “Yes, I’m lonely all right,” he answered. He began eagerly to tell her about his wife, describing her and her ways so that she could see the other woman, lifting her arms, walking about her house, and then one day walking out of it for good. She telephoned from her sister’s. Tired. That was all. Just tired.

  He pushed his plate aside and rested an arm on the table. Peering, she caught the light on a gold cuff link. While he talked she ran a practised eye over his face and clothes. A little over forty, well-covered, turning a bit soft round the chin and neck. Good clothes, too, collar fastened by a gold safety pin. Or is it rolled? He had broad shoulders, long full red mouth, dark moustache, strong black-haired nostrils. She clasped her hands between her knees, alert, and let him talk himself out : easy with money; no patience; brags about himself—I expected that, the man hasn’t been born yet who couldn’t wouldn’t.

  “One thing about my wife, she couldn’t laugh.”
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  “No!”

  “No.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “She couldn’t laugh,” he repeated.

  “Ttt! Well—it’s always something.”

  “And she didn’t understand me, you know.”

  “Didn’t she?”

  “No.”

  “That must have been terribly bad for you.”

  He nodded. “You’re dead right.”

  “How was it she, I mean, didn’t she ever—you know?”

  “She always seemed as if she hadn’t any interest in me, don’t you see? She didn’t respond—see?”

  “It beats me how a woman couldn’t be interested in you,” she said firmly.

  Their eyes met in a long glance. The waiter, clearing away the used plates, was in their way. When he had gone George said in a full, hearty voice : “Not married yourself, I see. Always earned your own living?”

  She began with energy and growing confidence an involved story of her life. It came back to the friend with whom she had been living, it would be until eight months back. For eight months she had worked in that shop. A real emotion seized her; she told him with rising anger about the long hours, the miserable pay, the fines. He yawned, and said with his hand halfway up to his face : “As I was telling a friend of mine in the train a man like me, anxious to be in business for himself, can’t look for any help from bankers. It kills enterprise.”

  “It must do,” she said quickly.

  “This friend of yours, now. Did he die, or what?”

  With the briefest pause she said : “Yes. Yes, he died.” He didn’t believe her, of course : she saw that. “We were going to be married if he’d lived,” she said.

  “And now you’re alone, eh? That’s hard for a woman like you. I can see you’ve got temperament. I can always tell when a woman has temperament.”

  “I can laugh at myself,” she said quickly. “You’re not dead till you die. I learned once that you can laugh everything off and I still do.” For a moment she forgot that everything depended on the success of the evening. She looked round her and felt alone.

  “Listen,” George said solemnly.

  She listened with covert eagerness, her eyes, bold, seeking his.

  “I’m none of your undomestic men. I like to feel that I’ve got a home, and someone waiting, even if I can’t be there that often.” Saturday to Monday. The rest of the week he was here there and everywhere, one of the old brigade, one of the lads; he travelled in fact for a firm of stocking-makers. Well. Life was like that. You wanted to do one thing and you did another. And one Friday you came home as usual and your wife had left you, gone, saying she was tired. Tired! You needed courage to face a blow like that. For it was a blow. It destroyed confidence. Habits of a lifetime. You had habits. You suffered.

  She stirred thoughtfully her coffee. The good food, the rest, the lights, the music, had roused in her a familiar rough excitement. If I can’t bring this off I’m finished, she said to herself; I’m cats-meat. She felt her face straining, and tried to give it a look of indifference. He had been talking now for at least ten minutes and without coming to the point. I wonder is he serious about it, or is it wind? All in his tongue. Would I better say something? Lead him on—what? to say what?—anything, I’ll say anything, the first thing comes into my head, and see whether I’m wasting hopes or not.

  He said suddenly : “Would two pounds a week mean anything to you?”

  Outside, a yellow dusk spread sluggishly to the street-lamps. “London’s grand, isn’t it?” she said. She wanted to sing, shout. In the cab he pushed his hat to the back of his head and smiled at her sheepishly. Satisfied with himself I see. She rested a hand on him, but she was scarcely thinking. Actually she was thinking a little about the room and that she would buy some stuff for new curtains, run them up herself, and perhaps pick up a good rug second-hand, fix the glass then and try what a coat of paint would do for the chairs and the other things—make a different room of it. He could bring her his mending, and she would do it during the week and give it him Saturdays. He’ll soon realise what he has in me, she thought. Who knows, in time he might come to want marriage.

  When she opened the door of her room she thought that it looked different already; it was warm and darkly friendly. She lit the gas and turned to smile at him. “Here’s luck,” she said. Her voice had an excited sound. She noticed it with a little surprise.

  Moving swiftly about the room, she felt that she was beginning a new life.

  In the morning, waking, it was like other mornings. She lay and stared at the ceiling, too tired to move.

  You can’t have everything, can you? Dragging her hands through the mould and dry leaves, she comforted herself awkwardly. It had not been a bad five years. Though she never got round to buying those new curtains and one week’s mending had been more than enough for both of them. Still—that’s how it is, she thought—but suddenly the memory of the evening split its husk, and something infinitely weak and young showed through, trembling in the light.

  She was in the kitchen of her mother’s house; she watched the parcel being made of her flannel nightgown and the slippers. Then the parcel was lying on the table, and the edge of the table was the same height exactly as her chin, so that she had a curious view of it; it looked nearly like a blue and brown pie, worked over by her mother’s thin seamed hands. She noticed that her mother’s wedding-ring was surprisingly loose, only kept on its finger by the shiny knuckle.

  She grew afraid that they would be late, but the last slow knot was made in the string and then she was seated high up, it felt dangerous, in the butcher’s cart, with the parcel clutched to her, whirling and bumping along a lane. The hedge was full of convolvulus and as soon as the cart stopped for a few moments she leaned out to pull one. It lay in her hand. She had barely admired it when it died suddenly. The pale delicate cup went limp and flat and hung down as if it had breathed its last. She let it fall and pulled another and the same thing happened. “Convolvulus won’t live in your hand, child.” She pretended to laugh, but she pulled flower after flower, hoping secretly that one of them would decide to live. A curious excitement filled her when the frail white flowers lay across her palm. It made her light and blown-out.

  The butcher, John Alfred Cratus, had a full small-eyed face, more like one of his own pigs. He drove in style and at last drew up quickly, pointed with his whip and said : “There’s t’farm, Missus.” Her mother thanked him and lifted her down and together they opened the gate into the field and walked along by the hedge in silence. Somehow she knew that her mother was afraid they ought not to be walking in this field. They kept close to the hedge, away from the young corn. After the streets and after the chimneys the air in the country was intensely clear and glittering, so that each ear of corn stood up nakedly in a ring of light.

  They were in the farm kitchen. She must have had a meal, because her small stomach had stretched against the band of her knickers and she clasped her hands over it and stretched her legs to the warmth of the fire. The flames squeaked like mice running between the hot coals. She fell asleep and woke to find herself alone, except for a large ginger cat. The kitchen was full of sunlight, striped and blurred with shadows like a tiger’s back. After a time she managed to lift the wooden sneck. She stepped out into a yard. Moss grew between the stones and a tree with thick creamy flowers sprang close to the door. The yard was empty, with high walls from which a few bricks had crumbled. She stood in the centre of it and felt as though she were in a well of clear, yellowed water. When she touched the flowers with her finger they were cool and slippery. Very high above her head she saw then an immense dazzling white cloud and a bird pinned quivering to the cloud. Her white pinafore floated straight out in front of her, lifted by the current.

  Now she was with her mother and her aunt in the bedroom. The window was small and shut, and covered with a lace blind. A plate made of glossy pink china lay on the dressing-table, filled with pins. Thou God Seest Me was
written on the plate under the pins. On the bed a white quilt with a thickly-raised pattern like nothing she had ever seen : she stood tracing the pattern with her finger and half hearing the voices of the women. The room was sleepily warm, thick yellow sunshine filled it from floor to ceiling. “And see what he’s left me, the mean fool. He’s been here less than a week, then off, then gone—but what he’s done stays.”

  “You should have made him leave you alone,” her aunt said.

  “Him!” answered her mother. Her face changed in an extraordinary way as she spoke, so that the little girl scarcely knew it.

  She made a pretence of reading the plate. Because her father, who was a sailor, had been home, her mother was going to have a baby—but she had no idea how she knew it. She had felt it when her mother was whispering in the other woman’s ear. She tried to put the ugly thought out of her mind. She did not want such a thing to happen, it would be a nuisance and a misfortune. She felt ashamed, as she had been ashamed when her mother forgot to take off her old skirt and went down the street with it showing and flapping under the other.

  The days were immensely long, mornings that winked and glittered through a complete roll of the slow earth, afternoons let slackly down across a warm sleeping valley. The stream in the narrow wood was deep and still, with spicy woodruff on its brown banks. Beyond it the meadow was sheeted with a bright burning yellow. Bees mumbled in the pinks and hollyhocks in the garden. The cool of the yard flowed into the kitchen, clear dusk-brown water mounting slowly to the ceiling.

  They stood waiting in the lane for the cart. It came slowly, bumping over the ruts, driven by the butcher in Sunday black. I’m sure I’m obliged, her mother repeated; it’s kind of you to fetch us, isn’t it kind of Mr. Cratus? She nodded, hating her mother’s put-on voice, and felt in her mind for words she was punished for using. The sky burned out and the green waters flooded over it; these darkened.