In Pursuit of the English. Doris Lessing
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war they sold a bit of fried skate in this shop better than anything.’
We turned into a narrow side street of short, low, damp, houses, a uniform dull yellow in colour, each with a single grey step. It was almost empty, though here and there in the failing light a woman leaned against a doorway. Rose said suddenly: ‘Let’s have a sit-down,’ and indicated a low wall that enclosed a brownish space of soil where a bomb had burst. There was a tree, paralysed down one side, and a board leaning in a heap of rubble that said: ‘Tea and Bun – One Penny.’
Rose settled herself on the wall and spat pips at a lamp-post.
‘Who sold the tea?’ I asked.
‘Oh, that? He got hit. That was before the war.’ She spoke as if it was a different century. ‘You don’t get tea and a bun for a penny now.’ She looked lovingly around her. ‘I was born here. In that house down there. That one with the brown door. Many’s the time I’ve sat here with my little brother when he was driving my mother silly. Or sometimes my stepfather got into one of his moods and I’d clear out and come here for a rest, in a way of speaking. He used to make me mad, he did.’ She lapsed into a silence of nostalgic content. A man slowly cycled down the street, stopping at each lamp-post. Above him, while he paused, a small yellow glimmer pushed back the thick grey air. Soon the houses retired into shadow. Pools of dim light showed wet pavements. Rose was quiet beside me, a huddled little figure in her tight black coat and head-scarf.
It was long after the sky had gone thick and black behind the glimmering lamps that Rose came out of her dream of childhood. She stretched and said: ‘We’d better be moving.’ But she didn’t move without reluctance. ‘At any rate, the blitz didn’t get it. That’s something to be glad about. And the bombs fell around here. God knows what they thought they were trying to bomb!’ She spoke indifferently, without hate. ‘I expect the planes got lost one night and thought this would do as well as anything. The Americans do that, too, they say – they just get fed up flying around in the dark, so they drop their bombs and nip home for a cup of tea.’
As we walked back, she said: ‘I’ll have to get a hurry on. I’ve got to help Flo with the washing-up or she’ll get the pip.’
‘Do you have to help her?’
‘No. Not really. But I’ve got into the habit of it. She’s like that – I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t. But you just watch yourself and don’t let yourself get into the habit of doing things. I’m telling you for your own good.’
At the bombed site her gait and manner changed. She withdrew into herself and became suspicious, looking into people’s faces as they passed as if they might turn out to be enemies. I couldn’t imagine this Rose, all prim and tightfaced, spitting pips with a laugh. In our street of great decaying houses she clutched at my arm for a moment and said, ‘This place gives me the ’ump sometimes. It’s not friendly, not like what I’m used to. That’s why.’
Bobby Brent was coming out of the side door from the basement, a natty brown hat pulled down over his eyes. When he saw us, he frowned; then smiled. ‘You thought I’d forgotten our appointment,’ he said. ‘Well, you don’t know me.’ Then it struck him: he examined his watch and exclaimed. ‘I say! It’s half-past nine. We agreed eight-fifteen.’
‘Oh, come off it, Bobby,’ said Rose giggling. ‘You do make me laugh.’
He gritted his teeth; forced his lips back in a smile. ‘I’ll take you over now,’ he said to me. ‘Of course, the one I tried to get for you’s gone; nobody to blame but yourself. But there’s another. Just right for you.’
Rose was leaning against the gate-pillar, watching him satirically. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said to him, and pulled me inside the front door.
She took my handbag from me, opened it, and removed all the money from it. ‘I’ll keep this till you come back,’ she said. ‘I’ve left you two shillings, that’ll be enough. Now, if you want this room next to me, it’s a good thing you go off with Bobby. It’ll make Flo nervous. And they’re doing ever such a deal, the three of them.’
‘What sort of deal? Why don’t you stop Flo?’
‘Oh no, it’s like this. If Bobby wants, for argument’s sake, five pounds, then don’t let him have it. But if it’s a hundred and it looks all right, that’s different, see? Bobby’s got an idea for a club, a night-club or something. Dan is going to lend him a hundred. And they’re talking how to get money out of you.’
‘But I haven’t any.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said, giggling. ‘Don’t mind me, but I did sort of keep my face straight, as if I thought you had money, because it makes me laugh, Flo and Dan, when they get the itch. There are two sorts of people in the world,’ she concluded, ‘the kind that get money, like Flo and Dan and Bobby. That’s because they think about it all the time. And people like us. Well, it takes all sorts. See you tomorrow. I’ll put your money under your pillow.’
Bobby Brent said as I joined him: ‘There’s just one kind of person that I can’t stand. The envious ones. Like Rose Jennings. She’s eaten up with it.’
‘Where’s the flat?’
‘Around the corner.’
We walked half a mile in silence. ‘How’s Miss Powell?’ I asked. ‘I don’t mind telling you, she’s a real problem to me. She’s got it into her head she wants to marry me.’ ‘Bad luck,’ I said. ‘The trouble with women is, they’re monogamous.’ ‘I know. It’s all very badly arranged.’ ‘What do you mean – my arrangements aren’t crystallized.’ ‘Never mind, you’ll feel different when you’re married to the daughter of the lord.’ ‘I’m not so sure. Women never understand. They tie a man down. They expect him to live the same life, day after day. Well, I was in the Commandos three years, and now I expect to call my life my own.’ ‘Cheer up. It looks as if there might very well be a war soon.’ ‘You can’t count on it,’ he said.
We were now in a hushed and darkened square, and outside a large house. The name on the doorbell we pushed was Colonel Bartowers. The door opened to show a martial old man, with protruding stomach, red face, and an aggressive blue stare.
‘We’re here on business. My name’s Ponsonby – Alfred Ponsonby.’ He thrust a card into the Colonel’s hand. The Colonel stood his ground, looking at him up and down, raising his white eyebrows in a terrifying way. ‘We understand you have premises to let.’
The Colonel fell back, astonished, and we were in the hall. The Colonel looked at me, and said blankly: ‘Well, come inside, now you’re here. How on earth – I haven’t even sent it to an agent – ’ He pulled himself together. ‘Well, I don’t know, these days you can’t even think of moving without getting in hordes of … however, I’m very glad. Come in.’
He showed us into a living-room. It was charming. This was the England I had read about in novels.
‘As a matter of interest,’ said the Colonel to me, ‘how did you hear about this flat?’
Mr Ponsonby strode forward and announced: ‘My cousin from Africa asked me to find her a flat.’ I tried to catch the Colonel’s eye, but Mr Ponsonby was in the way. ‘I’m in the business, as my card shows. There would be no fee to either lessor or lessee.’
‘A question of philanthropy,’ said the Colonel gravely; and Mr Ponsonby fell back, spelling out the word to himself. ‘Blood is blood,’ he offered at last.
‘Oh, quite,’ said Colonel Bartowers. He sighed and said: ‘Well, I suppose I might as well show you the flat, in case I decide to go abroad. You mentioned Africa?’ he said to me.
‘My cousin has just come,’ said Mr Ponsonby, trying to get between the Colonel and me, but he was brushed aside, and the Colonel took my arm.
‘I was myself in Southern Rhodesia for ten years. A little before your time, I expect. I left in 1905. Do you remember …’ And