To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One. Doris Lessing
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at his plate, but made no comment. After a while he asked sarcastically: ‘Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t eat pickles?’
‘Couldn’t care less,’ she returned equably. ‘If you want to kill yourself, it’s your funeral.’ At this he laughed loudly, and she joined him. Later, she asked: ‘Staying here the night?’
‘If you don’t mind.’ At this she gave a snort of derisive laughter, got up and said: ‘Well, I’m off to bed. You can’t have the sofa because the kids have got a friend and he’s got it. You’ll have to put a blanket and a cushion on the floor.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, indifferently. ‘How are the kids?’ he inquired, as an afterthought.
‘Fine – if you’re interested.’
‘I asked, didn’t I?’ he replied, without heat. All this conversation had been conducted quietly, indifferently, and the undercurrent was almost amiable. An outsider would have said they hardly knew each other. When she had gone he took a blanket from a drawer, wrapped it round his legs, and settled himself in a chair. He had meant to think about himself and Rose, but instead he dropped off at once. He left the house early, before anyone was awake. All day at the factory he thought: About Rose, what must I do about Rose? After work he went instinctively to the pub. Pearl stood quietly behind the counter, showing him by her manner that she was not holding last night’s bad humour against him. He meant to have one drink and go, but he had three. He liked Pearl’s cheerful humour. She told him that her young man was playing about with another girl, and added, as if it hardly concerned her: ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea after all.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, non-committally.
‘Well, we all have our troubles,’ she said, with a half-humorous sigh.
‘Yes – for what they’re worth.’ At this he felt a pang of guilt because he had been thinking of Rose. Pearl was giving him a keen look. Then she said: ‘I didn’t say he hadn’t been worth it. But now that other girl’s getting all the benefit …’ Here she laughed grimly.
He liked this cheerful philosophy, and could not prevent himself saying: ‘He’s got no sense, turning you up.’ He looked with appreciation at her crown of bright yellow curls, at her shapely body. Her eyes brightened, and he said good night quickly, and left. He mustn’t get mixed up with Pearl now, he was thinking.
It was after eight. Usually he was with Rose by seven. He lagged down the street, thinking of what he would say to her, and entered the flat with a blank mind. For some reason he was very tired. Rose had eaten by herself, cleared the table, and now sat beside it, frowning over a newspaper. ‘What are you reading?’ he asked, for something to break the ice. Looking over her shoulder he saw that she had marked a column headed: ‘Surplus Women Present Problem to Churches.’ He was surprised.
‘That’s what I am, a surplus woman,’ she said, and gave that sudden, unexpected laugh.
‘What’s funny?’ he asked, uncomfortably.
‘I’ve a right to laugh if I want,’ she retorted. ‘Better than crying, anyhow.’
‘Oh, Rose,’ he said, helplessly, ‘oh, Rose stop it now …’ She burst into tears and clung to him. But this was not the end, and he knew it. Later that night she said: ‘I want to tell you something …’ and he thought: Now I’m for it – whatever it is.
‘You were home last night, weren’t you.’
‘Yes,’ he said, alertly.
A pause, and then she asked: ‘What did she say?’
‘About what?’ It was a fact that he did not immediately understand her. ‘Jimmie,’ she said incredulously, under her breath and he said: ‘Rosie, it’s no good, I told you that before.’
She did not immediately reply, but when she did her voice was very bitter: ‘Well, I see how it is now.’
‘You don’t see at all,’ he said sarcastically.
‘Well, then, tell me?’ He was silent. Her silence was like a persistent question. Again he felt as if the warm, soft fingers were wrapping around him. He felt suffocated. ‘There’s nothing to explain, I just can’t help it.’ A pause, and then she said in the flat, laconic way he hated: ‘Yes?’ That was all. For the time being, at least. A week later she said, calmly: ‘I went to see Jill’s Granny today.’
His heart faltered and he thought: Now what? ‘Well?’ he inquired.
‘George was killed last month. In Italy.’
He felt triumph, then he said guiltily: ‘I’m sorry.’ She waved this away and said: ‘I told her Granny that I want to adopt Jill.’
‘But Rosie …’ Then he saw her face and quailed.
‘I want kids,’ she said fiercely. He dropped his gaze.
‘Her Granny won’t want to give her up.’
‘I’m not so sure. At first she said no, then she thought it over a bit. She’s getting old now – eighty next year. She thinks perhaps Jill’d be better with me.’
‘You want to have the kid here?’ he asked, incredulously.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘You’re working all day.’ She was silent, he looked at her – and slowly coloured.
‘Listen a minute,’ she began, persuasively – not unpleasantly at all, though every word wounded Jimmie. ‘I furnished this place. It was my furniture and my money. And I’ve got a hundred still in the post office in case of accidents – I’ll need it; now the war’s over we won’t be earning so much money, if I know anything. So far, I’ve not been …’ But here her instinctive delicacy overcame her, and she could not go on. She wanted to say that she paid for the food, paid for everything. Lately, even the rent. One week he had said, apologetically, that he hadn’t the cash, and that if she could do it this once – but now it was a regular thing.
‘You want me to give you the money so you can stay here with the kid?’ he inquired, cautiously. She was blushing with embarrassment. ‘No, no,’ she said, quickly. ‘Listen. If you can just pay the rent – that would be enough. I could get a part-time job, just the mornings. Jill goes to school now, and I’d manage somehow.’
He digested this silently. He was thinking, incredulously: She wants to have a kid here, a kid’s always in the way – that means she can’t love me any more. He said, slowly: ‘Well, Rosie, if that’s what you want, then go ahead.’
Her face cleared into vivid happiness and she came running to him in the old way and kissed him and said: ‘Oh, Jimmie; oh, Jimmie …’ He held her and thought, bitterly, that all this joy was not because of him, all she cared about was the kid – women! But at the back of his mind were two other thoughts: First, that he did not know how he would find the money to pay the rent unless he passed that examination soon, and the other was that the authorities would never let Rose have Jill.
Next evening Rose was despondent. ‘Did you see the officials?’ he asked at last.
‘Yes.’ She would not look at him. She was staring helpless down from the window.
‘Wasn’t it any good?’
‘They said I must prove myself a fit and proper person. So I said that I was. I told them I’d known Jill since she was born. I said I knew her mother and father.’
‘That’s true enough,’ he could not help interjecting, jealously. She gave him a cold look and said: ‘Don’t start that now. I told them her Granny was too old, and I could easily look after Jill.’
‘Well then?’
She was silent, then, wringing her hands unconsciously, she cried out: ‘They wasn’t nice, they wasn’t nice to me at all. There were two of them, a woman and a man. They