Cotter's England (40 page)

"You can make your selection as they parachute past," said someone else.

"Let them go past," said Nellie; "we're all right."

Tom got up to go out. He stepped through their crossed legs. They were drawn away from the table, close together. Their legs, the stool legs, the chair legs, the bottles and glasses formed a series of circles and the late sun coming through the back, spread its rays through them. He had to cross the empty space to get out. He stopped in the middle, looked round and taking the rose from his ear, threw it to Eliza. Nellie instantly threw her wineglass at his hand as if to stop him. She was half drunk: it was one of George's best wineglasses. A few drops of blood fell fell onto George's green carpet. He took his hand with the other hand and caressed it, held up the smear of blood.

"You fool," she said.

"Bad thing," said Tom.

"What's that for?" said Marilyn.

"It's just something they do in their family," said Florence.

Tom made his way out.

"I'm sorry, pet," said Nellie, rushing round.

"No, you're not," said Tom.

"Did I hurt you, pet?"

"You didn't kill me."

"Forgive your dumb sister, Tom."

"I don't mind horseplay."

"I'm a beast to you, Tom."

"You're a sweir beast," he said and went out.

Flo laughed and sang from the old ballad, "For Nellie is a sweir beast and canna cross the wa-ter."

Nellie gave her a dark look.

He went for the earliest of his trains, leaving the house about five; and Nellie did not try to keep him back. He was rather angry at being forced out and at the neglect. He had folded up his canvas bed and stood it in the shed, pushing his little tin trunk into a corner of the attic; and put out some canvas shoes, a flying suit and an old leather flying-jacket for Nellie to give to the bazaar. He mentioned these things to Nellie as he was leaving.

"Do you mind if I give them to poor Walter the window cleaner, Tom? I know you don't take to him, but he needs them."

"You know me better."

"You're leaving me in anger, Tom."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"You'll telephone me tomorrow night, won't you, Tom? Before I go."

"I'll do my best."

"And write to me, pet, give me all the news."

"Yes."

"And don't forget Eliza! She's going to the station with you. I forgot to mention it to you, Eliza. Would you go with the poor lad, Eliza sweetheart? Would ye darling? Oh, that would be glorious. Bless ye, darling. And then I know you're spending the evening with your Irish friends. We'll miss you."

Tom picked up his leather and canvas grips, swung them out to the front steps and waited patiently for Eliza. Nellie, standing in the doorway leaning her backbone against the doorpost, smiled at him under lowered lids. Tom smiled back. Nellie, he supposed, wanted a report on him. What girl was seeing him off at the station? No one was.

Eliza came stoutly along with her red hat and handbag.

"I hope you don't mind," said Nellie, "I know you want to get an early night, Lize, I know you've got to start early tomorrow. I know you don't think much of carousing, pet. It's a weakness, you're right, Lize: it's in me blood. Will you be round tomorrow night sweetheart? I'm expecting your remote-control troubadour of a George to put in an appearance, tomorrow night. Will ye come then, Lize? That'll be glorious darling. Ah, it's sweet of you to go with Tom: I'm eternally grateful."

She got them off and shut the door. Tom went loping along.

"Then you're not going back to the party, Eliza?"

"Well, you can see for yourself, she didn't expect me back."

Tom became somber. They said nothing while they walked up to the bus, nothing at the bus stop, till Eliza said, "Didn't you want me to come?"

"Yes."

"I am quite ashamed, Tom. It was like the old days. You know Nellie: she has to dominate."

Tom said, "But she would never do me any real harm. She's true to me."

Eliza felt upset. She said suddenly, "I don't know if she is, always."

"Nellie has got to come first," said Tom: "I don't mind."

"Do you mind going off?"

"Well, I'm glad you came too. A new job is always a bit of a worry: you feel nervous. You don't know what will happen. But I like to work. I know I'm going to be buried alive up there, but it's the same anywhere."

"Well, you could try to get to London for a job."

"I might try. But I must see how it is up there first. I don't suppose I'll stay."

"Don't you think you made a mistake to take a lower salary than before?"

He was annoyed, but said after a moment, "I don't care. What does it matter? I don't get the money, anyway. I don't need anything. I can live on bread and tea and I like it."

"Oh, well, I can too. But what I miss most, is the hahm, if I can't afford it," said Eliza, in her longing for ham, speaking in a deep voice.

At the station they had the final cup of tea. Tom was suddenly unwilling to go, said, Why was he going? They could go to the movies, go to a lunchroom—he could put up somewhere for the night, anything not to quit London too early. But he hopped on the old-fashioned country train at the last moment, with a book by C. E. Montague that he had heard was good and entertaining. She saw his boyish, peaked, blue-eyed face leaning, full of yearning for London, out of the square train-window. Even as the train moved, he said, "Shall I jump off? We'll go somewhere. I can go tomorrow." But the train moved faster. "I'm so glad you came," he called back: "I'm glad it was you."

The women in Lamb Street sat round talking, smoking, eating and were, in their relations with Caroline, stand-offish, friendly, curious, reticent, according to what they thought of her. Some of the women were journalists. They were all, but the yellow girl, central London women. They talked about political chances, news of the day, Fleet Street secrets, journalists who had lost their jobs, of special interest to them who were mostly middle-aged or on the verge of it. They were somewhat reserved in this matter towards the yellow girl, who was the youngest of them all and avid and, so it was said by them, unscrupulous: but perhaps that only meant she was younger.

They were least aware of Caroline, but she looked at them as through a block of ice, a woman lost in a glacier and some time after ten, she said she must go up to her bed in the attic: she did not know if she could sleep this night.

"The attic population always goes to bed early," said Nellie.

Caroline did not sleep but was swept along in the deep river of a lucid delirium, and, meanwhile, she vaguely heard noises in the house, music played, voices. After some length of time, she heard footsteps on the attic landing. They stopped outside her door which was presently, after some breathing pause, gently opened and shut. She lay for a while and then got up, went to the door, opened it. There was no one there. The stairs creaked, but the ceiling, stairs and walls always creaked there. The ceiling, for instance, in the attic room creaked all night. She looked over the banisters and saw nothing, though the bottom hallway was light with moon. The attic landing was dark, there being no window at the back there but moonlight fell in the empty room beside her through the skylight. The skylight was slightly raised and a soft air blew through the room. There was a bare grocery box standing under the skylight. A slender, male figure lurked just inside the open door.

"Caroline," said a voice.

She had a moment of excruciating fear. She saw in a moment that it was Nellie dressed in an airman's suit and that her open gash of a mouth was smiling and that her long hand had beckoned her. She had a thought that Nellie meant her some harm in the room, even to kill her. Nellie moved over and was standing stooping under the skylight, and nodded to her to come in: she smiled like a clown in the moonshade. Caroline went and stood on the box Nellie showed her and looked out from the skylight first at the late light of the sky and then down, down said the nod and the finger, into the back yard. Nellie also struggled for a place on the box: their hands gripped the window frame and the moon shone on Nellie's pointed face. Nellie looked quickly at her, excited, sharp, the clever smirk. The box tipped and Nellie quickly caught her round the waist. Caroline kept looking down with astonishment, and Nellie gripped her harder.

A number of naked women were rounding, breaking, wrestling, weaving together in the back yard between the brick walls, the high fence and the tree. The moonlight showed that some were rosy in the daytime, others were the colors of night-lighted fish and they were like queer fish, a seahorse, an old man snapper, a gar, a toadfish, a puffball and one rather awkward and hesitant was as yet, only a woman: and what was more ludicrous, partly dressed.

Nellie laid her beak and her chin over her shoulder with a sharp penetrating smile, her face wore its highest look of animal intelligence. Caroline looked at this human living and moon-flowering wreath in the back yard a moment till she distinguished the creatures, then she disengaged herself from the strong embrace and climbed down while Nellie after a poignant glance looked once more out of the skylight. She clung to the frame, her gaunt snowy face poked forward and with passion, surveyed the tenants of the globular moony night.

She put out her hand to touch Caroline's head, nothing was there; Caroline had gone. She looked still, expecting to see Caroline join them downstairs: she didn't. With a slight smile still she stalked after her like a shadow in the close-fitting and becoming dark suit. Was there a movement just off the stairs? She kept smiling, and followed for she thought Caroline had gone down. She went out and looked about among the women who were not excited enough to keep that slow rhythm up long.

"Where is Caroline?" her clear voice called. She went back and looked in the rooms, beginning with the ground floor. "Caroline, Caroline darling!" The house was still and living. The moon struck the faces of the little houses opposite and shone on the square panes.

"Caroline's there!" said a voice from the back yard.

She went hurrying out with her yearning intense face full of delight. "Ah, pet, where are you?"

But she was not there at all, someone had seen her at the upstairs window for a moment.

Caroline had dressed. She went down one flight and sat on the stairs, thinking she was going to fall because her heart was beating so heavily: she got up again, staggered into the empty front room, and sat down in the armchair. It was dark. Someone stood at the back entry: a voice said, "I'll get her, it'll do her good: we must help her," and footsteps thudded, a strange-shaped naked woman began to appear above the hall floor through the banisters, hank of hair, half-moon face, neck like a can, thickset shoulders, spidery arm after spidery arm, long shank after long shank. The woman complete, some sort of crab, moved past the dark door and went up the other stairs. This sight pulled Caroline together. She heard the fleshy footsteps on the next floor and the voice. In the back yard was a sweet poignant whistling, which to her mind grew louder and louder, seemed to whistle through the walls and meanwhile upstairs she heard her name. A woman, too, came in from the yard.

She gently pushed the door to. She was lazy with terror, her heart bursting. There were steps on the stairs coming up, she heard her name in various parts of the house. The door came slowly open. Nellie stood there smiling, her gaunt jaws slightly open. There were some whispered words. Nellie came in and Caroline groaned. She got up, pushed past Nellie and went downstairs, while Nellie stood watching. The staircase came down facing the front door. The soft old lock opened easily. She began to run, fell down the steps which she had forgotten. She fell flat knocking her breath out, so that for a while she lay rolling there, and tried to roll to the road. No one came out, she heard only soft urgent voices through the door, held to.

She got up and walked clumsily away. She walked about the streets in that area and then as if the streets unrolled themselves before her in one direction only, she walked that way, rapidly as if she had an address in another part of London to go to. Her head was empty and she knew she was exhausted but found it strange how well she could keep going. She passed miles, acres. In the streets were the odors of summer and aged housing. The moon shifted. In these houses were strangers occupied in struggling for breath, not much more. She did not want to know any more about them, the wretchedness and fatigue were too general. There was something else. She had seen the riot, scandal that was the flowering of the force of nature in some, the strong wildness, that was anger, the perversity, the nonchalant feeble depravity, the indifference to degradation in others. Though she burned purer and hotter than ever, and detested vice more than before, she had also become gentle and indifferent about it: it was their way and they were human. If people had tuberculosis or cancer they were still entirely human. Her dislike of all these things, misery, perversity and disease was stronger than ever; and she knew that she had got into the wrong circle.

She was sorry she had come to London, but there was nothing to go back to. Differently from Nellie, she could see that Nellie had an idea in her constant advice about submitting. It might seem strange in a beaky, restless, gabby person like Nellie to chatter about submission, hypocrisy with an aim in it, but Nellie in her blue half-lights lit on aspects of existence. Was it because she had never submitted and could not, that she had not kept Barry and never had a friend? "Sink the turbulent selfish soul," said Nellie, who never did that—or did she sometimes in her excesses? Caroline had no temperament for excesses. "You are afraid of beauty," said Nellie, "you just want grand, impetuous life to provide you with a living; you'll never be an artist."

Caroline had taken submission as a word that Nellie used for her own purposes as she used Introspection and Friendship. By introspection she meant a shameless curiosity and crafty use of her knowledge; by friendship what only a clique meant; and it was dishonest since she trapped people that way. But Nellie was ill, and by submission she might mean death, it might be a preconception of death which only the sick could have. And this chilling submission was what Caroline for the first time was feeling now. Caroline now floated along over-shadowed by the lank, hobbling stride of the woman who had taken her up, haunted her, and ruined her. She was walking away from her, but Nellie was someone she carried with her, as you carry a bad parent always with you; Nellie had got into her being, like the knowledge of drunkenness. There had been nothing in Bridgehead, Nellie said, to satisfy their youthful intellectual and moral hungers, so they had taken to drink, vice, unbridled chaotic speculation and gnawing at each other. Hunger will prey on garbage, rather than be extinguished in death. But Nellie had not called it garbage, she called it knowledge.