Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (16 page)

‘I expect it’ll be lovely up there to-day,’ she said, ‘too.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he said, and took her arm as they crossed the road. ‘Well – what you been doin’ with yourself all this time?’

She accepted his arm with just a slight, inviting pressure. Warmly enclosed, his hand sensed the delicious pulses of her being.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I been havin’ my usual hetkick – hecktickt — ’

‘Heck Tick,’ prompted Bob, smiling upon her. (Where on earth did she get such words?)

‘My usual – Heck Tick – time. How’ve you been doin’?’

‘Oh – I’ve been hectic, too.’ He could not stop himself. ‘Mostly about you, I guess.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘That’s not nothin’ much to get excited about.’

He caught her full-lipped and half-smiling face in a fresh and enravishing pose. He decided that he would readily die for such beauty.

‘
Is
it? . . .’ she added, with a more emphatic coquetry. . . .

She had overdone it – been too acutely aware of her charms. All at once, and in one of those inexplicable transitions which may at any time occur in the affliction from which Bob was suffering, the whole thing fell dead. . . .

‘Oh. I don’t know,’ he said, and a little while afterwards released his hand.

She, however, remained cheerful. They went into Warren Street Station and entered the lift.

They did not talk much on their way to Hampstead, but smiled at each other in the noise of the train. He wondered what the other passengers discerned of them and their relationship. Very little, certainly, since he himself could not have proffered any information.

They emerged at Hampstead Tube Station, and began to climb the hill. She talked cheerfully, and rather pantingly, all the way as they went up, telling him artless tales about her mother, who was dead, and of whom she thought highly.

‘Oo, an’ she
was
pretty when she was younger,’ she said. ‘She had a lovely Olive Complexion, an’ brown eyes, an’ all. She was more a Southern Type, like. She wasn’t a bit like me – ’cos I’m fair. That’s funny, ain’t it?’

‘Very successful, anyway,’ said Bob.

‘No – it
is
funny, though, ain’t it? ’Cos it’s not as though I was dyed. I got real natural fair hair. I
have
.’

‘I know you have,’ said Bob. (And real natural blue eyes to match, he silently reflected.)

‘An’ not many people have that, do they? But it wasn’t like my mother. She was dark, an’ ever so pretty.’

‘Well – ain’t you pretty, too?’

‘No. I ain’t pretty. I’m better than I was, though. You should have seen me when I was a kid. I wasn’t half ugly. I was. I got better as I grew up like. I ’member I was in Service at the time, an’ the lady says to me, she says “I didn’t think much of you at first, Jenny,” she says, “but I believe you’re goin’ to be pretty after all.” I’ze about fifteen, then. . . . That wasn’t half a funny Place. . . .’

They had now reached the top of the hill.

‘Oo!’ she said. ‘Look at the pond!’

She was delighted. The sun shone down, with hard brilliance, on the heath all round. London was out of sight, and out of mind – far behind and far below.

It was cold and quiet up here, and a few children were playing with boats at the edge of the water. Bob and Jenny tempered their voices with a kind of reverence for the
placidity of the scene, and stopped by the children to watch, with an absorption at once intent and indolent, the hazards and successes of the little voyages. A light wind rippled the water.

‘I
WISH I HAD
a little boat like that,’ she said, at last. ‘And I’d sail right away.’

‘Oh – where’d you sail to?’ He led her on in the direction of The Spaniards.

‘Oo – just anywhere.’

‘Have you ever been up here before?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes. I’ve often been up.’

He was instantly dejected. He had almost hoped that he was giving her her first introduction to fresh air. And who had had the privilege of taking her up before? He looked at her again. She was very lovely, and it was a privilege. . . .

‘I’ve been an’ had dinner at the “Ole Bull and Bush,”’ she said: ‘That’s where all them costers go on Bank Holiday. It’s not far from here. Do you know it?’

‘Yes. I know it.’

‘I been to the “Spaniards” too.’ She put one little foot precisely before the other as she walked along, taking two paces for every one of his, and there was no stopping her chatter. ‘And – oo –’ she continued, ‘do you know what they got there? They got all them pistols hangin’ up on the walls, what the highwaymen used to use.’

‘Really,’ said Bob.

‘And do you know what those highwaymen used to do? They used to hold up a carriage like, and take the money, an’ be ever so polite, an’ have a dance with the lady before goin’ on. They did. They’d dance in the middle of the road. That’s what they used to do. They did.’

‘Really,’ said Bob, ‘did they?’

They had now branched off to the left.

‘I always think,’ she said unaffectedly, ‘that there’s a Lot of Romance – don’t you?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘In History, like, and all that – you know what I mean?’

He did. She kept up the same chatter for the next ten minutes. They approached green and rather pathetically countrified spaces. To their right was a steep green slope, and they were walking by a little stream, with trees leaning over the water, beneath it.

‘Oo,’ she said, ‘I ain’t half glad you brought me up here. You might be right in the country, mightn’t you?’

‘Never been
this
part before then?’

‘No. I never been this part,’ she said, quietly. She seemed subtly to realize that the news would please him. It did. He was enormously happy.

They climbed the hill. At one point she tripped up, and he saved her with his hand. He retained the hand, and they went on together, speaking less.

‘Ain’t that lovely?’ she said, when they reached the top.

‘Yes. Ain’t it,’ said Bob.

It was not very lovely really. Far below them were factory chimneys, works, and suburban villas, interspersed with green – merely a thin distant outpost of the glimmering and smoky town. It was about half-past three. It was very warm, but the sun was already reddening in its decline.

‘Well – let’s sit down,’ he said. They did so. They were propped up comfortably against a bank of turf. She took off her hat.

They did not speak, but listened to the wind, and sensed their own solitariness. He was in an easy attitude and chewing a bit of grass.

‘Did you get my wire all right, yesterday?’ he said.

‘Yes. I got it. And did you get my letter?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her and thought of her sins. She was not thinking of him. She was looking out into the distance, with her hands clasped over her knees, as though concentrating
upon some problem – possibly that of her own life. The wind ruffled her yellow hair. For all her youth and freshness he could discern faint lines of sorrow and dissipation. She perpetually looked as though she might have been crying an hour ago. She could not be more than twenty-one, but she was a woman of the town – of the streets. He was filled with pity.

She caught him looking at her and smiled at him.

This was a new Jenny.

‘You shouldn’t eat that grass like that,’ she said, ‘you’ll catch something.’

She suddenly changed her position, and sat up facing him, her legs beneath her. She pulled a long blade of grass herself and began deliberately consuming it, looking down at it after each little bite. He laughed.

‘An’ then I’ll have to take you to Hospital,’ she said.

He did not answer.

‘
Won
’
t I?
’ she added, dreamingly, and leaned over to pull a little yellow flower by his feet. ‘There you are. There’s a pretty little buttercup.’ She fondled it.

‘That’s not a buttercup,’ he said.

‘Yes it is,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let’s see if you like butter.’

‘How do you do that?’ But he knew.

‘Come on,’ she said.

He drew nearer to her, and she to him. She made him hold up his chin, and held the little flower under it, scrutinizing the results carefully. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you like butter.’

‘How do you know?’

‘’Cos there’s a little reflection. That means that you like butter.’

‘No, it don’t,’ he said.

They looked at each other. Her face, radiant in its young and sorrowful beauty, had never been so close to his before. He was overcome.

‘Yes, it does,’ she repeated gravely, ‘that means that you like butter.’

He looked at her for another moment, and then, with the utmost simplicity, kissed her, and looked at her.

It was as though she was frightened. She did nothing. Her blue eyes were merely fixed upon him. The little flower was held out absurdly in her right hand. He thought of all the kisses she must have known – she, the courtesan, who traded in the whole bad trade of kisses. He was appalled by his own innocence and hers – with her blue eyes and the flower held out.

She was innocent. His own purity made her pure. He took her hand. He kissed that. His emotion arose. He could not understand the way she was taking it. Was it surprise, fright, gladness, or mere submission to a familiar importunity – an importunity which she had learnt not to expect from him?

Then he had her in his arms, and she was looking up at him. She neither rejected nor invited him, but merely looked up at him.

‘Oh, I do love you, Jenny,’ he said.

She put her head down. ‘No you don’t,’ she said, ‘you couldn’t love
me
. . . .’

He passed his lips along her cheek, and she drew up nearer to him. Her warm, living being, seeking his own being for consolation – the little wanton with her wanton charms, tacitly confessing all and awaiting a child’s absolution. And obtaining it, too, for he knew now that he had always adored her. He knew that all other moments and attitudes were as nothing compared to this moment. He knew that, in fact, he held heaven within his arms.

‘Why couldn’t I love you?’ he said.

She did not look up. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you couldn’t love
me
.’

‘But I do. I do!’ he said, and held her closer. ‘Why couldn’t I love you?’

‘You couldn’t love me,’ she said, ‘’cos I’m what I am.’

‘Well,
what
are you?’

‘You know what I am all right. You wouldn’t have helped me if I hadn’t been what I am.’

‘But I love you – I love you. It don’t matter I tell you. It don’t matter!’

‘Oh, yes it do. You couldn’t love
me
, ’cos I’m a prostitute.
That’s what I am. You couldn’t love one of them, could you Bob?’

‘Oh – you’re not, you’re not, dear!’ he said absurdly. He was astonished beyond measure, and bizarrely amused, by her employment of this term. He never thought she would have heard of the epithet, let alone level it against herself.

‘But I am one, all the same, ain’t I?’

‘Look here, Jenny. Do you love me?’

‘Oh yes. I love you all right.’ She looked at him. ‘You’re real straight, ain’t you, Bob?’

‘D’you only love me ’cos I’m straight?’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, and put her head down and began to fondle his hand. ‘I love you in all sorts of ways.’

His eyes were misty with tears. He caught her up and kissed her and kissed her again. Her head fell once more. He kissed her hair. Her real natural fair hair. She drew closer to him. ‘You’re my straight Bob,’ she said.

There was a long silence.

‘Did you always love me, Jenny? From the first?’

She paused to deliberate, still playing with his hand.

‘Yes. I always loved you,’ she said, at last. ‘Not ’cos you helped me – but ’cos you respected me.’

He held closer still the child’s weight of her body, and looked out upon the scene. Now the red sun was setting over the works and villas. Lights were peeping out, and smoke was rising into a smoky sunset.

‘An’ I’ll
always
respect you, Jenny,’ he said.

And he knew he was speaking the truth. He loved her. He could hardly bear his happiness. He was filled with a calm and overflowing happiness.

This, then, was what life had held in store for him. Life – all these marvels and mysteries – the smoky sunset, and the ancient night above, and the living being in his arms – it was too much. But it was reality. And she had real natural fair hair. He touched it. His own dear Jenny. Life. He was thankful, so thankful for the gift of life. He could have prayed with thankfulness and happiness.

‘L
OOK, BOB,’ SHE
said, ‘the sun’s goin’ down.’

‘I know, dear. . . . Jenny, dear?’

‘Yes.’

‘You understand, dear, don’t you? I love you, dear.’

She did not reply.

‘Don’t you, dear?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t ’speck you really love me. I ’speck you only ’
magine
you love me. I don’t see how you
could
love me.’

‘But I do, dear. I do, I tell you I do!’

‘No. I ’speck you just think I’m pretty.’

‘No. It ain’t that, dear. It
ain
’
t
that.’

‘Not that I am,’ she added. ‘’Cos I’m ugly.’

‘Oh, you aren’t, Jenny. You aren’t. You’re lovely! You know you are.’

‘You ain’t half been good to me, Bob,’ she said. ‘Ain’t you?’ She looked up at him, and was kissed again. There was a long silence, as she took his hand again in hers. . . .

‘Well. I guess you got a girl, now, ain’t you, Bob?’

‘Yes. I got a girl. But she don’t love me as much as I love her.’

‘Oh, yes, she does. She loves you more than what you do.’

‘Does she?’

‘Yes. An’ she won’t let you go now she’s got you. You’re
my
Bob now, ain’t you?’

‘Yes, Jenny.’ He was so happy. Her Bob. His Jenny. His! His living Jenny in his arms! The perils of the future were obliterated by her warm consoling presence and reality. He would love her for ever.

‘Oh, I’m so lucky and happy!’ he said.

‘Well, I hope you will be,’ she said. ‘’Cos I won’t let you go. Not never.’

A long silence followed. She would never let him go. He believed her. He gloried in his sentence. He took stock of his delicious and inescapable possession. Not only the real natural fair hair – not only the real natural blue eyes – but the
mouth, and the hands, and the sweet limbs, and all the fabrics and silks containing them and made magic by them. Her shoes. Her stockings. The bangle on her wrist. Every little appurtenance. A complete and golden girl! His girl. She would never let him go. Oh, indeed, his doom was sweet! – and she had pronounced it. He asked no more of life.