Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (18 page)

It was an amazing life – and a quarter past nine. She had not come in. He began to listen to the creaking door. It would be too absurd if she didn’t come, but he had an idea that she wouldn’t.

Twenty past nine. What sort of trick did she think she was playing on him? But he didn’t care – that was the funny thing. It would serve her jolly well right if he never got into touch with her again – if he used this as an excuse to get out of the affair. Did he want to get out of it? No. But he really wouldn’t care.

For his own welfare, the wisdom of escaping now would be profound. But he supposed he couldn’t. She loved him. She almost certainly would have a perfect excuse, and he would have to give her the chance. There would be another letter in the morning, he imagined. . . .

In fact he was tied up to her now. . . . Good heavens! tied up to a street walker – something only just removed from a crook. . . .

What would Ella think, if she knew? . . .

What would the Governor, everybody, think if they knew?. . .

Half-past nine. She was certainly not coming now. Not only did he not care; he was glad.

Yes. Glad.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, rather to his surprise, his mood held. No letter had come. Now was his chance, if he cared, to escape. At least, so long as she did not write to him or pay him a visit at ‘The Midnight Bell’ it was. But suppose she never
did
write, or pay him a visit at ‘The Midnight Bell’? Would it not be an intolerable slight? Her character was so odd that he could quite believe it of her. And could he put up with such a thing? Never. At least he would have to have the last word – to take some sort of revenge.

It was therefore purely for the sake of revenge, for the sake of bringing the business abruptly to a clean cut understanding or termination that he was going to ’phone her up this morning. He was, after all, an orderly man.

Conscience whispered that if he was a man at all he would leave it where it was. He replied that he could not do that. Conscience returned that a man could do anything. He merely rejoined that he didn’t happen to be going to, anyway, so it might as well shut up. A knock on the head like that will temporarily stun, though it will never finally destroy, conscience. In this case it did the former. He was in the telephone box at eleven o’clock.

‘’Ullo?’

‘Hullo. Is Miss Jenny Maple there, please?’

‘Yes, will you ’old the line a moment, please?’

‘Thank you very much.’

This was excellent. It would have been the devil if she had not been there. He was glad he had taken this step – it had fully justified itself. He proposed being decidedly cool.

‘’Ullo. . . .’

‘Hullo. . . . Who’s that? Is that – ?’

‘Miss Maple’s in bed. She wants to know if that’s “Mr. Bob” speaking?’

Of all the stupidity and vulgarity. ‘
Mr. Bob
.’ What a fool she was making of him in front of this blasted woman. And why in heaven’s name couldn’t she come down?

‘Yes, it is. Why?’

‘She says will you meet her in Piccadilly, please, as she’s in bed and doesn’t want to come down.’

Piccadilly!
Where on earth did she mean by that? He was dealing with imbeciles.

‘Do you know what part of Piccadilly?’ he asked.

‘
Now
. I don’t know.’

‘Well, would you ask? Perhaps she’ll come down herself.’

‘Yes. Will you hold on?’

‘Yes.’

He waited.

‘’Ullo.’

‘Yes.’

‘She says in the Station, at five thirty.’

The Station
! He would go mad.

‘Could you tell me what part of the station?’

‘
Now
. I don’t know.’

‘Well, would you tell her I’ll be standing outside the bookstall in the entrance from the Haymarket at five thirty. You might go and tell me if that’s all right. I’ll hold on.’

He waited. If this was what dealing with women involved he wished he had never started dealing with women.

‘Are you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. She says that’ll be all right.’

‘Oh – thank you very much.’ He rang off, and came out.

She, Miss Maple, in bed at eleven o’clock – when everybody else was working (the lazy little beast) – granted him an interview at five thirty. Not a single word about her default of yesterday. And ‘Mr. Bob’ (her suddenly rather importunate and ridiculous suitor), because he was so fortunate as to have one whole evening in the week in which he escaped from toil, was able to take advantage of her offer. He was fed up.

A
ND SHE SHOULD
know that he was fed up, he decided that afternoon, as he left ‘The Midnight Bell.’ He had until five thirty, and was going for a walk in Regent’s Park.

It was about time that he got this thing straight. He doubted whether he loved her. How the whole thing had come upon him was beyond his comprehension. From the first moment he had met her, to the last time he had seen her, he had never made one conscious move towards either wooing or winning her. Indeed, he had done nothing but retreat. And yet here he was stuck with her – fully committed. Agencies beyond him had been at work.

And was she not, technically, a criminal? – or at least a delinquent, a member of the underworld, a breaker of the laws, liable to arrests, fines, and detention – marked by the police, and at their arbitrary mercy? A fine associate for one who proposed to make his mark in the world! ‘You’ll be gettin’ into
trouble
with one of them girls,’ Ella had said, and she was, as usual, right.

The situation was fantastic. He was seeing things clearly at last. He would either have to cut it out, or keep his head. He supposed he wanted to go on with it. Her extraordinary prettiness and attractiveness atoned, he imagined, for the trouble to which he would be put. But the trouble would be enormous, and now it was going to have his attention.

To begin with, if she desired to go on with him, she would have to submit absolutely to himself as master. It would be for her own good, and she would have to realize the fact.

Next, she would have to get a job. Until she was working and supporting herself decently, he wanted none of her – his pride and decency forbade him to be anything but hypothetically in love with her. That was obvious, and he did not know how it was that her attractions had made him overlook the fact. When she had fought her way back to the normal level of humanity, then he would forgive and forget. To know all is to forgive all. She should become his ‘girl.’. . .

And then? . . . Marriage? . . . Jenny would not expect that. . . . Anyway, the future was all dark, and that would be a later problem which would depend upon a thousand other circumstances. . . .

Unfortunately he was a man who proposed to make his mark upon the world. . . . At any rate, whatever happened, an association with him would be elevating her standards and he could be doing her no wrong.

But now there was to be no more tomfoolery. She had to get a job straight away, and he would tell her so this evening. He would help her, if he could; and were not all things possible to love?

What were the actual prospects? That would be coolly and carefully discussed this evening. This evening she would learn that he was master of the situation. If she would not submit, he was through –
and
glad of it.

And if she thought she was going on breaking her appointments like this, she was very much mistaken. And he would tell her so.

It was
funny
, that was what it was,
funny
. And he would tell her so. It was funny enough that he, seeing her degradation, should have ever made the smallest human advances to her. But that she, in that degradation, should think that she could play about with him like this, breaking arrangements overnight and sending down fool messages from bed the next morning, was too funny for words. And, quite dispassionately, he would tell her so.

Oh yes – there was going to be a great clearance and adjustment this evening.

At four thirty Bob entered the Lyons opposite Great Portland Street Station, and had a boiled egg for tea. He glowed with his own angry and resolute lucidity.

At five thirty Bob was waiting in the entrance to the Piccadilly tube from the Haymarket. He looked at the novels on the bookstall. He might have one of his own here, one day. It occurred to him that his present appointment accorded ill with the manner of life proper for realizing such an ambition. But he would win out all right.

Ten minutes later he was scampering round to the other entrances, to see if she was there. . . .

At ten to six she came. She was walking quietly along, looking, not frantically, at the meeting place, but, inadvertently, at the traffic.

Had she forgotten yesterday – Hampstead Heath? She looked more than ever like one – terribly like one – but admittedly a very attractive one.

‘Hullo,’ they said, and smiled, and shook hands. They walked up towards the Circus.

‘You’re a bit on the late side, aren’t you?’ he ventured.

She knew he was angry. She did not look at him, but absently at a passer-by.

‘Didn’t think I’d be able to get here at all,’ she said, ‘’s’matter of fact.’

Evidently she was going to be angry back. Not a very promising opening, he thought, for an evening of clearance and laboured adjustment. He would leave her stone cold, if he had any more impudence.

Perhaps, however, she only wanted talking to. And the night was young.

‘
OH – HOW’S THAT
?’ he said, and took her arm as they crossed the road.

‘Oo – ain’t it cold!’ she said, and touched his hand with hers, as though to discover if he was as frozen. A compliment, he supposed. But no answer to his query. Well, let her have it. She was ‘in for it’ all right before the night was done.

He agreed that it was cold, and they walked on in silence. They made for the little house where they had first sat together (the one with the room upstairs, and the piano instrument susceptible to pennies). After a while they began to talk, in a casually agreeable way, but could not, somehow, get
properly going. He had something up his sleeve, and she sensed the fact. But so far from being concerned, she was rather inclined to be resentful. It seemed to him that the whole affair was exactly where it was before. There might have been no Hampstead episode, and he was simply back to where he was that night when he had found her at the corner of Dean Street. A fatal night, that. If he hadn’t found her, he wouldn’t have been here now.

They took a table near the piano instrument, and he bought her drinks. There were a few people at other tables, including a trio who were making a lot of noise. She looked at them while Bob talked to her, and answered him in a very off-hand way.

Something had completely altered her. There was no doubt about that. Perhaps this was her manner of taking him for granted. Well, he would wait until they were in their second drink before he began. It would probably be a different story when she learnt that she was in danger of losing him.

‘What’ll you have?’ he asked. ‘Same again?’

‘That’s right.’

He got up and brought them to her. They came to one and eight – a good hour’s work at ‘The Midnight Bell.’ ‘Ta, dear,’ she said. It was marvellous the way this little criminal accepted his money and homage.

He sat down. ‘Well, look here, Jenny. I’ve got a lot to talk to you about.’

She sipped at the drink, spilt a little, and wiped her skirt with her hand.

‘Really, dear? What’s that?’

There was no shirking the fact. She was in a simply filthy temper. How dared she be in a temper with him? How dared she have the impertinence to resent his righteous resentment?

‘Well, to begin with, why didn’t you turn up last night?’ ‘S’pose I couldn’t get away, dear, that’s all,’ she said, and began to fumble in the recesses of her bag.

He watched her doing this, vaguely hoping that she was about to furnish therefrom some documented evidence of the cause of her last night’s absence and her present behaviour.
She produced, however, her powder puff.

‘Well,
why
couldn’t you get away?’

‘S’pose I had a previous engagement, dear, that’s all,’ she said. And bringing her mirror out too, she began to powder her face.

What did this mean? What was the
matter
with her? What had happened? Was she, perhaps, demented? Could anything else account for these fluctuations in her manner towards him? Perhaps the lot of them were demented. Perhaps they could never do what they did, unless they were. He had better clear out as soon as he could. He was getting involved in Bedlam.

At this point someone came over and put a penny in the piano. ‘My Blue Heaven’ began, dinning and clanging on the ears, like something demented itself. He was drowned in ‘My Blue Heaven’ and a general dementia of the Universe. . . .

But perhaps she was not demented. She looked rather tired. Perhaps she was ill. Also, he knew from experience that she was incapable of tolerating the slightest criticism of her behaviour. It was one of her fads. And being ill, should she be blamed? The slightest thing would upset a woman. She was ill. He would try that.

‘Aren’t you feeling well to-night, Jenny?’ he asked, as tenderly as possible, and in defiance of ‘My Blue Heaven.’

‘No. I’m very well, thank you.’

Miraculous – the way he would come up for punishment – and get it. He might as well have some more.

‘Jenny,’ he said, ‘do you love me?’

She looked at him, for once.

‘Well, I’ve
said
so, ain’t I?’

‘Well – you don’t act as though you do.’

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you to-night,’ she said. ‘Why are you naggin’ at me? I shouldn’t be here if I didn’t, would I?’

‘You love me, then?’

‘Sure. I told you I do.’

The moment, he thought, had come.

‘Well, I don’t want to be hard, Jenny: but if you go on like
this you’ll be darned near losin’ me, an’ that’s flat.’

‘My Blue Heaven’ came to an abrupt end. She did not answer, but looked sulkily at her glass.