Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (22 page)

‘Good-bye, dear,’ she said.

‘Good-bye.’ He clung to her hand as she moved away. ‘Oh, Jenny – Don’t go! Kiss me again.’

‘Very well, dear.’

The assuagement was renewed. She soothed, she appeased, she intoxicated. She cured. She inspired with sweetness his remotest nerves. She was Jenny, that was all – Jenny – his only draught to summon the gardens of forgetfulness. And she was giving him her best. . . .

‘There,’ she said. . . .

‘Oh, Jenny, I do want you so. I’m dyin’ for you. I am!’

‘Well, Bob – you can’t say I am not Nice to you, can you?’

‘No.’

‘Well – good-bye, dear.’

‘Good-bye.’

He watched her, broken-hearted, as she let herself in with a key. She waved and smiled at him. The door closed: she was gone to her secrets.

He was trudging up Doughty Street again in the snow. It snowed, in heavy, luscious, rapid, even flakes.

T
HERE WAS A
great deal of freakishness and fantasia in the world next morning.

To begin with, it was colder than you could ever remember it having been in the course of your life. Ella, making up the sandwiches for the bar, accidentally spilt some mustard on to her fingers. She drew her hand away as though she had been burnt. It was as cold as that.

Then the snow, which had apparently not ceased falling through the night, was thick upon the ground and the roofs, and was still falling. If you looked out of the window, and watched it falling, you could hypnotically and giddily imagine that you were going up, up, up – as though in some universal elevator. . . . Fantastic enough in itself. Then there was the unfamiliar light. Ella, with her usual unconscious genius, described it perfectly: ‘It ain’t half a bad light, ain’t it?’ she said. It was bad. It was evil. It weighed on the soul, and played every kind of trick. Things that you thought were clean, were dirty, and things that you thought were white were not. Sugar was a despondent grey, and bread was the colour of mud.

Then, when the house opened, you could hear nothing of the first few arrivals until the door creaked open and they were in with you. Their arrival was in itself an achievement, which they emanated in white steam. Also they left brittle
cakes and oddments of muddy snow on the floor – messes which Bob would have to clear away.

He and Ella were a little reserved with each other. He had been absent last night and she must have heard the story of his stepmother. You could not hope to fool Ella (that dexterous interpreter of his soul) with stepmothers. She said nothing, but you could see what she thought. ‘
You
and your stepmothers!’ But she said nothing, because she could not take the risk. By some impossible fluke Bob might actually have had a stepmother who was ill. If that was so, then it was a question of family relationships. And, in Ella’s unquestioning mentality, any sort of family relationship involved, axiomatically and unhesitatingly, Love. Therefore, if by any chance she was mistaken, to make fun of it would not be ‘kind.’ From love and kindness her good soul was constructed.

Her nose, this morning, was dreadfully red. She did not know it was red: Bob did not object to it being red: but it was. Why, in the cold weather, were plain women’s noses always red, while beautiful women’s weren’t? You would have thought the atmosphere would have afflicted them all alike. But no: it was a law of nature. Unto those who have, it shall be given: unto those who have not, it shall be taken away. Ella was born plain, so her nose went red when it was chilly.

As for Bob, this morning, his mind was diverted in a curious way. He had suddenly decided to buy himself a dark blue suit, and literally could think of nothing else.

Jenny was too much for him. At the moment, what he required (he believed) was
morale
. There was no
morale
so great as that conferred by a good suit. He was going to get the real article this time. He would surprise himself and Jenny with it. He would astonish Ella with it. He would appal ‘The Midnight Bell’ with it. He was going to Moss’s for it.

Of the last five pounds he had drawn, he had three pounds ten left. That had to go for her evening dress. He would draw another ten pounds. Six on the suit, and four to spend on Jenny. . . . Only sixty pounds left. He had eighty once. Was he going to the devil? Damn it, there was precisely one thing now which could provide him with tangible pleasure in life. A suit.
He would go this afternoon and she would see him wearing it on Monday. Life had its compensations.

T
HE CASHIER DID
not so much as glance at Bob as he slipped across the ten pounds that afternoon. Bob wondered whether the cashier had any idea of what was happening. Twenty pounds in little over two weeks was heavy going.

He walked down to Moss’s. It was well to be out in the streets. The snow still fell thickly, and on the ground it was frozen. It had been cleared away from the main thoroughfares, but in the side streets it was shocking. You continually found yourself walking without advancing and making an exhibition of yourself. This was in direct contrast to all the little children abroad in the streets, whose sole pleasure it was to run like the devil in order to experience, for one brief instant, the joys of advancing without walking.

Wonderful transitions befell London. Bob felt that this snow was an interlude. Life could not be properly resumed, as it were, until it thawed.

The premises of Messrs. Moss are at the top of Bedford Street. He walked down Bedford Street a little way. He was a bit scared. After all, it was a swell place. Swell. He mustn’t use words like that, even in thought. They betrayed his commonness. To the true swell, nothing was swell. Besides, Moss’s was not a swell place. By the highest standards, certainly not. It was merely swell to him.

He entered. The atmosphere was dark. There were mounds of cloth, and one or two assistants. The latter took no notice of him. The astonishing fancy that they knew he was a waiter, and were going to have nothing to do with him at all, flashed across his mind. He went up to one of them.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I want a suit.’

It sounded so inadequate and bald. But what, in like circumstance, would your true swell have said?

‘(Yes, sir.) Here!’

Assistant called to assistant. Moss’s was set in motion for him. ‘This way, sir,’ said another assistant.

He was led down some stairs, and found himself in a little cubicle surrounded by mirrors. The assistant deserted him. Other people were being Tried On each side of him. He could hear them talking, and grunting into their trousers.

He examined his profile. He was rottenly dressed. But he wasn’t bad looking, if you gave him a chance. He wasn’t half bad looking really. Half. There you were again. As bad as ‘swell.’

Another assistant entered, and attacked the matter in a brighter spirit.

‘Yes, sir. What kind of suit would you like, sir?’

‘Well, I want a blue one, really. Double breasted.’

Why had he said he wanted one ‘really’? Why had he
apologized
for wanting a suit?

‘Yes, sir.’

The assistant vanished. He returned, a few minutes later, with three blue suits. Without comment he helped Bob on with the coat of one of them. It was horrible – about the same blue that you see in the sky. Was this suit business, after all, going to be a failure? Bob looked at himself.

‘No,’ said Bob. ‘I don’t think I quite like that pattern . . .’

‘Very well, sir,’ said the assistant, but Bob was afraid he was wounded.

On went the next. The assistant was wasting no time. Bob looked at himself. The assistant looked at him.

‘M’m . . . .’ said Bob.

‘That’s beautiful across the shoulders, sir,’ said the assistant.

‘Let’s have a look at the other,’ said Bob.

Another lightning change. The assistant caressed Bob’s back.

‘Ah – that’s your suit, sir,’ he said tenderly.

And, indeed, it appeared to be.

‘Yes. . . .’ said Bob. And looked at himself.

Now the tragedy and evil of buying a ready-made suit is this – that it ends, just like that, in ‘Yes. . . .’ You think it would be a good idea if you bought a suit; you delightedly resolve to buy a suit; you work yourself up into a heavenly climax about a suit – and then suddenly it is all over and you are merely saying ‘Yes. . . .’ You stare at it. You pat the pockets; you turn round and look at yourself sideways; you see what it would look like if it wasn’t buttoned. But whatever you do, there is nothing else to be said. ‘Yes. . . .’ You look at the cuffs – but they’re no help to you – they’re excellent. You examine the lining – it couldn’t be better. Perhaps it is too tight under the arms. But it is not. It is no good. You are faced by the depressing fact that you are going to buy it.

‘Yes,’ said Bob. . . .

‘I don’t see you could do much better than that, sir,’ said the assistant. . . .

‘Yes,’ said Bob. . . .

The assistant stared at it. Bob stared at it. A hopeless eternity stretched before them both – an eternity in which the assistant stared approvingly and Bob went on murmuring ‘Yes. . . .’ There was no hope.

‘Yes,’ said Bob. . . .

Inspiration seized the assistant.

‘How about slipping on the trousers, sir?’

The trousers! Of course! They returned to life.

For the trying on of the trousers the assistant left the cubicle. This was possibly on behalf of modesty and possibly on behalf of the firm; and he returned a few minutes later.

The trousers were flawless. . . . Another, and trouser eternity threatened, but was skilfully diverted by a question touching the price, from Bob. It was six and a half guineas.

Bob agreed to it: the hostilities of transaction were over, and they were the best of friends. Bob began to take it off.

‘Now will you have that sent, sir?’

This was an awkward moment. One son of toil faced another, and both were aware of the fact. But the laws governing clothes are, and have ever been, subject to weird
conventions, reticences, and mystifications. Bob would have liked to have had it sent, but he could not bring himself to give the address of a pub. It would look as though he were a mere son of toil.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I think I might as well take it with me.’

‘Very well, sir. That’s the quickest service after all, ain’t it, sir?’

And they both thought this tremendously sardonic, and laughed together.

Mere pelf, of course, after this, was a little degrading: but between two personal friends anything may be carried off with tolerable dignity, and soon Bob had his receipt. It occurred to him briefly, as he watched the parcel being eagerly and dexterously tied, that you encountered very little snobbishness when it came to your spending money in London (indeed, people were most affable about it) – but he smothered the thought.

The assistant made a critical comment on the weather, to which Bob made an agreeable reply, and they elaborated the theme with the same slightly hysterical unanimity. Then the parcel was in Bob’s hands, and the assistant, still talking, was leading him out.

They reached the door. The modern fashion forbade them to embrace: they might not even shake hands: but eyes and voice may do what gesture may not.

‘
Good
afternoon, sir.’

‘
Good
afternoon.’

And he was out in the snow again. His life was consoled and warmed. She would get a shock, if you liked.

H
E PUT IT
on first on Sunday afternoon. He wore also a clean shirt, with a collar to match, and his best shoes. Ella, knocking at his door and coming in to reclaim a shoe-rag he
had borrowed, saw it on him. He was brushing his hair carefully.

‘My word, Bob,’ she said, ‘who’s that for?’

‘Who’s what for?’

‘All that Get-up.’

‘What “Get-up”?’

He would not show it, but she had wounded him dreadfully. Was he, after all, merely making a fool of himself – showing off? Was it, perhaps, ‘common,’ in one of his class, to wear a first-class suit? Or was it Ella’s ‘ignorance’?

Ella, alive, as ever, to the minutest alarms in the realm of sentiment, made hasty amends.

‘You look fine in it,’ she said. ‘Dark blue suits you, don’t it?’

‘Do you like it?’

‘Yes. It doesn’t half suit you. She won’t know you in that, will she, Bob?’

‘Who won’t?’

‘Oo!’ said Ella, and left the room.

He was beginning to grow rather fond of Ella’s absurd long shots. It was something to have someone interested in you, if only to that extent. Lacking any one to talk to about Jenny, these little passages with Ella were the nearest approaches to confidences he could get. Ella was a jolly good sort, there was no getting out of that.

On Monday afternoon he left the house at ten past three, and had just time to walk down to the appointed place.

He had no idea what he was going to do with her this afternoon. Just take her to tea somewhere, he supposed. At present he could not argue with her any more, nor face his problems. Besides, the snow was still falling, in flicking, sparse, and irritating little flakes under a leaden sky, and was thick and frozen upon the roofs and ground. London’s garish interlude was maintained, and their meeting this afternoon could be nothing but garish interlude. A man in love drifts, and is hopelessly susceptible to scenery. . . .

How had it all come upon him? How had she done it? How had she gained this hypnotic ascendancy over him – how,
from being a rather pretty and piteous little wretch, had she subtly developed into an erotic and deadly drug now utterly indispensable alike to his spiritual and nervous system? And she was nothing else. He could weep with wanting her and her kindness.

But how had it got started? He went back over all the times he had met her – from the first night at ‘The Midnight Bell’ – up to the Hampstead episode (that was where the poison had really gripped his blood) – and on to last night – when she had told him that she was married. He all at once perceived that, so often had she failed him, that he had actually met her only six times. Good God! – he had only met her six times! Shocking discovery! Six times only, and she had remained so calm, while his own soul had been the theatre for a drama so horrid and ruinous! He thought he had met her fifty times at least.