To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One. Doris Lessing
grinning, ‘with a spitfire.’ She laughed, and he laughed with her. The words presented Rose to him in a new way. Proper little spitfire, he said to himself, caressing his cheek. Who would have thought Rose had all that fire in her? Then he set down the glass, straightened his tie, wiped his cheek with his handkerchief, nodded to Pearl with his debonair smile, and went out. Now he did not hesitate. He went straight back to the basement.
Rose was washing clothes in the sink. Her face was swollen and damp with crying, but she had combed her hair. When she saw him she went red, trying to meet his eyes, but could not. He went straight over to her and put his arms around her. ‘Here, Rosie, don’t get worked up now.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, with prim nervousness, trying to smile. Her eyes appealed to him. ‘I don’t know what came over me, I don’t really.’
‘It’s all right, I’m telling you.’
But now she was crying from shame. ‘I never use them words. Never. I didn’t know I knew them. I’m not like that. And now you’ll think …’ He gathered her to him and felt her shoulders shaking. ‘Now don’t you waste any more time thinking about it. You were upset – well, I wanted you to be upset, I did it on purpose, don’t you see, Rosie? You couldn’t go on like that, pretending to yourself.’ He kissed the part of her cheek that was not hidden in his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, I’m ever so sorry,’ she wept, but she sounded much better.
He held her tight and made soothing noises. At the same time he had the feeling of a man sliding over the edge of a dangerous mountain. But he could not stop himself now. It was much too late. She said, in a small voice: ‘You were quite right, I know you were. But it was just that I couldn’t bear to think. I didn’t have anybody but Dad. It’s been him and me together for ever so long. I haven’t got anybody at all …’ The thought came into her mind and vanished: Only George’s little girl. She belongs to me by rights.
Jimmie said indignantly: ‘Your Dad – I’m not saying anything against him, but it wasn’t right to keep you here looking after him. You should have got out and found yourself a nice husband and had kids.’ He did not understand why, though only for a moment, her body hardened and rejected him. Then she relaxed and said submissively: ‘You mustn’t say anything against my Dad.’
‘No,’ he agreed, mildly. ‘I won’t.’ She seemed to be waiting. ‘I haven’t got anything now,’ she said, and lifted her face to him. ‘You’ve got me,’ he said at last, and he was grinning a little from sheer nervousness. Her face softened, her eyes searched his, and she still waited. There was a silence, while he struggled with common sense. It was far too long a silence, and she was already reproachful when he said: ‘You come with me, Rosie, I’ll look after you.’
And now she collapsed against him again and wept: ‘You do love me, don’t you, you do love me?’ He held her and said: ‘Yes, of course, I love you.’ Well that was true enough. He did. He didn’t know why, there wasn’t any sense in it, she wasn’t even pretty, but he loved her. Later she said: ‘I’ll get my things together and come to where you live.’
He temporized, with an anxious glance at the ominous ceiling: ‘You stay here for a bit. I’ll get things fixed first.’
‘Why can’t I come now?’ She looked in a horrified, caged way around the basement as if she couldn’t wait to get out of it – she who had clung so obstinately to its shelter.
‘You just trust me now, Rosie. You pack your things, like a good girl. I’ll come back and fetch you later.’ She clutched his shoulders and looked into his face and pleaded: ‘Don’t leave me here long – that ceiling – it might fall.’ It was as if she had only just noticed it. He comforted her, put her persuasively away from him, and repeated he would be back in half an hour. He left her sorting out her belongings in worried haste, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
And now what was he going to do? He had no idea. Flats – they weren’t hard to find, with so many people evacuated; yes, but here it was after eleven at night, and he couldn’t even lay hands on the first week’s rent. Besides, he had to give his wife some money tomorrow. He walked slowly through the damaged street, in the thick dark, his hands in his pockets, thinking: Now you’re in a fix, Jimmie boy, you’re properly in a fix.
About an hour later his feet took him back. Rose was seated at the table, and on it were two cardboard boxes and a small suitcase – her clothes. Her hands were folded together in front of her.
‘It’s all right?’ she inquired, already on her feet.
‘Well, Rosie, it’s like this –’ he sat down and tried for the right words. ‘I should’ve told you. I haven’t got a place really.’
‘You’ve got no place to sleep?’ she inquired incredulously. He avoided her eyes and muttered: ‘Well, there’s complications.’ He caught a glimpse of her face and saw there – pity! It made him want to swear. Hell, this was a mess, and what was he to do? But the sorrowful warmth of her face touched him and, hardly knowing what he was doing, he let her put her arms around him, while he said: ‘I was bombed out last week.’
‘And you were looking after me, and you had no place yourself?’ she accused him, tenderly. ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll find a place in the morning.’
‘That’s right, we’ll have our own place and – can we get married soon?’ she inquired shyly, going pink.
At this, he laid his face against hers, so that she could not look at him, and said: ‘Let’s get a place first, and we can fix everything afterwards.’
She was thinking. ‘Haven’t you got no money?’ she inquired, diffidently at last. ‘Yes, but not the cash. I’ll have it later.’ He was telling himself again: You’re properly in the soup, Jimmie, in – the – soup!
‘I’ve got two hundred pounds in the post office,’ she offered, smiling with shy pride, as she fondled his hair. ‘And there’s the furniture from here – it’s not hurt by the bomb a bit. We can furnish nicely.’
‘I’ll give you back the money later,’ he said desperately.
‘When you’ve got it. Besides, my money is yours now,’ she said, smiling tenderly at him. ‘Ours.’ She tasted the word delicately, inviting him to share her pleasure in it.
Jimmie was essentially a man who knew people, got around, had irons in the fire and strings to pull; and by next afternoon he had found a flat. Two rooms and a kitchen, a cupboard for the coal, hot and cold water, and a share of the bathroom downstairs. Cheap, too. It was the top of an old house, and he was pleased that one could see trees from Battersea Park over the tops of the buildings opposite. Rose’ll like it, he thought. He was happy now. All last night he had lain on the floor beside her in the ruinous basement, under the bulging ceiling, consumed by dubious thoughts; now these had vanished, and he was optimistic. But when Rose came up the stairs with her packages she went straight to the window and seemed to shrink back. ‘Don’t you like it, Rosie?’ ‘Yes, I like it, but …’ Soon she laughed and said, apologetically: ‘I’ve always lived underneath – I mean, I’m not used to being so high up.’ He kissed her and teased her and she laughed too. But several times he noticed that she looked unhappily down from the window and quickly came away, with a swift, uncertain glance around at the empty rooms. All her life she had lived underground, with buses and cars rumbling past above eye-level, the weight of the big old house heavy over her, like the promise of protection. Now she was high above streets and houses, and she felt unsafe. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’ll get used to it. And she gave herself to the pleasure of arranging furniture, putting things away. She took a hundred pounds of her money out of the post office and bought – but what she bought was chiefly for him. A chest for his clothes: she teased him because he had so many; a small wireless set; and finally a desk for him to work on, for he had said he was studying for an engineering degree of some kind. He asked her why she bought nothing for herself, and she said, defensively, that she had plenty. She had arranged the new flat to look like her old home. The table stood the same way, the calendar with yellow roses hung on the wall, and