Doris Lessing - In Pursuit of the English

I fetched my son, and at once he vanished into the basement with Aurora. Later, exhausted with the warmth and the welcome of the family downstairs, he fell asleep, saying he liked this house and he wanted to stay in it.

This upset me, because in the meantime I had decided it was impossible; in spite of my having suddenly understood that this was indubitably a garret, and that I had fulfilled the myth to its limit, and without any conscious intention on my part. There was no room in this garret to put a typewriter, let alone to unpack my things. I would have to start again.

Then I remembered Flo had said something about rooms downstairs. I went down to see Rose about it.

When she opened her door to me I at first did not recognize her; she looked like her own daughter. She had just taken a bath, and wore a white wool dressing-gown. Her black hair was combed loose, and her face was pale, soft and young, with dark smudges of happiness under the eyes. Her mouth, revealed, was small and sad, She said, with formality, ‘Come in, dear. I’m sorry the room is untidy.’ The room was very small and neat; it had a look of intense privacy, as a room does when every-article means a great deal to the person living in it. Rose had brought her bed and her small easy chair and her linen from her own home. The curtains and bedcover had pink and blue flowers; and there was a cherry-pink rug on the black-painted floor. That everything she touched or wore should be perfectly clean and tidy was important to her; she was one of the most instinctively fastidious people I have ever known. Now she pushed forward her little blue-covered armchair, waited until I had sat down, and said, smiling with pleasure: ‘I’m glad you came. I like some company.’

‘I came to ask about the room Flo mentioned — is there another one free in the house?’

At once she looked sorrowful and guilty; and by now I knew her well enough to understand why. Her loyalties were in conflict. She said: ‘I don’t rightly know. You’d better ask Flo.’ She blushed and said hastily: ‘Of course that place upstairs isn’t fit for a pet cat, let alone a woman with a kid.’ She added: ‘But Flo and Dan’ll be good to that kid of yours. They really like kids.’ ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘That’s the trouble.’ ‘I see your trouble,’ she said. She hesitated. ‘If there was a room going, and I’m not saying because I don’t know — it’s like this, see — Flo and Dan are new in this house business, they have fancy ideas about the rent they’re going to get. And they never thought they’d let that dump upstairs at all — see, at least, not for so much. Of course, you’re a foreigner, and don’t know yet.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask Flo, then.’

‘Yes, that would be better for me. I’m a friend of hers, see?’

‘Of course.’

‘About that other place you saw — did you see it?’

‘Yes,’ I began to tell her, but she knew about the house. ‘I know because I get to know all sorts of things, working in that shop. But was there anything about someone kicked out?’

‘A Mr MacNamara.’ I said. Her face changed with rich suddenness into a delighted appreciation.

‘Mr MacNamara, is he? The son of a rich lord from Ireland?’

‘I don’t know about the lord.’

She sat on the bed, and regarded me patiently.

‘There’s a lot you don’t,’ she said. ‘If he’s Mr MacNamara to you, then watch out. You didn’t give him money, did you?’

I admitted it. To my surprise, she was not scornful, but worried for me, ‘Then watch out. He’ll be after some more. Didn’t you see what he was like?’

‘Yes, I did. It’s hard to explain …’ I began, but she nodded and said: ‘I know what you mean. Well, don’t you feel too bad. He’s got a real gift for it. You’d be surprised the people he diddles. He did my boss out of twenty quid once, and to this day she wonders what came over her. And now you take my advice and have nothing to do with him. Mr MacNamara. Well I remember when he was a barrow-boy, and he knows I remember it, selling snaps and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails for what he could get. But even then he had his head on the right way, for the next thing was, he had his own car and it was paid for. That’s the trouble with him — it’s not what you call a spiv, at least, not all the time. One minute he’s got his hand in the gas-meter and the next he’s doing real business.’

‘Well, thank you for telling me.’

She hesitated. Then she said in a rush: ‘I like you, see. We can be friends. And not everyone’s like Flo — I don’t want you to be thinking that.’ She added guiltily — ‘It’s because she’s a foreigner, it’s not her fault.’

‘What kind of a foreigner?’

‘I’m not saying anything against her; don’t think it. She’s English really. She was born here. But her grandmother was Italian, see? She comes from a restaurant family. So she behaves different. And then the trouble is. Dan, isn’t a good influence — not that I’m saying a word against him.’

‘Isn’t he English?’

‘Not really, he’s from Newcastle. They’re different from us, up in places like that. Oh no, he’s not English, not properly speaking.’

‘And you?’

She was confused at once. ‘Me, dear? But I’ve lived in London all my life. Oh. I see what you mean — I wouldn’t say I was English so much as a Londoner, see? It’s different.’

‘I see,’ I said.

‘You going out?’ she asked, offhand.

‘I thought of wandering about and having a look.’

‘I understand.’

I did not know she wanted to come with me. Coming to a new country, you don’t think of people being lonely, but having full lives into which you intrude. But she was looking forlorn, and I said: ‘Don’t you go out in the evenings?’

‘Not much. Well, not these days I don’t. It gives me the ’ump, sitting around.’

‘Flo said you were engaged to Dan’s brother.’

She was very shocked, ‘Engaged!’ She blushed. ‘Oh no, dear. You mustn’t say things like that, you’ll put ideas into my head.’

‘I’m sorry. Flo said you might be marrying him.’

‘Yes, that’s so. I might be, you could say that.’ She sighed. Then she giggled, and gave me a playful nudge with her elbow. ‘Engaged! The things you say, you make me laugh.’

Flo’s voice sounded up the stairs: ‘There’s a gentleman to see you. Rose, tell her there’s a gentleman.’

‘How does she know I’m with you?’

She said: ‘It’s easy to think Flo’s stupid. Because she is. But not about knowing what goes on.’

‘But I don’t know anyone,’ I said.

‘Oh, go on. Don’t you know who it is?’

‘How should I?’

‘It’s Mr Bobby Brent, Mr MacNamara to you. Silly.’

‘Oh!’ I got up from the chair.

‘You’re not going ,’ she said, shocked. ‘Tell Flo to send him off.’

‘But I think I’m interested, after what you’ve said.’

‘Interested?’

‘I mean. I’ve never met anyone tike him before.’

She was puzzled. Then, unmistakably hurt. I did not understand why. ‘Yes?’ was all she said. She turned back to her dressing-table and began brushing her hair out.

Rose’s yes was the most expressive of monsyllabies. It could be sceptical, give you the lie direct, accuse you, reject you. This time it meant: Interested, are you? Weil. I can’t afford to be interested in scoundrels. Fancy yourself, don’t you?

Whenever, in the future. I was interested in a person or a situation which did not have her moral approval, she would repudiate me with precisely that — Yes?

But her good heart overcame her disapproval, for she said as I left the room: ‘If you must you must. But don’t let him get his hands on to your money.’