Doris Lessing - In Pursuit of the English

‘But it’s not nice,’ said Rose. ‘He’ll want a little comforting and petting after that place, and all he’ll get will be work, work. And no money for it. So what can I do? My mother’s married that fancy man and he’s already started to treat her bad. I could have told her. But she’s got a real weakness for bad ones, the way I told you.’

‘Like someone else I know,’ I said.

She was distressed. ‘Don’t say that,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t say it. Not yet, any rate. Perhaps things’ll come right. I mean, I know he loves me and that’s what counts, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps Flo’s right,’ I said.

‘But I couldn’t be happy, knowing I’d got a man that way. It stands to reason, you’d always be thinking — you’d remember you tricked him and you wouldn’t feel good. Mind you, it doesn’t trouble Flo, she’s happy enough.’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘No. But they’ll make it up.’

Downstairs. Flo had been reduced by Dan’s persistent bad temper into a state of permanent near-tears. When he entered the basement he was confronted by Flo and Aurora, sitting in each other’s arms, staring at him in helpless pathos.

He swore and blustered, but Flo replied through Aurora, thus: ‘Ah, my Lord, your daddy’s cross with us, Oar, he doesn’t love us no more, he just wishes we were both dead.’ At which Aurora wept, and Flo with her, genuinely and copiously.

Soon he counter-attacked. He was waking very early these days. He sneaked Aurora out of her bed while Flo slept, and took her into the kitchen. There he built up a great fire, and ate his breakfast with the child on his knee, feeding her bits of fried bread and egg. One morning the builders had blocked the front door with their gear and I had to go out through the basement, Dan forgot his ill-humour with me, and gave me a smile, pushing forward a chair, and setting a cup of tea. There was a great red fire. Aurora sat sleepy and smiling in her white nightgown with her arm round her father’s neck. ‘Look,’ said Dan. ‘she’s eating. She eats for me, if she won’t for her mother.’ He was cheerful and at ease there in his hot kitchen. He cooked more bacon, more egg, for me and for my son, and Aurora ate everything put in front of her.

‘You see?’ he kepi saying, awed by this miracle. ‘It’s just that stupid cow her mother that stops her eating.’

Dan kept this up every day, and when we went up to work in the flat, took the child with him. But it was all too much for Aurora, who spent half the day as Dan’s ally, and the other half as Flo’s. She became silent; all the obedient clown went out of her nature, and she sucked at her bottle hour after hour.

‘No. I don’t love you. I don’t love you, I don’t love,’ she murmured automatically whenever either parent came near her. If she was picked up she went rigid and shrieked.

At this juncture Welfare came again, and insisted on seeing both parents. Dan, who resented Welfare as much as Flo, was prepared to use her in his battle against his wife. He took Aurora to the doctor himself, allowing Flo to go with him.

What they heard subdued the parents into friendship for each other. They were inarticulately miserable. They both deeply loved the child. Yet the doctor said they had ill-treated her to the point where she had a patch on one lung; her teeth were rotten; her bones were rickety. She had to have regular food, fresh air, and the company of other children. If her condition had not improved by the next visit, she would have to be sent to a sanatorium.

Rose discussed all this with me; and went down to the basement to say Aurora should go to a nursery school.

She came back to say: ‘Would you believe it? They say they have no money for nursery schools. I said, it’s your kid, isn’t it? And all that money with Bobby Brent? If it comes to the worst, sell out your share in one of the houses. But, oh no, perish the thought, money before Aurora every time.’

‘But they love that kid.’ I said.

‘Love?’ said Rose. ‘Don’t use that word to me. I’ve heard all I want for the time being.’ She was going out with Dickie again; but all the joy had gone out of it. She had told him he must marry her; and he was replying: ‘What for?’

‘What for? he says. What for? Weil I’m not getting any younger. I say to him. Don’t you want your own home? Don’t you want children? But, oh no, not Dickie Bolt, he just laughs and twists my arm and says Let’s go to bed.’ She leaned forward in her chair, staring into my fire, her hands trembling together in her lap. ‘And what’s sad is, making love isn’t what it was, the way I feel. I’ve gone all cold on him and I can’t help it. And he says: What’s biting you. Rose? Funny, aren’t they — what’s biting you, he says, enjoying himself, and me scared even to think of what’s going to happen. Suppose I don’t never have a kid? I want to have kids bad.’

‘Give him up.’ I said, ‘He’s no good to you.’

‘Oh, don’t say it. I know he isn’t. But I love him and I can’t help myself.’ She sat, staring, silent. Then she said fiercely: ‘And downstairs, that Flo and that Dan — if I had a kid I’d know how to look after it. I know. I’d treat it right and have some sense, not all that shouting and slapping and kissing.’ She wept hopelessly, and would not be comforted.

Downstairs, now that her parents were no longer quarrelling. Aurora began to improve. Flo took her to the Park every afternoon and pushed her on the swings. She was made to go to bed early. She ate badly but better than before.

Meanwhile Jack, against Rose’s advice, chose this moment to present himself truculently one evening, demanding to come home. The parents were concentrated on Aurora and their fright over her. He was told he could come back if he helped Dan. Jack had heard of Dan’s need for him, and demanded union rates for whatever work he did. Dan lost his temper again. Jack went off, and soon we heard he had gone to Australia. It was much later that Flo discovered the fifty pounds nest-egg she kept rolled in an old corset at the back of her cupboard was missing. He had used it to pay his passage.

War Damage had now finished the two top floors. Dan left his work on the ground-floor flat and was painting them. The workmen wanted to come into my room and Rose’s.

The following conversation took place between me and Flo.

‘Well, dear, isn’t it nice, they’re going to pull down one wall of your room and make it all nice, I don’t know what you’re going to do, I’m sure.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘Pardon, dear?’

‘Am I going to sleep with a wall down?’

‘You can’t sleep in Rose’s room, because she’s moving downstairs to us, it’s no trouble to her, now she and Dickie’s cooled off, she doesn’t need a room to herself. They’re pulling down her wall, too.’

‘Well, and where am I going to work?’

‘You could lake your typewriter to the bathroom, couldn’t you, sweetheart?’

‘I could, but I won’t.’

‘Ah, my Lord, I knew you’d say that.’

‘Tell me, Flo, do you think it’s fair for me to pay you full rent when I can’t even use my room to work in?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Why should I pay you for something I don’t get?’

‘But the blitz wasn’t my fault, dear. Tell me now, is it true you’re looking out for somewhere to live?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘There’s that flat downstairs, it’s going to be ever so nice.’

‘But not for me.’

‘Because you don’t want to pay what we’ll have to ask when this room is all done up and nice, do you?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll talk to Dan,’ she said, distressed.

Eventually the builders decided not to rebuild the wall but only to patch it up a little.