Henry Green - Back

Perhaps it was because of Dot, but he was very taken by how she looked.

“That’s my precious puss,” she explained, when he stayed silent. “I’m afraid she’s been getting into bad company, the naughty girl.”

“Oh,” he said vaguely. He fed his eyes on her.

“I get so upset,” she explained. “Of course I should have taken her round to the cats’ hospital to have a little operation, but I never seemed to spare the time. Now it’s too late.”

“What’s the matter?”

“She’s to have kittens, the wicked girl, her first.” As Miss Whitmore told him, two huge tears rolled down from her eyes, while her face remained expressionless. He actually laughed. Then she giggled.

“Oh, I know, I’m making a fool of myself, you don’t have to tell me,” she said, very friendly.

“Made more of an idiot of myself, for that matter, when I was round here,” he muttered, shamefaced at once.

“I don’t know. Did you?” She was sitting opposite, with the cat on her lap. “Oh, Panzer, how you could? But I’d rather you didn’t give it another thought,” she said to him. “It takes two to get into an argument, as my mother always will insist.”

He suddenly found he was thinking of Nancy’s mother as of someone quite separate from Mrs Grant. But he did not stop to consider this.

“It’s no trouble to them, is it?” he asked.

“What d’you mean?”

“They have their kittens without any fuss, don’t they?”

“But I might be out at work.”

“Where d’you work, then?”

“I’m on nights at the G.P.O.”

He was beginning to feel easy and comfortable.

“There’s this about kittens, they don’t have to bother with clothing coupons,” he remarked.

“You’ve said a whole lot there,” she agreed. “I don’t suppose it can be easy for you people back from Germany.”

He could talk coupons as freely as he could technicalities in the office. He at once plunged into a long description of what few clothes he had, including the pink tweed he was wearing and which was useless in London. She listened with more than good grace. She joined in. And couldn’t help reminding herself how she had not meant to be so friendly. It turned out his main trouble was, that he hadn’t yet received the coupons to which he was entitled on discharge from the Army.

“The others said I should apply to C.A.B.” he told her. “Which is that?”

“Citizens’ Advice Bureau,” she explained. “But who are these people you’re mentioning?”

“Why the ones I was staying with.”

“Over the holiday?” she asked. “Well come on, be a friend. Who were they, then?”

“As a matter of fact one was the man I brought here.”

“Oh that fat man again.” That was how she dismissed Phillips. “And the other?”

“She was a girl I work with in the office.”

“I thought so,” she said. “It’s you quiet ones all over. You’re not satisfied with the life we others must lead, you have to have romance.”

He was embarrassed and delighted. He laughed.

“There wasn’t much of that for me believe us,” he said.

“Which is what you say,” she countered. “And how am I to credit anything you tell me? After what’s occurred before my eyes, and in this very room?”

“Well, it’s true enough,” he said. “Jim snitched her from under my nose.”

“I’m not sure this is quite nice,” she remarked, gravely.

“You’re dead right,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want you to think you could tell tales, here. After all, this is my place we’re sitting in.”

He made no reply. Again this did the trick.

“You were too slow, I’ll bet, now weren’t you?” she asked.

He laughed. Then she laughed.

“It takes all sorts to make a world,” she said.

“Certainly does,” he agreed. He was astounded that he could be so easy, sitting opposite. Perhaps she thought that, in the circumstances, it was too comfortable for him, because she next said, with obvious malice,

“If you’re short of clothing coupons, why don’t you ask my precious dad for some of his?”

“How on earth?” he asked, taken aback.

“Well you seemed very thick together. I only wondered. After all, at the age he is, he can’t have much need.”

“I couldn’t,” he objected cautiously.

“That’s you all over,” she said. “The few times you’ve been here I’ve watched you. What harm could there be to have a go?”

He did not reply.

“Because I’ll bet he’s asked you for things.”

“Certainly has,” Mr Summers agreed.

“What sort of things?” she demanded.

“Asked me to come here,” Mr Summers reluctantly told her.

“What else?”

Charley gave way.

“As a matter of fact he was keen that I should tell you about Arthur Middlewitch,” he said.

“I knew it,” she cried, indignant. “Was there ever any girl as pestered? He can’t leave me alone. Why there’s nothing to Art. He’s all talk and no do, that lad is.”

Charley kept quiet.

“A woman can tell in a moment” she said, in a most superior way.

“Hope you didn’t mind me passing it on?” he asked.

“Why no, you’re sweet,” she answered. He was surprised. She may have seen this, because she went on to explain.

“I’ve a lot to answer for, the way I made your acquaintance. But you will admit you came through the door in a peculiar sort of manner, the first time. Still, as I’ve said, I’ve a responsibility, it’s not everyone who’s in my position, the double of a dead woman with a child. Then, when we started off on the wrong foot, like we did, we never seemed to get straight, did we?”

“There it is,” he said, still cautious.

“Well I must say I appreciate your seeing it my way,” she told him. “Things haven’t been easy for me. You know I lost my husband. Then mum came back to keep me company. And I was just about getting straight when these beastly buzz bombs started, and she had to go away again, of course. So now perhaps you realize,” she ended.

“Tough luck,” he said.

He was allowing himself a long examination of her appearance, as he had never dared to when they met previously. She was very well aware of this. But what she could not know was that it was directly due to Dot. This girl’s treachery with Phillips had awakened him to possibilities, and now his eyes guardedly took her in while, at the same time, as never before, he got no impression of his Rose. He was comparing Nance with Miss Pitter. So that he ignored the girl he had loved, who was gone.

Nance was not big, but she was thick and solid where Dot came spindly. She had deep blue eyes, not pale like Dot’s. He could not remember the colour of Rose’s eyes, he found, then at once forgot Rose again. Her hair was black and strong. Her legs were thick. Her breasts were not afraid, like Dot’s. And it seemed to him that Nance was stroking the cat in a way of her own. “Quite a girl,” he thought.

“Well, that’s enough of my troubles,” she said. “Now then, over your coupons. If you haven’t had what was your due when you were discharged, why don’t you take it up with your Old Comrades Association?”

“My O.C.A.,” he echoed. “I hadn’t thought.”

“Some people are making use of you, you know.”

“How d’you mean?” he asked, delighted at the attention he was getting.

“My old dad, for one.”

“He’s not in the O.C.A., is he?”

“Of course not. Whatever’s on your mind? No, he sent you here, didn’t he? And it wasn’t for you he did it, you can be sure of that. He wanted to keep track, now I’m alone once more, that’s all. The next thing was, he got into a spin about poor Arthur Middlewitch. So he turned to you, didn’t he? It’s as plain as the nose on my face.” Charley immediately fixed his eyes on her nose, which she wrinkled at him. “And what’s even more obvious is, that you must consider yourself for a while. I mean, if you won’t, there’s no one else will, is there? Look, you want to ring the people up.”