A Woman on a Roof
It was during the week of hot sun, that June.
Three men were at work on the roof, where the leads got so hot they had the idea of throwing water on to cool them. But the water steamed, then sizzled; and they made jokes about getting an egg from some woman in the flats under them, to poach it for their dinner. By two it was not possible to touch the guttering they were replacing, and they speculated about what workmen did in regularly hot countries. Perhaps they should borrow kitchen gloves with the egg? They were all a bit dizzy, not used to the heat; and they shed their coats and stood side by side squeezing themselves into a foot-wide patch of shade against a chimney, careful to keep their feet in the thick socks and boots out of the sun. There was a fine view across several acres of roofs. Not far off a man sat in a deck chair reading the newspapers. Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards away. She lay face down on a brown blanket. They could see the top part of her: black hair, a flushed solid back, arms spread out.
“She’s stark naked,” said Stanley, sounding annoyed.
Harry, the oldest, a man of about forty-five, said: “Looks like it.”
Young Tom, seventeen, said nothing, but he was excited and grinning.
Stanley said: “Someone’ll report her if she doesn’t watch out.”
“She thinks no one can see,” said Tom, craning his head all ways to see more.
At this point the woman, still lying prone, brought her two hands up behind her shoulders with the ends of a scarf in them, tied it behind her back, and sat up. She wore a red scarf tied around her breasts and brief red bikini pants. This being the first day of the sun she was white, flushing red. She sat smoking, and did not look up when Stanley let out a wolf whistle. Harry said: “Small things amuse small minds,” leading the way back to their part of the roof, but it was scorching. Harry said: “Wait, I’m going to rig up some shade,” and disappeared down the skylight into the building. Now that he’d gone, Stanley and Tom went to the farthest point they could to peer at the woman. She had moved, and all they could see were two pink legs stretched on the blanket. They whistled and shouted but the legs did not move. Harry came back with a blanket and shouted: “Come on, then.” He sounded irritated with them. They clambered back to him and he said to Stanley: “What about your missus?” Stanley was newly married, about three months. Stanley said, jeering: “What about my missus?”—preserving his independence. Tom said nothing, but his mind was full of the nearly naked woman. Harry slung the blanket, which he had borrowed from a friendly woman downstairs, from the stem of a television aerial to a row of chimney-pots. This shade fell across the piece of gutter they had to replace. But the shade kept moving, they had to adjust the blanket, and not much progress was made. At last some of the heat left the roof, and they worked fast, making up for lost time. First Stanley, then Tom, made a trip to the end of the roof to see the woman. “She’s on her back,” Stanley said, adding a jest which made Tom snicker, and the older man smile tolerantly. Tom’s report was that she hadn’t moved, but it was a lie. He wanted to keep what he had seen to himself: he had caught her in the act of rolling down the little red pants over her hips, till they were no more than a small triangle. She was on her back, fully visible, glistening with oil.
Next morning, as soon as they came up, they went to look. She was already there, face down, arms spread out, naked except for the little red pants. She had turned brown in the night. Yesterday she was a scarlet-and-white woman, today she was a brown woman. Stanley let out a whistle. She lifted her head, startled, as if she’d been asleep, and looked straight over at them. The sun was in her eyes, she blinked and stared, then she dropped her head again. At this gesture of indifference, they all three, Stanley, Tom, and old Harry, let out whistles and yells. Harry was doing it in parody of the younger men, making fun of them, but he was also angry. They were all angry because of her utter indifference to the three men watching her.
“Bitch,” said Stanley.
“She should ask us over,” said Tom, snickering.
Harry recovered himself and reminded Stanley: “If she’s married, her old man wouldn’t like that.”
“Christ,” said Stanley virtuously, “if my wife lay about like that, for everyone to see, I’d soon stop her.”
Harry said, smiling: “How do you know, perhaps she’s sunning herself at this very moment?”
“Not a chance, not on our roof.” The safety of his wife put Stanley into a good humour, and they went to work. But today it was hotter than yesterday; and several times one or the other suggested they should tell Matthew, the foreman, and ask to leave the roof until the heat wave was over. But they didn’t. There was work to be done in the basement of the big block of flats, but up here they felt free, on a different level from ordinary humanity shut in the streets or the buildings. A lot more people came out on to the roofs that day, for an hour at midday. Some married couples sat side by side in deck chairs, the women’s legs stockingless and scarlet, the men in vests with reddening shoulders.
The woman stayed on her blanket, turning herself over and over. She ignored them, no matter what they did. When Harry went off to fetch more screws, Stanley said: “Come on.” Her roof belonged to a different system of roofs, separated from theirs at one point by about twenty feet. It meant a scrambling climb from one level to another, edging along parapets, clinging to chimneys, while their big boots slipped and slithered, but at last they stood on a small square projecting roof looking straight down at her, close. She sat smoking, reading a book. Tom thought she looked like a poster, or a magazine cover, with the blue sky behind her and her legs stretched out. Behind her a great crane at work on a new building in Oxford Street swung its black arm across roofs in a great arc. Tom imagined himself at work on the crane, adjusting the arm to swing over and pick her up and swing her back across the sky to drop her near him.
They whistled. She looked up at them, cool and remote, then went on reading. Again, they were furious. Or, rather, Stanley was. His sun-heated face was screwed into a rage as he whistled again and again, trying to make her look up. Young Tom stopped whistling. He stood beside Stanley, excited, grinning; but he felt as if he were saying to the woman: Don’t associate me with him, for his grin was apologetic. Last night he had thought of the unknown woman before he slept, and she had been tender with him. This tenderness he was remembering as he shifted his feet by the jeering, whistling Stanley, and watched the indifferent, healthy brown woman a few feet off, with the gap that plunged to the street between them. Tom thought it was romantic, it was like being high on two hilltops. But there was a shout from Harry, and they clambered back. Stanley’s face was hard, really angry. The boy kept looking at him and wondered why he hated the woman so much, for by now he loved her.
They played their little games with the blanket, trying to trap shade to work under; but again it was not until nearly four that they could work seriously, and they were exhausted, all three of them. They were grumbling about the weather by now. Stanley was in a thoroughly bad humour. When they made their routine trip to see the woman before they packed up for the day, she was apparently asleep, face down, her back all naked save for the scarlet triangle on her buttocks. “I’ve got a good mind to report her to the police,” said Stanley, and Harry said: “What’s eating you? What harm’s she doing?”
“I tell you, if she was my wife!”
“But she isn’t, is she?” Tom knew that Harry, like himself, was uneasy at Stanley’s reaction. He was normally a sharp young man, quick at his work, making a lot of jokes, good company.
“Perhaps it will be cooler tomorrow,” said Harry.
But it wasn’t; it was hotter, if anything, and the weather forecast said the good weather would last. As soon as they were on the roof, Harry went over to see if the woman was there, and Tom knew it was to prevent Stanley going, to put off his bad humour. Harry had grownup children, a boy the same age as Tom, and the youth trusted and looked up to him.
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p; Harry came back and said: “She’s not there.”
“I bet her old man has put his foot down,” said Stanley, and Harry and Tom caught each other’s eyes and smiled behind the young married man’s back.
Harry suggested they should get permission to work in the basement, and they did, that day. But before packing up Stanley said: “Let’s have a breath of fresh air.” Again Harry and Tom smiled at each other as they followed Stanley up to the roof, Tom in the devout conviction that he was there to protect the woman from Stanley. It was about five-thirty, and a calm, full sunlight lay over the roofs. The great crane still swung its black arm from Oxford Street to above their heads. She was not there. Then there was a flutter of white from behind a parapet, and she stood up, in a belted, white dressing-gown. She had been there all day, probably, but on a different patch of roof, to hide from them. Stanley did not whistle; he said nothing, but watched the woman bend to collect papers, books, cigarettes, then fold the blanket over her arm. Tom was thinking: If they weren’t here, I’d go over and say … what? But he knew from his nightly dreams of her that she was kind and friendly. Perhaps she would ask him down to her flat? Perhaps … He stood watching her disappear down the skylight. As she went, Stanley let out a shrill derisive yell; she started, and it seemed as if she nearly fell. She clutched to save herself, they could hear things falling. She looked straight at them, angry. Harry said, facetiously: “Better be careful on those slippery ladders, love.” Tom knew he said it to save her from Stanley, but she could not know it. She vanished, frowning. Tom was full of a secret delight, because he knew her anger was for the others, not for him.
“Roll on some rain,” said Stanley, bitter, looking at the blue evening sky.
Next day was cloudless, and they decided to finish the work in the basement. They felt excluded, shut in the grey cement basement fitting pipes, from the holiday atmosphere of London in a heat wave. At lunchtime they came up for some air, but while the married couples, and the men in shirt-sleeves or vests, were there, she was not there, either on her usual patch of roof or where she had been yesterday. They all, even Harry, clambered about, between chimney-pots, over parapets, the hot leads stinging their fingers. There was not a sign of her. They took off their shirts and vests and exposed their chests, feeling their feet sweaty and hot. They did not mention the woman. But Tom felt alone again. Last night she had him into her flat: it was big and had fitted white carpets and a bed with a padded white leather head-board. She wore a black filmy negligée and her kindness to Tom thickened his throat as he remembered it. He felt she had betrayed him by not being there.
And again after work they climbed up, but still there was nothing to be seen of her. Stanley kept repeating that if it was as hot as this tomorrow he wasn’t going to work and that’s all there was to it. But they were all there next day. By ten the temperature was in the middle seventies, and it was eighty long before noon. Harry went to the foreman to say it was impossible to work on the leads in that heat; but the foreman said there was nothing else he could put them on, and they’d have to. At midday they stood, silent, watching the skylight on her roof open, and then she slowly emerged in her white gown, holding a bundle of blanket. She looked at them, gravely, then went to the part of the roof where she was hidden from them. Tom was pleased. He felt she was more his when the other men couldn’t see her. They had taken off their shirts and vests, but now they put them back again, for they felt the sun bruising their flesh. “She must have the hide of a rhino,” said Stanley, tugging at guttering and swearing. They stopped work, and sat in the shade, moving around behind chimney stacks. A woman came to water a yellow window box opposite them. She was middleaged, wearing a flowered summer dress. Stanley said to her: “We need a drink more than them.” She smiled and said: “Better drop down to the pub quick, it’ll be closing in a minute.” They exchanged pleasantries, and she left them with a smile and a wave.
“Not like Lady Godiva,” said Stanley. “She can give us a bit of a chat and a smile.”
“You didn’t whistle at her,” said Tom, reproving.
“Listen to him,” said Stanley, “you didn’t whistle, then?”
But the boy felt as if he hadn’t whistled, as if only Harry and Stanley had. He was making plans, when it was time to knock off work, to get left behind and somehow make his way over to the woman. The weather report said the hot spell was due to break, so he had to move quickly. But there was no chance of being left. The other two decided to knock off work at four, because they were exhausted. As they went down, Tom quickly climbed a parapet and hoisted himself higher by pulling his weight up a chimney. He caught a glimpse of her lying on her back, her knees up, eyes closed, a brown woman lolling in the sun. He slipped and clattered down, as Stanley looked for information: “She’s gone down,” he said. He felt as if he had protected her from Stanley, and that she must be grateful to him. He could feel the bond between the woman and himself.
Next day, they stood around on the landing below the roof, reluctant to climb up into the heat. The woman who had lent Harry the blanket came out and offered them a cup of tea. They accepted gratefully, and sat around Mrs. Pritchett’s kitchen an hour or so, chatting. She was married to an airline pilot. A smart blonde, of about thirty, she had an eye for the handsome sharp-faced Stanley; and the two teased each other while Harry sat in a corner, watching, indulgent, though his expression reminded Stanley that he was married. And young Tom felt envious of Stanley’s ease in badinage; felt, too, that Stanley’s getting off with Mrs. Pritchett left his romance with the woman on the roof safe and intact.
“I thought they said the heat wave’d break,” said Stanley, sullen, as the time approached when they really would have to climb up into the sunlight.
“You don’t like it, then?” asked Mrs. Pritchett.
“All right for some,” said Stanley. “Nothing to do but lie about as if it was a beach up there. Do you ever go up?”
“Went up once,” said Mrs. Pritchett. “But it’s a dirty place up there, and it’s too hot.”
“Quite right too,” said Stanley.
Then they went up, leaving the cool neat little flat and the friendly Mrs. Pritchett.
As soon as they were up they saw her. The three men looked at her, resentful at her ease in this punishing sun. Then Harry said, because of the expression on Stanley’s face: “Come on, we’ve got to pretend to work, at least.”
They had to wrench another length of guttering that ran beside a parapet out of its bed, so that they could replace it. Stanley took it in his two hands, tugged, swore, stood up. “Fuck it,” he said, and sat down under a chimney. He lit a cigarette. “Fuck them,” he said. “What do they think we are, lizards? I’ve got blisters all over my hands.” Then he jumped up and climbed over the roofs and stood with his back to them. He put his fingers either side of his mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Tom and Harry squatted, not looking at each other, watching him. They could just see the woman’s head, the beginnings of her brown shoulders. Stanley whistled again. Then he began stamping with his feet, and whistled and yelled and screamed at the woman, his face getting scarlet. He seemed quite mad, as he stamped and whistled, while the woman did not move, she did not move a muscle.
“Barmy,” said Tom.
“Yes,” said Harry, disapproving.
Suddenly the older man came to a decision. It was, Tom knew, to save some sort of scandal or real trouble over the woman. Harry stood up and began packing tools into a length of oily cloth. “Stanley,” he said, commanding. At first Stanley took no notice, but Harry said: “Stanley, we’re packing it in, I’ll tell Matthew.”
Stanley came back, cheeks mottled, eyes glaring.
“Can’t go on like this,” said Harry. “It’ll break in a day or so. I’m going to tell Matthew we’ve got sunstroke, and if he doesn’t like it, it’s too bad.” Even Harry sounded aggrieved, Tom noted. The small, competent man, the family man with his grey hair, who was never at a loss, sounded really off balance. “Co
me on,” he said, angry. He fitted himself into the open square in the roof, and went down, watching his feet on the ladder. Then Stanley went, with not a glance at the woman. Then Tom, who, his throat beating with excitement, silently promised her on a backward glance: Wait for me, wait, I’m coming.
On the pavement Stanley said: “I’m going home.” He looked white now, so perhaps he really did have sunstroke. Harry went off to find the foreman, who was at work on the plumbing of some flats down the street. Tom slipped back, not into the building they had been working on, but the building on whose roof the woman lay. He went straight up, no one stopping him. The skylight stood open, with an iron ladder leading up. He emerged on to the roof a couple of yards from her. She sat up, pushing back her black hair with both hands. The scarf across her breasts bound them tight, and brown flesh bulged around it. Her legs were brown and smooth. She stared at him in silence. The boy stood grinning, foolish, claiming the tenderness he expected from her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I … I came to … make your acquaintance,” he stammered, grinning, pleading with her.
They looked at each other, the slight, scarlet-faced excited boy, and the serious, nearly naked woman. Then, without a word, she lay down on her brown blanket, ignoring him.
“You like the sun, do you?” he enquired of her glistening back.
Not a word. He felt panic, thinking of how she had held him in her arms, stroked his hair, brought him where he sat, lordly, in her bed, a glass of some exhilarating liquor he had never tasted in life. He felt that if he knelt down, stroked her shoulders, her hair, she would turn and clasp him in her arms.
He said: “The sun’s all right for you, isn’t it?”
She raised her head, set her chin on two small fists. “Go away,” she said. He did not move. “Listen,” she said, in a slow reasonable voice, where anger was kept in check, though with difficulty; looking at him, her face weary with anger, “if you get a kick out of seeing women in bikinis, why don’t you take a sixpenny bus ride to the Lido? You’d see dozens of them, without all this mountaineering.”
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