The Collected Short Stories

by Jean Rhys

  ‘Oh, come on out,’ he said at last. ‘It’s too hot for these antics.’

  Frankie crawled out again, very pleased with herself, went to the mirror and arranged the handkerchief round her hair. ‘Am I really like a Phoenician?’

  ‘Of course you are. A Phoenician from Cornwall, England. Direct descent, I should say.’

  ‘And what’s she?’ Frankie said. Her eyes looked quite different, like snake’s eyes. We all looked quite different – it’s funny what drink does.

  ‘That’s very obvious too,’ Julian said.

  ‘All right, why don’t you come straight out with it?’ I said. ‘Or are you frightened?’

  ‘Sometimes words fail.’

  Marston waved his arms about. ‘Julian, you stop this. I won’t have it.’

  ‘You fool,’ Julian said, ‘you fool. Can’t you see she’s fifth rate. Can’t you see?

  ‘You ghastly cross between a barmaid and a chorus-girl,’ he said. ‘You female spider,’ he said. ‘You’ve been laughing at him for weeks,’ he said, ‘jeering at him, sniggering at him. Stopping him from working – the best painter in this damnable island, the only one in my opinion. And then I try to get him away from you, of course you follow him down here.’

  ‘That’s not it at all,’ Marston said. ‘You’re not being fair to the girl. You don’t understand her a bit.’

  ‘She doesn’t care,’ Julian said. ‘Look at her – she’s giggling her stupid head off.’

  ‘Well, what are you to do when you come up against a mutual admiration society?’ I said.

  ‘You’re letting your jealousy run away with you,’ said Marston.

  ‘Jealousy?’ Julian said. ‘Jealousy!’ He was unrecognizable. His beautiful eyes were little, mean pits and you looked down them into nothingness.

  ‘Jealous of what?’ he shrieked. ‘Why, do you know that she told Frankie last night that she can’t bear you and that the only reason she has anything to do with you is because she wants money. What do you think of that? Does that open your eyes?’

  ‘Now, Julian!’ Frankie’s voice was as loud and high as his. ‘You’d no right to repeat that. You promised you wouldn’t and anyway you’ve exaggerated it. It’s all very well for you to talk about how inferior women are, but you get more like your horrible mother every moment.’

  ‘You do,’ Marston said, quite calm now. ‘Julian, you really do.’

  ‘Do you know what all this is about?’ Frankie said, nodding at Julian. ‘It’s because he doesn’t want me to go back to London with him. He wants me to go and be patronized and educated by his detestable mother in her dreary house in the dreary country, who will then say that the case is hopeless. Wasn’t she a good sort and a saint to try? But the girl is quite impossible. Do you think I don’t know that trick? It’s as old as the hills.

  ‘You’re mean,’ she said to Julian, ‘and you hate girls really. Don’t imagine I don’t see through you. You’re trying to get me down. But you won’t do it. If you think you’re the only man in the world who’s fond of me or that I’m a goddamned fool, you’re making the hell of a big mistake, you and your mother.’

  She plucked a hairpin from her hair, bent it into the shape of pince-nez and went on in a mincing voice, ‘Do Ay understend you tew say thet may sonn –’ she placed the pince-nez on her nose and looked over it sourly ‘– with one connection –’

  ‘Damn you,’ said Julian, ‘damn you, damn you.’

  ‘Now they’re off,’ Marston said placidly. ‘Drinking on a hot afternoon is a mistake. The pen-knife will be out in a minute . . . Don’t go. Stay and watch the fun. My money on Frankie every time.’

  But I went into the bedroom and shut the door. I could hear them wrangling and Marston, very calm and superior, putting in a word now and again. Then nothing. They had gone on to the veranda.

  I got the letter I had written and tore it very carefully into four pieces. I spat on each piece. I opened the door – there was not a sign of them. I took the pieces of paper to the lavatory, emptied them in and pulled the plug. As soon as I heard the water gushing I felt better.

  The door of the kitchen was open and I saw that there was another path leading to the main road.

  And there I was, walking along, not thinking of anything, my eyes fixed on the ground. I walked a long way like that, not looking up, though I passed several people. At last I came to a signpost. I was on the Cirencester road. Something about the word ‘miles’ written made me feel very tired.

  A little farther on the wall on one side of the road was low. It was the same wall on which Marston and I had sat that morning, and he had said, ‘Do you think we could rest here or will the very stones rise up against us?’ I looked round and there was nobody in sight, so I stepped over it and sat down in the shade. It was pretty country, but bare. The white, glaring look was still in the sky.

  Close by there was a dove cooing. ‘Coo away, dove,’ I thought. ‘It’s no use, no use, still coo away, coo away.’

  After a while the dazed feeling, as if somebody had hit me on the head, began to go. I thought ‘Cirencester – and then a train to London. It’s as easy as that.’

  Then I realized that I had left my handbag and money, as well as everything else, in the bedroom at the cottage, but imagining walking back there made me feel so tired that I could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

  I got over the wall. A car that was coming along slowed down and stopped and the man driving it said, ‘Want a lift?’

  I went up to the car.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I want to go to London.’

  ‘To London? Well, I can’t take you as far as that, but I can get you into Cirencester to catch a train if you like.’

  I said anxiously, ‘Yes – but I must go back first to the place where I’ve been staying. It’s not far.’

  ‘Haven’t time for that. I’ve got an appointment. I’m late already and I mustn’t miss it. Tell you what – come along with me. If you’ll wait till I’ve done I can take you to fetch your things.’

  I got into the car. As soon as I touched him I felt comforted. Some men are like that.

  ‘Well, you look as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence.’

  Again I had to laugh.

  ‘That’s better. Never does any good to be down in the mouth.

  ‘We’re nearly in Cirencester now,’ he said after a while. ‘I’ve got to see a lot of people. This is market day and I’m a farmer. I’ll take you to a nice quiet place where you can have a cup of tea while you’re waiting.’

  He drove to a pub in a narrow street. ‘This way in.’ I followed him into the bar.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Strickland. Lovely day, isn’t it? Will you give my friend a cup of tea while I’m away, and make her comfortable? She’s very tired.’

  ‘I will, certainly,’ Mrs Strickland said, with a swift glance up and down. ‘I expect the young lady would like a nice wash too, wouldn’t she?’ She was dark and nicely got up, but her voice had a tinny sound.

  ‘Oh, I would.’

  I looked down at my crumpled white dress. I touched my face for I knew there must be a red mark where I had lain with it pressed against the ground.

  ‘See you later,’ the farmer said.

  There were brightly polished taps in the ladies’ room and a very clean red and black tiled floor. I washed my hands, tried to smooth my dress, and powdered my face – Poudre Nildé basané – but I did it without looking in the glass.

  Tea and cakes were laid in a small, dark, stuffy room. There were three pictures of Lady Hamilton, Johnny Walker advertisements, china bulldogs wearing sailor caps and two calendars. One said January 9th, but the other was right – July 28th, 1914.

  ‘Well, here I am!’ He sat heavily down beside me. ‘Did Mrs Strickland look after you all right?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Oh, she’s a good sort, she’s a nice woman. She’s known me a long time. Of course, you haven�
��t, have you? But everything’s got to have a start.’

  Then he said he hadn’t done so badly that afternoon and stretched out his legs, looking pleased, looking happy as the day is long.

  ‘What were you thinking about when I came in? You nearly jumped out of your skin.’

  ‘I was thinking about the time.’

  ‘About the time? Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s plenty of time.’

  He produced a large silver case, took out a cigar and lighted it, long and slow. ‘Plenty of time,’ he said. ‘Dark in here, isn’t it? So you live in London, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve often thought I’d like to know a nice girl up in London.’

  His eyes were fixed on Lady Hamilton and I knew he was imagining a really lovely girl – all curves, curls, heart and hidden claws. He swallowed, then put his hand over mine.

  ‘I’d like to feel that when I go up to Town there’s a friend I could see and have a good time with. You know. And I could give her a good time too. By God, I could. I know what women like.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, I do. They like a bit of loving, that’s what they like, isn’t it? A bit of loving. All women like that. They like it dressed up sometimes – and sometimes not, it all depends. You have to know, and I know. I just know.’

  ‘You’ve nothing more to learn, have you?’

  ‘Not in that way I haven’t. And they like pretty dresses and bottles of scent, and bracelets with blue stones in them. I know. Well, what about it?’ he said, but as if he were joking.

  I looked away from him at the calendar and did not answer, making my face blank.

  ‘What about it?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s nice of you to say you want to see me again – very polite.’

  He laughed. ‘You think I’m being polite, do you? Well, perhaps – perhaps not. No harm in asking, was there? No offence meant – or taken, I hope. It’s all right. I’ll take you to get your things and catch your train – and we’ll have a bottle of something good before we start off. It won’t hurt you. It’s bad stuff hurts you, not good stuff. You haven’t found that out yet, but you will. Mrs Strickland has some good stuff, I can tell you – good enough for me, and I want the best.’

  So we had a bottle of Clicquot in the bar.

  He said, ‘It puts some life into you, doesn’t it?’

  It did too. I wasn’t feeling tired when we left the pub, nor even sad.

  ‘Well,’ he said as we got into the car, ‘you’ve got to tell me where to drive to. And you don’t happen to know a little song, do you?’

  ‘That was very pretty,’ he said when I stopped. ‘You’ve got a very pretty voice indeed. Give us some more.’

  But we were getting near the cottage and I didn’t finish the next song because I was nervous and worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell him the right turning.

  At the foot of the path I thought, ‘The champagne worked all right.’

  He got out of the car and came with me. When we reached the gate leading into the garden he stood by my side without speaking.

  They were on the veranda. We could hear their voices clearly.

  ‘Listen, fool,’ Julian was saying, ‘listen, half-wit. What I said yesterday has nothing to do with what I say today or what I shall say tomorrow. Why should it?’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ Frankie said obstinately. ‘I don’t agree with you. It might have something to do with it whether you like it or not.’

  ‘Oh, stop arguing, you two,’ Marston said. ‘It’s all very well for you, Julian, but I’m worried about that girl. I’m responsible. She looked so damned miserable. Supposing she’s gone and made away with herself. I shall feel awful. Besides, probably I shall be held up to every kind of scorn and obloquy – as usual. And though it’s all your fault you’ll escape scot-free – also as usual.’

  ‘Are those your friends?’ the farmer asked.

  ‘Well, they’re my friends in a way . . . I have to go in to get my things. It won’t take long.’

  Julian said, ‘I think, I rather think, Marston, that I hear a female pipe down there. You can lay your fears away. She’s not the sort to kill herself. I told you that.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ the farmer said.

  ‘That’s Mr Oakes, one of my hosts.’

  ‘Oh, is it? I don’t like the sound of him. I don’t like the sound of any of them. Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No, don’t. I won’t be long.’

  I went round by the kitchen into my room, walking very softly. I changed into my dark dress and then began to throw my things into the suitcase. I did all this as quickly as I could, but before I had finished Marston came in, still wearing his black pyjamas crawling with dragons.

  ‘Who were you talking to outside?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a man I met. He’s going to drive me to Cirencester to catch the London train.’

  ‘You’re not offended, are you?’

  ‘Not a bit. Why should I be?’

  ‘Of course, the great Julian can be so difficult,’ he murmured. ‘But don’t think I didn’t stick up for you, because I did. I said to him, “It’s all very well for you to be rude to a girl I bring down, but what about your loathly Frankie, whom you inflict upon me day after day and week after week and I never say a word? I’m never even sharp to her –” What are you smiling at?’

  ‘The idea of your being sharp to Frankie.’

  ‘The horrid little creature!’ Marston said excitedly, ‘the unspeakable bitch! But the day will come when Julian will find her out and he’ll run to me for sympathy. I’ll not give it him. Not after this . . . Cheer up,’ he said. ‘The world is big. There’s hope.’

  ‘Of course.’ But suddenly I saw the women’s long, scowling faces over their lupins and their poppies, and my room in Torrington Square and the iron bars of my bedstead, and I thought, ‘Not for me.’

  ‘It may all be necessary,’ he said, as if he were talking to himself. ‘One has to get an entirely different set of values to be any good.’

  I said, ‘Do you think I could go out through the window? I don’t want to meet them.’

  ‘I’ll come to the car with you. What’s this man like?’

  ‘Well, he’s a bit like the man this morning, and he says he doesn’t care for the sound of you.’

  ‘Then I think I won’t come. Go through the window and I’ll hand your suitcase to you.’

  He leaned out and said, ‘See you in September, Petronella. I’ll be back in September.’

  I looked up at him. ‘All right. Same address.’

  The farmer said, ‘I was coming in after you. You’re well rid of that lot – never did like that sort. Too many of them about.’

  ‘They’re all right.’

  ‘Well, tune up,’ he said, and I sang ‘Mr Brown, Mr Brown, Had a violin, Went around, went around, With his violin.’ I sang all the way to Cirencester.

  At the station he gave me my ticket and a box of chocolates.

  ‘I bought these for you this afternoon, but I forgot them. Better hurry – there’s not much time.

  ‘Fare you well,’ he said. ‘That’s what they say in Norfolk, where I come from.’

  ‘Good-bye.’

  ‘No, say fare you well.’

  ‘Fare you well.’

  The train started.

  ‘This is very nice,’ I thought, ‘my first-class carriage’, and had a long look at myself in the glass for the first time since it had happened. ‘Never mind,’ I said, and remembered Marston saying ‘Never mind, never mind.’

  ‘Don’t look so down in the mouth, my girl,’ I said to myself. ‘Look gay.’

  ‘Cheer up,’ I said, and kissed myself in the cool glass. I stood with my forehead against it and watched my face clouding gradually, then turned because I felt as if someone was staring at me, but it was only the girl on the cover of the chocolate-box. She had slanting green eyes, but they were too close together, and she had a white, square
, smug face that didn’t go with the slanting eyes. ‘I bet you could be a rotten, respectable, sneering bitch too, with a face like that, if you had a chance,’ I told her.

  The train got into Paddington just before ten. As soon as I was on the platform I remembered the chocolates, but I didn’t go back for them. ‘Somebody will find you, somebody will look after you, you rotten, sneering, stupid, tight-mouthed bitch,’ I thought.

  London always smells the same. ‘Frowsty,’ you think, ‘but I’m glad to be back.’ And just for a while it bears you up. ‘Anything’s round the corner,’ you think. But long before you get round the corner it lets you drop.

  I decided that I’d walk for a bit with the suitcase and get tired and then perhaps I’d sleep. But at the corner of Marylebone Road and Edgware Road my arm was stiff and I put down the suitcase and waved at a taxi standing by the kerb.

  ‘Sorry, miss,’ the driver said, ‘this gentleman was first.’

  The young man smiled. ‘It’s all right. You have it.’

  ‘You have it,’ he said. The other one said, ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘I can get the next one. I’m not in any hurry.’

  ‘Nor am I.’

  The taxi-driver moved impatiently.

  ‘Well, don’t let’s hesitate any longer,’ the young man said, ‘or we’ll lose our taximeter-cab. Get in – I can easily drop you wherever you’re going.’

  ‘Go along Edgware Road,’ he said to the driver. ‘I’ll tell you where in a minute.’

  The taxi started.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Torrington Square.’

  The house would be waiting for me. ‘When I pass Estelle’s door,’ I thought, ‘there’ll be no smell of scent now.’ Then I was back in my small room on the top floor, listening to the church clock chiming every quarter-hour. ‘There’s a good time coming for the ladies. There’s a good time coming for the girls . . .’

  I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want to go to Torrington Square.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to go to Torrington Square?’ He seemed amused and wary, but more wary than amused.

  ‘It’s such a lovely night, so warm. I don’t want to go home just yet. I think I’ll go and sit in Hyde Park.’