The Collected Short Stories

by Jean Rhys

  ‘No, I don’t feel particularly at home. That’s not why I like it.’

  She turned away and shut her eyes. She knew the pain was going to start again. And, sure enough, it did. They gave her an injection and she went to sleep.

  Next morning she woke feeling dazed. She lay and watched two nurses charging about, very brisk and busy and silent. They did not even say ‘Come along’, or ‘Now, now’, or ‘Drink that up.’

  They moved about surely and quickly. They did everything in an impersonal way. They were like parts of a machine, she thought, that was working smoothly. The women in the beds bobbed up and down and in and out. They too were parts of a machine. They had a strength, a certainty, because all their lives they had belonged to the machine and worked smoothly, in and out, just as they were told. Even if the machine got out of control, even if it went mad, they would still work in and out, just as they were told, whirling smoothly, faster and faster, to destruction.

  She lay very still, so that nobody should know she was afraid. Because she was outside the machine they might come along any time with a pair of huge iron tongs and pick her up and put her on the rubbish heap, and there she would lie and rot. ‘Useless, this one,’ they would say; and throw her away before she could explain, ‘It isn’t like you think it is, not at all. It isn’t like they say it is. Wait a bit and let me explain. You must listen; it’s very important.’

  But in the evening she felt better.

  The girl in the bed on the right, who was sitting up, said she wanted to write to a friend at the theatre.

  ‘In French,’ she said. ‘Can anybody write the letter for me, because I don’t know French?’

  ‘I’ll write it for you,’ Madame Tavernier offered.

  ‘“Dear Lili . . . L-i-l-i. Dear Lili . . .” well, say, “I’m getting on all right again. Come and see me on Monday or Thursday. Any time from two to four. And when you come will you bring me some notepaper and stamps? I hope it won’t be long before I get out of this place. I’ll tell you about that on Monday. Don’t forget the stamps. Tell the others that they can come to see me, and tell how to get here. Your affectionate friend, and so on, Pat.” Give it to me and I’ll sign it . . . Thanks.’

  The girl’s voice had two sounds in it. One was clear and light and the other heavy and ruthless.

  ‘You seem to be having a rotten time, you in the next bed,’ she said.

  ‘I feel better now.’

  ‘Have you been in Paris long?’

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘Ah, then you’ll be having your pals along to cheer you up.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t expect anybody.’

  The girl stared. She was not much over twenty and her clear blue eyes slanted upwards a little. She looked as if, standing up, she would be short with sturdy dancer’s legs. Stocky, like a little pony.

  Oh God, let her go on talking about herself and not looking at me, or sizing me up, or anything like that.

  ‘This French girl, this friend of mine, she’s a perfect scream,’ Pat said. ‘But she’s an awfully obliging girl. If I say, “Turn up with stamps,” she will turn up with stamps. That’s why I’m writing to her and not to one of our lot. Our lot might turn up or they might not. You know. But she’s a perfect scream, really . . . As a matter of fact, she’s not bad-looking, but the way she walks is too funny. She’s a femme nue, and they’ve taught her to walk like that. It’s all right without shoes, but with shoes it’s – well . . . you’ll see when she comes here. They only get paid half what we do, too. Anyway, she’s an awfully obliging kid; she’s a sweet kid, poor devil.’

  A nurse brought in supper.

  ‘The girls are nice and the actors are nice,’ Pat went on, ‘but the stage hands hate us. Isn’t it funny? You see, one of them tried to kiss one of our lot and she smacked his face. He looked sort of surprised, she said. And then do you know what he did? He hit her back! Well, and do you know what we did? We said to the stage manager, “If that man doesn’t get the sack, we won’t go on.” They tried one show without us and then they gave in. The principals whose numbers were spoilt made a hell of a row. The French girls can’t do our stuff because they can’t keep together. They’re all right alone – very good sometimes, but they don’t understand team work . . . And now, my God, the stage hands don’t half hate us. We have to go in twos to the lavatory. And yet, the girls and the actors are awfully nice; it’s only the stage hands who hate us.’

  The fat woman opposite – her name was Mrs Wilson – listened to all this, at first suspiciously, then approvingly. Yes, this is permissible; it has its uses. Pretty English chorus girl – north country – with a happy, independent disposition and bright, teasing eyes. Placed! All correct.

  Pat finished eating and then went off to sleep again very suddenly, like a child.

  ‘A saucy girl, isn’t she?’ Madame Tavernier said. Her eyes were half-shut, the corners of her mouth turned downwards.

  Through the windows the light turned from dim yellow to mauve, from mauve to grey, from grey to black. Then it was dark except for the unshaded bulbs tinted red all along the ward. Inez put her arm round her head and turned her face to the pillow.

  ‘Good night,’ the old lady said. And after a long while she said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’

  Inez whispered, ‘They kill you so slowly . . .’

  The ward was a long, grey river; the beds were ships in a mist . . .

  The next day was Sunday. Even through those window panes the sky looked blue, and the sun made patterns on the highly polished floor. The patients had breakfast half an hour later – seven instead of half-past six.

  ‘Only milk for you today,’ the nurse said. Inez was going to ask why; then she remembered that her operation was fixed for Monday. Don’t think of it yet. There’s still quite a long time to go.

  After the midday meal the matron told them that an English clergyman was going to visit the ward and hold a short service if nobody minded. Nobody did mind, and after a while the parson came in through an unsuspected door, looking as if he felt very cold, as if he had never been warm in his life. He had grey hair and a shy, shut-in face.

  He stood at the end of the ward and the patients turned their heads to look at him. The screen round the bed on the other side had been taken away and the yellow-faced, shrunken woman who lay there turned her head like the others and looked.

  The clergyman said a prayer and most of the patients said ‘Amen’. (‘Amen,’ they said. ‘We are listening,’ they said . . . I am poor bewildered unhappy comfort me I am dying console me of course I don’t let on that I know I’m dying but I know I know Don’t talk about life as it is because it has nothing to do with me now Say something go on say something because I’m so darned sick of women’s voices Christ how I hate women Say something funny that I can laugh at but anything you say will be funny you old geezer you Never mind say something . . . ‘We are listening,’ they said, ‘we are listening . . .’) But the parson was determined to stick to life as it is, for his address was a warning against those vices which would antagonize their fellows and make things worse for them. Self-pity, for instance. Where does that lead you? Ah, where? Cynicism. So cheap . . . Rebellion. So useless . . . ‘Let us remember,’ he ended, ‘that God is a just God and that man, made in His image, is also just. On the whole. And so, dear sisters, let us try to live useful, righteous and God-fearing lives in that state to which it has pleased Him to call us. Amen.’

  He said another prayer and then went round shaking hands. ‘How do you do, how do you do, how do you do?’ All along the two lines. Then he went out again.

  After he had gone there was silence in the ward for a few seconds, then somebody sighed.

  Madame Tavernier remarked, ‘Poor little man, he was so nervous.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t last long, anyway,’ Pat said. ‘On and off like the Demon King . . .’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t look much like a lover,

  But you can’t tell a bo
ok by its cover.’

  Then she sang, ‘The Sheik of Araby’. She tied a towel round her head for a turban and began again: ‘Over the desert wild and free . . . Sing up, girls, chorus. I’m the Sheik of Arabee . . .’

  Everybody looked at Pat and laughed; the dying woman’s small yellow face was convulsed with laughter.

  ‘There’s lots of time before tomorrow,’ Inez thought. ‘I needn’t bother about it yet.’

  ‘I’m the Sheik of Arabee . . .’ Somebody was singing it in French – ‘Je cherche Antinéa.’ It was a curious translation – significant when you came to think of it.

  Pat shouted, ‘Listen to this. Anybody recognize it? Old but good. “Who’s that knocking at my door? said the fair young ladye . . .”’

  The tall English sister came in. She had a narrow face, small deep-set eyes of an unusual reddish-brown colour and a large mouth. Her pale lips lay calmly one on the other, as if she were very good-tempered, or perhaps very self-controlled. She smiled blandly and said, ‘Now then, Pat, you must stop this’, arranged the screen round the bed on the other side and pulled down the blind of the window at the back.

  It was really very hot and after she had gone out again most of the women lay in a coma, but Pat went on talking. The sound of her own voice seemed to excite her. She became emphatic, as if someone was arguing with her.

  She talked about love and the difference between glamour and dirt. The real difference was £-s-d, she said. If there was some money about there could be some glamour; otherwise, say what you liked, it was simply dirty – as well as foolish.

  ‘Plenty of survival value there,’ Inez thought. She lay with her eyes closed, trying to see trees and smooth water. But the pictures she made slipped through her mind too quickly, so that they became distorted and malignant.

  That night everybody in the ward was wakeful. Somebody moaned. The nurse rushed about with a bed pan, grumbling under her breath.

  2

  At nine o’clock on Monday morning the tall English sister was saying, ‘You’ll be quite all right. I’m going to give you a morphine injection now.’

  After this Inez was still frightened, but in a much duller way.

  ‘I hope you’ll be there,’ she said drowsily. But there was another nurse in the operating room. She was wearing a mask and she looked horrible, Inez thought – like a torturer.

  Floating in the air, which was easy and natural after the morphine – Of course, I’ve always been able to do this. Why did I ever forget? How stupid of me! – she watched herself walking across the floor with tears streaming down her cheeks, supported by the terrifying stranger.

  ‘Now don’t be silly,’ the nurse said irritably.

  Inez sat down on the edge of the couch, not floating now, not divided. One, and heavy as lead.

  ‘You don’t know why I’m crying,’ she thought.

  She tried to look at the sky, but there was a mist before her eyes and she could not see it. She felt hands pressing hard on her shoulders.

  ‘No, no, no, leave her alone,’ somebody said in French.

  The English doctor was not there – only this man, who was also wearing a mask.

  ‘They’re so stupid,’ Inez said in a high, complaining voice. ‘It’s terrible. Oh, what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen?’

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the doctor said. His brown eyes looked kind. ‘N’ayez pas peur, n’ayez pas peur.’

  ‘All right,’ Inez said, and lay down.

  The English doctor’s voice said, ‘Now breathe deeply. Count slowly. One – two – three – four – five – six . . .’

  3

  ‘Do you feel better today?’ the old lady asked.

  ‘Yes, much better.’

  The blind at the back of her bed was down. It tapped a bit. She was sleepy; she felt as if she could sleep for weeks.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Pat, ‘come to life again?’

  ‘I’m much better now.’

  ‘You’ve been awfully bad,’ Pat said. ‘You were awfully ill on Monday, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I was.’

  The screen which had been up round her bed for three days had shut her away even from her hand mirror; and now she took it up and looked at herself as if she were looking at a stranger. She had lain seeing nothing but a succession of pictures of the past, always sinister, always too highly coloured, always distorted. She had heard nothing but the incoherent, interminable conversation in her head.

  ‘I look different,’ she thought.

  ‘I look awful,’ she thought, staring anxiously at her thin, grey face and the hollows under her eyes. This was very important; her principal asset was threatened.

  ‘I must rest,’ she thought. ‘Rest, not worry.’

  She passed her powder puff over her face and put some rouge on.

  Pat was watching her. ‘D’you know what I’ve noticed? People who look ghastly oughtn’t to put make up on. You only look worse if you aren’t all right underneath – much older. My pal Lili came along on Monday. You should have seen how pretty she looked. I will say for these Paris girls they do know how to make up . . .’

  Yap, yap, yap . . .

  ‘Even if they aren’t anything much – and often they aren’t, mind you – they know how to make themselves look all right. I mean, you see prettier girls in London, but in my opinion . . .’

  The screen round the bed on the opposite side had been taken away. The bed was empty. Inez looked at it and said nothing. Madame Tavernier, who saw her looking at it, also said nothing, but for a moment her eyes were frightened.

  4

  The next day the ward sister brought in some English novels.

  ‘You’ll find these very soothing,’ she said, and there was a twinkle in her eye. A splendid nurse, that one; she knew her job. What they call a born nurse.

  A born nurse, as they say. Or you could be a born cook, or a born clown or a born fool, a born this, a born that . . .

  ‘What’s the joke now?’ Pat asked suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I was thinking how hard it is to believe in free will.’

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re talking about,’ Pat answered coldly. She had become hostile for some reason. Not that it mattered.

  ‘Everything will be all right; I needn’t worry,’ Inez assured herself. ‘There’s still heaps of time.’

  And soon she believed it. Lying there, being looked after and waking obediently at dawn, she began to feel like a child, as if the future would surely be pleasant, though it was hardly conceivable. It was as if she had always lain there and had known everyone else in the ward all her life – Madame Tavernier, her shawl, her rings, her crochet and her travel books, Pat and her repertoire of songs, the two fair, fat women who always looked so sanctimonious when they washed.

  The room was wide and the beds widely spaced, but now she knew something of the others too. There was a mysterious girl with long plaits and a sullen face who sometimes helped the nurse to make the beds in the morning – mysterious because there did not seem to be anything the matter with her. She ought to have been pretty, but she always kept her head down and if by chance you met her eyes she would blink and glance away. And there was the one who wore luxury pyjamas, the one who knitted, the other constant reader – watching her was sometimes a frightening game – the one who had a great many visitors, the ugly one, rather like a monkey, who all day sewed something that looked like a pink crêpe-de-chine chemise.

  But her dreams were uneasy, and if a book fell or a door banged her heart would jump – a painful echo. And she found herself disliking some of the novels the sister brought. One day when she was reading her face reddened with anger. Why, it’s not a bit like that. My Lord, what liars these people are! And nobody to stand up and tell them so. Yah, Judas! Thinks it’s the truth! You’re telling me.

  She glanced sideways. Pat, who was staring at her, laughed, raised her eyebrows and tapped her forehead. Inez laughed back, also tapped her forehead
and a moment afterwards was reading again, peacefully.

  The days were like that, but when night came she burrowed into the middle of the earth to sleep. ‘Never wake up, never wake up,’ her wise heart told her. But the morning always came, the tin basins, the smell of soap, the long, sunlit, monotonous day.

  At last she was well enough to walk into the bathroom by herself. Going there was all right, but coming back her legs gave way and she had to put her hand on the wall of the passage for support. There was a weight round the middle of her body which was dragging her to earth.

  She got back into bed again. Darkness, quiet, safety – all the same, it was time to face up to things, to arrange them neatly. ‘One, I feel much worse than I expected; two, I must ask the matron tomorrow if I can stay for another week; they won’t want me to pay in advance; three, as soon as I know that I’m all right for another week, I must start writing round and trying to raise some money. Fifty francs when I get out! What’s fifty francs when you feel like this?’

  That night she lay awake for a long time, making plans. But the next morning, when the matron came round, she became nervous of a refusal. ‘I’ll ask her tomorrow for certain.’ However, the whole of the next day passed and she did not say a word.

  She ate and slept and read soothing English novels about the respectable and the respected and she did not say a word nor write a letter. Any excuse was good enough: ‘She doesn’t look in a good temper today . . . Oh, the doctor’s with her; I don’t think he liked me much. (Well, I don’t like you much either, old cock; your eyes are too close together.) Today’s Friday, not my lucky day . . . I’ll write when my head is clearer . . .’

  A long brown passage smelling of turpentine led from the ward to the washroom. There were rows of basins along either white-washed wall, three water closets and two bathrooms at the far end.

  Inez went to one of the washbasins. She was carrying a sponge bag. She took out of it soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste and peroxide.