We Think the World of You

by J. R. Ackerley

  Millie saw me to the door. She was a great goose, but she was also a great dear, I thought, looking at her fat pink childish face with its rather poppy eyes. Suddenly happy, I gave her, too, a good smacking kiss.

  “You won’t forget to tell Johnny?”

  “No, I won’t forget, Frank. I’ll write you as soon as I’ve seen him. And I’ll get on to Tom again to take her out.”

  As I went through the gate I nearly collided with that dreary fellow returning home. Disinclined though I was to speak to him I halted for a moment and said something like: “Hullo, Tom! I’m just off. Sorry to have missed you.” But he brushed past me like a ghost, so that, although I’d never suspected him of drinking to excess, I thought he must have taken a little too much.

  To my annoyance my cousin in Surrey refused Evie. “I expect I should get fond of her,” she wrote, “and then I should be sorry to part with her when the moment came. Besides, I don’t know your friends, why should I concern myself in their affairs? I have troubles enough of my own. If it had been your dog it would have been a different matter.” Tiresome woman! Yet I might have known. It was characteristic of her that she should be willing, even eager, to do anything for me, except be made use of; and since she frequently claimed my time and attention for the disentangling of her complex affairs I was incensed by her reply. She did, however, make a belated attempt to be helpful by adding that a neighbor of hers, a Miss Sweeting, ran a kennel for dogs and might be useful if I cared to communicate with her. “I have just spoken to Miss Sweeting,” said a postscript, “as she happened to pass. She didn’t seem keen, but says you can ring her if you like. She also said you should tell your friends that it is unwise to beat dogs like Evie, it only makes them savage. Why not come down and talk to her yourself? And to me? I am wanting advice about some investments.”

  After this I marked time. Miss Sweeting, presumably, would be a business proposition, and although I had no doubt of Johnny’s reply, it seemed better to wait until I received it. But busy though I was in the days that followed, I found myself thinking of Evie and remembering uncomfortably the intent, expectant looks she had fastened upon me.

  Millie’s letter came a fortnight later. “We had a nice visit,” she wrote, “though it seems we was too many only two being allowed but they did not make trouble which was good of them so we all got in and baby said ‘Da da’ when Johnny took him up which made a lump come in my throat, it is true what Megan said about him being fatter in the face but he did not look at all well to me and I am worry about him. He said a lot of very nice things about you and that he could never repay you for all you had done for him and would be writing you soon and he don’t want Evie to go to your cousin in case she won’t give her up when he comes out and, he don’t want no boy to take her neither, he says that if you and Tom go on taking her out she will be all right.”

  This letter too filled me with indignation. That there was a certain pertinence, at any rate prevalence, about Johnny’s reason for resisting my plan for Evie was unfortunately undeniable, for the same sort of difficulty that he foresaw had also occurred to my cousin; but there was all the difference in the world between her feeling that parting with the dog would be painful, and his monstrous suggestion that she might actually refuse to give her up. Did he suppose, I asked myself angrily, that my friends and I were as crooked as himself? And did he also imagine that I had nothing better to do with my time than run up to Stratford to exercise his dog? And what, finally, did he mean by “you and Tom,” when the whole point was that the lazy brute was no good at all? I wrote back to Millie to say that I thought it very stupid of him to reject my plan, that I felt insulted by his reason and puzzled by the rest of his reply. If I had foreseen it, I said, I would have suggested a country kennel instead, for which I was willing to pay and to which his objection could not apply since it would be a business and not a personal arrangement. I would put this to him, I concluded, when his letter came, if it ever did, and would she please do the same if she were writing.

  Millie replied promptly, as was her habit, mostly about Dickie, who had been poorly since the expedition, then about Easter, which fell upon the approaching weekend. Was I thinking of coming up to see her then? (If I reverted to schedule my next visit was, in fact, then due.) If I was, would I please not come on the Bank Holiday because they had booked seats on a coach for Margate on that day. Dickie being a bit run down they thought it would do him good. But she would be glad to see me on the Saturday or Sunday, of which I might prefer the first seeing that Megan was coming on the second. At the very end she added briefly that I was not to worry about the dog who was perfectly all right. It was the only reference to Evie in the letter which, though friendly, renewed the feeling I had had from her before that she was bored with the subject and that when she said that I was not to worry about the dog she meant, not that I was not to worry myself, but that I was not to worry her. Not that I was not to worry at all, thin though it might make me, I thought with a smile at her transparency as I read the letter again, but I must learn to worry about the right things, and her letter quietly ordered them for me. However, it was not about Dickie and his ailments that I was thinking when I put it down; I was wondering what was to happen to Evie when they all went off to Margate for the day. They could not take her with them; were they going to leave her alone in the house from early morning till late at night? Poor creature, it really was disgraceful! I picked up my pen to say that if such were the case I would come and take her out in their absence. Then I put it down. It would sound like nagging. That would be a mistake. I had better go up on the Saturday and take her out then. And could I not take her for a decent walk? There must surely be commons or parks of some kind in the district. I opened a map: yes, of course, Victoria Park. I had never been into it, but it looked fairly large. It also looked rather a distance from Millie’s, but why should I not try to get Evie there? What fun it would be to set her free upon grass, to see her stretching her long limbs. . . . But such an expedition would occupy an appreciable part of the visit, an apportionment of my time that was unlikely to find favor with Millie. Instead of springing it on her when I arrived, I had better prepare her mind at once; I could invoke Johnny, of course, whose word was law—and whose wishes about running up to exercise his dog I seemed after all to be gratifying! I therefore wrote a careful letter, devoting the whole of the first page to a concern for Dickie which, I could only hope, would appear more convincing to her than it looked to me; at the end in a short sentence I said that I would come up on the Saturday, and that I would arrive specially early in the morning to take Evie for a longish walk, “since Johnny wished it,” before I did anything else.

  On the Friday morning, the day before I went, Johnny’s long-awaited letter came. The first noticeable thing about it was that it was far from being official. The envelope was a plain one, very dirty and crumpled, with the address scrawled in pencil. The postmark was Paddington. Inside was another envelope more carefully addressed to a Mr. Smithers of that district, and Johnny’s letter. The gist of this was that one of the “screws,” who was “a decent chap and to be trusted,” had agreed to smuggle some tobacco to Johnny. It was to be “a good amount of tobacco, about fifteen ounces” and, considering that and the big risk the screw was taking, well worth the five pounds I was requested to put into the enclosed envelope, which should be registered. Would I then send a wire to Johnny wishing him “a happy birthday”? It wasn’t his birthday, of course, but no one would know that, greeting telegrams always got through and he would understand from it that the money had been sent. I could put in a letter to him, too, which the screw had also promised to deliver. “I know that you will do this for my sake, Frank, because I only earn threepence and you can imagine how long that lasts me, and also, Frank, I will be able to go on getting letters out to you and to my mother, but remember, Frank, these must never be mentioned because as you know they are not official. Well, Frank, how are you keeping? As for myself I am okay but I wish t
o God it was over. I shall never be able to thank . . . . Megan thinks the world. . . .” There was not a word about Evie. I tore it all up and put it in the wastepaper basket. Whatever I might be thinking of Johnny at the moment, it was certainly not the world.

  For the first time since Johnny had left home to make a life elsewhere, I set out upon the journey to Stratford with real pleasure. It was a jolly day, though windy, and Evie and I were going to have a jolly time. As I sat with my map spread out on my knees, jotting down in the margin the names of the roads that looked as though they would get us to Victoria Park as quietly as possible, I began to whistle. Noting my own warble I cautioned myself; it would never do for Millie to suspect that the prime interest of my visit today was not to see my “nephew” but to give pleasure to Evie. It was twenty-four days since I had last seen her.

  When Millie opened the door I greeted her cheerfully and bent forward to kiss her as usual, but—it disconcerted me for a second—she made an odd little flustered movement away from me, saying: “I didn’t know if it was you or Ida. I’m expecting her over for the day.” But I was not really attending; I was listening instead to something else, Evie’s whimpering cries of recognition and delight from the back of the house, which were audible all the length of the passage. I heard them even through the far greater din that Dickie was kicking up, squalling in his chair. I had an impulse to rush into the kitchen, fling wide the scullery door and let the imprisoned animal into my arms; but I suppressed it. There were human duties to perform first, I knew, and in not too perfunctory a manner either.

  “What’s up with Dickie? I hope he’s not still unwell?”

  “He seemed better these last few days,” said Millie anxiously, “but he’s been carrying on like this all morning. I think he must have a tooth coming through, but I can’t feel nothing.”

  “Let’s see what Uncle Frank can do,” I said gaily, and lifted the howling little oaf out of his chair. If he had forthwith died in convulsions I should have considered that a just and fitting end; but the effect was contrary and astonishing. He stopped crying at once—so that Evie’s lamentations now had the stage to themselves—and gazed into my face with his dull, wooden stare. “There!” I exclaimed. “How about that? Doctor Frank to the rescue! He’s as right as rain!” And I kissed the child’s clammy forehead.

  “That’s it!” said Millie beaming. “It was you he wanted!”

  “Da da,” said Dickie, stretching out his hands to my nose.

  “Oh no!” I laughed. “That’s going a bit too far! If you’re his mum, it would hardly do for me to be his dad!” And I handed him back to Millie. “And how’s Tom?” I asked, turning to that dismal object.

  Excepting for a half-hearted movement to get up when I came in, he had taken no notice of me at all. Now, without raising his face from the newspaper he was reading, he mumbled something I failed to catch. Indeed, although I did not in the least mind, for the less of anything he had to say the better, his behavior was far from polite. Millie too seemed to think so.

  “I thought you was going down to the allotment?” she said, rather sharply.

  “All in good time,” he muttered.

  Dear me! I thought. Have they been having words?

  “Would you like a cupper tea, Frank?” asked Millie. “It’s not long made.”

  Yes, I must go through all the social hoops with a good grace.

  “Thank you, dear, I would.”

  The scullery door began to rattle as Evie scratched at it.

  “Has Johnny wrote you yet?” Millie inquired as she poured the tea.

  “Yes, I had a letter yesterday.”

  “That’s right. I thought you had. I could see you was feeling more yourself directly you come in. Did he tell you about our visit?”

  Should I disillusion the great baby? No, it would be unkind. A heart-rending cry from Evie pierced my ears.

  “Well, no, he didn’t. It wasn’t the official letter I was hoping for, and he didn’t say much about anything, except that some screw friend of his was willing to smuggle him in some tobacco if I made it worth his while.”

  “Did you ever!” laughed Millie. “What cheek!”

  “He wanted me to send the screw five pounds. That’s all the letter was about.”

  “Five pounds! You never sent it, Frank?” cried Millie aghast.

  “Well, I haven’t, as a matter of fact. I didn’t quite know what to do,” I added mendaciously. “It seemed rather a lot.”

  “I should ’ope not!” Millie was scandalized. “Don’t you send it, Frank! Johnny didn’t ought to have asked you. Five pounds! For some tobacco! Whatever was he thinking of! And after all you’ve done for him! Did you hear that, Tom? Johnny wants Frank to send five pounds to one of them screws to fetch him in some tobacco! What do you think of that?”

  It was surprising he could hear anything through the clamor of little sharp hysterical barks that Evie was now venting, and I wondered whether it was possible that they were both so inured to her demands that they no longer noticed them. Otherwise why did they not let the poor lonely creature in? But Tom did hear the question and, morose though he appeared to be, this direct and uncancelled appeal to his wisdom was irresistible.

  “Johnny must be going daft! I’d never ’ave thought ’im such a mug! You might just as well pitch the money in this ’ere grate for all the good it’d do ’im! ’E wouldn’t get a pinch of ’is tobaccer, not so much as a draw. And what could ’e do? ’E couldn’t do nothing. ’E couldn’t even say nothing. They’d tickle ’is arse for ’im whatever ’e did. Them screws! They’re a crafty lot of bastards! They was just the same in the Army. I remember——”

  “Johnny didn’t seem exactly confident himself,” I cut in. “He wanted me to send him a wire to wish him a happy birthday. That was to tip him off that I’d sent the money.”

  This amused Millie:

  “Well, did you ever! The things he think of! Why it’s not his birthday till November! Don’t you do it, Frank! I’m sure it’s right what Tom says; Johnny wouldn’t get nothing out of it and he didn’t ought to have asked you anyway. We had one of them screws alongside of us when we was there. Oh, he was a big feller! Johnny said he was all right, but I didn’t like him standing so close. And Megan passed Johnny a packet of cigarettes right under his nose! Oh dear! I felt meself go ’ot all over. I did feel queer! Do you know how she done it, Frank? She slip ’em up under baby’s frock when we handed him over to Johnny. Oh, she was quick! I was surprised. She never seems to have no go in her when she’s here. And what do you think Johnny said?” She went off into one of her squalls of laughter. “He said ‘Don’t let ’im piddle on ’em, for Gawd’s sake!’ Oh, he did make us laugh! But he do miss his smoke, poor old Johnny. It’s the worst part, he says. And of course it’s what you’ve never had you never miss. And he don’t look at all well, Frank. Do he, Tom? He’s fat and he’s thin, if you know what I mean. You can see he grieve.” (Bang went the scullery door as Evie rose up against it.) “When baby said ‘Da da’ tears come into his eyes. Oh, it did upset me! Of course he didn’t say nothing, he wouldn’t want to worry us, he joke it all off, but I bet he fret and pine, especially of an evening.” (Bang went the scullery door.) “I often think of him shut up there all alone in his room them long hours and have a little cry all to meself. Oh, he must feel lonely!”

  Crash went the scullery door.

  “Lay down, can’t you!” yelled Tom suddenly from the fireside, and Evie’s yelps were momentarily silenced. Then her muted appeals began again. I could stand no more. I had done my duty. I had been good long enough.

  “So you’re off to Margate on Monday?” I said.

  “Yes, we’ve booked our seats,” said Millie. “I hope baby will be well by then.”

  “Are you taking Evie with you?” I made it sound like a joke.

  “That’d be a how-d’you-do!” Millie cackled. “She’ll guard the house for us while we’re gone.”

  “That’s ’er job!”
threw in Tom, so suddenly that I jumped.

  “Aren’t you going down to the allotment?” said Millie shortly. The letter-box rattled. “There’s Ida. Let her in will you.” Tom went out. I knew I should not ask the question, but I was determined to know.

  “When did he last take her out?”

  Millie did not reply. She jibbed visibly and moved over to her stove. It was almost answer enough, but I was determined:

  “Not at all?”

  Millie was a very truthful woman. I felt sure she would not lie to me. But still she did not speak. There were voices and steps in the passage. Then she suddenly turned round, looked me full in the face and shook her head. Tom and Ida entered the kitchen. I had met Johnny’s sister before and greeted her.

  “Whatever’s up with Evie?” she asked. “Has she gone daft?”

  “She knows Frank’s here,” said Millie briefly. “Let her in will you, before she breaks me door down.”

  As soon as Evie entered the room my fate, which, I afterwards perceived, had for some time been in process of being drafted, was finally signed and sealed. Uttering gasping cries of joy she launched herself at me—I might have been the only person present. Then she went mad. With her ears back and her tail down she began to fly round and round the small room as though it were a circus arena. Under the table, over the chairs, under the table, over the chairs, round and round she went as fast as she could race, still making her little moaning sounds of happiness. Her body and tail thumped and banged the furniture as she pursued her headlong course; it seemed miraculous she did not hurt herself, but on and on she flew. A chair capsized, the fire-irons clattered down in the grate, Millie caught up the child into her arms, nobody spoke; we all stood gaping at the animal as she performed her wild demonstration of joy. Finally she came to rest at my feet, lay there panting for a moment, then rolled over on to her back with her legs in the air.