For Love Alone

by Christina Stead

  A new idea occurred to her. If she could get a room opposite the factory, she would save shoe-leather, boat-fares, and energy. She would have to pay rent and get her own food, however, and she certainly did better eating out of the family pot than she would by herself. The factory was in a short street, a mere by-pass behind the meeting of two thoroughfares. Two factories occupied one side, and a row of slum houses ran along the other, houses built stupidly, out of the greed of early landlords, with twenty-five-foot frontages and no garden space. The doors opened on the street. Brawling and drunkenness went on in them; aged, debauched women, filthy, full of liquor, staggered in and out and roomers there would occasionally be thrown out in the street, first their goods, with small vases and basins crashing and cheap silverware clinking and clattering in a delightful smash, then bits of tawdry, or a spare pair of pants, some cracked satin slippers, a hat, and last the personage itself, shouting, quarrelling, but finally bundled out. And there on the pavement the poor thing would stand, swearing and crying, almost sexless, merely degraded, picking up its poor possessions, while the other miserable creature, like a wild animal, fierce, black-eyed, would peer and shout at it through the corner of some lifted dirty curtain.

  Teresa had long ago, but slowly, formed the idea that rooms must be very cheap indeed in this district and if she could get a room, perhaps not right opposite the factory, but in the very next street, where she could not be seen entering and leaving, it might be a saving to her. One Saturday, she had a sandwich in a small shop near and then returned surreptitiously about two hours after the factory closed and everyone was gone away, to the same street; and she walked up the street and down the next, cautiously surveying the windows, looking for a window with clean curtains and the notice, “Rooms to let”. She knew she might be taken for a street-walker, and was afraid of going up to the doors and asking, and yet she said to herself that honest girls lived here also, the poor living side by side with crime, and she reproached herself for this false shame. Spurred by this thought, she went up and knocked at a door in the middle of the row. A blonde woman opened to her, when Teresa said, thoughtlessly, gazing at her: “Will you give me some bread and meat?”

  At the flash in the woman’s face, she realized what she had said and slowly turned red. She stuttered that she was stupid, that she was thinking of something else, and asked the woman how much was the rent of the room she had to let. The woman closing the door slightly, said: “I can’t let it to you.”

  Flushing deeper, Teresa stumbled away and walked quickly up the street, feeling the woman’s eyes on her, the slight breeze cooling her skin. What a strange thing! It was true that sometimes, when walking down the streets and feeling very tired after work, she had dreamed about going up the steps of some house and asking for “some bread and meat” which was what tramps always asked for and she had thought about the thick slices of fresh bread and cold roast meat which were usually given to them. She began to laugh to herself. Who would believe that she had gone up to someone’s door and begged? It was comic. Everything she did was so strange and comic that no one would believe it. She had managed to get out of the goal, she had found out how original real life is.

  She walked on doggedly till she turned into another street and began asking at one house after another, assailing their front doors, asking after rooms, like a stray cat running from one entry to another. The fifth room was a front room with a double bed in brass and iron, a clean cotton coverlet, and three autumn scenes on the walls. It was dark, bare, small, unlike anything she had ever seen before and she was afraid of it, but she said she would take it, and paid the woman five shillings deposit. She would move in on the next Monday, she said, with her clothes. This was only one street away from the factory, one of those long, cheerless, asphalted streets of semi-detached houses all exactly alike, with closed-in, railed balconies on the second floor and dust in the small front “garden”. She came away with relief, already hating the yellow walls, and when she heard the door shut behind her, she was afraid, but she was obliged to follow out her plan.

  Sitting on the boat in the cool afternoon she thought about the Bay; it seemed delightfully remote, silent, she bitterly regretted the way she would be forced to live from now on, but the saving in time and money would be enormous. She wondered if her family would allow her to come and see them in the week-ends, or if they would be too angry with her? She came rolling in to the house with her usual proud, silent, and bounding air, which it cost her much energy to keep up, especially at the end of the week. She went up to her room and sank on her bed, her mind darting round the room she had just left, the dark rented room which was now hers. She thought of things at the factory, of what clothes she would need for her travelling trousseau and she got up to write down on a piece of paper the number of days she still had to save money before she sailed. She calculated that on the ship she would have six weeks to rest in, and that a sea-cure is recommended to all frail people; and she thought that by the time she reached London she would be quite fit and able to look for a job the first day. Presently she felt well enough to go downstairs to eat her lunch, which was steaming on top of a saucepan as usual.

  The house was silent, the doors and windows all stood open, but everyone was out. She thought: “Next week, I shall not have this”, but then: “I’m leaving it soon for ever, what does this matter?” She did nothing the whole afternoon, but lay on the grass in front, thinking that sooner or later she would rise somehow, get on her feet; once she was on her feet, she felt all right and could get about the house and street without anyone noticing that she could hardly walk. No one had guessed, no one dared to ask her questions and if asked, she would not have answered. As she lay she began composing her next letter to Jonathan, phrases fitted themselves together vividly, soon she had whole paragraphs, and before half an hour was out, she got up and went upstairs to begin to write it down; she passed an hour in a delicious dream of communication. The others, Lance, Kitty, her father, behaved silently and oddly as they had begun to lately, they were more like people passing at a distance. To avoid them, she took her meals out by herself under a tree, hidden from the road, and though her father sent messages to her to come in, as always, she did not answer, except to ask to be left alone. The two men had little sympathy for her because of all the money she had in the bank; she sometimes thought, vaguely, that Kitty had been crying on her account.

  This evening, after the meal, at six-thirty, Lance went off to go to the movies, and the father went off also by himself, to the movies. Teresa asked her sister sulkily if she was not going as well, for she hoped to be left alone, to wander idly over the house, touching things, looking out of windows; and tonight, especially, she had to pick out a few things to take to the room with her. But Kitty was not going out, and had a disagreeable air as if about to reproach her. When the dishes were washed, Kitty went up to her room and closed the door. Teresa sat on the back step and began to smile as she recalled Erskine’s words of that day. Erskine was her solace. She had formed the habit of going to Kitty’s room when anything amusing had happened, and babbling about Erskine’s tricks and charm.

  She went upstairs to knock at Kitty’s door and heard her rustling papers inside. “Who is it?”

  “Terry.”

  “Come in.”

  She was astonished to see Kitty with an open valise on her bed and some clothes already packed in it.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  Teresa was delighted, she clasped her hands and her face shone with happiness. “Where is it?”

  “In Petersham.”

  “In Petersham? What sort of a job?”

  “Housekeeper, it’s a widower with a child.”

  “Oh!” Teresa looked at her quickly and saw Kitty’s face colour. Kitty said quickly: “It’s all right, it’s someone we know, Mr Bayliss, in Sylvia’s factory.”

  “He isn’t a widower.”

  “Yes, yes, his wife died.”


  “Ah! Well, good luck then.”

  Kitty became tremulous, “Yes, I think I’ll have good luck,” and suddenly her shadowed little girl’s face became that of a woman.

  She smiled, she said huskily and guiltily but with a smile: “I’m in love.”

  “I know. Do you think he’ll marry you?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t care.”

  Teresa opened her eyes and looked at her sister. “What sort of a child?”

  “A little boy aged eight.”

  “That’s not bad.”

  “Oh, I can manage any children,” said Kitty. She rolled up a pair of stockings. “I explained to him that I couldn’t buy a uniform yet, but I would as soon as I got paid and he understands all that. He said he knew you were getting good wages from old Remark and Dad could afford to pay someone to cook. Or Aunt Bea might.”

  “Ah!”

  “Don’t you like that?”

  “Of course, go and take your job. You should have done it years ago.”

  “I know, but anyhow I’m doing it now.”

  Teresa turned on her heel and went into her room. Kitty looked after her piteously, she was angry. But, thought Kitty, why is she so selfish? She has money and has a boy, why shouldn’t I? A few tears wet Kitty’s sensitive eyes, but she went on packing.

  Teresa, sitting in her room, looked across the landing at the little domestic picture of Kitty in her bedroom. Was there a crack from ceiling to floor, zig-zag across the whole building? The house was falling. “Well, too bad,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t take the room and I’ve lost the five shillings.” She called out: “When are you going?”

  “Shh!”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just going to leave a note; Dad wouldn’t let me go. He says I must look after the house till I have a home of my own. But I can’t meet men here. I’ll never have a home of my own at this rate.”

  “Are you going to try to marry Bayliss?”

  Kitty stopped rolling some clumsy garment and sat down, looking at her sister across the landing. Her attitude said yes, eloquently, but she did not dare to say it.

  “He’s quite old.”

  “I don’t know any young men,” said Kitty. She bent her face to her work. “I had no dresses, I had nothing.” She began to cry.

  “Don’t cry now, it’s too late to cry now,” said Teresa, irritably, and the tears stopped.

  “So I won’t see you,” said Teresa, after some thought.

  Kitty laughed. “You see Cyprian every day.”

  “I don’t see him.” After a moment she called: “Kitty, come here a minute.”

  Kitty came over with a lace collar in her hand. Teresa stopped and opened the bottom drawer of her chest of drawers. She pulled out a petticoat, saying, with a flushed look, to her sister: “Here, this is for you, you need things.”

  Kitty smiled. “It’s from your glory-box.”

  “You know? But it’s not a glory-box.”

  “Yes, I looked. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Well, take it.”

  “No, you want it. If it’s not a glory-box, what is it? You’re secretly engaged, aren’t you?”

  “No,” said Teresa, “but I’m going to England.”

  Kitty was surprised but not staggered. “When?” she whispered. “In six months or less, one hundred and eighty-one days, to be exact.”

  “To him?”

  Teresa nodded.

  “Does he know?”

  She nodded.

  For the first time in their lives, Kitty bent and kissed Teresa, whispering: “Oh, good, I’m glad! I thought so.”

  Teresa recoiled proudly. Kitty, however, was used to Teresa’s cold ways and asked: “But what about Mr Erskine?”

  “What about him?”

  “Everyone says he’s after you. He rang up here. Dad said not to tell you.”

  “He’s nothing to me.”

  “It’s a pity.” Kitty considered her.

  “I don’t want him,” said her sister fiercely. “If I stay here, I’ll never get anywhere.”

  “Well, you know best.”

  She took away the little lace-edged petticoat, saying her thanks and apologies for taking it and came back with something of her own, a fichu she would never wear, because it made her look like a grandmother. Then she went off again, bubbling, youthful. “When?” called Teresa.

  “On Monday morning. I’ll just stay to make the Sunday dinner and clean up the house.”

  “I hope I don’t have to do it all after you go.”

  Kitty came back with round eyes: “You won’t do it?”

  “I can’t do it all. I’m not strong enough now.”

  “We’ll have to club together to get someone, when I get paid.” “No, I won’t, together with you or anyone else. I pay enough,” she scolded. She turned red.

  Kitty looked helpless, but murmured: “I won’t give up this chance.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “But about the house?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll do what I can, but not too much.”

  “Let the men do it.” Kitty uttered this revolutionary idea sharply.

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “Then let them live in the dirt,” said Kitty. These two remarks made in quite a different voice, must have been the result of months of thinking things out and made Kitty sound quite sharp and hard. Teresa looked at the new woman with new eyes.

  24

  “So Haggard and So Woebegone”

  On the Monday morning, a sharp, rainy morning, Kitty was up early, set the breakfast table, made the breakfast and then, snatching a cup of tea, ran upstairs, changed and was down with her valise while they were at the table. They heard her run downstairs and the front screen door bang.

  “What’s Kitty doing?” asked the father.

  No one answered.

  The front gate banged.

  “She went to the shop,” growled Lance. “She’s never got anything in the house, we live from hand to mouth.”

  “I’ve got to run,” said Teresa.

  “You look a wreck,” said Lance kindly. “You’re ready to fall apart. You look like a skeleton.”

  “I have a skeleton underneath,” Teresa told him.

  “Your bones are sticking out,” said Lance.

  “Well, Terry never was Joan Crawford,” the father said with a spiteful laugh. He was always angry with his daughter now, partly because she would not dress and look better when she had so much money. He would have liked to have had two pretty daughters and to point them out to his mates in the Bay.

  “Terry’s going mad,” said the brother, rising and staring at her. “The way she’s going on, she must be going mad.”

  “Women go mad if they don’t get married,” said the father. “It isn’t their fault. If Terry would get herself up a bit, make herself more attractive, she’d probably get a nibble, but she can’t expect men to go after a bag of bones. Now Terry was quite beefy when she was sixteen, she was quite an eyeful.”

  Teresa looked at them coldly as she got up, wiping her mouth. “What you don’t know about me would fill a library,” she told her father. He laughed.

  “I’ve got to run,” said Teresa. “Look, here’s a letter for you”, and she put in her father’s place the letter that Kitty had given her to hand to him. She ran for the boat, though she heard a long frantic whistle behind her. She looked over her shoulder as she ran. Lance was not coming, he would miss the boat. That was one blessing. She joined her sister. Kitty, with her valise, sat on the engineer’s seat, looking round. Flushes of happiness came over her, anyone could see it. She was like a runaway bride.

  “I’ll see you in town sometimes,” said Teresa, “when you can get away. Let me know your days off. I’ll take you to tea, I get more than you.”

  “Oh, I’ll be able to take you to tea.” Kitty laughed, and looked slyly at her. She gleamed, shivered alternately, as she thought of Bayliss or of her father.
r />   “Bayliss will be at work when you get there.”

  “I know, but I have the key. I’ll just straighten up and he’s coming home for dinner tonight. He wants Irish stew, he’s very fond of it, so I’m making it for the first night,” said Kitty, looking eagerly in front of her.

  Teresa had a sharp pang of jealousy. By tomorrow, she would be washing, sweeping, ironing, cooking for the man she loved, and he had given her a home. For a burning moment, she wondered if she, too, ought not to become a housekeeper. There were plenty of advertisements in the papers, where middle-aged men, doctors, lawyers, all kinds of respectable, gentlemanly men, widowers, bachelors, asked for housekeepers. It seemed such a quiet, decent job; at the same time a woman was doing for a man, she was not alone in her life. A man came home, she had something to live for. If she starched things properly, polished the tables and oilcloths, brasses, silver, blued the sheets nicely, looked after his clothes, he praised her, talked about her to his friends. “I have a wonderful housekeeper, Miss Teresa Hawkins.” It was a kind, decent life, and one had a man at once, without the struggle, just by going to an agency. In the end he might marry her and they would go together into the dark, high, over-polished, starch-smelling bedroom, cold man and wife; not love but honourable marriage. Clever Kitty, to have thought out all this, thought Teresa, looking at her; and I am so clever—I never saw this solution! Clever Teresa! Yes, I am very clever. I am killing myself for a man who might possibly, if it suits him, if he is still there, if he is not too much put off by me, kiss me.