by Henry Green
Charley dared say no more. He did as he was told.
Half an hour later Miss Pitter returned. She was not in tears, as he had expected, but her face was very white, and she was obviously beside herself. She stood just within the door, looking through him as if he was moonlight.
“Well, I’m off,” she said.
He got up, pale as a bed, from behind his kitchen table desk.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“I’ve had plenty, that’s how,” she announced. “I told him so. ‘Very good Mr Mead, if you’ll release me I’ll make my application to the National Service Officer,’ I said. ‘Tale telling, that’s all there is in this blue hole of a firm,’” I said.
He stood silent.
“And no one to speak up for me,” she began again.
He still said nothing. He gaped like those bed clothes.
“D’you know what they call you here?” she went on. ‘“Shoot me’ that’s the name they have for you.” It was a pure invention, which in no way upset him.
“Shoot me?” he mildly repeated.
“Because of your martyr ways, with what you’ve had in the war, and your Rose,” she said.
It was water off a duck’s back, nevertheless he remained wary. She could not now hurt him through the war, or through Rose. Then he denied his love for the third, and last, time.
“Rose?” he said. “Her? Oh, she was just a tale.”
“I’ll be bound,” she replied. “Well I shan’t be seeing you again, thank God,” and rushed out, slamming the door after. He sat down once more, considerably astonished on the whole. Then she put her head in a last time. She was crying so much it made her face look like a pane of glass in the rain.
“I didn’t mean what I said about you with the war,” she said, and was gone. That’s that, he thought, coming alive once more. He turned his mind to the effort he would have to make to go through each one of his precious cards. He dreaded it.
But he did feel somehow ashamed.
So Charley came in for a period of hard work, in which he stayed late at his place of business, kept it up weekends, and quite forgot about life outside the office in an attempt to get straight with his job. Then one afternoon, about the time he was beginning to feel confident he had got the hang of those deliveries again, Miss Whitmore rang him.
“It’s Nance,” she said.
“Trant’s?” he answered. “To do with these valves?”
“No, Nance,” she said. “Is it convenient to speak?”
“I say, I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“I know you’re very busy,” she began, “but I’m so worried. The fact is, I’ve had bad news from Redham.”
“Redham?” he enquired.
“Don’t tell me you’ve put us all away out of mind. My dad of course. Mr Grant. Art, you remember Arthur Middlewitch, now, don’t you, he’s heard somewhere my dad is very ill.”
“Sorry to learn that,” he said.
“Then it’s news to you, is it? But you see I can’t very well go down there myself as things are between dad and me. I was wondering if you’d mind dropping in on them some time. Just to set my nerves at rest.”
“Why sure,” he said. “What’s happened?”
“I’m not certain. From all I can make out conditions are properly topsy turvy with them at the moment. I’d be so grateful, Charley. And they’d appreciate a visit from you.”
“Glad to go,” he replied. “How are you keeping?”
“I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“I have not. Tell you what. I’ll call in there, then I’ll come round and give you a report.”
“That’s very sweet,” she gravely said. “Drop in for a cup of tea.” She rang off. He lingered over the last phrase, whether she wasn’t having him on perhaps. But she sounded really worried. So next Sunday he took a train out to Redham.
When he rang the door bell Mrs Grant answered.
“Why Charley,” she said. She kissed him. She looked just the same.
“Come into the front garden a minute,” she went on. “You’ll excuse the fallen leaves, but now father’s laid up of course he can’t see to them.”
Charley was dumbfounded. So he kept silent. Mrs Grant at once began to cry, softly.
“So you’re back safe,” she said between her tears. “It makes me think of my darling Rose.” At this Charley’s eyes immediately smarted, mostly from self pity. For this was the first time he’d had a real welcome back.
“My darling Rose,” she repeated, quite naturally. “You mustn’t mind. It brings the old days home to me,” she said.
He did not know if he should mention his more recent visits. He thought better not, and once more took refuge in silence. But he kept hold of her hand, as though it was they who had been lovers.
“I thought I’d never get over it,” Mrs Grant began again. “Oh, and it must have hurt you, too,” she said. “It’s made me selfish.
“I couldn’t go to the funeral,” she went on, “no, I wasn’t well enough. I haven’t been well since it happened. Now father’s very bad. Oh dear. Yes, I’ll tell you about that in a minute. But I haven’t asked after you yet, have I? I don’t know what you’ll think of me. Well, you’re back now aren’t you, Charley Barley?”
This calling him by his old name was almost too much for the man. He had a lump in his throat and had to swallow several times, so that he could not answer.
She gave his hand a squeeze. “Was it very bad?” she asked in just the voice his mother had used, dead these many years, and whom he never thought of, after the doctor put those stitches in his cut. This was much worse. He had to turn away. Yet he kept control of himself. Perhaps she noticed, for she continued,
“Don’t you pay attention. But it is kind to come and visit us old folks. The dreadful part is that father’s so ill just now. He’s had a stroke. He’s paralysed all down his right side, I’m afraid. He’s quite conscious, which is the terrible thing, because he’s lost the power of speech.”
“That’s bad,” Charley said, recovering.
“I’m afraid he’s done,” Mrs Grant said, and silently cried some more. “Sometimes I thank providence Rose is not here to see him.”
“She never liked illness,” Mr Summers tried to comfort her.
“Oh this would have been different,” Mrs Grant softly objected. “She would be sitting up all night with her father if she was anywhere she could get to him. She’d never allow to have it mentioned about strangers, could she? But you were different. You remember when you had mumps so bad just before she married. Why, we had to have the doctor in to tell her it wasn’t as serious as all that.”
“I never knew,” Charley muttered, examining in himself what he still felt for Rose, and finding nothing much.
“I often wish she had married you after all,” she said, squeezing his hand again.
“There it is,” Charley said. He had to be careful not to show he no longer cared about Rose. There was a silence.
“And how have you been?” he asked, because it frightened him that she should not remember his previous visit.
“Oh I’ve not been at all well,” she replied. “But now this has happened to father, of course I’ve no time for my small bothers, have I? Charley, could I ask you something?”
“Why, go ahead.”
“I’ve a little matter nagging me. There’s a person should learn about Gerald. It’s very awkward but I can’t get in touch with them direct. They’re a sort of relative. They should come down really.”
“Who’s that?” Charley asked, knowing full well, but anxious, for Rose’s sake, to hear it from the old lady herself. Dreadfully anxious, he realized he was.
“A Mrs Phil. White,” she replied. “Now, mind, father doesn’t know I know about her, as a matter of fact,” Mrs Grant went on. “But I’ve been in touch on and off with her mother all these years. It’s one of those little misunderstandings that occur in family life,” she explained, while Charley felt sur
ge all over him an exquisite relief. He felt this was the final confirmation that Rose was truly dead, that Nance was a real person.
“She isn’t Rose,” he brought out in a low voice, forgetting himself.
“Then you’ve known all along,” Mrs Grant said gently, missing what he had said.
“Only just recently,” he answered, still quite vague, still at cross purposes.
“There’s nothing to it,” she said, to soften his embarrassment, as she thought. “It was just one of those things. I’ll tell you. I wasn’t at all in good health soon after we married, and he met this Mrs Whitmore with someone I hope you’ll never come across, for she’s a wicked woman, Mrs Frazier the name is. Then they had this girl. Oh now I see.” As, at last, she had done. “You noticed the resemblance?”
He could find nothing to say. He just looked at her, and blushed.
“Oh Charley,” she gently said.
He stood there.
“Why, they were not at all alike, really,” she went on. From her voice he could tell that she was not blaming him.
“But how terrible for you to come back to that,” she wondered aloud. “Whoever put you on to her?”
“It was Mr Grant,” he blurted, to excuse himself.
“That was cruel,” she agreed. “Yet you mustn’t lay blame, Charley. You know, poor dear, she lost her husband? Father was ever so worried. Oh, he thought I was in ignorance, but you can’t live all those years with a man without you learn. And I didn’t say anything to let on. Now he’s so ill, the doctor thinks he can never get better, and there’s the question of the little allowance he used to give. Then she should say goodbye, as well.” Her tears began to come faster.
“She’d never take money from me,” he objected, hardly knowing what he was saying.
“Whoever asked her to?” she explained. “Her coming down here is what should be arranged. She should. That’s the only right thing, before it’s too late. It’s settled then. I knew I could rely on you, Charley. Now perhaps you’d like to see him.” She began to dab a handkerchief at her round face. “Remember, he’ll be able to hear every bit we speak,” she warned, as she led the way into the house, and up the stairs.
Mr Grant rested like a log in bed. All that was alive was his eyes. Charley stammered a good evening, adding a word about how well he was looking.
“Oh, he’s not,” Mrs Grant broke in, “he’ll never be better the doctor says,” she announced loudly. “This is John, – I mean Charley Summers, dear,” she went on in the same tone of voice. “Isn’t it kind to pay you a visit?” Mr Grant did not even blink. His shining blue eyes expressed nothing, although there was a sort of look of astonishment upon the whole frozen face.
It was some time before Charley could make his escape. In spite of the warning she had given, Mrs Grant carried on in front of her helpless spouse as if he were deaf, and the man could give no sign that he heard. Charley supposed this was a judgement on Mr Grant, but found it painful to watch, it was so innocently carried out; although Mrs Grant’s remarks on his hopeless state must come, it was plain, from an excess of feeling for her Gerald. And, when he did leave, he was not to get away at once, because he had hardly reached the bottom of the front garden before a car, with “Doctor” on the windshield, drew up at the gate.
“Good afternoon, young fellow,” the elderly man inside said to Charley as he got out. Summers halted in his tracks, as though challenged. “You’ve been visiting here, I take it? I wonder if I might have a word. About Mrs Grant,” he said.
Charley waited.
“Quite impossible to get help these days,” the doctor explained. “And it’s too much for her. She has to do everything, you know.”
“Can he hear?” Charley asked.
“What d’you mean, can he hear? Of course he can. I trust you haven’t been saying one damn thing after another in front of my patient.”
“I have not,” Charley assured him, but with a great look of guilt.
“That’s right,” the doctor said, suspiciously. “I should hope not, indeed. No, what I wanted to impress upon you is, that we can’t go on like this, with Mrs Grant carrying everything on her own shoulders. I take it you’re a relative? Because the burden’s too much for her.”
“When I was down, before he fell ill, she didn’t recognize me,” Charley said.
“Perfectly natural in her condition at the time,” the doctor replied. “I’ve a number of cases like that, now. Comes from the bombing. After you’ve reached a certain age, as you’ll find when you get there, nature provides her own defence, she’s merciful, she draws a blackout over what she doesn’t want remembered. Or rather the nervous system rejects what is surplus to its immediate requirement. But in a crisis everything is thrown overboard, of course. She recognized you today because of the shock Mr Grant’s health has been to her system. But we’ve got to get assistance to her, or she may slip back.”
Charley had not understood. “Yes,” he said.
“Very well, that’s settled then, I’ll rely on you,” the doctor called to Charley, who was already moving away. “Excuse me,” he added, “but what’s the matter with your right foot?”
“It’s off,” Charley meekly explained. “Artificial leg.”
“Really?” the doctor said. “I thought I noticed something.”
He rang Nance to fix a date, then went to tea. He found quite a spread, fried fish warmed up, and an imitation chocolate cake she had wangled somewhere.
“You shouldn’t have bothered,” he said.
“It’s no trouble. I couldn’t let you travel all that distance to Redham for nothing,” she replied. The truth was, her free time lay lonely on her. She was glad, now, to have him round.
“It’s not so good,” he began, and gave a description of how he had found Mr Grant. She listened, seeming to be unmoved. “And there she was, after pretty nearly telling me not to speak a word in front of him which he wouldn’t wish to hear, there she was on about he could never get well.” His indignation made Charley speak out. “What d’you make of that? I felt such a twirp in front of the doctor.”
“She couldn’t help herself, poor thing,” Miss Whitmore explained. “It was too much, you see. Don’t distress yourself. You needn’t suppose he would listen. Anyway we shall never know now, will we? But that’s bad about his health then, Charley, isn’t it?”
“Certainly is,” Mr Summers replied.
“I reckon I ought to drop in on them one day, don’t you?” she said. “I could lend a hand.”
“He wouldn’t care for that,” Charley objected. “From what he told me the other time, he was aiming to keep you dark.”
“But he sent you to see me, Charley?”
“That’s as may be,” Mr Summers took her up, “yet he’d never have let it out to Mrs Grant.”
“Won’t you have the other piece of fish?” she asked. “Go on. I couldn’t. We have a lovely canteen, really, where I work. Well, you can’t tell how much he’s let on to her, can you? There’s not a great deal wives don’t get to know, believe me.”
“Yes,” he said, his mouth full, “you’ve had experience.”
If he had been looking he would have seen her eyes fill with tears at this, but he wasn’t.
“Anyway,” she said, “we’ll never learn now about my dad, if he doesn’t get better.”
“Pretty rotten, though, to upset him, the shape he’s in at the moment.”
“Why, how d’you mean?” she asked.
“By you going down,” he explained.
“Yes, but I can’t just leave her to herself, can I?” she said. “With dad like that? The only bother is Panzer.”
“The cat?”
“My darling puss.”
“But you wouldn’t be there all that amount of time.”
“Oh well, you know how it is,” she said, “either you do a thing properly or not at all. I was thinking I ought to go each day, after what you’ve told me. Why, your cup’s empty. Why didn’t you ask? If
you don’t speak up for yourself there’s no one will do it for you, you know. Sitting with an empty cup, indeed.”
“You are certainly looking after me,” he said.
“And how do you manage at your lodgings?” she enquired. “D’you get your rations? I know those old landladies all right.”
“Oh there’s nothing of that sort about Mrs Frazier,” he told her. “Which reminds me. Mrs Grant said Mrs Frazier used to know your mother.”
“It’s news to me,” she replied, uninterested. “Well I hope I know where my responsibility lies. I’ll go down to Redham to find that poor woman, and see if I can’t lend a hand round the house.”
“What about your job?”
“Who, me? I’m on nights, as I told you. I’ve got the daylight hours to myself.”
He felt absolutely comfortable. He could be free, or so he was beginning to imagine, when in her company.
“You’re not like some, then,” he said.
“What d’you mean? Of course I’m not. There’s not everyone who’s on night work.”
“I didn’t mean that, I meant who’ll take their coats off. I had a girl in my office who wasn’t fit even to copy a thing down.”
“You explained about her.”
“I did? Excuse us, I don’t think so?”
“Wasn’t she the girl you took away with you over the August?” She was laughing at him as she asked this. He ruefully laughed back.
“There you are,” he said.
“I’m not,” she said, “but you are,” and pleasantly laughed some more.
He could not get over how easy all this was.
“No, about Redham now, you can’t tell what effect you might have on his health when he sees you,” he said.
“You’re a man, so you think of him. I’m a woman, and I consider her. You don’t want ’em both to fall into neglect, surely? I’ve a responsibility to those two.”
“She knows about you,” he carelessly announced. She cannot have liked this for she said,
“Let’s have less about me and more regard to the old people. Why, I’d have no respect for myself if I didn’t go down. The work here’s nothing. I could look in on them every afternoon.”
