To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

by Doris Lessing

  ‘Don’t go to bed straight away,’ she said – for he was throwing off his shoes and coat. ‘There’s something we’ve got to do.’

  ‘It’d better be pretty important,’ he said. ‘I’m dead on my feet.’

  ‘For once you’d better stay on your feet.’ This brutal note was new and astonishing from Rose.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’ll see in a minute.’

  He almost ignored her and went to bed; but at last he compromised by pushing the pillows against the wall and leaning on them. ‘Wake me up when the mystery’s ripe,’ he said, and dropped off at once.

  Rose remained at the table in a stiff attitude, watching the door and listening. The day before she had made a decision. Or rather, a decision had been made for her. It had come into her head: Why not write and ask? She’ll know … At first the idea had shocked her. It was a terrible thing to do, contrary to what she felt to be the right way to behave. And yet from the moment it entered her head, the idea gathered strength until she could think of nothing else. At last she sat down and wrote:

  Dear Mrs Pearson, I am writing to you on a matter which is personal to us both, and I hope it gives no offence, because I am not writing in that spirit. I am Rose Johnson, and your husband has been courting me for two years since before the war stopped. He says you live separate and you won’t divorce him. I want things to be straight and proper now, and I’ve been thinking perhaps if we have a little talk, things will be straight. If this meets with your approval, Jimmie will be home tomorrow night, ten or so, and we could all three have a talk. Believing me, I mean no trouble or offence.

  This letter she had carried herself to the house and dropped through the letter-slot. Afterwards, she could not go away. She walked guiltily up the street, and then down, her eyes fixed on the windows. That was where she lived. Her heart was so heavy with jealous love it was as if her very feet were weighted. That was where Jimmie had lived with her. That was where his children lived. She hoped to get a glimpse of them, and looked searchingly at some children playing in the street, trying to find his eyes, his features in their faces. There was a little boy she thought might be his son and she found herself smiling at the child, her eyes filled with tears. Then, finally, she walked past the house and thought: If only it’d come to an end, I can’t bear it no longer, I can’t bear it …

  There were footsteps, Rose half-rose to open the door, but they went past. Later, when she had given up hope, there were steps again, and they stopped at the door. Now the moment had come. Rose was faint with anxiety and could hardly cross the floor. She thought: I mustn’t wake Jimmie, he’s so tired. She opened the door with an instinctive gesture of warning towards the sleeping man. Mrs Pearson glanced at him, smiled in a tight-lipped fashion, and came in, making her heels click loudly. Rose had created for herself many pictures of this envied woman, Jimmie’s wife. She had imagined her, for some reason, fair, frail, pretty – rather like Pearl, whom she had seen in the street once. But she was not like that at all. She was a big, square woman, heavy on her feet. Her face was square and good-humoured, her brown eyes calm and direct. Her dark, greying hair was tightly waved, too close around her head for the big features. ‘Well,’ she said in a normal voice, with a good-humoured nod at Rose, ‘the prisoner’s sleeping before the execution.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ breathed Rose, in dismay: ‘It’s not like that at all.’

  Mrs Pearson looked curiously at her, shrugged, and laid her bag on the table. ‘Thanks for the letter,’ she said. ‘It’s about time you found out.’

  ‘Found out what?’ asked Rose quickly.

  Jimmie stirred, looked blankly over at the women and then scrambled quickly to his feet. ‘What the hell?’ he asked, involuntarily. And then, very angry: ‘What are you poking your nose in for?’

  ‘She asked me to come,’ said his wife, quietly. She sat down. ‘Come and sit down, Jimmie, and let’s talk it over.’

  He looked quite baffled. Then he, too, shrugged, lit a cigarette and came to the table. ‘OK, get it over,’ he said jauntily. He glanced incredulously at Rose. She could do this to him, he thought, hurt to the very bone – and she says she loves me … He was set hard against Rose, hard against his wife … Well, let them do as they liked.

  ‘Now listen, Jimmie,’ said his wife, reasonably, as to a child, ‘it seems you’ve been telling this poor child a lot of lies.’ He sat tight and said nothing. She waited, then went on, looking at Rose: ‘This is the truth. We’ve been married ten years. We’ve got two kids. We were happy at first – well, nothing unusual in that. Then he got fed up. Nothing unusual in that either. In any case, he’s not a man who can settle to anything. I used to be unhappy, and then I got used to it. I thought: Well, we can’t change our natures. Jimmie doesn’t mean any harm, he just drifts into everything. Then the war started, and you know how things were. I was working night-shifts, and he too, and there was a girl at his factory, and they got together.’ She paused, looking at Jimmie like a presiding judge, but he said nothing. He smoked, looking down at the table with a small angry smile. ‘I got fed up and said we’d better separate. Then he came running back and said it wouldn’t happen again, he didn’t really want a divorce.’ Jimmie stirred, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. ‘You were going to say?’ inquired his wife, pleasantly. ‘Nothing. Go on, enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Isn’t it true?’

  He shrugged, she waited and then went on: ‘So everything was all right for a month or so. And then he started up with the girl again …’

  ‘Pearl?’ Rose suddenly asked.

  He snorted derisively: ‘Pearl, that’s all she can think of.’

  ‘Who’s Pearl?’ asked Mrs Pearson, alertly. ‘She’s a new one on me.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Rose. ‘Go on.’

  ‘But this time I’d had enough. I said either me or her.’ Addressing Rose, excluding Jimmie, she said: ‘If there’s one thing he can’t do, it’s make up his mind to anything.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Rose, involuntarily. Then she flushed and looked guiltily at Jimmie.

  ‘Go one, enjoy yourselves,’ he said, sarcastically.

  ‘We haven’t been enjoying ourselves, you have.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘Oh, have it your own way. You always do. But now I’m talking to Rose. When I said either her or me, he got into a proper state. The root of the matter was, he wanted both of us. Men are naturally bigamists, he said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose again, quickly.

  ‘Oh, for crying out aloud, can’t you two ever take a joke. It was a joke. What did you think? I wanted to be married to two women at once. One’s enough.’

  ‘You have been married to two women at once,’ said his wife, tartly. ‘Whether you liked it or not. Or as good as.’ The two women were looking at each other, smiling grimly. Jimmie glanced at them, got up and went to the window. ‘Let me know when you’ve finished,’ he said.

  Rose made an impulsive movement towards him. ‘Oh sit down, the trouble with you is you’re too soft with him. I was too.’

  From the window Jimmie said: ‘Soft as concrete.’ To Rose he made a gesture indicating his wife: ‘Just take a good look at her and see how soft she is.’ Rose looked, flushed, and said: ‘Jimmie, I didn’t mean anything nasty for you.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ That was contemptuous.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Pearson, loudly, interrupting this exchange: ‘At last I got the pip and divorced him.’

  Rose drew in her breath. Her eyes were frantic. ‘You’re divorced?’ She stared at Jimmie, waiting for him to deny it, but he kept his back turned. ‘Jimmie, it isn’t true, is it?’

  Mrs Pearson said, with rough kindliness, ‘Now don’t get upset, Rose. It’s time you knew what’s what. We got divorced three years ago. I got the kids, and he’s supposed to pay me two pounds a week for them. But if the other girl thought he was going to marry her she made a mistake. He was courting me for thre
e years and then I had to put my foot down. He said he couldn’t live without me, but at the registry he looked like a man being executed.’

  Jimmie said, in cold fury: ‘If you want to know the truth, she wouldn’t marry me, she married someone else.’

  ‘I daresay. She learned some sense, I expect. You never told her you were married, and she got shocked into her senses when she found out.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Rose, ‘I want to hear the end of it.’

  ‘There wasn’t any end, that’s the point. After the divorce Jimmie was popping in and out as if he belonged in the house. “Here,” I used to say, “I thought we were divorced.” But if he was short of a place to sleep, or he wanted somewhere to read, or his ulcers was bad, he’d drop in for a meal or the use of the sofa. And he still does,’ she concluded.

  Rose was crying now. ‘Why did you lie to me, Jimmie,’ she implored, gazing at his impervious back. ‘Why? You didn’t have to lie to me.’

  He said miserably: ‘What was the use, Rosie? I have to pay two pounds a week to her. I couldn’t do that and give you a proper home too.’

  Rose gave a helpless sort of gesture and sat silently, while the tears ran steadily down. Mrs Pearson watched her, not unkindly. ‘What’s the use of crying?’ she inquired. ‘He’s no good to you. And you say he’s got another woman already! Who’s this Pearl?’

  Rose said: ‘He takes her to the pictures and she wants to marry him.’

  ‘How the hell do you know?’ he asked, turning around and facing them at last.

  Rose glanced pleadingly at him and said softly: ‘But Jimmie, everybody knows.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve been down talking to Pearl,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Women!’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ She was shocked. ‘I wouldn’t do no such thing. But everyone knows about it.’

  ‘Who’s everyone this time?’

  ‘Well, there’s my friend at the shop at the corner, who keeps my bit extra for me when there’s biscuits or something going. He told me Pearl was crazy for you, and he said people said you were going to marry her.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he said simply, sitting on the bed. ‘Women.’

  ‘Just like him,’ commented Mrs Pearson dryly. ‘He always thinks he’s the invisible man. He can just carry on in broad daylight and no one’ll notice what he’s doing. He’s always surprised when they do. He was going out with that other girl for months, and the whole factory knew it, but when I mentioned it he thought I’d had a private detective on to him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rose, helplessly, at last. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t.’

  She said again, with that rough warmth: ‘Now don’t you mind too much, Rosie. You’re well out of it, believe me.’

  Rose’s lips trembled again. Mrs Pearson got up, sat by her and patted her shoulders. ‘There now.’ she said, as Rose collapsed. ‘Now don’t take on. There, there.’ she soothed, while over Rose’s head she gave her husband a deadly look. Jimmie was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking, looking badly shaken. What he was thinking was: That Rose could do this to me – how could she do it to me?

  ‘I haven’t got nothing,’ wailed Rose. ‘I haven’t got anything or anybody anywhere.’

  Mrs Pearson went on patting. Her face was thoughtful. She made soothing noises, and then she asked suddenly, out of the blue: ‘Listen, Rose, how’d you like to come and live with me?’

  Rose stopped crying from the shock, lifted her face and said: ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I expect you’re surpised.’ Mrs Pearson looked surprised at herself. ‘I just thought of it – I’m starting a cake shop next month. I saved a bit during the war. I was looking for someone to help me with it. You could live in my place if you like. It’s only got three rooms and a kitchen, but we’d manage.’

  ‘The house isn’t yours?’

  Mrs Pearson laughed: ‘I suppose my lord told you he owned the whole house? Not on your life. I’ve got the basement.’

  ‘The basement,’ said Rose, intently.

  ‘Well, it’s warm and dry and in one piece, more than can be said for most basements.’

  ‘It’s safer, too,’ said Rose, slowly.

  ‘Safer?’

  ‘If there’s bombing or something.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Pearson, rather puzzled at this. Rose was gazing eagerly into her face. ‘You’ve got the kids,’ said Rose, slowly.

  ‘They’re no trouble, really. They’re at school.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that – could I have a kid – no listen, I’d be wanting to adopt a kid if I came to you. If I lived with you I’d be a fit and proper person and those nosy parkers would let me have her.’

  ‘You want to adopt a kid?’ said Mrs Pearson, rather put out. She glanced at Jimmie, who said: ‘You say things about me – but look at her. She was engaged to a man, and he was killed and all she thinks about is his kid.’

  ‘Jimmie …’ began Rose, in protest. But Mrs Pearson asked: ‘Hasn’t the kid got a mother?’

  ‘The blitz,’ said Rose, simply.

  After a pause Mrs Pearson said thoughtfully: ‘I suppose there’s no reason why not.’

  Rose’s face was illuminated. ‘Mrs Pearson,’ she prayed, ‘Mrs Pearson – If I could have Jill, if only I could have Jill …’

  Mrs Pearson said dryly: ‘I can’t see me cluttering myself up with kids if I didn’t have to. You wouldn’t catch me marrying and getting kids if I had my chance over again, but it takes all sorts to make a world.’

  ‘Then it’d be all right?’

  Mrs Pearson hesitated: ‘Yes, why not?’

  Jimmie gave a short laugh. ‘Women,’ he said. ‘Women.’

  ‘You can talk,’ said his wife.

  Rose looked shyly at him. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s going to marry Pearl, I don’t think,’ commented his wife.

  Rose said slowly: ‘You ought to marry Pearl, you know, Jimmie. You did really ought to marry her. It’s not right. You shouldn’t make her unhappy, like me.’

  Jimmie stood before them, hands in pockets, trying to look nonchalant. He was slowly nodding his head as if his worst suspicions were being confirmed. ‘So now you’ve decided to marry me off,’ he said, savagely.

  ‘Well, Jimmie,’ said Rose, ‘she loves you, everyone knows that, and you’ve been taking her out and giving her ideas – and – and – you could have this flat now, I don’t want it. You better have it, anyway, you can’t get flats now the war’s finished. And you and Pearl could live here.’ She sounded as if she were pleading for herself.

  ‘For crying out aloud,’ said Jimmie, astonished, gazing at her.

  Mrs Pearson was looking shrewdly at him. ‘You know, Jimmie, it’s not a bad idea, Rose is quite right.’

  ‘What-a-at? You too?’

  ‘It’s about time you stopped messing around. You messed around with Rose here, and I told you time and time again, you should either marry her or not, I said.’

  ‘You knew about me?’ said Rose, dazedly.

  ‘Well, no harm in that,’ said Mrs Pearson, impatiently. ‘Be your age, Rose. Of course, I knew. When he came home I used to say to him: You do right by that poor girl. You can’t expect her to go hanging about, missing her chances, just to give you an easy life and somewhere to play nicely at nights.’

  ‘I told Rose,’ he said, abruptly. ‘I told her often enough I wasn’t good enough for her, I said.’

  ‘I bet you did,’ said his wife, shortly. ‘Didn’t I, Rose?’ he asked her.

  Rose was silent. Then she shrugged. ‘I just don’t understand,’ she said at last. And then, after a pause: ‘I suppose you’re just made that way.’ And then, after a longer pause: ‘But you ought to marry Pearl now.’

  ‘Just to please you, I suppose!’ He turned challengingly to his wife: ‘And you, too, I suppose. You want to see me safely tied up to someone, don’t you?’

  ‘No one’s going to marry me, stuck with two kids,’ said
his wife. ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t be tied too, if we’re going to look at it that way.’

  ‘And you can’t see why I shouldn’t marry Pearl when I’ve got to pay you two pounds a week?’

  Mrs Pearson said on an impulse: ‘If you marry Pearl, I’ll let you off the two pounds. I’m going to make a good thing out of my cake shop, I expect, and I won’t need your bit.’

  ‘And if I don’t marry her, then I must go on paying you the two pounds?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said, calmly.

  ‘Blackmail,’ he said, bitterly. ‘Blackmail, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Call it what you like.’ She got up and lifted her handbag from the table. ‘Well, Rose,’ she said. ‘All this has been sudden, spur of the moment sort of thing. Perhaps you’d like to think about it. I’m not one for rushing into things myself, in the usual way. I wouldn’t like you to come and then be sorry after.’

  Rose had unconsciously risen and was standing by her. ‘I’ll come with you now, if it’s all right. I’ll get my things tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to stay here tonight.’ She glanced at Jimmie, then averted her face.

  ‘She’s afraid of staying here with me,’ said Jimmie with bitter triumph.

  ‘Quite right. I know you.’ She mimicked his voice: ‘Don’t go back on me, Rose, don’t you trust me?’

  Rose winced and muttered: ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘Oh, I know him, I know him. And you’d have to put chains on him and drag him to the registry. It’s not that he doesn’t want to marry you. I expect he does, when all’s said. But it just kills him to make up his mind.’

  ‘Staying with me, Rosie?’ asked Jimmie, suddenly – the gambler playing his last card. He watched her with bright eyes, waiting, almost sure of his power to make her stay.

  Rose looked unhappily from him to Mrs Pearson.

  Mrs Pearson watched her with a half-smile; that smile seemed to say: I’m not implicated, settle it for yourself, it makes no difference to me. But aloud she said: ‘You’re a fool if you stay, Rosie.’