The Slaves of Solitude (29 page)

‘I think we’d better go upstairs,’ said Mrs. Barratt.

‘Yes, I think we had,’ said Miss Steele. ‘Shall we?’

‘And does being cosmopolitan in outlook,’ said Miss Roach, ‘mean that you think things are so complicated that you support the Nazis in all the murder and filth and torture
they’ve been spreading over Europe, and still are?’

Miss Roach knew that she would regret what she was doing, that she should really stop. But she could not do so. That use of the word ‘cosmopolitan’, with its cunning reversion to the
‘English Miss’ theme, had goaded her beyond recall. She was also amazed by her own courage. The reason for this was the fact that the argument was at root impersonal. If this had been a
quarrel over the Lieutenant, she might have been suspected, or suspected herself, of self-interest. But it was not: it was an argument about the guilt of Nazi Germany. And she just wasn’t
going to let the woman get away with it!

‘Really,’ said Vicki, again appealing to Mr. Thwaites, ‘she is very rhetorical – is she not?’

‘Very,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘And there’s no need to bring nationalities into it.’

‘I’m not talking about nationalities,’ said Miss Roach. ‘I’m talking about Nazis.’

‘And there’s no need,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘to insult a German woman in her own—’ Mr. Thwaites stopped himself just in time. He had, in his confusion of mind,
been going to say ‘in her own country’. But this, although it sounded so good on the surface, wouldn’t do. In her own country was exactly where the German woman was not, and Mr.
Thwaites had the wit to see this before finishing his sentence.

‘I’m not insulting anyone,’ said Miss Roach. ‘I’m just not going to have remarks made like this when people are dying all around us for what they think’s
right.’

Miss Roach realised that this was rhetorically and logically a little feeble, but she could do no better.

‘Do not mind her,’ said Vicki, and looked at Miss Roach. ‘She is really quite A Pet. She is really quite A dear!’

‘If you go on calling me a
pet
,’ said Miss Roach, ‘and if you go on calling me a
dear
– there’s going to be trouble!’

‘I think we’d better go upstairs,’ said Mrs. Barratt, and rose. Mr. Thwaites rose too.

‘Don’t bother about her,’ he said, putting his napkin into his ring. ‘They always say hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.’

‘What do you mean by that, Mr. Thwaites?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Mr. Thwaites, and began to move towards the door.

‘No,’ said Miss Roach, who had also risen. ‘Will you please tell me what you mean? What woman has been scorned?’

‘Never mind,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘I know what’s been going on. I’ve got eyes in my head.’

‘Yes?’ said Miss Roach, and to prevent Mr. Thwaites leaving, she put her hand on his arm. ‘And what has been going on? Will you tell me, please?’

‘All right, let a fellow go upstairs, will you?’ said Mr. Thwaites, and pushing her hand away, he left the room and began to climb the stairs. Miss Roach followed him out.

‘
Will you please tell me what you mean, Mr. Thwaites
?’

‘All right,’ said Mr. Thwaites, climbing the stairs. ‘Don’t you bother. It’s not the first time a woman’s been cut out. It’s not the first time a
woman’s had her nose put out of joint by another. It’s not the first quarrel about a man!’

‘
Will you tell me what you
’
re talking about, Mr. Thwaites
?’ said Miss Roach, following him up the stairs. ‘What woman has been cut out by what other woman?
What man are you talking about?’

Mr. Thwaites had now reached the landing.

‘Oh – a certain gentleman in uniform,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘You haven’t got to pretend you don’t know.’

Miss Roach had now also reached the landing, which was well lit (Mrs. Payne having recently permitted the reintroduction of electricity on this floor), and they were facing each other.

‘Do not mind her!’ cried Vicki, from below. ‘She is quite A pet! She does not bother me!’

 ‘I think we’d better stop all this – don’t you!’ cried Miss Steele, also from below.

‘
Will you tell me what man you mean, Mr. Thwaites
?’ said Miss Roach.

‘Oh, don’t let’s bother about the man,’ said Mr. Thwaites, with his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘If you didn’t bother about men so much you’d be a lot
better, wouldn’t you? That’s your trouble. You’ve got the men on the brain, my worthy spinster dame, haven’t you?’

‘Mr. Thwaites. Will you explain yourself, please?’

‘And just take one tip of mine, will you?’

‘Yes. What tip, pray?’

‘Leave ’em alone at a certain age, will you? Let ’em be over eighteen. If you must go after ’em, let ’em be over age. People see what’s going on, you know.
Leave ’em alone until after a certain age!’

There was a silence. For a moment Miss Roach did not realise what he was talking about. Then, with the sudden realisation that he was alluding to the Poulton boy, Miss Roach lost control. With
the realisation of his implications, with the memory of her walks with the Poulton boy, of their innocence and simplicity, of the glad, sad, maternal feelings which she had felt towards the boy as
he had unfolded his ambitions, with the idea of gossip of such a kind having arisen in regard to such a relationship, Miss Roach lost control. The filth of the suggestion seemed like filth reeling
round in her own head and blinding her.

‘How
dare
you say that!’ she heard herself saying in a black mist, and she pushed out her hand, violently, half to strike Mr. Thwaites, half to throw the filthy suggestion out
of her way.

After that she did not quite know what happened. Mr. Thwaites, with his hands in his pockets, staggered backwards. Having his hands in his pockets he was unable to balance himself properly, and
the next moment he had fallen down and was sitting up against the wall.

Miss Roach looked at him, and he looked at Miss Roach.

She felt Vicki brushing past her.

‘Are you all right, Mr. Thwaites?’ Vicki was saying. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘She Pushed me!’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘She Pushed me!’

‘Are you hurt?’ said Vicki, but all Mr. Thwaites would reply was ‘She Pushed me.’

Mrs. Payne had now arrived on the scene.

‘What’s all this about?’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘Are you hurt, Mr. Thwaites?’

‘She Pushed me,’ said Mr. Thwaites, now exchanging his original tone of horror and surprise for a tone of incredulous awe.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Roach. ‘And I’ll Push you again if you say things like that!’

Mr. Thwaites was now on his feet again, supported each side by Mrs. Payne and Vicki, and gazing at Miss Roach.

‘So you Pushed me, did you?’ he said. ‘You’ll pay for that, Dame Roach!’

‘Yes. And I’ll Push you again!’ said Miss Roach. ‘And you needn’t pretend you’re hurt!’

‘Well, let’s go into the Lounge, shall we?’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘I think that would be best.’

Still allowing himself to be supported by Mrs. Payne and Vicki, Mr. Thwaites moved slowly into the Lounge.

‘She Pushed me’ Miss Roach heard him saying, in the same awed tones, when he had got inside. ‘She Pushed me.’ And these were actually the last words she ever heard Mr.
Thwaites use.

She stood still for a moment, then rushed up to her room, and before long was weeping passionately on her bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

1

W
ELL
, it was all over now, it was all over now! . . . Following her failing torch, in the blackness of the street, in the
desperation of her unhappiness, there was a gleam of consolation in the thought that it was, at any rate, all over.

She had no idea where she was going, and it all at once occurred to her that it was Sunday night.

As soon as she had recovered from her tears, her one ambition had been to get outside. Wiping her eyes at the mirror, she had heard a knock on her door, and Miss Steele had put her face into the
room.

‘Don’t you worry, my dear,’ Miss Steele had said, with infinite knowingness. ‘It’ll all come out in the Wash.’ And Miss Steele had then instantly
disappeared.

What this had meant exactly it was impossible to say – it was one of those conventional phrases of consolation elusive of precise interpretation – but it meant that she had someone
on her side, someone not against her, at any rate.

It was all over now. Even if Mrs. Payne did not actually expel her, she would have to go.

She should have kept her temper, of course. Losing that, she had lost her dignity, and they somehow still had scored, put her in the wrong, more or less maintained her in the grotesquely false
position into which they had intrigued her.

This would be all over Thames Lockdon in the morning, she imagined. And what stories would be told, with all of them against her!

She shouldn’t have pushed Mr. Thwaites, of course. She should not have allowed herself to use physical violence. Besides, the weak-minded old man was not really responsible for what he
said or did. He had only been repeating, in his anger, tactlessness, and confusion of mind, what that woman had been putting into his head. It carried her signature. No one else could have thought
up that business about the Poulton boy. She remembered, now, the look Vicki had given herself and the Poulton boy as they had left the tea-shop that day. She remembered the glances she had cast
across at them when they were in the River Sun. She must have thought it up, and then told it to Mr. Thwaites in one of their long private talks at the Rosamund Tea Rooms. Beyond hinting, she would
probably not have tried it out on the Lieutenant. Foolish as he was, he would not have given credence to propaganda of that sort, or even have countenanced its utterance. Though you never knew
– you never knew anything about anybody . . .

Where on earth was she going? She couldn’t go back, but she couldn’t go on walking round. What about a drink at the River Sun? No – not there – with the chance of meeting
the Lieutenant – but what about a drink?

She remembered a bar in a small house by the river where in her early Thames Lockdon days she had once had a drink with Mrs. Poulton. By the light of her torch, which was now giving practically
no light at all, she found her way round there, and boldly opened the door.

She regretted this the moment she had done it, as the bar was stewing with men and smoke and American G.I.s, and she couldn’t see another woman in the whole crowd.

She saw, however, standing by himself at the far end of the bar, Mr. Prest, and Mr. Prest at once saw her, smiled, waved, and came over to her.

‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? Come over out of the crowd and have a drink.’

When he had ordered her drink, ‘But what are
you
doing here?’ she said. ‘You weren’t in to dinner.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m just down for the night to collect the last of my luggage. I’m staying at the Stag.’

The Stag was Thames Lockdon’s pound-a-day-or-thirty-shillings hotel. In addition to being back at ‘work’, whatever that meant, had Mr. Prest come into money?

‘Well,’ said Miss Roach for something to say, ‘you ought to have come in to see us.’

‘Oh – I don’t know,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s a good idea to dodge meals round there whenever you can. Haven’t you?’ And he
looked at her with a smile.

This was undoubtedly a new Mr. Prest.

‘Why, yes,’ she said, smiling back, and encouraged by his smile. ‘But you missed something tonight.’

‘Did I? What?’

‘We had a row,’ said Miss Roach. ‘Or at least I did. I’m  afraid I lost my temper.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I thought there was a row coming. I’ve thought that for a long while.’

‘Have you?’ said Miss Roach, looking at him, puzzled by his wisdom. ‘Well, it certainly came tonight.’

‘Good for you,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘And how are they all? How’s the venerable Mr. Thwaites?’

‘Oh – he’s all right. He’s the chief one I had the row with.’

‘That’s better still,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘He’s a funny one, all right.’

‘Yes. He’s a funny one.’

‘And how are the others? Is the American still about – the Lieutenant – I never knew his name?’

‘No, I haven’t seen him for some days,’ said Miss Roach, and then something made her add, ‘He can be a bit of a funny one too.’

‘Funny!’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I should just say he can!’

‘Why – do you know a lot about him?’

‘Oh – only what you see and hear in the town.’

‘Why – has he a reputation?’

‘Reputation!’ said Mr. Prest.

‘What for?’ asked Miss Roach.

‘Oh – only drink and girls,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘Girls mostly.’

‘Girls?’ said Miss Roach, swallowing . . .

‘I should say. Lockdon, Maidenhead, Reading, and all around everywhere,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘But it isn’t the amount of them that matters so much. The trouble is he asks
them all to marry him.’

‘Really?’ said Miss Roach.

‘With the consequence that complications ensue,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘You don’t know what goes on in this town unless you go round the pubs, the way I do.’

‘So he asks them all to marry him, does he?’

‘Yes. He’s got a kink that way, it seems . . . Well, I suppose he’s entitled to a good time while it lasts.’

‘Yes. I suppose he has . . .’ So here, at last, was the explanation of the Lieutenant’s absences! She had to think about this afterwards! Not now! Now she must change the
subject.

‘So you’re leaving us for good, Mr. Prest?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I don’t expect I’ll be back, so long as I’m in work. Now the young ones are away, the old ’uns are getting back a bit.’

She looked at him to see if she might be bold enough, and was so.

‘What kind of work is it you’re doing, then, Mr. Prest,’ she said, ‘just now?’

‘Oh, the old game. Wicked Uncle this time,’ said Mr. Prest and grinned shyly.

Seeing her slightly bewildered look, Mr. Prest went on.

‘Babes in the Woods,’ he said. ‘Down at the Royal, Wimbledon. If you’re coming to London, would you like to come and see us?’

‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘I’d love to.’