Tipping the Velvet (63 page)

‘Oh, Zena! I was certain I should never hear from you again.' She looked a little sheepish at that; and then, remembering, I pressed her hand even harder and said in quite a different tone: ‘What a nerve you've got, though! After leaving me in such a state, that time in Kilburn! I thought I should die.'

Now she made a show of tossing her head. ‘Well! You done me very brown, you know, over that money.'

‘I do know it. What a little beast I was! I suppose, you never did get to the colonies ...'

She wrinkled her nose. ‘My friend who went to Australia came back. She said the place was full of great rough fellows, and they don't want landladies; what they want is, wives. I changed my mind about it after that. I'm happy enough, after all, in Stepney.'

‘You're in Stepney now? But then we're almost neighbours! I live in Bethnal Green. With my sweetheart. Look, she's over there.' I put my hand on her shoulder and pointed into the crowded tent. ‘The one near the stage, with the baby on her arm.'

‘What,' she said, ‘not Flo Banner, that works at the gals' home!'

‘You don't mean, you know her?'

‘I have a couple of pals what've lived at Freemantle House, and they are always talking about how marvellous Flo Banner is! You know, I suppose, that half the gals there are mad in love with her ...'

‘With Florence? Are you sure?'

‘I'll say!' We looked into the tent together again. Florence was on her feet now, and waving a paper at the speaker at the stage. Zena laughed. ‘Fancy you and Flo Banner!' she said. ‘I'm sure, she don't take no nonsense from you.'

‘You're right,' I answered, still gazing at Florence, still marvelling at what Zena had told me. ‘She don't.'

We moved into the sunshine again. ‘And how about you?' I asked her then. ‘I bet you have a girl, don't you?'

‘I do,' she said shyly. ‘The fact is, indeed, I have a couple of ' em, and can't quite decide between the two ...'

‘Two! My God!' I imagined having two sweethearts like Florence: the thought made me ache and start yawning.

‘One of them is about here, somewhere,' Zena was saying. ‘She is part of a union and - There she is!
Maud!'
At her cry, a girl in a blue-and-brown checked coat looked round, and wandered over. Zena took her arm, and the girl smiled.

‘This is Miss Skinner,' said Zena to me; then, to her sweetheart: ‘Maud, this is Nan King, the singer from the halls.' Miss Skinner - who was about nineteen or so, and would still have been in short skirts on the night I took my last bow at the Brit - gazed politely at me, and offered me her hand. Zena went on then, ‘Miss King lives with Flo Banner-' and at once, Miss Skinner's grip tightened, and her eyes grew wide.

‘Flo Banner?' she said, in just the tone that Zena had. ‘Flo Banner, of the Guild? Oh! I wonder - I've got the programme of the day about me somewhere - do you think, Miss King, you might get her to sign it for me?'

‘Sign it!' I said. She had produced a paper giving the running-order of the speeches and the layout of the stalls, and held it to me, trembling. Florence's name, I now saw, was printed, along with one or two others, amongst the list of organisers. ‘Well,' I said. ‘Well. You might ask her yourself, you know: she's only over there -'

‘Oh, I couldn't!' answered Miss Skinner. ‘I should be too shy ...'

In the end I took the paper, and said I would do what I could; and Miss Skinner looked desperately grateful, then went off to tell her friends that she had met me.

‘She's a bit romantic, ain't she? said Zena, wrinkling her nose again. ‘I might throw her over for the other one, yet ...' I shook my head, looked at the paper another time, then placed it in the pocket of my skirt.

We chatted for another few moments; and then Zena said, ‘And so, you're quite happy, are you, in Bethnal Green? It ain't quite what you was used to in the old days ...'

I pulled a face. ‘I hate to think of those days, Zena. I'm all changed now.'

‘I dare say. That Diana Lethaby, though - well! You've seen her, of course?'

‘Diana?' I shook my head. ‘Not likely! Did you think I'd go back to Felicity Place, after that dam' party ... ?'

Zena stared at me. ‘But, don't tell me you didn't know it? Diana is here — !'

‘Here? She can't be!'

‘She is! I tell you, all the world is here this afternoon - and her amongst 'em. She is over at the table of some paper or magazine. I saw her, and nearly fainted dead away!'

‘My God.' Diana, here! The thought was awful — and yet ... Well, they do say that old dogs never forget the tricks their mistresses beat into them: I had felt myself stir, faintly, at the first mention of her hateful name. I looked once into the tent, and saw Florence, on her feet again and still shaking her arm at the platform; then I turned to Zena. ‘Will you show me,' I asked, ‘where?'

She gave me one swift warning sort of look; then she took my arm and led me through the crowd, towards the bathing lake, and came to a halt behind a bush.

‘Look, there,' she said in a low voice. ‘Near that table. D'you see her?' I nodded. She was standing beside a display - it was for the women's journal
Shafts,
that she sometimes helped with the running of — and was talking with another lady, a lady I thought might be one of the ones who had come dressed as Sappho to the fancy-dress ball. The lady had a Suffrage sash across her bosom. Diana was clad in grey, and her hat had a veil to it — though this was, at the moment, turned up. She was as haughty and as handsome as ever. I gazed at her and had a very vivid memory - of myself, sprawled beside her with pearls about my hips; of the bed seeming to tilt; of the chafing of the leather as she straddled me and rocked ...

‘What do you think she would do,' I said to Zena, ‘if I went over?'

‘You ain't going to try it!'

‘Why not? I'm quite, you know, out of her power now.' But even as I said it, I looked at her and felt that doggishness come over me again — or doggishness, perhaps, is not the term for it. It was like she was some music-hall mesmerist, and I a blinking girl, all ready to make a mockery of myself, before the crowd, at her request ...

Zena said, ‘Well I ain't going nowhere near her ...'; but I didn't listen. I glanced quickly again at the speakers' tent, then I stepped out from behind the bush and made my way towards the stall - straightening the knot in my necktie, as I did so. I was within about twenty yards of her, and had lifted a hand to remove my hat, when she turned, and seemed to raise her eyes to mine. Her gaze grew hard, sardonic and lustful all at once, just as I remembered it; and my heart twitched in my breast - in fright, I think! - as if a hook had caught it.

But then she opened her mouth to speak; and what she said was: ‘Reggie! Reggie, here!'

That made me stumble. From somewhere close behind me came a gruffer answering cry — ‘All right' - and I turned, and saw a boy picking his way across the grass, his eyes in a scowl and fixed on Diana's, his hand bearing a sugared ice, which he held before him and sucked at very gingerly, for fear it would drip and spoil his trousers. The trousers were handsome, and bulged at the fork. The boy himself was tall and slight; his hair was dark, and cut very short. His face was a pretty one, his lips pink as a girl's ...

When he reached Diana she leaned and drew the handkerchief from his pocket, and began to dap with it at his thigh - it seemed, he had spilt his ice-cream after all. The other lady at the stall looked on, and smiled; then murmured something that made the pretty boy blush.

I had stood and watched all this, in a kind of astonishment; but now I took a slow step backwards, and then another. Diana may have raised her face again, I cannot say: I didn't stop to see it. Reggie had lifted his hand to lick at his ice, his cuff had moved back, and I had caught the flash of a wrist-watch beneath it ... I blinked my eyes, and shook my head, and ran back to the bush where Zena still stood peeping, and put my face against her shoulder.

When I looked again at Diana, through the leaves, she had her arm in Reggie's and their heads were close, and they were laughing. I turned to Zena, and she bit her lip.

‘It is only the devils what prosper in this world, I swear,' she said. But then she bit her lip again; and then she tittered.

I laughed, too, for a moment. Then I cast another bitter look towards the stall, and said: ‘Well, I hope she gets all she deserves!'

Zena cocked her head. ‘Who?' she asked. ‘Diana, or — ?'

I pulled a face, and would not answer her.

 

We wandered back to the speakers' tent, then, and Zena said she had better try to find her Maud.

‘We'll be friends, won't we?' I said as we shook hands.

She nodded. ‘You must be sure to introduce me to Miss Banner, anyway; I should like that.'

‘Yes, well — you must at least come round some time and tell her you've forgiven me: she thinks me a regular brute, over you.'

She smiled - then something caught her eye, and she turned her head. ‘There's my other sweetheart,' she said quickly - she gestured to a wide-shouldered, tommish-looking woman, who was studying us as we chatted, and frowning. Zena pulled a face. ‘She likes to come the uncle, that one ...'

‘She
does
look a bit fierce. You'd better go to her: I don't want to end up with another blacked eye.'

She smiled, and pressed my hand; and I saw her step over to the woman and kiss her cheek, then disappear with her into the crush of people between the stalls. I ducked back into the tent. It was fuller and hotter than ever in there, the air thick with smoke, the people's faces sweating and jaundiced-looking where they were struck, through the canvas, by the afternoon sun. On the platform a woman was stumbling hoarsely through some speech or other, and a dozen people in the audience were on their feet, arguing with her. Florence was back in her chair before the dais, with Cyril kicking in her lap. Annie and Miss Raymond were beside her, with a pretty fair-haired girl I did not know. Ralph was nearby, his forehead gleaming and his face stiff with fright.

There was an empty seat next to Florence, and when I had made my way across the grass I sat in it and took the baby from her.

‘Where have you been?' she asked above the shouting. ‘It has been terrible in here. A load of boys have come in, intent on causing a stir. Poor Ralph is to speak next: he is so feverish you could fry an egg on him.'

I bounced Cyril upon my knee. ‘Flo,' I said, ‘you will never believe who I have just seen!'

‘Who? she asked. Then her eyes grew wide. ‘Not Eleanor Marx?'

‘No, no - nobody like that! It was Zena, that girl I knew at Diana Lethaby's. And not only her, but Diana herself! The both of them here at once, can you imagine? My heart, when I saw Diana again - I thought I should die!' I jiggled Cyril until he began to squeal. Florence's face, however, had hardened.

‘My God!' she said; and her tone made me flinch. ‘Can we not enjoy even a socialist rally without your wretched past turning up to haunt us? You have not sat and listened to one speech here today; I suppose you have not so much as glanced at one of the stalls. All you have eyes and thoughts for is yourself; yourself, and the women you have - the women you have -'

‘The women I have fucked, I suppose you mean,' I said in a low voice. I leaned away from her, really shocked and hurt; then I grew angry. ‘Well, at least I got a fuck out of my old sweethearts. Which is more than you got out of Lilian.'

At that, her mouth fell open, and her eyes began to gleam with tears.

‘You little cat,' she said. ‘How can you say such things to me?'

‘Because I am sick to death of hearing about Lilian, and how bloody marvellous she was!'

‘She was marvellous,' she said. ‘She was. She should have been here to see all this, not you! She would have understood it all, whereas you -'

‘You wish she was here, I suppose,' I spat out rashly, ‘instead of me?'

She gazed at me, the tears upon her lashes. I felt my own eyes prickle, and my throat grow thick. ‘Nance,' she said, in a gentler tone - but I raised my hand, and turned my face away.

‘We agreed it, didn't we?' I said, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. And then, when she wouldn't answer: ‘God knows, there are places I'd sooner be, than here!'

I said it to spite her; but when she rose and moved away from me with her fingers before her eyes, I felt desperately sorry. I put my hand to my pocket for a handkerchief: what I drew out was the programme that Miss Skinner had given me, for Flo to sign; I found myself gazing at it, quite bewildered by the sudden turns the afternoon had taken. And all the time, the woman on the platform talked hoarsely on, arguing with the hecklers in the audience - the air seemed clotted with shouts and smoke and bad feeling.

I looked up. Florence was standing near the wall of canvas, beside Annie and Miss Raymond: she was shaking her head, as they leaned to put their hands upon her arm. When Annie drew back I caught her eye, and she walked over and gave me a wary smile.

‘You should have learned better than to argue with Florrie,' she said, taking the seat beside me. ‘She is about as sharp-tongued as anyone I know.'

‘She tells the truth,' I said miserably. ‘Which is sharper than anything.' I sighed; then, to change the subject, I asked: ‘Have you had a good day, Annie?'

‘I have,' she said. ‘It has all been rather wonderful.'

‘And who is that girl with your Emma?' I nodded to the fair-haired woman at Miss Raymond's side.