out. Well. I thought I might as well die, with my boy dead, so I put my head in the gas-oven but the gas ran out, and they found me and poured cold water on me. Then my stepfather said I was no good and threw me out.’
‘Lucky the gas ran out.’
‘Lucky nothing. I only put sixpence in. Well, it made that old so-and-so my step sit up and take notice, didn’t it? But what I mean is, I was so in love, just like the films, I even committed suicide, well nearly, and now I’m in love with Dickie, so what’s the sense in anything, can you tell me that? And so now I’ve decided. I’m going out with that bloody policeman. Still, I suppose someone has to be a policeman. I’m not going to hold it against him.’ By now the wind was stirring black branches, and pale clouds streamed across a black sky; it was not at all the domestic little pond of the daytime with small boys and toy boats. Rose gave a fearful look back as we left it and said: ‘So now that’s all done. I’m finished crying, and you’re not catching me committing suicide again for any bloody man, and I’m going to be hardhearted and on the make, just like that silly bitch in that book with the picture on it, well, it’s not my fault if men like to be treated bad, now is it?’
Next evening she spent two hours dressing herself, and came into my room to show off. She was wearing a new grey suit she had bought from her boss’s wife, high black ankle-strap shoes, and heavy brass jewellery on her wrists and ears. ‘Look at my bosom,’ she said, ‘I’ve stuffed it all out with cotton wool. Dickie hates it when I do that, but this one’s not going to get near my bosom, so it doesn’t matter.’
She crept to the window and looked over. ‘There he is,’ she said. ‘Come and see.’ A very tall spindly youth with a sad frog’s face stared up at the house. ‘You mustn’t laugh,’ she said accusingly, stuffing a fist against her mouth and giggling. ‘I know he’s nothing to look at, but he’s sweet.’ She took another look and reeled back, laughing. ‘When I compare him with Dickie … but I mustn’t say that. At least, he’s a proper gentleman. That’s what I like. When I first met Dickie and Dan I decided to go for Dan — that was before Flo. But Dan messed me about, and Dickie kept his hands to himself, for the first evening, any rate. So I decided to like Dickie instead.’ She began whirling around on her toes singing: ‘Kiss me sweet, kiss me simple,’ and dropped laughing on to a chair.
‘He’s waiting,’ I said.
‘Let him wait. I told you, I’m not going to treat any of them right from now on. I’ll wait until 7.15. I said seven. He’s a fool, like they all are, so he’ll think the more of me.’ At a quarter past seven she went downstairs, adjusting her face to languid boredom.
As soon as she had gone, Flo darted up the stairs to ask: ‘Is he good-looking?’
‘But I didn’t see.’
‘He’d better be, or Dickie won’t be jealous. Rose came down to me and said if I was a friend I’d got to go up to the shop tomorrow morning and tell Dickie, all casual, that Rose had another man. She’s coming on, isn’t she?’
When Rose came in that night, she was thoughtful. ‘I’ve got used to Dickie, that’s what it is,’ she said. She handed me five cigarettes. ‘Might as well take what’s going. He gave me twenty cigarettes. When a man starts giving you things it’s time to watch out. Except with the Americans and Canadians, they’re in the habit of giving girls presents, it’s different with them. This one says he’ll take me to the Pally tomorrow, but I’m not so sure.’
After work next day she was singing. ‘Dickie was standing at his door tonight giving me dagger looks, so I suppose Flo did her stuff the way I said. He said: Have a good time last night, and I said: What’s it to you? Believe it or not, he’s started liking me again. Can you beat it? Lot of kids they are, they make me laugh, imagine me crying over a stupid like that.’
She put on her only dance dress, pink with frills and artificial flowers. It did not suit her at alt. She kept glancing at herself in a dissatisfied way, and at the last moment took it off and flung it in a crumpled heap into the corner of my room. ‘Time marches on,’ she said grimly; and in a few moments appeared in her suit. She watched the clock until she was exactly fifteen minutes late, and then went downstairs, swinging her hips.
At three that morning I was awakened by a dim white shape creeping across my room to the window. ‘Hush,’ said Flo, ‘it’s me, dear. I didn’t mean to wake you,’ She craned out of the window. ‘Quick, come here,’ she said. Below, under the plane tree on the edge of the pavement, in a patch of moonlight, stood Rose and the policeman, closely embraced. ‘Look at that,’ said Flo, delighted. ‘I tried to see out of the basement, but all I could see was their feet all mixed up and wriggling like they was doing a dance, Shhhh.’ She fell back from the window, laughing, ‘They look so funny. He’s about four feet taller than she is, and look he’s got to bend right over to kiss her like a man who’s had it too often.’ She looked again, then, unable to stand it, said abruptly, ‘I’m cold,’ and rushed off downstairs to her husband.
Next day Rose was uneasy. She had begun by wanting to make Dickie jealous, but now she was half in love with love. ‘We was cuddling for hours last night,’ she said. ‘Nothing like cuddling, say what you like. It was ever so nice. He kisses nice, too. But not as nice as Dickie. There’s something about the way Dickie kisses that gets me. But there, I’m just silly. A kiss is a kiss, when all’s said and done, the beasts, all tongue and slobber … I’m getting upset, dear. After all that, believe it or not. I’m worried about Dickie being unhappy. Can you beat it? Men don’t understand, do they? It’s no good telling a man that something doesn’t mean anything, the way I look at it, it must always mean something for them, but it doesn’t for us, not unless we love a man. If I told Dickie that I kissed my policeman last night just because of him he wouldn’t see it that way at all. Well, I’m going out with him again tonight. He’s a bit soft, just like my Canadian boy that was killed, but he’s not bad. I suppose.’
Rose went out with her policeman for several weeks. Flo pestered me, almost in tears, for details of this affair, but even if I had been willing I couldn’t have obliged her, for Rose had withdrawn into silence. The trouble was, the policeman had one almost overwhelming attraction: his parents owned the house they lived in, and had promised half of it to him on his marriage. He wanted to marry Rose at once, and she longed for a home almost as much as she longed for a husband. But the more she tried to persuade herself she cared for the policeman and had forgotten Dickie, the sadder she became. She returned from the nightly embraces under the plane tree looking embarrassed and guilty, and sat staring into my fire until I told her she must go to bed. When I tried to talk to her she said: ‘It’s no good, dear. I know you mean well, but you’re here with us just because you’re hard-up for a time and because you like living here and living there. But it’s the rest of my life I’m thinking of Yes, all right, I know I’m getting you down, well, I get myself down, but I don’t care about nothing at ail, except to decide what’s the right thing to do.’
She was getting Flo down, too. This conscience-ridden romance was too much for her. ‘For the Lord’s sake,’ she said. ‘If you are going to have some fun with a man then have it, but Rose’d cry at her own wedding.’
‘From what I’ve seen of people married. I’d cry with good reason,’ said Rose.
‘But if Dickie said, come to church, you’d go.’
‘More fool me.’
‘But long faces don’t get the marriage bells ringing.’
‘Some people like my face long or short, if others don’t.’
‘Then make your bed and lie in it,’ said Flo, finally getting bored. She was now spending time with her enemy Mrs Skeffington. For two reasons. One, she needed her as a witness in the famous court case about which at last I was managing to get some details in the face of the apparent determination of everyone in the building that I should be kept in the dark. The other I understood when Flo came to my door, vivid with excitement, to ask in a hoarse whisper: ‘Have you any pills, dear?’
‘Don’t tell me she’s pregnant.’
‘Ah, my Lord, yes, poor thing. And now we must all be good to her.’
‘But she keeps herself to herself so much.’
‘She’ll be different now she’s in trouble.’
‘How far has she gone?’
‘Three months.’
‘Why did she leave it so long?’
‘I expect she was hoping the Lord would provide, but He doesn’t, does He? And Rosemary was a mistake, too. She says she can’t have children, not with her husband still supporting his first wife and her kids.’
I knew Rosemary was a mistake because I had heard Mrs Skeffington say so, in front of the child herself, not once, but again and again, and with each repetition Rosemary appeared more fragile, more hesitant, her eyes growing wide and anxious, as if she doubted her own right to live.
That night we heard Mrs Skeffington and her husband:
‘What the hell are you complaining about? You send Rosemary to a creche, don’t you?’
‘Oh, but I’m that way, how can you, now?’
