‘Why not, you did before?’
‘But I’m so tired, and those pills I took. And I was awake all night with Rosemary.’
‘She keeps me awake as well as you, doesn’t she?’
‘Who gets out of bed to her? You’ve never got out of bed to Rosemary once in your whole life.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘Yes, Rosemary starts crying and then you wake up and you can only think of one thing.’
‘Don’t you love me, then? Well, if it’s like that I know where to go.’
Silence. Then the woman’s tired anxious voice: ‘I didn’t say I didn’t love you. But I get so tired. Surely you can see that.’
‘Then show me you love me.’
Next day Mr Skeffington went on a business trip and we never saw him again. One morning I heard a crash outside my door. Mrs Skeffington had thrown herself down one flight of stairs, was on the point of flinging herself down a second. ‘Leave me atone,’ she muttered, and before I could stop her, she launched herself into space again. On the landing below she picked herself up, slowly, slowly, gasping and pale. ‘That ought to shift it,’ she said, with an attempt at a smile, and dragged herself, breathing heavily, up the stairs to Rosemary.
Flo and I went on a delegation to insist she should try a doctor.
‘Goodness gracious me,’ said Mrs Skeffington, ‘those doctors don’t care at all for us.’
‘Not all doctors are silly,’ said Flo. ‘Some are nice and kind.’
‘Show me one, then. I tried before, over Rosemary. He didn’t care. Besides, it’s too late for doctors. And I think I’m all right, because I’ve got a bad pain.’
She went to bed, and Rose and I took Rosemary for the night. That was the one time Mrs Skeffington permitted anyone to help her. Before and after that day, when we offered to take the child, she would say: ‘Goodness gracious, whatever for. I can manage quite well.’
Next day she looked very ill, but she went to work as usual. She was sent back at midday by her employer. I fetched Rosemary from the nursery, and when her mother saw her she opened her arms, and the two lay cuddled together on the pillow. They both looked extraordinarily frail, defenceless, pathetic. ‘And now how about a doctor?’ I asked.
‘You’re very kind,’ she said formally, ‘but Rosemary and I’ll manage.’
Flo said: ‘My God, what if she’s still sick for the case?’
‘That’s all you think of,’ said Rose.
‘But it’ll be to her advantage, too, to get rid of those filthy old people.’
‘Yes? They don’t bother nobody but you and Dan. I never hear them.’
‘Oh, my Lord, you’re not going to say that at the case?’
‘I’I! say the truth. I always told you. I’ll tell the truth and that’s all.’
‘The truth is bad enough, sweetheart, darling, isn’t it?’
‘And that’s a fact.’
‘I’ll tell you, darling,’ said Flo to me ‘I’ll tell you all about it. I swear.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Rose. ‘But just now I’ve got something she must do for me.’
‘But, sweetheart, the case, and time’s so short, and poor Mrs Skeffington so ill.’
‘Yes? Time enough. Come along,’ said Rose to me. ‘We’ll go into your room and you can make me a nice cup of tea.’
In my room she said: ‘Dickie and I have made it up. He was hanging around when I came out of the shop tonight. He said. Have you got a date tomorrow, and I said all casual. Yes, why?’ Rose thrust forward one hip and began patting at her hair, staring with studied indifference at a wall. ‘Why, yes. I said, not looking at him at all. He was so upset. You know I’ve told you. I can’t bear to see him unhappy. But I hardened my heart, because it was for his good, really, and I teased him, and then he said, would I break my date with my policeman? So I said No, I wouldn’t do a thing like that!’ Rose acted virtuous indignation for a moment, but it dissolved into simple good- heartedness: ‘I didn’t care to tease him any longer, so I said I’d go out with him.’
‘And how about the policeman?’
‘Oh, him?’ She let out an unscrupulous chuckle. ‘They can all go and pickle themselves for all I care, except for Dickie. And you can tell my policeman a nice little lie for me.’
‘I can?’
‘Yes, It won’t hurt you. You can type out what I write on your typewriter. It makes it look more official, doesn’t it, and besides, my spelling’s awful.’
‘So are you.’ I said.
‘Yes? But I don’t believe you think that because you’re laughing. All the last times you’ve been yawning and fed-up with me. Well, I don’t blame you, I was fed-up with myself. And now here’s the letter.’
She handed me a piece of paper on which she had written: ‘Dear Froggie, I’m sorry you had a spot of inconvenience over last night, but the truth was, I was engaged with my mother. Now I have to tell you something and I hope you won’t be disappointed. I’m afraid I will have to cancel all our dates, owing to a personal nature concerning my mother, and she has asked me to come with her. Of course, I don’t really want to go, but you can see she asked me to do her a favour and U can’t really refuse her, can I? I didn’t want to make you come all the way up here for nothing so I thought I would write. Come and tell me you don’t mind some time when you are passing the shop, because I will never be seeing you again.’
‘How should I end that? Yours sincerely sounds silly after all that kissing and cuddling, and when he’s bought the ring and everything. And Love won’t do, because he might think I meant it. You type that out for me nice. I don’t want him to think I’m ignorant.’
‘You could say, I’m breaking this off because I’m in love with another man,’ I said.
‘You could say it,’ she said. ‘I’m not. It’s nicer this way, because then his pride’s not hurt, see? And I’ve thought of another sentence. Put in: I know you will understand. That always sounds nice. It doesn’t mean anything either. I think you’d better end it just — Rose. No
‘And there’s the ring, too.’
She looked guilty and then laughed. ‘You can’t be nice to two men at once. I’m doing it all for Dickie, aren’t I? Well, I’m stark mad. It’s not I don’t know what Dickie is, and there goes my last chance of a home I can call my own, and I don’t even care, and that proves I’m mad.’
She sighed the letter: Rose, Alexandra, Jane. Camellia. ‘My mother wanted girls, but all she got was boys, except for me. So I got all the fancy names she liked. A waste, isn’t it? Like wearing your fancy panties when there isn’t a man about?’ She giggled and went to post the letter. She came back singing, ‘And so tonight I’m going out with my Dickie again.’ Before she could even sit down, Flo came in to say Mrs Skeffington had procured an abortion for herself with an enema syringe. ‘I saw the baby,’ said Flo dramatically. ‘It was as big as this!’ She held out her fist. ‘Eyes, too. Like a fish it looked, Funny to think it’d grow up to be like us. But there, it’s down the drain now.’ She laughed. ‘Down the drain, that’s good. Well, it is. She pulled the plug and said: That’s the end of you.’
Rose got up and said: ‘You make me sick, Flo,’ She went into her room, slamming my door and hers.
‘Foolish virgin, that’s what Rose is,’ said Flo.
In the year I lived in that house Flo believed herself to be pregnant five times. Twice the scare came to nothing; but three times she dressed herself appropriately in her shabbiest clothes, and staggered to a chemist’s shop she had marked down for this purpose. There she copiously wept and talked about her family of seven and her drinking husband. She returned with pills, given her good-heartedly by ‘the manager himself.’ Instead of taking them as prescribed, she swallowed half a bottle at a time. I would find her rolling in agony on the floor of the kitchen exclaiming between groans: ‘Well, I’ve fixed that one, at any rate.’ Meanwhile, Aurora wandered about, sucking at her bottle, which she now wore tied around her neck like a St Bernard dog’s brandy flask, with bright pink ribbon.
As the doors slammed Flo shrugged and said: ‘Oh, well, she’ll think different when she’s got kids herself and no room to move and she can’t ever go out or nothing.’
‘How about a doctor for Mrs Skeffington?’
‘My Lord, are you crazy, do you want her to go to prison?’
‘She might die.’
‘She won’t die. There’s a time for doctors. Mrs Skeffington’s managed without, and good luck to her, and I
