“You mean he’d be kind enough to accept it now? You’re crazy. He’s on a left-wing political kick, he and Marion, getting all hot under the collar about the wrongs of those poor bloody blacks at this very moment.”
“Well, well. Why not? It’s very fashionable. Didn’t you know? You just lack a sense of timing, Richard. You always did, you know. That’s not left wing. That’s à la mode.”
“You would have been pleased, I should have thought.”
“Oh but I am. Remember what I said—if you handle things right, Tommy’ll be pleased to accept a job here. Probably take yours over.”
“Well I’d be happy. You’ve always been wrong about me Anna. I don’t really enjoy this racket. I want to retire, just as soon as I can, and go and live a quiet sort of life with Jean and perhaps have some more children. That’s what I’m planning to do. I wasn’t cut out for the financial racket.”
“Except that you’ve quadrupled the holdings and profits of your empire since you took over, so Marion says. Good-bye Richard.”
“Anna.”
“Well what is it?”
He hastily moved around to stand between her and the half-open door. He now bumped it shut, with an impatient jerk of his buttocks. The contrast between this movement and the smooth invisibly managed machinery of the rich office, or display room, affected Anna like a reminder of her own discordant self as she stood there waiting to leave. She saw herself: small, pale, pretty, maintaining an intelligent and critical smile. She could feel herself, under this shape of order, as a chaos of discomfort and anxiety. That ugly ittle jerk of Richard’s well-clothed buttocks matched her own just-concealed turmoil; and therefore it was hypocrisy to feel distaste. Telling herself this, she felt, instead, exhaustion, and said: “Richard, I don’t see any use in this. Every time we meet it’s the same thing.”
Richard had sensed her momentary lapse into discouragement. He stood just in front of her, breathing heavily, his dark eyes narrowed. Then he slowly, sarcastically smiled. What’s he trying to remind me of? Anna wondered. Surely it couldn’t be—yes, it was. He was reminding her of that evening when she might, just possibly, have gone to bed with him. And instead of feeling angry, or contemptuous, she knew she was looking self-conscious. She said: “Richard, please open the door.” He stood, maintaining his sarcastic pressure on her, enjoying it; then she went past him to the door and tried to push it open. She could see herself, awkward and flustered, uselessly pushing at the door. Then it opened: Richard had gone back to his desk and touched the appropriate button. Anna walked straight out, past the luxuriant secretary, Marion’s probable successor, and descended through the cushioned gleaming carpeted foliaged centre of the building to the ugly street, which she greeted with relief.
She went to the nearest underground, not thinking, knowing she was in a state of near-collapse. The rush hour had begun. She was being jostled in a herd of people. Suddenly she was panicking, so badly that she withdrew from the people pressing towards the ticket booth, and stood, her palms and armpits wet, leaning against a wall. This had happened to her twice recently at rush hour. Something is happening to me, she thought, struggling for control. I’m only just managing to skate on the surface of something—but what? She remained by the wall, unable to move forward into the crowd again. The city at rush hour—it was impossible for her to get from here, the five or six miles to her flat, in a hurry, save by the underground. No one could. They were all of them, all these people, caught by the terrible pressure of the city. All except Richard and people like him. If she went upstairs again and asked him to send her home by car, of course he would. He’d be delighted. And of course she would not. There was nothing for it except to make herself go forward. Anna forced herself forward, fitted herself into the press of people, waited her turn for a ticket, went down the escalator in an ooze of people. On the platform four trains came in before she was able to squeeze herself into a compartment. Now the worst was over. She had only to stand, held upright by the pressure of people, in the brightly lit, crammed, smelling place, and in ten or twelve minutes she would be at her home station. She was afraid she might faint.
She was thinking: If someone cracks up, what does that mean? At what point does a person about to fall to pieces say: I’m cracking up? And if I were to crack up, what form would it take? She shut her eyes, seeing the glare of the light on her lids, feeling the pressure of bodies, smelling sweat and dirt; and was conscious of Anna, reduced to a tight knot of determination somewhere in her stomach. Anna, Anna, I am Anna, she kept repeating; and anyway, I can’t be ill or give way, because of Janet; I could vanish from the world tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter to anyone except to Janet. What then am I, Anna?—something that is necessary to Janet. But that’s terrible, she thought, her fear becoming worse. That’s bad for Janet. So try again: Who am I, Anna? Now she did not think of Janet, but shut her out. Instead she saw her room, long, white, subdued, with the coloured notebooks on the trestle table. She saw herself, Anna, seated on the music-stool, writing, writing; making an entry in one book, then ruling it off, or crossing it out; she saw the pages patterned with different kinds of writing; divided, bracketed, broken—she felt a swaying nausea; and then saw Tommy, not herself, standing with his lips pursed in concentration, turning the pages of her orderly notebooks.
She opened her eyes, giddy and afraid, and saw the sway of the glistening ceiling, a confusion of advertisements, and faces blank and staring with the effort of keeping a balance on the train. A face, six inches away: the flesh was yellowish grey and large-pored, the mouth crumpled-looking and damp. The eyes were fixed on hers. The face smiled, half frightened, half inviting. She thought: While I stood here with my eyes shut he was looking into my face and imagining it under him. She felt sick; turned her neck; and stared away from him. His uneven breath staled her cheek. There were still two stations to go. Anna edged herself away, inch by inch, feeling in the shake and sway of the train how the man pressed after her, his face sickly with excitement. He was ugly. Lord, but they are ugly, we are so ugly, thought Anna, her flesh, menaced by his nearness, crawling with repulsion. At the station she squeezed out of the train as others squeezed in; and the man stepped down after her, pressed behind her on to the escalator and stood behind her at the ticket barrier. She handed in her ticket and hastened on, turning to frown at him as he said just behind her: “Like a walk? Like a walk?” He was grinning in triumph; in his fantasy he had humiliated and triumphed over her while she stood, eyes shut, on the train. She said: “Go away,” and walked on and out of the underground into the street. He was still following her. Anna was frightened; and then she was amazed at herself—and frightened because she was afraid. What’s happened to me? This happens every day, this is living in the city, it doesn’t affect me—but it was affecting her; just as Richard’s aggressive need to humiliate her had affected her, half an hour before, in his office. The knowledge that the man still followed her, grinning unpleasantly, made her want to break into a run of panic. She thought: If I could see something or touch something that wasn’t ugly…there was a fruit barrow just ahead, offering tidy coloured loads of plums, peaches, apricots. Anna bought fruit: smelling at the tart clean smell, touching the smooth or faintly hairy skins. She was better. The panic had gone. The man who had been following her stood near, waiting and grinning; but now she was immune from him. She walked past him, immune.
She was late, but was not worried—Ivor would be there. During the time Tommy was in hospital, and Anna so often with Molly, Ivor had moved into their lives. From being the almost unknown young man who lived in the upper room, saying good night and good morning, coming and going with discretion, he had become Janet’s friend. He had taken her to the pictures when Anna was at the hospital, he helped her with her homework, and he repeated to Anna that she should not worry, he was only too happy to look after Janet. And he was. And yet this new situation made Anna uneasy. Not on his account, or on Janet’s, for with the child he showed the most simple,
the most charming perception.
She was thinking now, as she climbed the ugly stairs to the door of her own flat: Janet needs a man in her life, she misses a father. Ivor’s very kind to her. And yet because he’s not a man—what do I mean when I say he’s not a man? Richard’s a man; Michael’s a man. And yet Ivor isn’t? I know that with “a real man” there would be a whole area of tension, of wry understanding that there can’t be with Ivor; there would be a whole dimension there isn’t now; and yet he’s charming with her, and so what do I mean by “a real man”? For Janet adored Ivor. And she adored—or said that she did—his friend Ronnie.
Some weeks ago Ivor had asked if he could have a friend to share his room, who was short of money and out of a job. Anna had gone through the conventional motions of offering to put another bed in the room, and so on. Both sides had played their parts, but Ronnie, an actor out of work, had moved into Ivor’s room and to his bed, and as it made no difference to Anna, she said nothing. Apparently Ronnie had every intention of staying for as long as she said nothing. Anna knew that Ronnie was the price she was expected to pay for Ivor’s new friendship with Janet.
Ronnie was a dark graceful young man with carefully-waved glossy hair, and a white flashing smile, carefully prepared. Anna disliked him, but, realising she disliked the type rather than the person, controlled the feeling. He also was pleasant with Janet, but not (as Ivor was) from the heart; but out of policy. Probably his relation with Ivor was policy too. All this did not concern Anna, and it did not impinge on Janet, for she trusted Ivor that the child would never be shocked. And yet she was uneasy. Suppose I were living with a man—a “real man”—or was married. There would certainly be tension for Janet. Janet would resent him, would have to accept him, have to come to terms. And the resentment would be precisely because of the quality of sex, of being a man. Or even if there was a man living here I didn’t sleep with, or didn’t want to sleep with, even then the business of his being “a real man” would spark off tensions, set a balance. Well then? Why then should I feel that in fact I ought to have a real man and even for Janet’s sake, let alone mine, instead of that charming friendly perceptive young man Ivor? Am I then saying, or assuming (is everyone assuming?); that children need the tension to grow up? But why? And yet I obviously do feel it, or I wouldn’t be uneasy when I see Ivor with Janet because he’s like a big friendly dog, or a sort of harmless elder brother—I use the word harmless. Contempt. I feel contempt. It’s contemptible of me that I should. A real man—Richard? Michael? Both of them are very stupid with their children. And yet there is no doubt I feel that their quality, their liking women rather than men, would be better for Janet than what Ivor has.
Anna reached the cleanliness of her own flat from the dark and dusty stairs, and heard Ivor’s voice over her head. He was reading to Janet. She passed the door of her big room, climbed the white staircase, and found Janet sitting cross-legged on her bed, a black-haired urchin of a girl, and Ivor, dark, shaggy and friendly, sitting on the floor, one hand raised, reading with emphasis a story about some girls’ school. Janet shook her head at her mother, in a warning not to interrupt. Ivor, using his raised hand as a sort of baton, winked and raised his voice as he read: “And so Betty put her name down for the hockey team. Would she be chosen? Would she be lucky?” He said to Anna in his normal voice: “We’ll call you when we’re finished,” and went on: “Everything depended on Miss Jackson. Betty wondered if she had been sincere when she wished her luck last Wednesday after the match? Had she really meant it?” Anna paused outside the door listening: there was a new quality in Ivor’s voice: mockery. The mockery was aimed at the world of the girls’ school, at the feminine world, not at the absurdity of the story; and had started from the moment Ivor had become aware of Anna’s presence. Yes, but there was nothing new in that; that she was familiar with. Because the mockery, the defence of the homosexual, was nothing more than the polite over-gallantry of a “real” man, the “normal” man who intends to set bounds to his relationship with a woman, consciously or not. Usually unconsciously. It was the same cold evasive emotion, taken a step further; there was a difference in degree but not in kind. Anna glanced round the edge of the door at Janet, and saw the child’s face showed a delighted but half-uneasy grin. She sensed the mockery being directed at her, a female. Anna directed the silent, compassionate thought towards her daughter: Well my poor girl, you’d better get used to it early, because you’re going to have to live in a world full of it. And now that she, Anna, was well removed from the scene, Ivor’s voice had lost its element of parody and gone back to normal.
The door into the room shared by Ivor and Ronnie was standing open. Ronnie was singing, also on a note of parody. It was a song being sung everywhere in tones of yearning, howling desire. “Give me what I want tonight baby, I don’t want you and me to fight baby, kiss me, squeeze me, etc.” Ronnie, too, was mocking “normal” love; and on a jeering, common, gutter level. Anna thought: Why do I assume that all this won’t touch Janet? Why do I take it for granted that children can’t be corrupted? What it amounts to is, I’m certain that my influence, the healthy female influence, is strong enough to outweigh theirs. But why should I? She turned to go downstairs. Ronnie’s voice stopped, and his head appeared around the angle of the door. It was a charming coiffured head, the head of a boyish young girl. He smiled, spitefully. He was saying, as clearly as he could, that he thought Anna had been spying on him: one of the disturbing things about Ronnie was that he always assumed that the things people said or did referred to him; and so one was always conscious of him. Anna nodded at him. She was thinking: In my home I can’t move freely because of these two. I’m on the defensive all the time, in my own flat. Ronnie now chose to conceal his malice, and came out, standing negligently, his weight on one hip. “Why Anna, I didn’t know you, too, were partaking of the joys of children’s hour?” “I dropped up to see,” said Anna shortly. He was now the image of winning charm. “Such a delightful child, your Janet.” He had remembered that he was living here for nothing, and dependent on Anna’s good humour. He was now the very image of—well, yes, Anna thought—a well-brought-up young girl, almost lispingly correct. Very jeune fille, you are, Anna addressed him silently, giving him a smile which she intended to convey: You’re not taking me in, and don’t you think it. She went downstairs: a glance upwards, however, showed him still there, not looking at her, but staring at the wall of the stairs. His pretty, oh-so-neat little face was now haggard. With fear. Oh Christ, Anna thought; I can see what’s going to happen already—I want him out, but I’m not going to have the heart to do it, because I’m going to be sorry for him, if I’m not careful.
She went into her kitchen, and ran a glass of water, slowly; running the water to watch it splash and sparkle, to hear its cool noise. She was using the water as she had used the fruit earlier—to calm herself, to assure herself of the possibility of normality. Yet all the time she was thinking: I’m right off balance. I feel as if the atmosphere of this flat were being poisoned, as if a spirit of perverse and ugly spite were everywhere. Yet it’s nonsense. The truth is, everything I’m thinking at the moment is wrong. I can feel it is…and yet I’m saving myself by this sort of thinking. Saving myself from what? She felt ill again, and frightened, as she had on the tube. She thought: I’ve got to stop it, I simply must—though she could not have said what she had to stop. I’ll go next door, she decided, and sit down, and—she did not finish the thought, but she had a mental image of a dry well, slowly filling up with water. Yes; that’s what’s wrong with me—I’m dry. I’m empty. I’ve got to touch some source somewhere or…she opened the door of her big room and there, black against the light from the windows, was a large female shape which had something menacing about it. Anna said sharply: “Who are you?” and turned on the light switch; so that the figure sprang into shape and personality against the defining light. “Good Lord, Marion, is that you?” Anna sounded cross. She was confused because of her mistake, and look
ed closely at Marion because during all the years she had known her, she had seemed a pathetic figure, but never a menacing one. And as she did so she could see herself go through a process which, it seemed to her, she was now having to make use of a hundred times a day: she straightened herself, toughened herself, became wary; and because she was so tired, because “the well was dry,” she set her brain on the alert, a small critical, dry machine. She could even feel that intelligence there, at work, defensive and efficient—a machine. And she thought: this intelligence, it’s the only barrier between me and—but this time she did finish it, she knew how to end the sentence. Between me and cracking up. Yes.
Marion said: “I’m sorry if I gave you a fright, but I came upstairs, and heard your young man reading to Janet and I didn’t want to disturb them. And then I thought, how nice to sit in the dark.” Anna heard the words “Your young man” which had a lisping coyness about them; as from a society matron, flattering a young woman?—she thought that within five minutes of meeting Marion there was always this jarring moment; and then reminded herself of the world Marion had been brought up in. She said: “I’m sorry I sounded cross. I’m tired. I got caught in the rush hour.” She was drawing curtains, and restoring to her room the quiet severity she needed from it. “But Anna, you’re so spoiled, us poor ordinary people have to face these things every day.” Anna glanced, startled, at Marion, who had never, in the whole of her life, had to face anything as ordinary as rush hours. She saw Marion’s face: innocent, bright-eyed, full of enthusiasm. She said: “I need a drink, do you want one?”—remembered, then was glad she had forgotten, and offered Marion a drink with genuine casualness; for now she said: “Oh yes, I’d love just a little one. Tommy says it’s much braver to decide to drink just normally, instead of giving it up altogether. Do you think he’s right? I do. I do think he’s so clever and so strong.” “Yes, but it must be very much more difficult.” Anna poured whisky into glasses, her back turned to Marion, trying to think: Is she here because she knows I’ve just seen Richard? And if another reason, what? She said, “I’ve just come from seeing Richard,” and Marion said, taking her glass which she set beside her with an apparently genuine lack of interest: “Have you? Well you always were such chums.” Anna refused to wince at the word chums; noted with alarm her own steadily rising irritation, strengthened the bright beam of her cold intelligence, and heard from upstairs Ivor’s bellowing out: “Shoot! shouted fifty eager voices and Betty, running for her life across the field, hit the ball straight into the goal. She had done it! The air rang with young cheering voices, and Betty saw the faces of her pals through a mist of happy tears.”