To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

Mary Brooke was quietly knitting beside the stove. ‘Thought I’d drop in,’ she said.

Annie Blake pulled off her hat and flopped a net of bread and vegetables on the table; at the same time her eyes were anxiously inspecting her kitchen: there was an unwashed dish in the sink, a cloth over a chair. ‘Everything’s in such a mess,’ she said irritably.

Mary Brooke, eyes fixed on her knitting, said, ‘Eh, sit down. It’s clean as can be.’

After a hesitation Annie flopped herself into the chair and shut her eyes. ‘Those stairs …’ she panted. Then: ‘Like a cuppa tea, Mary?’

Mary quickly pushed her knitting away and said, ‘You sit still. I’ll do it.’ She heaved up her large, tired body, filled a kettle from the tap, and set it on the flame. Then, following her friend’s anxious glance, she hung the dish cloth where it belonged and shut the door. The kitchen was so clean and neat it could have gone on exhibition. She sat down, reached for her knitting, and knitted without looking at it, contemplating the wall across the room. ‘He was carrying on like anything last night,’ she observed.

Annie’s drooping lids flew open, her light body straightened. ‘Yes?’ she murmured casually. Her face was tense.

‘What can you expect with that type? She doesn’t get the beds made before dinnertime. There’s dirt everywhere. He was giving it to her proper. Dirty slut, he called her.’

‘She won’t do for him what I did, that’s certain,’ said Annie bitterly.

‘Shouting and banging until early morning – we all heard it.’ She counted purl, plain, purl, and added: ‘Don’t last long, do it? Six months he’s been with her now?’

‘He never lifted his hand to me, that’s certain,’ said Annie victoriously. ‘Never. I’ve got my pride, if others haven’t.’

‘That’s right, love. Two purl. One plain.’

‘Nasty temper he’s got. I’d be up summer and winter at four, cleaning those offices till ten, then cleaning for Mrs Lynd till dinnertime. Then if he got home and found his dinner not ready, he’d start to shout and carry on – well, I’d say, if you can’t wait five minutes, get home and cook it yourself, I’d say. I bring in as much as you do, don’t I? But he never lifted a finger. Bone lazy. Men are all the same.’

Mary gave her friend a swift, searching glance, then murmured, ‘Eh, you can’t tell me …’

‘I’d have the kids and the cleaning and the cooking, and working all day – sometimes when he was unemployed I’d bring in all the money … and he wouldn’t even put the kettle on for me. Women’s work, he said.’

‘Two purl, plain.’ But Mary’s kindly face seemed to suggest that she was waiting to say something else. ‘We all know what it is,’ she agreed at last, patiently.

Annie rose lightly, pulled the shrieking kettle off the flame, and reached for the teapot. Seen from the back, she looked twenty, slim and erect. When she turned with the steaming pot, she caught a glimpse of herself; she set down the pot and went to the mirror. She stood touching her face anxiously. ‘Look at me!’ She pushed a long, sagging curl into position, then shrugged. ‘Well, who’s to care what I look like anyway?’

She began setting out the cups. She had a thin face, sharpened by worry, and small sharp blue eyes. As she sat down, she nervously felt her hair. ‘I must get the curlers on to my hair,’ she muttered.

‘Heard from the boys?’

Annie’s hand fell and clenched itself on the table. ‘Not a word from Charlie for months. They don’t think … he’ll turn up one fine day and expect his place laid, if I know my Charlie. Tommy’s after a job in Manchester, Mrs Thomas said. But I had a nice letter from Dick …’ Her face softened; her eyes were soft and reminiscent. ‘He wrote about his father. Should he come down and speak to the old so and so for me, he said. I wrote back and said that was no way to speak of his father. He should respect him, I said, no matter what he’s done. It’s not his place to criticize his father, I said.’

‘You’re lucky in your boys, Annie.’

‘They’re good workers, no one can say they aren’t. And they’ve never done anything they shouldn’t. They don’t take after their dad, that’s certain.’

At this, Mary’s eyes showed a certain tired irony. ‘Eh, Annie – but we all do things we shouldn’t.’ This gaining no response from the bitter Annie, she added cautiously, ‘I saw him this morning in the street.’

Annie’s cup clattered down into the saucer. ‘Was he alone?’

‘No. But he took me aside – he said I could give you a message if I was passing this way – he might be dropping in this evening instead of tomorrow with your money, he said. Thursday she goes to her mother’s – I suppose he thinks while the cat’s away …’

Annie had risen, in a panic. She made herself sit down again and stirred her tea. The spoon tinkled in the cup with the quivering of her hand. ‘He’s regular with the money, anyway,’ she said heavily. ‘I didn’t have to take him into court. He offered. And I suppose he needn’t, now the boys are out keeping themselves.’

‘He still feels for you, Annie …’ Mary was leaning forward, speaking in a direct appeal. ‘He does, really.’

‘He never felt for anyone but himself,’ snapped Annie. ‘Never.’

Mary let a sigh escape her. ‘Oh, well …’ she murmured. ‘Well, I’ll be getting along to do the supper.’ She stuffed her knitting into her carryall and said consolingly: ‘You’re lucky. No one to get after you if you feel like sitting a bit. No one to worry about but yourself …’

‘Oh, don’t think I’m wasting any tears over him. I’m taking it easy for the first time in my life. You slave your life out for your man and your kids. Then off they go, with not so much as a thank you. Now I can please myself.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being in your place,’ said Mary loyally. At the door she remarked, apparently at random, ‘Your floor’s so clean you could eat off it.’

The moment Mary was gone, Annie rushed into her apron and began sweeping. She got down on her knees to polish the floor, and then took off her dress and washed herself at the sink. She combed her dragging wisps of pale hair and did each one up neatly with a pin till her face was surrounded by a ring of little sausages. She put back her dress and sat down at the table. Not a moment too soon. The door opened, and Rob Blake stood there.

He was a thin, rather stooping man, with an air of apology. He said politely, ‘You busy, Annie?’

‘Sit down,’ she commanded sharply. He stooped loosely in the doorway for a moment, then came forward, minding his feet. Even so she winced as she saw the dusty marks on the gleaming linoleum. ‘Take it easy,’ he said with friendly sarcasm. ‘You can put up with my dust once a week, can’t you?’

She smiled stiffly, her blue eyes fastened anxiously on him, while he pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, Annie?’

To this conciliatory opening she did not respond. After a moment she remarked, ‘I heard from Dick. He’s thinking of getting married.’

‘Getting married, now? That puts us on the shelf, don’t it?’

‘You’re not on any shelf that I can see,’ she snapped.

‘Now – Annie …’ he deprecated, with an appealing smile. She showed no signs of softening. Seeing her implacable face, his smile faded, and he took an envelope from his pocket and pushed it over.

‘Thanks,’ she said, hardly glancing at it. Then that terrible bitterness came crowding up, and he heard the words: ‘If you can spare it from her.’

He let that one pass; he looked steadily at his wife, as if seeking a way past that armour of anger. He watched her, passing the tip of his tongue nervously over his lips.

‘Some women know how to keep themselves free from kids and responsibilities. They just do this and that, and take up with anyone they please. None of the dirty work for them.’

He gave a sigh, and was on the point of getting up, when she demanded, ‘Like a cuppa tea?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He let himself sink back again.

While she worked at the stove, her back to him, he was looking around the kitchen; his face had a look of tired, disappointed irony. An ageing man, but with a dogged set to his shoulders. Trying to find the right words, he remarked, ‘Not so much work for you now, Annie.’

But she did not answer. She returned with the two cups and put the sugar into his for him. This wifely gesture encouraged him. ‘Annie,’ he began, ‘Annie – can’t we talk this over …’ He was stirring the tea clumsily, not looking at it, leaning forward. The cup knocked over. ‘Oh, look what you’ve done,’ she cried out. ‘Just look at the mess.’ She snatched up a cloth and wiped the table.

‘It’s only a drop of tea, Annie,’ he protested at last, shrinking a little aside from her furious energy.

‘Only a drop of tea – I can polish and clean half the day, and then in a minute the place is like a pig sty.’

His face darkened with remembered irritation.

‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ she went on accusingly, ‘she lets the beds lie until dinner, and the place isn’t cleaned from one week to the next.’

‘At least she cares more for me than she does for a clean floor,’ he shouted. Now they looked at each other with hatred.