But now I really do have to work.
Whos to make you?
Flo was incapable of understanding that ordinary people, whom she might know, could write something which would in due course become a book. She would finger a pile of typescript and say; You say this is a book, dear? Then she fetched a pile of womens magazines and said; You mean a book like this? No, a book like this, showing her one.
Well. I dont hold it against you.
When at last I got a book printed, she compared the lines of print with the words in a heap of typescript and crowed delightedly, Why darling, its the same. But. Flo. I kept telling you. I dont hold it against you, dont think that.
At first I thought the phrase I dont hold it against you, was the same as the middle-class Not at all, or Very well. But I was wrong, because at that time I failed to understand the depths of her disapproval and disappointment in me.
Every morning when I had finished my tea, and was fighting my way backwards to the door, kicking puppies out of my way and defending myself with both hands against Flos imploring hands, which sought to grasp and hold me like a shield against the long days loneliness, she would eventually sigh out: Well, I dont really blame you. Whenever it was a question of me or anyone else working, even Dan, she didnt really blame us. If I went to the theatre she didnt hold it against me. But going to the library twice a week earned a long, incredulous silence and the words I dont blame you were brought out with real difficulty. But at last she forgave me for the books, because she took to fingering the books on my shelf and saying: I suppose youve got to have all this rubbish to find plots. I wouldnt have it in my place, it just collects dust, but I dont hold it against you. In the course of the year I stayed in that house I went into most of the houses in the street, and there was not a book in one of them. That is not quite true. Two houses down on the opposite side lived an old man on the old-age pension, who was reading for the first time in his life. He was educating himself on the Thinkers Library. He had been a bricklayer, his wife was dead and he was now halfcrazy with loneliness and the necessity to communicate what he had so slowly and belatedly learned. He lingered on the pavement at the time people were coming home from work, made a few routine remarks about the weather, and then whispered confidentially; Theres no God. We arent anything but apes. They dont tell the working man in case we get out of hand.
Once it was Dan and he stared suspiciously and remarked: Theres no God, you say? Thats right, thats right, I read it today. Well, who cares, I dont. Once it was Rose, and she said with good humour: Well, if you want to be a monkey, Im not stopping you.
A sternly shut door was no protection against Flo. If I stopped typing for longer than five minutes, there were steps on the stairs, then a loud Shut up. Oar! and then Flos face appeared around the angle of the door, Auroras face just beneath it, two faces, wreathed in smiles and apparently without bodies. Flo ran forward saying: Dont be cross, darling, I know it must be lonely for you here. Just give me a cigarette and Ill sit and watch.
At last I learned to work while she was there, or while Aurora played on the floor. She played differently from the normal child of her age. All her games were centred around the long mirror. She made faces at herself, sticking out her tongue and rolling up her eyes; or smiled sweetly, or with a leer. She look a cushion and held it to her stomach, or laid it to her behind and minced up and down the room, watching her reflection. She tried on my shoes, wrapped my clothes around herself, or took off her dress and stood examining her scrawny little body. She would take a pinch of flesh between thumb and finger on her chest and say to herself: Titties, where are my titties, I can see them, yes, Or she would pull her long black corkscrew curls out one by one, like springs, and watch them leap back into position. This game she could play for an hour at a time, standing quite still, frowning with steady concentration at her image, watching the black curls lengthen, straighten, and spring back, again and again and again.
I tried to get her to eat, but without success. No matter how casual my preparations were fetching tea and cake for us both, cooking eggs, handing her her plate without comment, she would stiffen up and watch me, with the small, knowing grown-up smile which was so disconcerting.
Or she would sit on the floor, sucking her thumb, without moving, her black, sharp eyes fixed on me. Once I came into the room and caught her mimicking me. She was sitting at the typewriter, frowning absorbedly, smoking an imaginary cigarette. When she saw me she smiled, a wise, amused smile, as if to say: We both know youre funny. She jumped politely off the chair, and sat on the floor again, sucking her thumb, watching me.
It was through Aurora that I first understood Jacks position in the family, I had taken him for granted, I suppose, because Rose did.
He used to wander in and out of my room like Aurora, or like the puppies and the cats. He took very little notice of me, or I of him. The only person he responded to was Rose, outside his parents. He was totally self-absorbed that is, absorbed in fantasy, like Aurora; and, like her, spent a great deal of time in front of the looking-glass. He was very good-looking, sleek, smooth-fleshed, swarthy. His shoulders and arms were heavily muscled, but he was dissatisfied with his chest and with his legs. There was every opportunity of seeing all of him, because he never wore anything but a singlet and running shorts, once he was out of working clothes, even in the coldest weather. He wandered about the house, flexing and stretching himself, accosting people with remarks like: If I got another half-inch on my calves Id do all right, do you think so?
He spent a good deal of time in Miss Powells room. She tolerated him, but look care Bobby Brent did not catch him there; he was, of course, very jealous of her. When Miss Powell was busy, he came to rest on my floor, surrounded by physical culture magazines. He never paid for these. If jack said he was going to the fish-and-chips this had nothing to do with food. He leaned on the counter of the shop, calm-eyed, gum-chewing, until the man turned his back to take the chips from the fat, and then Jack slipped out the physical culture magazines from the pile of old papers which were kept for wrapping the fish-and-chips. He paid threepence for a cornet of chips, and came home with a weeks reading matter.
When Rose was in my room he alternately watched her, with a despondent hopefulness, and read his magazines. Or he stood in front of the mirror measuring himself all over with a tape-measure, repeating: If I had thirty shillings I could buy myself some weights.
Who do you thinks going to give you thirty bob? Rose would say.
I only said, if I had thirty bob, thats all, why do you pick on me, everybody does? he grumbled.
He went a great deal to the pictures, and came straight back to tell me the plots. Sometimes he saw two or three films in one evening. If the film was a musical, he sang the lyrics and showed me the steps of the dances. He was a natural dancer and had a good voice. Whether it was a musical or a gangster picture, he always ended: And that showed she loved him, see? Or, with a pathetic look at Rose: And then it was time for bed.
Then he complained about his parents: Flos temper frightened him, she was a bad mother to him. And Dan hated him and wished he was dead.
The only person Aurora admitted to her fantasies was Jack, She would arrange a cushion on a chair in a convenient position, find some hard object, and stab to or beat it over and over again. Dead. Dead. Dead, I heard her murmur viciously.
Whos dead?
She had the deaf look all the people in the house seemed to assume at such moments.
Dead. Hes dead. Dead, Jacks dead. My daddys happy. Mommys crying. Jacks dead.
Once Rose came up at midnight, and said: My God, are those two at it downstairs?
What about?
Jack. Dans silly about him. He says Jack doesnt earn enough money.
Jack was a sort of errand-boy for a big local shop. He earned five pounds a week. He referred to the firm as my company. He wanted to be a professional footballer. He had played football for his company and for the army, too. He could get ten pounds a week as a professional, he said. If he became a swimming coach, then he could earn eleven, he knew a place. Or he could be a physical instructor. The sky was the limit for them, he said, all the money you liked.
Its like this, said Rose. Dan earns all that money, and he cant see why Jack cant. He doesnt see, some people can earn money like other people breathe. Well, Jack just pays Flo thirty shillings, the way I do, and spends the rest on the pictures. But Flo keeps slipping him money when Dans not looking. And so they quarrel all the time. You should hear them. Dan says its a matter of principle. Ha, Dan talking about principles, its enough to make a queen laugh.
Dan worked for the local gas board. But he regarded the money he earned there as peanuts. Going into peoples houses and flats to fit appliances or fix the gas was useful to him, and that was why he kept the job. The way he made his money was not exactly illegal Not really illegal, darling, as Flo said, anxious I should approve, not so much that as using your intelligence. He went into bombed houses and stripped them of anything saleable, working at night, so as not to be noticed, and disposed of what he found. He would say casually to a householder: That wash-basin, that bath, its not up to much, is it? not for a house of this class. Now I tell you what, I can get you a new bath, three pounds cheaper than what youd pay.
He had connections with the building trade, because he had worked in all branches of it at various times. It was easy for him to get a bath, a wash-basin, a lavatory pan at cost price. This new object would be installed, and hed make a small profit. This old baths no good to you, hed tell the householder, youd have to pay to get it taken away, The backyard was always full of baths, wash-basins, cisterns, lavatory pans, and tangles of piping. Then, while fixing a gas leak or mending a refrigerator. Dan would say: That old bath of yours, its not up to the standard of the rest, is it? I tell you what. Ill get you another. Just as good as new a factory reject. It got a bit scratched in the enamel, and Ill do it two-thirds of the usual price.