Part 8 (1/2)

'Look here, what about it? My place is only just round the corner . . .'

It was evening. They sat in a corner of a restaurant in Soho. The room was thick with smoke, and the smell of rich food. The woman at the table opposite was drunk. Her red hair slopped over her eye, and she kept screaming with laughter. The men filled her gla.s.s, digging each other in the ribs, and winking.

'Now then, sweetheart just another little gla.s.s, just a drop a tiny drop.'

Mazie sat at the table by the window. Her companion was a fat Jew with a yellow face.

His plate was heaped with spaghetti and chopped onion. He was enjoying his meal a stream of dribble ran from the corner of his mouth and settled on his beard. He looked up from his food, and smiled at Mazie, showing large gold teeth.

'Eat, little love, eat.' He opened his mouth and laughed, smacking his fat wet lips. He bent down and felt her legs under the table. He stared, breathing heavily.

There was a piano and a violin in the restaurant. The violin squeaked and quivered and the piano crashed, and hammered. The sound rose above the voices of the people, drowning their conversation, drumming into their ears. They had to shout to one another.

Mazie forced some curry down her throat. No use thinking about being tired, no use listening to her beating heart.

'Aren't you going to order somethink to drink?' she screamed, above the wail of the violin.

A low droning voice sounded behind her. She looked out of the window.

An old woman stood there, a filthy dirty old hag with bleary eyes and loose s...o...b..ry lips. A wisp of grey hair fell over her wrinkled forehead. She held out her hand, and whimpered, 'Give us a copper, dearie, just a copper. I ain't 'ad a bite all day. I'm starvin', dearie. Be kind there's a love, be kind to a poor old woman who's got no one to look after her.'

'Oh! go away, do,' said Mazie.

'I don't ask for much, dearie, only a copper to get meself a bite of food. There's no one to give me anything now.' The terrible voice whined on and on.

'I was young like you once, dearie, young and 'and-some And gentlemen gave me dinners, too, and paid me well, they did. Not so very long ago, neither, dearie. You'll know what it is one day, when you're old and ugly, you'll stand here then and beg for charity, same as me now. You wait, dearie, you wait.'

'Go away,' said Mazie. 'Go away.'

The woman crept along the street, wrapping her shawl round her, and cursing and muttering to herself. The fat Jew heaved himself up in his chair, and poured the wine into Mazie's gla.s.s.

'Drink, little love,' he pleaded. But Mazie did not hear.

She was thinking of Norah in Shaftesbury Avenue, with her pinched white face and her words 'Sooner or later.'

She thought of the busy streets packed with people, jostling her, shoving her from side to side. She remembered the wedding, and the smell of flowers the smiling girl who stepped into the waiting car.

She saw the golden patches on the river as the sun set, and a barge that floated away to the open sea and a man's voice whispering in her ear, a man's hand touching her shoulder.

She heard the old woman whining. 'You'll know what it is one day, dearie,' and then creeping away to huddle for the night in the shelter of a theatre wall, her head in her lap. Two drops of rain fell on to the pavement.

Mazie seized her gla.s.s of wine and drank.

A shudder ran through her. The music wailed, the light blazed, the Jew smiled.

'Here,' shouted Mazie, 'why don't they play somethink gay? Waiter! Tell them to play somethink lively, some-think gay . . .'

Nothing Hurts for Long.

She had the window flung open as she dressed. The morning was cold, but she liked to feel the sharp air on her face, stinging her, running like little waves over her body; and she slapped herself, the colour coming into her skin, the nerves tingling. She sang, too, as she dressed. She sang when she took her bath, her voice seeming rich and powerful as the water fell and the steam rose, and later, before the open window, she bent and swayed, touching her toes with her fingers, stretching her arms above her head.

She permitted herself the luxury of fresh linen. Conscious of extravagance, she drew the neat pleated little pile, straight from the laundry, out of the drawer beneath her dressing-table.

Her green dress was back from the cleaner's. It looked as good as new and the length was quite right, although she had worn it last winter as well. She cut the disfiguring tabs from the collar, and sprayed the dress with scent to take away the smell of the cleaner's.

She felt new all over. From her head to her shoes, and the body beneath her clothes was warm and happy. Her hair had been washed and set the day before, brushed behind her ears without a parting, like the actress she admired.

She could imagine his face as he stared at her, his funny smile that ran from one ear to the corner of his mouth, and his eyebrow c.o.c.ked, then his eyes half-closing, and holding out his arms 'Darling, you look marvellous marvellous.' When she thought about it she felt a queer pain in her heart because it was too much . . . She stood before the window a moment, smiling, breathing deeply, and then she ran down the stairs singing at the top of her voice, the sound of her song taken up by the canary in his cage in the drawing-room. She whistled to him, laughing, giving him his morning lump of sugar, and he hopped from side to side on his perch, his eyes beady, his tiny head fluffy and absurd after his bath. 'My sweet,' she said, 'my sweet,' and pulled the curtain so that the sun could get to him.

She glanced round the room, smiling, her finger on her lip. She pummelled at an imaginary crease in a cus.h.i.+on, she straightened the picture over the mantelpiece, she flicked a minute particle of dust from the top of the piano. His eyes, in the photograph on her desk, followed her round the room, and she paraded before it self-consciously, as though he were really there, patting a strand of her hair, glancing in the mirror, humming a tune. 'I must remember to fill the room with flowers, of course,' she thought, and immediately she saw the flowers she would buy, daffodils or hard mauve tulips, and where they would stand.

The telephone rang from the dining-room. It was really the same room, divided by a curtain, but she called it the dining-room. 'Hullo Yes, it's me speaking. No, my dear. I'm afraid I couldn't possibly. Yes. Yes, he comes back today. I expect him about seven. Oh! but you don't understand, there are tons of things to see to. I like to think I have the whole day. No, I'm not silly, Edna. Wait until you're married, then you'll see. Yes, rather, we'll go to a film next week I'll let you know. Good-bye.'

She put down the receiver, and shrugged her shoulders. Really how ridiculous people were. As if she could possibly go out or do anything when he was coming home at seven. Why, for the past fortnight now she had remembered to book nothing for Tuesday. Although he would not be back until the evening it did not make any difference. It was his day.

She crossed the absurd s.p.a.ce known as the hall and went into the kitchen. She tried to look important, the mistress of the house, ready to give her orders, but her smile betrayed her and the dimple at the corner of her mouth.

She sat on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, and Mrs Cuff stood before her with a slate. 'I've been thinking, Mrs Cuff,' she began, 'that he always does so enjoy saddle of mutton. What do you say?'

'Yes he is fond of his mutton, ma'am.'

'Would it be terribly extravagant? Do saddles cost a lot?'

'Well, we've been very careful, this week, haven't we?'

'Yes Mrs Cuff, that's what I thought. And for lunch I can have a boiled egg and some of that tinned fruit, it'll be heaps. But this evening, if you think you could cope with a saddle and p'raps what does one eat with it? Oh! mashed potatoes, done his favourite way and Brussels sprouts, and jelly.'

'Yes, ma'am, that would be nice.'

'And Mrs Cuff could we possibly have that kind of roly-pudding he likes with jam inside? You know one is terribly surprised to see the jam.'

'Just as you wish, ma'am.'

'I expect he'll be frightfully hungry, don't you? I'm sure it's horrid in Berlin. I think that's all, don't you? It doesn't seem only three months, does it, it seems three years since he's been gone?'

'Oh! It has been dull, ma'am. It will be a different place with him back.'

'He's always so gay, isn't he, Mrs Cuff? Never dreary and depressed like other people.'

'Please, ma'am, while I remember it we want some more Ronuk.'

'I don't think I've ever seen him in a bad temper. What did you say, Mrs Cuff? Ronuk? Is it stuff for swilling round basins?'

'No, ma'am for cleaning the floors.'