In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [102]
War Damage had now finished the two top floors. Dan left his work on the ground-floor flat and was painting them. The workmen wanted to come into my room and Rose’s.
The following conversation took place between me and Flo.
‘Well, dear, isn’t it nice, they’re going to pull down one wall of your room and make it all nice, I don’t know what you’re going to do, I’m sure.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Pardon, dear?’
‘Am I going to sleep with a wall down?’
‘You can’t sleep in Rose’s room, because she’s moving downstairs to us, it’s no trouble to her, now she and Dickie’s cooled off, she doesn’t need a room to herself. They’re pulling down her wall, too.’
‘Well, and where am I going to work?’
‘You could lake your typewriter to the bathroom, couldn’t you, sweetheart?’
‘I could, but I won’t.’
‘Ah, my Lord, I knew you’d say that.’
‘Tell me, Flo, do you think it’s fair for me to pay you full rent when I can’t even use my room to work in?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Why should I pay you for something I don’t get?’
‘But the blitz wasn’t my fault, dear. Tell me now, is it true you’re looking out for somewhere to live?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘There’s that flat downstairs, it’s going to be ever so nice.’
‘But not for me.’
‘Because you don’t want to pay what we’ll have to ask when this room is all done up and nice, do you?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll talk to Dan,’ she said, distressed.
Eventually the builders decided not to rebuild the wall but only to patch it up a little.
‘It’ll be ever so nice for you,’ said Flo, ‘They’re nice men and you won’t be so lonely working away by yourself all day.’
This turned out to be true.
At nine o’clock every morning the men knocked on my door and enquired: ‘Ready, miss? Any dirty work before we start?’
They would then descend to the cellar and carry up coal for me. During that time I had my fire roaring all day and night; I hated so much the thought of going down into the black damp cellar down half a dozen flights of stairs that often I would let it go out and get into bed to read instead.
I had them in my room, three of them, for a month. Two were small, pale, underfed little men who should by rights have been plump and applefaced and amiable, but who were too cautious to do anything but smile, tentatively, and then instantly restore their defensive masks; and their foreman, an offhand, good-humouredly arrogant young man who talked for them all. His name was Wally James, and after he had fetched my coal, we all had a cigarette and many cups of tea. About nine-thirty, he would stretch and say: ‘Well, this won’t keep the home fires burning,’ and in the most leisurely way in the world he set out his tools and began to work.
I gave up all attempts at working, for he would say: ‘That’s right, miss, don’t take any notice of me,’ and start to chat about his wife, his children, the state of the world, and the Government; but most particularly the last two, for he had them on his mind. Eventually I pushed my typewriter away, and we brewed tea and talked.
When this foreman was not there, even if he were out of the room for a few minutes, I would find myself thinking of him as a tall and well-built man, even handsome, for this was how nature had intended him to be. The frame of his body, the cage of his skull, were large, generously defined; but at some time in his life he must have been underfed; for the flesh was too light on gaunt bones, his face was haggard, the eyes deep and dark in their sockets. He had a mop of black hair, rough with bits of dust and plaster; his hands were fine and nervous, but calloused; and the great head was supported on a thin, corded neck.
It took him and his mates four days to remove two panes of glass from my french windows and insert new ones. He assessed the work to last that long; it was what he thought he could get away with. I used to watch him and feel homesick; for I come from a country of accomplished idling.
The memory, perhaps, of a black labourer, hoe in hand, commanded to dig over a flower bed … He saunters out, hoe over his shoulder. He lets the hoe