In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [106]
‘Oh. Rose, don’t be silly. Why not?’
‘She’s filthy, a filthy beast.’
‘But what she does doesn’t affect you or me.’
‘I’ll tell you something, if she drinks out of your cups, you’ll have to sterilize them before I use them.’
A note came down by Micky, saying: ‘I shall be very happy to join you. Yours sincerely, Emily Privet.’
At five to nine Rose came in to say she was going out to the pictures by herself. She went, with a look of sorrowful reproach.
At nine Miss Privet arrived, wearing slacks and a sweater and without make-up. The first thing she said was: ‘I see your friend has gone out to avoid the contagion.’
‘She’s just gone to the pictures.’
‘Yes?’ she said, in exactly the way Rose did. Then she shrugged and said: ‘But I’m glad of a bit of company, I’m getting the pip up there in that box.’
‘I was there for a bit myself.’
‘Your kid, too? How much?’
I told her, and she put her head back and laughed. ‘Yes, we have to pay for our sins,’ she said. ‘I’m paying that old tart downstairs four quid a week.’
‘You’re mad,’ I said.
‘Is that so?’ she said. ‘And why did you pay? If you’ve got a kid, or you’re on the wrong side of the Law you’ve got to pay. But I’m not staying. That old floozie downstairs’ll see my back before the week’s out.’
‘You don’t seem to like Flo.’
‘She’s sex-mad,’ said Miss Privet. ‘Makes me sick.’
‘She told me you were French.’
Miss Privet got out of the big chair, and hippily walked about the room, saying in a throaty voice: ‘Cheri, I love you, le t’aime. Ça va? Ah, cheri, cheri, come – for – a little – walk avec moi …’
She sat down again and said briskly, in her normal voice, which was Midland-bred, as far as I could judge: ‘I know enough catch-phrases and put on an accent to spice it up for those who haven’t met any French. I knew a French girl once. But she had to pretend to be English when she went back to Lyons. Give the poor fools what they want, that’s my motto.’
She never spoke of men in anything but tones of amiable contempt.
That evening we discussed literature. Her tastes were decided. She liked Priestley. Dickens, and Defoe, particularly the Journal of the Plague Year, which she knew practically by heart. ‘And do you know that man called Pepys? He knew his London. I often read a bit of his Diary and then walk over the streets he walked and think about things. Nothing’s changed much, has it?’
At that time I still had not learned to like London. I said so and she nodded and said it took time. But if I liked, she would show me things. Later she ran upstairs and fetched down a print of Monet’s ‘Charing Cross Bridge’. ‘That’s London,’ she said. ‘But you have to learn to look.’
Before she went to bed, she said that if the light was right tomorrow she’d take me to her favourite place in London.
Rose did not come to say good night to me that evening.
Next evening, about five. Miss Privet came down to say: ‘Quick, get a coat on. I’ll take you now.’ She had already turned to go and get her things, when she gave me a shrewd glance and said: ‘What’s the matter, afraid I’ll be in my warpaint?’
She came down wearing a straight cloth coat, flat shoes, and a scarf over her head. She saw me examining her, and smiled. Then she posed; and let her face assume a look of heavy-lided, sceptical, good-natured sensuality. This she held a few seconds; then switched it off, saying with contempt: ‘Easy, isn’t it? That and the shoes.’
We took a bus to Trafalgar Square, and at six, with the bells rolling from St Martin’s, she grabbed my arm and raced me up the steps of the National Gallery.
‘Now,’ she said.
It was a wet evening, with a soft glistening light falling through a low golden sky. Dusk was gathering along walls, behind pillars and balustrades. The starlings squealed overhead. The buildings along Pall Mall seemed to float, reflecting soft blues and greens on to a wet and shining pavement. The fat buses, their scarlet softened, their hardness dissolved in mist, came rolling gently along beneath us, disembarking a race of creatures clad in light, with burnished hair and