In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [49]
Rose did not eat breakfast. ‘Why waste money eating when you’re still full of sleep, anyway?’ She ate a sausage roll or a sandwich at midday. These odd snacks during the day cost her ten shillings: she did not eat seriously unless invited by Flo. Two pounds left out of her earnings. She smoked ten cigarettes a day – another ten shillings.
That left her thirty shillings. On pay-day she arranged this balance on her dressing-table and played with it, frowning and smiling, talking of how she might spend it.
She did not plan for holidays: when she had time off she went down to stay with her mother. Nor did she go to parties. Sometimes she dropped down to the Palais at Hammersmith on a Wednesday evening, and came back dispirited: ‘None of them were as good as Dickie, say what you like. They just make me laugh.’
In the end, the money always went on clothes. And in a way which was richly satisfactory to Rose, because she seldom bought in shops, only things like gloves and nylons. She got her clothes from her employer. That fat pale woman spent a great deal on her clothes, and luckily for Rose had only just put on weight. Her cupboards were full of things she would never wear again. Rose would haggle over a dress or a suit she coveted for months, until at last she came in, victorious, saying: ‘I’ve got it for twenty-seven-and-six, there go my cream cakes for a month, not to mention the pictures, but look, this dress cost that fat bitch twenty-five guineas.’ So it was, when Rose was dressed to go out, she looked as if what she wore had cost her six months’ wages. She would stand for a long time in front of the tall looking-glass in my room, surveying herself with grim satisfaction. Finally she would say: ‘Well, it only goes to show, doesn’t it?’ a remark into which was concentrated her attitute towards the rich and the talented, an attitude without envy or sourness, but which was full of self-respect, and implicit in everything she said or did.
And yet, although she dressed herself through these means, she was upset when I said I was going to sell some of my clothes to the second-hand shops. ‘You don’t want to do that,’ she protested.
‘They’re too big for you, or you could have them.’
‘And what would I be doing with all those evening dresses?’ She examined them, and said: ‘Well, you must have had a good time where you came from.’
‘Everyone dances there. It’s a place where people dance a lot.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s not expensive to dance.’
‘Yes?’
‘But it’s true.’
‘Yes? All I know is, dancing is floor-space and a band and things to eat and drink. That’s money. Who pays for it? Someone does.’
‘All the same, I want to sell these things, they’re no good to me.’
‘Well, don’t sell them around here, that’s all.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not nice, is it. People might see, and say things.’
‘Why should I care?’
‘Yes? Well. I do. People see you and me together. Then they see you selling clothes, to those old shops. Yes, I know – you’ll go off one of these days, but I’m living here. So to please me you can just take a bus ride and sell them somewhere else.’
When I had sold them, she enquired: ‘And how much did you get? Enough for cigarettes for a couple of weeks? Oh, I know, don’t tell me. And so you’ve gone and lowered yourself in those dirty old shops, just for that. It’s all right for film stars and models, it stands to reason, everyone knows they can wear a thing once, but not for people like us. You’d do better to keep them and look at them sometimes and remember the good times you had than sell them for cigarette money.’
‘You can talk