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By Root 1050 0

they all upped and left home and they’re scattered all over now, one Liverpool, one Glasgow, and one away oft in Reading and we never see them. But I stayed, beatings and all. It was me he had it in for, all the time. But my mother was used to so-and-so’s. She go so-and-so’s every time. My own father was as bad. He was good to me, mind you, he used to take me driving with his fancy women, and all that, and then he used to beat my mother. Guilty conscience, as you might say. And then she went and married my stepfather – a real home from home, he was. And now he’s dead, and there’s an old stick hanging about, sugar and spice and presents, but, mark my words, if she marries him he’ll have his fists about her like the rest. She’s got no eye for a man. I’ve told her she can’t marry him, she won’t have my blessing if she does. But she will, and then Rose-the-mug will be down there, pouring oil and taking the consequences.’

‘But if Dickie’s the same, why go on waiting for him?’

‘I’ve thought of that, believe you me. I’ve tried to like the others. But it’s no good. And you upset me, saying that, because I don’t like thinking why. I give myself the ’ump. I do really.’

Her mood, for a few weeks, was so dark she dragged herself around work, the house, her shopping, and scarcely heard if I spoke to her. She made an impatient gesture, like someone listening to music, and said: ‘Don’t talk to me, dear, just let me sit.’

One evening I was reading, while Rose smoked and worried opposite me. Rosemary began to cry. Rose instantly lifted her head to listen, although she had not heard the last remark I made.

‘Leave her alone,’ said Ronnie Skeffington. ‘She’ll go to sleep again.’

‘I’ve got to stop her. Mrs Bolt’ll be complaining.’ Her feet dragged across the floor. ‘Oh, Rosemary, Rosemary,’ she said, as the child wailed.

‘Come to bed and leave her alone, she’ll be all right,’ said Ronnie Skeffington, in an efficient voice. ‘Let her cry.’

‘But where are we going to live, if they turn us out?’

‘Oh, we’ll find somewhere.’

‘We will? That’s good. Who wore their feet out for months trying to find a place that would take a kid?’

‘Don’t start that now.’

Rosemary cried herself to sleep again, and Mrs Skeffington crept back to bed.

‘Oh no, leave me alone, I’m so tired.’

‘Come on, don’t make a fuss.’

‘But. Ronnie, I’m so tired.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Oh, so you won’t!’ He laughed, and she cried miserably while the bed creaked. Rose said: ‘Listen to that! Just listen to it.’ At last, silence; and Rose said: ‘Thank God for that, perhaps we’ll have some peace.’ But she sat listening tensely.

A few minutes later Rosemary began crying again. We sat still while the thing repeated itself. But when Mrs Skeffington got back into bed she cried out in hysteria: ‘No, I won’t, Ronnie. Don’t make me.’

‘Oh, come on, what fun is there in life?’

‘Fun for who?’ Then she screamed out: ‘You’ve bitten me.’ Rosemary and her mother wailed together.

Rose got up, her lips narrowed into a vindictive line.

‘Where are you going?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘Leave them alone.’

‘They don’t leave us alone, do they?’

Rose went up and hammered on the door, ‘Let me in,’ she shouted.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Let me in.’ The door opened. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Rose. ‘Have you got to bite your wife just because she won’t sleep with you fifty times a night? You dirty beast. And what about Rosemary? What’s it like for her hearing all this nonsense. Give her to me.’

‘We’ll keep her quiet, we will really.’

‘Give her to me,’ said Rose again.

Rosemary began sobbing, as a child does when it finds a refuge.

‘Now you go to bed,’ said Rose. ‘You leave your wife alone. Anyway, why do you have to make love tonight? Friday and Saturday’s for making love. Everyone has to work tomorrow, and you just go on and on.’

Husband and wife crept into their bed. Rose took the child into the other room and covered her up on the sofa. She was upstairs a long time. When she came down her eyes were red.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘lf I had a kid I’d know what to do. But who gets them?