In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [64]
It was through Aurora that I first understood Jack’s position in the family, I had taken him for granted, I suppose, because Rose did.
He used to wander in and out of my room like Aurora, or like the puppies and the cats. He took very little notice of me, or I of him. The only person he responded to was Rose, outside his parents. He was totally self-absorbed – that is, absorbed in fantasy, like Aurora; and, like her, spent a great deal of time in front of the looking-glass. He was very good-looking, sleek, smooth-fleshed, swarthy. His shoulders and arms were heavily muscled, but he was dissatisfied with his chest and with his legs. There was every opportunity of seeing all of him, because he never wore anything but a singlet and running shorts, once he was out of working clothes, even in the coldest weather. He wandered about the house, flexing and stretching himself, accosting people with remarks like: ‘If I got another half-inch on my calves I’d do all right, do you think so?’
He spent a good deal of time in Miss Powell’s room. She tolerated him, but look care Bobby Brent did not catch him there; he was, of course, very jealous of her. When Miss Powell was busy, he came to rest on my floor, surrounded by physical culture magazines. He never paid for these. If jack said he was going to the fish-and-chips this had nothing to do with food. He leaned on the counter of the shop, calm-eyed, gum-chewing, until the man turned his back to take the chips from the fat, and then Jack slipped out the physical culture magazines from the pile of old papers which were kept for wrapping the fish-and-chips. He paid threepence for a cornet of chips, and came home with a week’s reading matter.
When Rose was in my room he alternately watched her, with a despondent hopefulness, and read his magazines. Or he stood in front of the mirror measuring himself all over with a tape-measure, repeating: ‘If I had thirty shillings I could buy myself some weights.’
‘Who do you think’s going to give you thirty bob?’ Rose would say.
‘I only said, if I had thirty bob, that’s all, why do you pick on me, everybody does?’ he grumbled.
He went a great deal to the pictures, and came straight back to tell me the plots. Sometimes he saw two or three films in one evening. If the film was a musical, he sang the lyrics and showed me the steps of the dances. He was a natural dancer and had a good voice. Whether it was a musical or a gangster picture, he always ended: ‘And that showed she loved him, see?’ Or, with a pathetic look at Rose: ‘And then it was time for bed.’
Then he complained about his parents: Flo’s temper frightened him, she was a bad mother to him. And Dan hated him and wished he was dead.
The only person Aurora admitted to her fantasies was Jack, She would arrange a cushion on a chair in a convenient position, find some hard object, and stab to or beat it over and over again. ‘Dead. Dead. Dead,’ I heard her murmur viciously.
‘Who’s dead?’
She had the deaf look all the people in the house seemed to assume at such moments.
‘Dead. He’s dead. Dead, Jack’s dead. My daddy’s happy. Mommy’s crying. Jack’s dead.’
Once Rose came up at midnight, and said: ‘My God, are those two at it downstairs?’
‘What about?’
‘Jack. Dan’s silly about him. He says Jack doesn’t earn enough money.’
Jack was a sort of errand-boy for a big local shop. He earned five pounds a week. He referred to the firm as ‘my company’. He wanted to be a professional footballer. He had played football for ‘his company’ and for the army, too. He could get ten pounds a week as a professional, he said. If he became a swimming coach, then he could earn eleven, he knew a place. Or he could be a physical instructor. The sky was the limit for them, he said, all the money you liked.
‘It’s like this,’ said Rose. ‘Dan earns all that money, and he can’t see why Jack can’t. He doesn’t see, some people can earn money like other people breathe. Well, Jack just pays Flo thirty shillings, the way I do, and spends the rest on the pictures. But Flo keeps slipping him money when