In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [72]
At three that morning I was awakened by a dim white shape creeping across my room to the window. ‘Hush,’ said Flo, ‘it’s me, dear. I didn’t mean to wake you,’ She craned out of the window. ‘Quick, come here,’ she said. Below, under the plane tree on the edge of the pavement, in a patch of moonlight, stood Rose and the policeman, closely embraced. ‘Look at that,’ said Flo, delighted. ‘I tried to see out of the basement, but all I could see was their feet all mixed up and wriggling like they was doing a dance, Shhhh.’ She fell back from the window, laughing, ‘They look so funny. He’s about four feet taller than she is, and look he’s got to bend right over to kiss her like a man who’s had it too often.’ She looked again, then, unable to stand it, said abruptly, ‘I’m cold,’ and rushed off downstairs to her husband.
Next day Rose was uneasy. She had begun by wanting to make Dickie jealous, but now she was half in love with love. ‘We was cuddling for hours last night,’ she said. ‘Nothing like cuddling, say what you like. It was ever so nice. He kisses nice, too. But not as nice as Dickie. There’s something about the way Dickie kisses that gets me. But there, I’m just silly. A kiss is a kiss, when all’s said and done, the beasts, all tongue and slobber … I’m getting upset, dear. After all that, believe it or not. I’m worried about Dickie being unhappy. Can you beat it? Men don’t understand, do they? It’s no good telling a man that something doesn’t mean anything, the way I look at it, it must always mean something for them, but it doesn’t for us, not unless we love a man. If I told Dickie that I kissed my policeman last night just because of him he wouldn’t see it that way at all. Well, I’m going out with him again tonight. He’s a bit soft, just like my Canadian boy that was killed, but he’s not bad. I suppose.’
Rose went out with her policeman for several weeks. Flo pestered me, almost in tears, for details of this affair, but even if I had been willing I couldn’t have obliged her, for Rose had withdrawn into silence. The trouble was, the policeman had one almost overwhelming attraction: his parents owned the house they lived in, and had promised half of it to him on his marriage. He wanted to marry Rose at once, and she longed for a home almost as much as she longed for a husband. But the more she tried to persuade herself she cared for the policeman and had forgotten Dickie, the sadder she became. She returned from the nightly embraces under the plane tree looking embarrassed and guilty, and sat staring into my fire until I told her she must go to bed. When I tried to talk to her she said: ‘It’s no good, dear. I know you mean well, but you’re here with us just because you’re hard-up for a time and because you like living here and living there. But it’s the rest of my life I’m thinking of Yes, all right, I know I’m getting you down, well, I get myself down, but I don’t care about nothing at ail, except to decide what’s the right thing to do.’
She was getting Flo down, too. This conscience-ridden romance was too much for her. ‘For the Lord’s sake,’ she said. ‘If you are going to have some fun with a man then have it, but Rose’d cry at her own wedding.’
‘From what I’ve seen of people married. I’d cry with good reason,’ said Rose.
‘But if Dickie said, come to church, you’d go.’
‘More fool me.’
‘But long faces don’t get the marriage bells ringing.’
‘Some people like my face long or short, if others don’t.’
‘Then make your bed and lie in it,’ said Flo, finally getting bored. She was now spending time with her enemy Mrs Skeffington. For two reasons. One, she needed her as a witness in the famous court case about which at last I was managing to get some details in the face of the apparent determination of everyone