Yet he found that anything so simple as placing his head against a woman’s, was not so ordinary in practice. For he stood gawping there, like an Irish navvy. He had forgotten what it was like. The last time had been such a long while back.
He got much more that he had not remembered.
He was, for the moment, saved from greater torture by the telephone ringing once again. But when the office closed that night he thought he would walk home, rather than take a bus, so as to see girls, the day’s work done, as they made their way back through streets.
So it was that he found himself, by chance, within a few yards of the address Mr Grant had given.
The door was open.
He went in. He climbed stairs. He began to regret it.
Then he was outside an inner door, on which was written her name. Her name was there on a card.
He read her name, Miss Nancy Whitmore, in Gothic lettering as cut on tombstones. He noticed the brass knocker, a dolphin hanging by the tail. He ran his eye over this door which was painted pink. The wall paper he stared at round the door, was of wreathed roses on a white ground. He looked again. Someone had wiped the paint down so often, it was so clean that the top coat was wearing thin. In the moulding round the panels a yellow first coat grinned through at callers. And her card was held in place by two fresh bits of sticking plaster, pink.
With a melting of his spine, he felt she must be a tart.
The moment he realized this, his first idea was to go, to come back another day perhaps, but to get out of it for now.
Yet he knocked.
She opened, almost at once. He looked. He sagged. Then something went inside. It was as though the frightful starts his heart was giving had burst a vein. He pitched forward, in a dead faint, because there she stood alive, so close that he could touch, and breathing, the dead spit, the living image, herself, Rose in person.
When he came round, he was flat along the floor with his head rested on an object. Curled up above, on a chair, there was a tortoiseshell cat that watched him, through great yellow eyes with terrible black slits. He knew no cat. It meant nothing. He could not make out where he was until he tilted himself, to find Rose kneeling at his head, which was in her lap. Then he remembered.
“Darling you’ve dyed your hair,” he brought out, proud to be so quick, for the room was dark. Apart from this one detail he knew it was all right at last, was as it had been six years back.
“That’s better,” she said.
He rested. He lay on. He was content. He felt his blood flow all over the inside of him. There was just one point; her voice sounded rather changed.
Her moon cool hands were laid about his temples. The cat shut its eyes and dozed. And he shut his.
“Take it easy,” she said. Again the voice which had changed.
“Darling,” he murmured.
“That’s enough of that,” she said, but although she spoke sharp it barely came through to him, in his condition. Because this, he felt, as he now was, must be what he had been waiting for these years, the sad soldier back from the wars.
“Why?” he asked, absolutely trusting her, and still shuteyed, and in a humble voice.
“You’re telling me,” she said.
He began not to understand. He looked. He saw the cat was there no longer. A kettle was boiling. He tilted again. Her dear face did not even seem to belong, he thought. But he knew it must be all right.
“Here,” she said, reaching for a cushion. “Put this under you.”
He shut his eyes again. He sighed in deep content.
“Have a quick rest now, then get to hell out of here,” she said, rising to her feet.
He heard this right enough, but thought she was joking. When he shakily sat up to be fetched a kiss, he found she was gone, that she was next door in the kitchen.
He dragged himself off the floor, and sat on a chair because he did not feel so good. He was empty, and ill, and the room began going round once more, with the cat, which had come back. Still, he found he could focus after a few minutes. He watched it settle down opposite, start to wipe the side of its mouth.
Then he watched the opening to the kitchen. He thought he was stronger, and he had so much to ask Rose he did not know where to begin.
She came back with two cups of tea. Except for the hair, which was black, she was now exactly like again.
“I was only making myself one when you came,” she said. He half rose, but his hands shook so badly she put his down on the table.
“Doesn’t seem possible,” he started. He stopped. There was something he could not fathom in her face, as she watched over the rim of her cup.
“What exactly is the matter with you?” she asked.
Then he knew what it was. She was an enemy. She couldn’t have heard about him. She thought he had given her up. Everything must come all right. But he dreaded it so, that he could not bring himself to speak.
“How you people manage to dress as you do,” she said, in a hard voice, at his city suit. He thought “Oh what have I done? She’s out of her mind.” His mouth went dry as he realized, next, that she was completely self-possessed. He reached for his cup. He did not know how he would be able to lift this. He tried to take heart because she had given him a saucer with it.
“That’s right. Drink that, then go,” she said.
“My God,” he said as he dropped it. He had been afraid he would. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, and rushed out into the kitchen for a dish cloth. “Here,” she said, throwing this. He mopped at his trousers. “And what about my covers?” she asked. He stumbled to his feet, began dabbing at the chair.
“Rose,” he said low, his back still turned to her.
“What’s rose?” she asked frantic.
Then he had another thought. That she’d lost her memory, same as her mother. He knew he must take things slowly. He worked on the chair.
“Think it’s all right now. Terribly sorry,” he said.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she complained, but in an easier voice. The suit had taken all he had spilt.
“Careless of me,” he said, with such a hang dog look she must have felt sorry. Perhaps it was to hide this up that she said, “I expect there’ll be a drop left in the pot.”
He sat on. When she came back with another cup, this time without a saucer, he said,
“I’ll get you a replacement.”
For a moment she did not understand this phrase, which came from the jargon of production engineers, but as soon as she realized he meant to buy her a cup and saucer in place of what he had just broken, she put her foot down hard.
“You won’t, thank you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you in here a second time, thanks very much. Not to get to be a habit. I’d never have done this, only I happened to know Mr Middlewitch was in across the landing.”
“Middlewitch?” He spoke out in real horror.
“Now then,” she said, beginning to look frightened.
“Middlewitch?” he repeated, absolutely bewildered.
“Just because I give you the name of someone who lives in these digs, don’t you start wondering if you’ll strike lucky twice,” she said.
“Me strike lucky?” he mumbled.
“It’s rationed now, you know,” she insisted.
This was too much. He almost laughed he was so frantic.
“That’s rich,” he said.
“What’s rich?” she wanted to know. “And cups aren’t easy to come by these days, either,” she went on, “though I’m not accepting anything from strange men, you can be sure of that,” she said.