“I’m O.K.” Charley said.
“That’s fine,” Corker agreed. “Bit difficult, I shouldn’t wonder, for you young fellows, after what you’ve been through?”
Charley did not answer. He was looking at the photo of Mrs Mead on his chief’s desk. She had a goitre.
“Though, mind you, the war’s not been a surprise in this. The civilians have had their share, this time,” Mr Mead went on, keeping strictly to what he had thought out. “Yes, we’ve had our shares” he said.
There was no reply.
“Would you fancy a few days off?” he enquired, with no trace of sarcasm. “Takes time to settle down I shouldn’t wonder.”
“No thanks, Mr Mead.”
“Sure? Because you’d be welcome. Well don’t worry your head too much over that contract. You’re doing quite nicely, Summers. That’s all. But give us a ring next time.”
Again Charley said nothing, left without another word. That was one point Mr Mead did not like about the little talk. The other was, that he had not called him sir.
Miss Pitter nervously waited back in their room.
“Well, you do look down,” she began, at his face, when he came in. “He didn’t give you the sack, surely?” she asked, to be playful. But he ignored her.
“You were only away twenty-four hours, when all’s said. But in any case you’ve got your full six months, I mean you’re entitled to that, aren’t you, after discharge from the army?” Her voice was more serious. She could not make him out at all. “They must keep you the full six months,” she ended.
He said nothing. She lost interest. Then he did a thing he had never done. Taking up the receiver he said, “Excuse me. Private business.”
“You’d rather I went out for a minute? Why sure.”
But she remembered the cupboard outside, from which you could hear anything in this room. She thought he was going to ring his girl, in which case there might be something that rated an eavesdrop. She shut herself in, unobserved.
He began hurriedly speaking.
“Middlewitch?” he asked, “Middlewitch?”
“Middlewitch that you? I say about Rose …,” then his voice stopped. If she could have seen him, she would have noticed he kept swallowing hard.
“Charley Rose?” Mr Middlewitch returned. “Ran across him the day before yesterday. We were talking about you. Why? D’you want him?”
“Charley Rose?” Mr Summers stammered, and with a sigh Miss Pitter left the cupboard. After all it wasn’t very nice to listen to someone else’s private conversation.
“Must see you some time?” Charley managed to bring out.
But Mr Middlewitch had pretty well had enough of Summers. In his shrewd opinion Charley was moonstruck. That time they had lunch together the man hardly behaved as if he knew what to do with his knife and fork, even. Here and now, on the phone, it was worse than ever. Long crazy silences. And not ten o’clock yet. So he said,
“Why, my dear old boy, what a question. Any day you choose. Look, I tell you what. You ring me up next week. I’m a bit snowed under, just at present. Why, what on earth’s old Charley Rose been doing?”
“Not Charley Rose,” the voice came back, and seemed to be short of breath, “Rose,” it said.
“Got to go now. You give me a tinkle next week,” and Mr Middlewitch rang off then. And he forgot.
So Middlewitch, in one manner or another, managed to avoid him. It was harder for Mrs Frazier to keep out of the way. But she was no help, for she seemed to know so very little. All she would admit, when he got at her, was that she had never met Rose, that, years ago, she was acquainted with Mr Grant, who had recommended Middlewitch, as he had recommended Charley. No more than that.
His work at the office began to suffer seriously.
Then, one afternoon, while Dot was doing her best to keep him straight with the correspondence, he again saw this whole thing as a whole. What he saw was that, somehow or other, Rose had, in fact, become a tart, gone on the streets.
Once he realized, everything seemed to fit. And he made sure he must deliver her.
He did not hesitate, he shot out of the office while Miss Pitter was in the middle of what she was saying. He did remember to mention he had a call to make. And then, with what he considered to be extraordinary cunning, he bought a cup and saucer to take along, intending that this should be his excuse when she answered the door.
He hurried. The shop girl had liked his eyes and wrapped the china up. He took this off while he was still on Miss Whitmore’s stairs. He knocked, carefully holding the crockery to his chest. Surprisingly enough she was up and in. She opened.
It was Rose again.
He forgot the plans he had made.
“It’s about me,” he said in haste, “about myself,” he explained, slipping past her.
“No you don’t,” she said. “Not now.”
“I can’t help myself. I’m desperate.”
“Well so am I, that is whensoever I see you. So get out.” She held the door ajar, behind.
“I brought the cup and saucer,” he said. But it was probably the look in his eyes, like a dog’s. Anyhow she seemed to soften.
“Right,” she said. “Thanks. Now then be off.” She spoke as though she did not mean to deny him.
“Had to do this,” he explained.
“There’s no more tea,” she replied. “I’m short.”
He took heart at these last two words. But she had the door open yet. He felt and felt what to say. He said nothing.
It did the trick. She shut the door.
“I can’t make you out,” she said. “What is the matter with you? Why don’t you come out with it? Not that that will be any use,” she ended, her voice hardening.
They stood facing each other.
“Look we’ve got to do something over this,” he began.
“Over what?”
He could not go on.
“Are you proposing to have another of your turns?” she asked. “Well, I suppose you’d better sit then.” He took a seat.
“Oh Rose,” he said.
“Here we go round the old mulberry bush,” she answered. “But at least this time you can’t do any damage now you’re seated. I hurt my side with you, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, obviously taken up with just gazing at her. She became quite gay.
“I’m crazy really, that’s what I’m like on occasions.” She lit a cigarette. “There you are, a stranger I’ve never seen but once, and then how, and here’s me entertaining you. What d’you think?”
He thought nothing. He took out a handkerchief, sat watching his hands as he dried them.
“Now what about if I ask one or two questions since you are here,” she said. “Just for a change? How did you get this address?”
He muttered a request to her not to be angry with him, keeping his eyes down.
“No, go on,” she said. “That other day you caught me bending. It doesn’t mean a thing. Why should it?”
“Mr Grant,” he explained, as though guilty. He was terribly confused.
“Well?” she asked. “What about my old dad? And what is he up to, sending you? That is, if you’re to tell the truth?”
“Then he is … you are …?” and he could not go on. He was looking at her in a way she could not understand.
“Why stare at me like that?” she said. “Don’t you smoke?” He shook his head.
“Here, what is the matter with your leg? Were you really wounded?”
“Oh yes,” he said, eager. “Out in France.”
“Then d’you know him? My dad, I mean?”
“Of course I know him,” he replied, suddenly abrupt. “Why I tell you …”
“All right, all right,” she interrupted. “I only asked didn’t I? Because I thought it might be old Arthur up to one of his larks.”
“Arthur?”
“Arthur Middlewitch of course. You made out you knew him, last time.”