"There's things I've got to break ^-gently."
"Keep away from me. Or I'll scream."
The woman stopped. "Now let's talk sensible, dear.
I'm here for your own good. You got to be saved.
Why " she seemed for a moment at a loss for words--she said in a hushed voice: "Your life's in danger."
"You go away if that's all "
"All!" The woman was shocked. "What do you mean, all?" Then she laughed resolutely. "Why, dear, for a moment you had me rattled. All, indeed! It's enough, isn't it? I'm not joking now. If you don't know it, you got to know it. There's nothing he wouldn't stop at."
"Well?" Rose said, giving nothing away.
The woman whispered softly across the few feet between them: "He's a murderer."
"Do you think I don't know that?" Rose said.
"God's sake," the woman said, "do you mean?"
"There's nothing you can tell me."
"You crazy little fool to marry him knowing that.
I got a good mind to let you be."
"I won't complain," Rose said.
The woman hooked on another smile, as you hook on a wreath. "I'm not going to lose my temper, dear.
Why, if I let you be, I wouldn't sleep at nights. It wouldn't be Right. Listen to me; maybe you don't know what happened. I got it all figured out now.
They took Fred down under the parade, into one of those little shops and strangled him least they would have strangled him, but his heart gave out first." She said in an awe-struck voice: "They strangled a dead man," then added sharply: "You aren't listening."
"I know it all," Rose lied. She was thinking hard she was remembering Pinkie's warning "Don't get mixed up." She thought wildly and vaguely: he did his best for me--1 got to help him now. She watched the woman closely: she would never forget that plump, good-natured, ageing face, it stared out at her like an idiot's from the ruins of a bombed home. She said: "Well, if you think that's how it was, why don't you go to the police?"
"Now you're talking sense," the woman said. "I only want to make things clear. This is the way it is, dear. There's a certain person I've paid money to who's told me things. And there's things I've figured out for myself. But that person he won't give evidence. For reasons. And you need a lot of evidence seeing how the doctors made it natural death. Now if you "
"Why don't you give it up?" Rose said. "It's over and done, isn't it? Why not let us all be?"
"It wouldn't be right. Besides he's dangerous.
Look what happened here the other day. You don't tell me that was an accident."
"You haven't thought, have you," Rose said, "why he did it? You don't kill a man for no reason."
"Well, why did he?"
"I don't know."
"Ask him."
"I don't need to know."
"You think he's in love with you," the woman saidj "he's not."
"He married me."
"And why? Because they can't make a wife give evidence. You're just a witness like that other man was. My dear" she again tried to close the gap between them "I only want to save you. He'd kill you soon as look at you if he thought he wasn't safe."
With her back to the bed Rose watched her approach. She let her put her large cool pastry-making hands upon her shoulders. "People change," she said.
"Oh, no, they don't. Look at me. I've never changed.
It's like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you'll still read Brighton. That's human nature." She breathed mournfully over Rose's face a sweet and winy breath.
"Confession... repentance," Rose whispered.
"That's just religion," the woman said. "Believe me. It's the world we got to deal with." She went pat pat on Rose's shoulder, her breath whistling in her throat. "You just pack a bag and come away with me.
I'll look after you. You won't have any cause to fear."
"Pinkie..."
"FU look after Pinkie."
Rose said: "I'll do anything anything you want..."
"That's the way to talk, dear."
"If you'll let us alone."
The woman backed away. A momentary look of fury was hung up among the wreaths discordantly.
"Obstinate," she said. "If I was your mother... a good hiding." The bony and determined face stared back at her; all the fight there was in the world lay there warships cleared for action and bombing fleets took flight between the set eyes and the stubborn mouth. It was like the map of a campaign marked with flags.
"Another thing," the woman bluffed. "They can send you to jail. Because you know. You told me so. An accomplice, that's what you are. After the fact."
"If they took Pinkie, do you think," she asked with astonishment, "I'd mind?"
"Gracious," the woman said, "I only came here for your sake. I wouldn't have troubled to see you first, only I don't want to let the Innocent suffer" the aphorism came clicking out like a ticket from a slot machine. "Why, won't you lift a finger to stop him killing you?"
"He wouldn't do me any harm."
"You're young. You don't know things like I do."
"There's things you don't know." She brooded darkly by the bed, while the woman argued on: a God wept in a garden and cried out upon a cross--Molly Carthew went to everlasting fire.
"I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school."
Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right; the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods Good and Evil. The woman could tell her nothing she didn't know about these she knew by tests as clear as mathematics that Pinkie was evil what did it matter in that case whether he was right or wrong?
"You're crazy," the woman said. "I don't believe you'd lift a finger if he was killing you."
Rose came slowly back to the outer world "greater love hath no man than this." She said: "Perhaps I wouldn't. I don't know. But perhaps..."
"If I wasn't a kind woman I'd give you up. But I've got a sense of responsibility." Her smiles hung very insecurely when she paused at the door. "You can warn that young husband of yours," she said, "I'm getting warm to him. I got my plans." She went out and closed the door; then flung it open again for a last attack. "You be careful, dear," she said. "You don't want a murderer's baby," and grinned mercilessly across the bare bedroom floor. "You better take precautions."
Precautions... Rose stood at the bed and pressed a hand against her body, as if under that pressure she could discover... That had never entered her mindj and the thought of what she might have let herself in for came like a sense of glory. A child... and that child would have a child... it was like raising an army of friends for Pinkie. If They damned him and her, They'd have to damn them too. She'd see to that.
There was no end to what the two of them had done last night upon the bed: it was an eternal act.
The Boy stood back in the doorway of the newspaper shop and saw Ida Arnold come out. She looked a little flushed, a little haughty sailing down the street} she paused and gave a small boy a penny. He was so surprised he dropped it, staring after her heavy and immaculate retreat.
The Boy gave a sudden laugh, rusty and halfhearted. He thought: She's drunk... Dallow said: "That was a narrow squeak."
"What was?"
"Your mother-in-law. "
"Her... how did you know?"
"She asked for Rose."
The Boy put down the News of the World upon the counter; a headline stood up "Assault on Schoolgirl in Epping Forest." He walked across to Billy's, thinking hard, and up the stairs. Half-way he stopped; she'd dropped an artificial violet from a spray; he picked it off the stair: it smelt of Calif ornian Poppy. Then he went in, holding the flower concealed in his palm, and Rose came across to him, welcoming. He avoided her mouth. "Well," he said and tried to express in his face a kind of rough and friendly jocularity, "I hear your Mum's been visiting you," and waited anxiously and avidly for her reply.