Rosa kept her promise and took me out to tea, although the red-setter puppies were howling their heads off and little Hank didn’t seem able to manage them very well. I felt rather guilty leaving him all by himself. There was a dying duck, too, that had eaten laburnum seeds and needed a lot of attention, as it seemed to have an unquenchable thirst; so I went into the animals’ room to give Hank last instructions. He gazed at me in my new clothes, and said, ‘Oh, Miss!’ and even the puppies stopped howling for a moment. Rosa stood at the door shouting, ‘Hurry up, do! and leave those blasted animals.’
Just as we passed through the rusty iron gate, a small girl with a cat in a bag appeared. The cat’s indignant head protruded out of the bag and it was making noises rather like a baby. I stopped to wait for the child, but Rosa pinched my arm, and said, ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake. I’ve had enough of this,’ so we passed the child. I looked over my shoulder and saw her standing on the doorstep talking to Hank, and I knew Father would be angry. It might have been an emergency that needed instant attention. Once someone came running to the house with a mad cat in a sack. It had been partly cooked in the oven by mistake. I kept asking Rosa if I could return and telling her about the half-roasted cat, but she impatiently exclaimed, ‘Fiddlesticks! Don’t you ever want to enjoy yourself, you little misery!’ And we went on.
We came to the High Street, where shoppers were darting about in all directions followed by children – little girls with their hats low on their brows and their crimped hair flowing and small boys with peaky white faces, eating toffee-apples and scuffling the toes of their boots. I wanted to look in a flower-shop window, but Rosa hustled me on as if we had a train to catch. There was a fascinating hairdresser’s window, with wonderful wigs and wax men and women simpering at each other and looking like people from another world; but she wouldn’t let me gaze at their bland and innocent faces and fungus-like hair. There was a smell of baking bread, and warm air came up my knickers through gratings in the pavement, and we had arrived at Rosa’s tea-shop. In the window stood a wedding-cake that was seven cakes in one, all decorated in white and silver with doves and flowers and little silver shoes; and I thought, ‘If only men were like the heroes in books, how lovely it would be to get married and have a cake like that!’ Rosa looked at the cake quite longingly, too, and said, ‘I bet, if I married your father, he’d never buy me a wedding-cake, him being a widower and all,’ and her face became a sad clown’s until we went into the restaurant. Then she began rolling her eyes and smiling.
It wasn’t nearly as grand as the hotel dining-room Blinkers had taken me to, but it was nice and clean, and the table-cloth was starched and pure white. Rosa kept saying how smart it was and exclaiming about the silver teapot and the little forks we were given to eat the things called pastries with. She had forgotten her previous impatience and had suddenly become very gay and kept calling me ‘dear’: ‘You must forgive me, dear, if I was a little impatient with you earlier on, but we seemed to be wasting all the afternoon and I’d been looking forward to giving you a little treat.’ I felt rather beastly and ungrateful, and tried to be cheerful. I said how lovely I thought cream horns were, although the pastry got stuck in my throat.
An enormous tabby cat came and sat on the chair next to me and I rubbed its bullet-like old head. Above its faint, hoarse purr, I suddenly heard Rosa say, ‘Why, Mr Cuthbert! This is a surprise! Won’t you join us for a cup of tea? This is my little friend, Alice.’ And there was the greasy-haired, cheeky man I’d seen all dressed in green livery, only he was dressed in navy-blue now with stripes. He snatched my hand and shook it up and down, and then suddenly put it to his lips, which caused Rosa to go into shrieks of laughter. Everyone seemed to be looking at us. I pulled my hand away, and could feel my face going red and my eyes filling with tears. The frightful Cuthbert exclaimed, ‘You are a shy one, and no mistake!’
I endured a few minutes of Cuthbert’s conversation, but when I found his hand stroking my thigh, I stood up and told Rosa I was going home. She was angry at first. Then I saw her exchange glances with Cuthbert, and she said, ‘Well, dear, if you feel like that, we’ll all go home together,’ and we left the tea-shop.
We walked along the High Street together. I was like a prisoner between Rosa and the revolting little man, and hung my head in shame. He pinched my arm and said, ‘Shy, eh?’ I wasn’t shy, just ashamed. We turned into another busy street and Rosa said, ‘I thought we’d just have a little look at the hotel where Mr Cuthbert works.’ We came to a large pub painted dark brown. There was an arch which ran through the middle of the building to some stables; and there was fine wire mesh in the windows, with ‘Tap Room’, ‘Dining-room’ and ‘Lounge’ worked in gold. We walked under the arch and I said, ‘Why are we going here? I want to go home,’ and Cuthbert said, ‘’Arf a mo’, dear. I just wanted to show you the talking jackdaw. It’s got bright blue eyes and is a real comic little talker.’ I felt afraid as if I was near something terrible, though there was nothing terrible, just a quiet yard with stables all round and a kind-faced horse was looking out of one, its grey head hanging over the door. My throat felt all dry and tight and I couldn’t speak. Rosa gripped my arm very hard and Cuthbert held the other.
We came to the jackdaw’s cage. There he was hopping about just like any other bird except that his eyes were blue and he didn’t say a word. We were right at the end of the yard now. Through an open door I could see a saddle-room with a little fire burning in the grate. We stood in front of the bird’s cage and nobody said anything, but Cuthbert gave Rosa a cigarette and when he went to light it he struck the match across his teeth only using one hand. Then Rosa suddenly let go of my arm. I nearly fell because my legs felt so weak. I hardly knew how it had happened, but Cuthbert had dragged me into the saddle-room and we were there together. Rosa had gone. I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t open. Cuthbert laughed and said, ‘Come on, now, don’t be coy,’ and then his dreadful face was close to mine and he was kissing me and tearing at my clothes. He dragged me down to the floor, and we were linked together. I tried to scream, but no noise came. Then I started to bite, and bit his face and bit it till I could taste salt blood in my mouth. He gave me a great blow on the head, but still I bit, and then I was free and he wasn’t touching me at all, and suddenly I found I could scream. When he put his hand over my mouth, I bit again. Then he stood up and started kicking me as I lay on the ground, but I could still scream. He muttered, ‘Shut up, you bloody little fool!’ Then he opened the door and ran away.
I lay on the floor, too frightened to move, but he didn’t come back. Somehow I managed to stagger to my feet. My head was throbbing and wouldn’t come straight, but hung down on one shoulder. In the darkness bright lights seemed to appear in my eyes, like giant sparkler fireworks. I didn’t notice all the pains that had come until I walked, and then they were all over me. I felt very tired and dirty. In the darkness I tried to find my gloves – my belt had gone as well as part of my blouse, and, as I stumbled about, I found I was repeating my twelve times table, although I’d never known it properly before. I remembered the lessons I’d learnt in the little school I’d attended with Lucy. There was a laurel hedge very near the window, and the revolving globe of the world was really a tin biscuit-barrel. For a minute I could even smell exercise-books and ink, and remember the fascination of mastering the figure eight so that it wasn’t a little circle on a slightly larger circle but a beautiful twisting shape.
I touched my cheeks. They were stiff with Cuthbert’s dirty dried blood, and my lips were swollen, too. I felt my teeth because they hurt and I thought they might be all broken; but they were still there, smooth and firm in my mouth. I thought, ‘There is no hope for me – no hope at all,’ and slow tears mixed with the dirty blood on my face. I dragged myself out of that frightful little room and somehow reached the street. The lamps were lit, all shining on me in my disgrace, and I saw people looking at me, so I turned my face to the wall and pushed my hair over it. The big black hat I’d been wearing wasn’t there any more and I was glad it belonged to Rosa and was probably all torn and crushed now.
I stood outside our house. I could see my father in the gaslight standing by his roll-top desk sort of snarling to himself. I dared not go into the house all pulled about and stained; so I stood there in the road until I saw Rosa come into Father’s room, smiling her forced, bright smile. She came towards the window. Perhaps she only meant to pull the curtains; but I was afraid of her, and ran away where it was dark. I kept to the dark little streets until I found myself in the street where Mrs Churchill lived. I remembered she had said she would be my friend, and I went to her house. There was music coming out and I knew it must be ‘our Vera’ playing the piano; but it stopped when I knocked at the door, and the bark of dogs came instead. In the dark little hall Mrs Churchill came and let me into her house. She took me to her front room, where her daughter Vera sat at the piano in her pink blouse. Vera screamed when she saw me and Mrs Churchill cried, ‘Oh Lors!’ and suddenly I felt damp round my mouth and a sort of singing came, and I was falling.
They said I’d fainted. I lay on a red plush couch, and felt the pile with my finger-nails. Mrs Churchill was bathing my face and mopping at it with a towel that smelt sour, and Vera was standing by with a cup of tea. In front of the fire the two fattest dogs I’d ever seen lay panting and scratching. I drank the tea to please them, although it was difficult because when I sat up my head hurt so much. The room was very hot and bright and they were so kind; even the panting dogs before the fire had kind faces. I told them about Rosa and the terrible Cuthbert and the jackdaw with blue eyes; but I couldn’t tell them everything because I was so ashamed – however many baths I had I’d never be really clean again. They lent me an enormous night-dress of Mrs Churchill’s and let me sleep on the sofa under dark blankets. I lay there, very hot, and listened to their voices the other side of the wall. Once I heard a child cry out and thought it must be Vera’s boy; once I heard the deep voice of ‘Dad’, who sounded as if he was talking through a greasy bowler hat.
In the night I was awake and floating. As I went up, the blankets fell to the floor. I could feel nothing below me – and nothing above until I came near the ceiling and it was hard to breathe there. I thought, ‘I mustn’t break the gas globe.’ I felt it carefully with my hands, and something very light fell in them, and it was the broken mantle. I kept very still up there because I was afraid of breaking other things in that small crowded room; but quite soon, it seemed, I was gently coming down again. I folded my hands over my chest and kept very straight, and floated down to the couch where I’d been lying. I was not afraid, but very calm and peaceful. In the morning I knew it wasn’t a dream because the blankets were still on the floor and I saw the gas mantle was broken and the chalky powder was still on my hands.