ON THE day before the move was to take place, Roberta had slept late, tired out by all the endless unforeseen details that had to be attended to. She woke to a strange white light and an unearthly stillness and, suspecting what she would see, she threw a shawl over her shoulders and went to the window. A charm of snow lay over the countryside – it was the first fall of the winter and, as always, seemed to Roberta momentous and fantastic. The familiar landmarks were transformed or altogether blotted out, the low round hills melted into the sky, paths had disappeared, hedges bowed low, distinctions of tone and colour were non-existent. This withdrawal into anonymity of her beloved view seemed to Roberta like a gesture of farewell.
She sighed and hastened into the warmth of the sitting-room. Telephone bells began to ring.
“At least we are not cut off,” said Kitty.
“Clare always said this would happen if I moved in January. I do wish she wasn’t so often right,” said Roberta. “Will everything have to be put off?”
But it appeared that, if there were no further falls and no disastrous thaw followed by a freeze, all would go ahead as planned: Alex would arrive at nine o’clock the next day to take Roberta to Coleridge Court, leaving Kitty to follow with the men and van.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to manage, Kit?”
“Of course. I’m an old hand. They’re certain to be nice men, you’ll see.”
“Alex has taken the day off,” said Roberta. “He’s going to help me get straight.”
“Good, you’ll need to feel at home as soon as possible in this weather. And won’t you be glad of the central heating, you old Spartan?” said Kitty.
No further snow fell and Roberta did not know whether she was glad or sorry. The hours of waiting now seemed endless, as waiting so often does, yet she clung to them; as long as they lasted, she was still herself – still at home. During the brief daylight the sun failed to pierce the gun-metal sky and any light there was seemed to come from the snow-laden earth.
Kitty cleared a space in the garden upon which to scatter crumbs for the birds. “It isn’t deep,” she said, “it ought to be all right.” Later Roberta caught her coming down from the attic. She looked guilty and was carrying an empty saucer.
“Kitty,” Roberta exclaimed, “don’t tell me you’ve been putting food out for that rat?”
“Well, I expect he’s terribly hungry,” said Kitty, “it’ll keep him from foraging below stairs. You were too fast asleep but I heard him last night. Besides, don’t you want him to have lovely last memories of Rowanbank? He’ll be off as soon as the builders move in.”
“Oh, Kit!” cried Roberta and suddenly wanted to laugh and cry at once.
The next day, though the snow remained, the roads had been cleared and the removal men arrived punctually, but when Roberta opened the door for them she was dismayed to see two frail-looking little gnomes grinning up at her. Even Kitty was taken aback and rushed to the kitchen to put on the kettle, muttering: “Best fatten them up a little before anything else.”
The gnomes, however, seemed both friendly and capable and, after consuming mugs of strong sweet tea, set about their work without delay. The smaller of the two seemed to be in charge. He assumed at once a fatherly attitude towards Roberta.
“Now don’t you worry, lady,” he said, “the weather’s OK, there won’t be much on the roads this morning, and so we’ll get along all the quicker, but we can’t have you catching cold. You leave everything to me and my brother, we’ve never hurt or harmed a piece yet, have we, Ned?”
Ned nodded and patted the frame of the mirror. “Nice bit here,” he said appreciatively.
“You do understand, only the things with the red and green labels are to go to London – the blue ones are to stay here.”
“Yes, lady,” said the chief gnome. “Pity, though, I don’t like homes broken up, see? Fanciful, I know, but seems as though all these pieces have got used to living together.”
I never expected removal men to be so human, thought Roberta. Perhaps it’s because they’re such small ones – I do hope they’ll be equal to lifting and carrying everything. It’s a good thing they haven’t got to cope with the piano.
Actually, however, once they set to they began to deal with the furniture so rapidly that she was relieved when Alex’s car arrived for it was certainly time to be off if she was to arrive at the flat before the van, so she drove away at last in a bustle and had no time to think or to feel.
There was no snow at all in the London streets, only in the garden of Coleridge Court little patches of irrelevant whiteness showed up under the bedraggled bushes. It all appeared rather sordid and desolate. “Get a kettle on as soon as you arrive,” Kitty had said, “tea’s the priority in a move,” and she had packed a basket with the necessities and thrust it at Roberta on parting so that, obediently obeying instructions, she did not stop to consider anything but that the flat seemed warm, that the gas cooker was functioning and that the rooms looked too small for anything but dolls’ furniture. This dismayed her, but almost at once the van drew up before the door and Kitty marched in.
“Here we are again,” she announced loudly. “Have you got tea ready? My dear, they’re twins, Fred and Ned, absolute pets.”
The gnomes, who had followed close behind, looked gratified and accepted their ritual mugs with pleasure and soon all once more was in rapid motion.
“Let’s get lady’s bed in first and make it nice and comfortable for her,” said the fatherly Fred.
Does he expect me to jump into it here and now? thought Roberta. I only wish I could. Instead she found herself breathlessly busy. Ejected from the van with remarkable rapidity, each object demanded an immediate resting place. The larger pieces presented no difficulty; it was the little articles and worst of all those unwanted, forgotten shamemaking bits and pieces – a shabby wastepaper basket unaccountably still full of rubbish, old boxes with forgotten rusty tools, an incredible pair of Charles’s wellingtons – where had they been hiding and what on earth should she do with them? Fred and Ned carried each bit of rubbish tenderly in and set it down carefully in the tiny hall. Surely that must be all now, thank Heavens, thought Roberta, for there was a lull at last. But it was not all. She looked out of the window and saw, blocking up the whole approach, the large old garden seat. It looked enormous out of its context.
The gnomes, having lowered it on its side, edged round it and called to her, “Where shall we take this, lady?”
“But it ought never to have come!” exclaimed Roberta.
“I told him,” suddenly spoke up the hitherto subservient Ned, “it didn’t have no red label. I told him but he don’t listen to me.”
“Easy now, Ned,” said the other, “it didn’t have no blue one neither. It was like this, lady, see, this here was lying on it and this had a red one on, OK, so I took it that both was meant to come together.”
He held out a small bundle of gardening tools, a little weeding fork, and trowel and a pair of secateurs and a pair of gloves, all of which Roberta had put together with her window-boxes in mind. She remembered now having left them on the bench after labelling them and she supposed she had overlooked the bench itself – perhaps the snow was to blame, but it was no use bothering about that now.
“Yes I quite understand,” she said to Fred, “but I can’t think what we can do with it.”
“Oh, well,” said Alex, “something like this was bound to happen. It’ll just have to go back again, that’s all.”
Fred scratched his head. “That’ll be arkard,” he said, “we got another move on today before we finish, down Essex way; just in time for it, and we’ll want all the room in the van we can get.”
They all stood and looked at the seat, which lay there obstinately asserting its right to exist.
“Wait a sec,” said Kitty suddenly, “I’ve got an idea. Your phone’s connected, isn’t it, Roberta?” She vanished but reappeared again very soon.
“It’s all right, I got on to the warden at once and she says to put it in the square garden for the time being, and your garden key is hanging behind the kitchen door – oh, and she says she hopes everything is all right and will you let her know if you want anything.”
The gnomes’ faces cleared and they carried the seat across the road. It was set down under a big old lilac tree where it at once took on an air of permanence. “Pity it can’t stay there; it looks at home, like,” said Fred.
“Well, who knows,” said Alex, ‘it might be possible. I should think the tenants would welcome it and it would make it seem more like your garden, wouldn’t it, Gran?”
Roberta assented vaguely; she did not at the moment feel that the square could ever seem like her own garden, but she was too tired to care. She was conscious only of relief that a crisis had been at least temporarily resolved and that soon the men would go and she could relax. This, after a final round of tea, they proceeded to do, taking Kitty with them.
“Fred says he’ll drop me at the Angel,” Kitty said. “I’ve got to be at the hospital by four today, but I’ll come round as soon as I can tomorrow to help get you straight.”
“I can’t be grateful enough to you,” said Roberta. How kind everybody was being, she thought, and what a nuisance she was. Now here was Alex starting already to hang her curtains and pictures.
“I’ll just get these out of the way and then perhaps we could have something to eat,” he said. “Tea’s all very well but I’m starving.”
“I’ve got enough food here somewhere,” said Roberta, “only I don’t know where anything is.”
“We’ll go out then,” said Alex. “Is this where you want the mirror? There! That’s a good job done!”
But Roberta, who had carefully planned her walls beforehand, now saw that the total effect was wrong.
“Oh, Alex!” she exclaimed. “The Still Life – I thought it would fit nicely there, but it’s crowded by the door, and the landscapes are too high, and the mirror too low – oh, why am I such a fool?”
She was in a daze of exhaustion, exasperation and grief.
“Come and eat,” said Alex.
When they got back she certainly felt better but the pictures still looked wrong.
“The Japanese say about their gardens: ‘If you place stones in the wrong order your house will fall down.’ So it is important,” she pleaded.
“Well, I’ll alter them then,” said Alex cheerfully; “not to worry, but then I must be going.”
“I’ve kept you too long already,” said Roberta. “Clare will think there’s been an accident.”
She sat back and watched and saw that she had been right and wondered why the correct placing of objects mattered so much. It was of immense comfort, she felt that it should be so, a sort of reassurance about the universe.
“There’s more snow forecast,” said Alex, drawing the newly hung curtains, “we’ve been lucky it’s held off today. If we’re in for a bad spell now it’ll be such a comfort to know that you’re snug and warm here instead of shivering away at Rowanbank.”
“I’ll fetch your coat, dear,” said Roberta without comment.
After he had gone, she sat motionless before the place where the fire ought to have been and stared round at the strange little box in which, unaccountably now it seemed, she found herself. She sought some assurance of continued identity from the few household goods she had brought with her but, removed from the surroundings she had always known them in, they appeared unfamiliar, as if she were seeing them for the first time. She realized that it was long since she had actually looked at them at all – that queer little cupboard, for instance, that really handsome mirror, that rug, nice but worn…. Her eyes travelled over them critically as objects existing in their own right, unencrusted by associations. She herself felt curiously weightless and empty and a little dizzy. “Lawks a mercy, this is none of I,” she quoted fearfully to herself.
Presently she made an effort to find the necessary equipment for a meal, which was a difficult and lengthy process. Then she went to bed. She was tired out but she could not sleep. It was neither dark nor light, for a lamp outside could not be satisfactorily excluded; neither was it noisy or quiet, since through the window, open because of the heating, came the unremitting roar of London which sounded even more clearly as, hour after slow hour, the nearer noises were hushed. Every now and again the radiator gave a gurgle and Roberta listened for it and hated it. The sense of lost identity grew stronger and she began to panic.
“I’ve made a mistake, I’ve made a great mistake,” she said aloud, “I must go back.” But she knew she couldn’t.
At last she fell into an uneasy doze in which she was searching feverishly for something, she did not know what, that was gone beyond recall. She was wakened by the ringing of her telephone and stumbled out of bed to answer it.
“Roberta Curling speaking,” she said, and hoped this still was true. There was no reply but she distinctly heard a sound of deep breathing. “Who is it?” she enquired anxiously.
Silence – then a high shrill voice proclaimed: “It’s me, Bertram, me!”
“Oh,” said Roberta with relief. “Oh, darling, how lovely to hear you! How are you? How clever of you to phone.”
No reply, only another long pause and then rather faint and far away; “Goodbye … goodbye.”
But Roberta did not ring off, for she could still make out the breathing and at last, just as she was giving up, there came a loud triumphant “Hullo” and then the receiver clicked back into place.