She lived close by. A green-painted lamp with rust on it, a dozen narrow steps, zinc handrails either side, a table, steaming food, a dark place, bright metal and white plates, the staircase leading away. I turned my back. “Eat in this place?” I said loudly, stopped suddenly, interrupted. “It is, is it? Terrible?” Then her terror disappeared; she behaved as though she were welcoming me home – she referred to the food: “When did you last eat?” “I haven’t eaten. I’m not hungry.” To save trouble, she said, I should take my meals in the restaurant, set out on a cloth. I guessed why. I nodded towards the stairway. “Is there anyone here tonight?” “The person who has been sharing the room left yesterday.” It would be possible for me to have my old room back, but I must understand why, and on what conditions. I said I had hoped to return home with her, after what I had seen. “It’s late in the month,” she sniffed. “One returning after so long should expect this particular difficulty. Everybody comes, and stays for days – a whole week at a time; you should see the crowds we have in this house.” I picked up my possessions and began to climb the stairs. “You can have half, then.” “A man doesn’t come back for half.”
The door was open; light filtered through dirty windows. The room was adequate. Fireplace, table facing windows, against the wall by the door a side table with necessities on it. Four chairs. Beyond the small table, a cupboard in which, among rubbish stuffed away, were two painted jugs, a cup decorated with the figure of Frederick the Great, a plate with a ship painted on it, a note found in a drawer, a bundle of papers written in order to be left behind. I examined the windows of the room, the lamp on which green letters were painted, attachments decorated with imitation leaves.
Staring idiotically at the closed door, I listened to two conversations continuing simultaneously. A man saying: “Not like you. The injustices, the iniquities of the system.” Her soft reply: “I’m not saying which one I would choose.” She sounded frightened; the door crashed open; her face showed in the doorway; she lost her balance; her shoulder fall was broken by the room, her face on the floor, flushed to the forehead. Light, bright light – yellow in the dark-looking burdened home. I followed, rested my knee on the curved window seat; ugly foundations of the old house – a tombstone from the old building. “We should celebrate my return.” “Tell me, what do you think of yourself?” My reputation for being uncommunicative about either my movements or my amusements would not let me reply. Illuminated by the moon, she smiled. I held a fold of her skirt. “Leave me alone.” I held a fold of sacking, looked down at the face of a child, ghastly with life, strong, violent. Betrayed, I sharply instructed her; she became frozen; I lost patience, I became an actor; she quiet, simple, cruel – an unhappy child shaped by the shape of a fall. “You killed.” She went for my cheeks with her nails; I tried to grab her – she got to the window, tried to leap out. “Murderer!” I dragged her back, put my hand over her mouth. I turned off the light.
Next morning she had a scab on her wrist – she stared in surprise; she was sick. The house was bright with daylight. She was unable to move – she said her back was broken – she lay with wide face asleep, without a word. I understood what had happened.
After three days I called the state doctor. He came gorgeously in gold buttons. He was worse than a priest. He wrapped her in sheets – sheets soaked in icy water. He made her stand; he ordered pills and massage. She wanted me to nurse her. She was choking to the point of suffocation. The heart was bad. She feared the knife. I rushed out of the room, listened through the half-open door. It was too late. He wrapped a blanket round the child to save its life. I banged the door shut. I remained by the side of the bed, watching the terror. The operation would help. She nodded. An envelope on the table under the lamp told me that she had received that morning… there was no time for discussion. He decided to inject. The reaction was terrific. The body sprang up in a violent fit, bleeding from the nose. The condition improved. It was intensely interesting to watch the case. The child must be removed or the mother would die. I knew of no suitable place. The arrangements were inadequate. The doctor ordered it to be removed. In the morning it had gone. I dared not tell her; I decided to wait. The body was taken and buried. I nearly fell. It must be buried. It was impossible; it was forbidden by law. The body must be burnt. I asked what would be the price for a first-class funeral and grave. Times were hard – there had been a rise in the price of coffins. Ten thousand would cover everything – flowers would be extra. I arranged to have the body burnt – it was against the law to embalm or otherwise preserve the body. The certificate was signed; the cause of death was the heart. The sum paid in advance would have saved its life. I visited it; I had reasons. The night was dark with rain; my foot against the soft earth; I fell. Neither wanted to tell her. She knew. She had been sitting up in bed; she thought she was dead, and said she had died – looked straight and knew. She wanted to write a letter to her father accusing herself; I told her such a letter might make her father crazy. The next morning she was carried down and taken home. She presented the nurse with two big trunks full of clothes, and a hat. I persuaded her to keep the hat. I spent an hour on my knees in the room, on the floor in a spare room – I can still see the carpet. I told her I was all right. I wanted sleep. My brain dropped. I was asleep. The bell rang. I heard her voice. She was standing on the table in her short white skirt and embroidered bolero, painting her eyes and her mouth. She asked me how much money there was in my wallet – she needed some of the cash at once as she had come to the end of her savings. I told her the wallet was empty, but I offered to loan her some money if she wished, and gave her my personal cheque. She borrowed from me several times, and I was told she borrowed from others. She developed a mania for economy, forbade the lighting of fires, and at each purchase of food she complained bitterly. I entrusted her with the dispatch of my reports, but rather than spend money on telegrams she sent them by ordinary post, though she knew that the messages were for immediate publication. I was accustomed to cigars of the highest quality, but she bought the cheapest and wrapped them in silver paper. I threw them onto the fire.
She had been years in the grave. I remembered her long curls, but now they were faded. She could not live again. But she found friends. Two middle-aged ladies began to take an interest in her. They took her out for walks with them. It became an unnatural thing. She fell in love with them. Then she sent them flowers, and they were returned burnt, and, with them, her note torn in pieces. With her memories of the dead she caused bitter suffering; she had no friends; in the night she cried terribly. She offended many people. She told them too plainly what she saw.
Only her father continued to welcome her. He gave her a job to do. Her duty was to read him the papers. She concentrated on the press reports of crime and scandal – these were the matters, rather than the famine which had set in, which interested him. He demanded her constant presence throughout the day, and refused to allow her time to prepare my meals. She grew tired of the work, and became devoted to little dogs and to plants. She brought home an object found in the street – a puppy sewn up in the skin of an animal. When he met her carrying two plants she had bought in the town, her father startled her by calling out: “Two lovers in her arms!” Their arguments grew, and they turned to me for an opinion, which I declined to give.
I climbed the hill towards the bridge, aware of the threats which shadowed my life. She refused to join me. I ate solitary, extravagantly, pouring on my plate the remains of her food – three large spoonsful. I stopped at two o’clock, torn between knowledge. My work to do. Her desire to sleep. I left the decision to her. “Do as you please. If you go out, do not come back a minute later than half-past two.” “I shan’t go far. I’ll take a walk to the bridge.”
The bridge had a hut by the entrance. The wooden-sided structure was divided into three – one part waited with benches, the other shivered and muttered – the other was interesting, with coloured bottles. I took the key from a hook near the door. One corner of the hut fulfilled many purposes. Its outer part, where the wall projected, served as a store for board and pegs. Coal was stored there. Beneath the windows, a carpenter’s bench. I touched the teeth of the saw, the cutting edge of a chisel. Her father had spent hundreds of hours working in wood and the lighter forms of iron. I pressed my face against the chisel. She looked away. “Enjoying yourself?” The voice came from her lean face. “Haven’t you had enough?” I ignored this attempt at humour. Her trembling increased. Her face shook. She said she had been on her way to see me, but had decided to keep away. “You said you wouldn’t mind.” “I never said that.” “What have you been doing?” I asked her, for something to say. “Nothing much.” With her head level with the second window, frightened of losing her balance, she started to look over her shoulder. She tried to stop in the right position, began to walk towards the mechanism; she tried to run but was unable to. “Funny way of running.” “I suppose it is.” “Are you coming?” I knew the signs. “Will you come for an hour?” “Longer than that.”
I went down the hill, unsmiling. I could see the bridge; I gazed down at the sides of the deep water; I had seen the road beyond – the new road did not go forwards. Higher on this side of the bridge, level with the tank from which water was piped to the town, the road approached from the far side; the wide road, its animal feet moving, pulling, it died away in the reeds along the banks.
I waited for her. She appeared from the bridge. We went through the old pantomime – I behaving as though my purpose was to caress, her insistence that more was needed – until despite denials and protests, she found the hidden gifts. We decided to return. She accepted the invitation, said that the evenings were usually empty, and that evening she had wanted me to come. We agreed on a meeting place: at the foot of the slope as we came off the bridge. “Will we need to repair the house?” “See for yourself when you get into the place,” she said serenely. I knew that, to begin with, new timber was needed. As the subject was of interest, before continuing to speak to her about it, I demanded an account of where she had been and whom she had seen. I could hear my voice thundering. My attitude terrified her. “I have been preparing for that question from the first. You know the story, the pattern, my family.” She began to turn the handle of the mechanism. She went back towards the bridge, pulling me with her, climbing the hill until we were high above and then down till we were exactly level with the door of her house. The road ended; we had gone through a narrow tunnel, and so into the yard. We walked up a path, and here was a waterway – the river grew wider. Reaching ground level after slithering down a grassy slope, she turned back to look at the chimney on the roof of her house. Guided by an unknown law, she defined her need and the way of satisfying it. In a recess about a yard deep, on the left side, up three stone steps, was the doorway to her house. Opposite was another door. Inside, a flight of wooden steps led down to the stone floor – a small compartment shuttered on two sides, one shutter facing the bank, another being used for ashes. “You’re lucky,” I said. “Our levels are now equal,” she began. Her speech became less precise every minute she remained inside the house. It was hot. “I cannot stay long. I have jobs to do. I wanted to go across the road for a chat. She was wiping her hands on her dress. “I’ve finished.” She went; I was by myself. I wondered whether or not I should have spoken in confidence. I didn’t know. Indecisive, I stared up at the lines which crossed to connect the two buildings. The cellar had been long unused. It was not likely that she would come back.