Keep the Aspidistra Flying (17 page)

‘And you think I ought to have stayed on at the New Albion, don’t you? You’d like me to go back there now and write slogans for QT Sauce and Tru-weet Breakfast Crisps. Wouldn’t you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I
never
said that.’

‘You thought it, though. It’s what any woman would think.’

He was being horribly unfair, and he knew it. The one thing Rosemary had never said, the thing she was probably incapable of saying, was that he ought to go back to the New Albion. But for the moment he did not even want to be fair. His sexual disappointment still pricked him. With a sort of melancholy triumph he reflected that, after all, he was right. It was money that stood between them. Money, money, all is money! He broke into a half-serious tirade:

‘Women! What nonsense they make of all our ideas! Because one can’t keep free of women, and every woman makes one pay the same price. “Chuck away your decency and make more money”—that’s what women say. “Chuck away your decency, suck the blacking off the boss’s boots and buy me a better fur coat than the woman next door.” Every man you can see has got some blasted woman hanging round his neck like a mermaid, dragging him down and down—down to some beastly little semidetached villa in Putney, with Drage furniture and a portable radio and an aspidistra in the window. It’s women who make all progress impossible. Not that I believe in progress,’ he added rather unsatisfactorily.

‘What absolute
nonsense
you do talk, Gordon! As though women were to blame for everything!’

‘They are to blame, finally. Because it’s the women who really believe in the money-code. The men obey it; they have to, but they don’t believe in it. It’s the women who keep it going. The women and their Putney villas and their fur coats and their babies and their aspidistras.’

‘It is
not
the women, Gordon! Women didn’t invent money, did they?’

‘It doesn’t matter who invented it, the point is that it’s women who worship it. A woman’s got a sort of mystical
feeling towards money. Good and evil in a woman’s mind mean simply money and no money. Look at you and me. You won’t sleep with me, simply and solely because I’ve got no money. Yes, that
is
the reason. (He squeezed her arm to silence her.) You admitted it only a minute ago. And if I had a decent income you’d go to bed with me tomorrow. It’s not because you’re mercenary. You don’t want me to
pay
you for sleeping with me. It’s not so crude as that. But you’ve got that deep-down mystical feeling that somehow a man without money isn’t worthy of you. He’s a weakling, a sort of half-man—that’s how you feel. Hercules, god of strength and god of money—you’ll find that in Lemprière. It’s women who keep all mythologies going. Women!’

‘Women!’ echoed Rosemary on a different note. ‘I hate the way men are always talking about
women
.”
Women
do this,” and “
Women
do that”—as though all women were exactly the same!’

‘Of course all women are the same! What does any woman want except a safe income and two babies and a semi-detached villa in Putney with an aspidistra in the window?’

‘Oh, you and your aspidistras!’

‘On the contrary,
your
aspidistras. You’re the sex that cultivates them.’

She squeezed his arm and burst out laughing. She was really extraordinarily good-natured. Besides, what he was saying was such palpable nonsense that it did not even exasperate her. Gordon’s diatribes against women were in reality a kind of perverse joke; indeed, the whole sex-war is at bottom only a joke. For some reason it is great fun to pose as a feminist or an anti-feminist according to your sex. As they walked on they began a violent argument upon the eternal and idiotic question of Man versus Woman. The moves in this argument—for they had it as often as they
met—were always very much the same. Men are brutes and women are soulless, and women have always been kept in subjection and they jolly well ought to be kept in subjection, and look at Patient Griselda and look at Lady Astor, and what about polygamy and Hindu widows, and what about Mother Pankhurst’s piping days when every decent woman wore mousetraps on her garters and couldn’t look at a man without feeling her right hand itch for a castrating knife? Gordon and Rosemary never grew tired of this kind of thing. Each laughed with delight at the other’s absurdities. There was a merry war between them. Even as they disputed, arm in arm, they pressed their bodies delightedly together. They were very happy. Indeed, they adored one another. Each was to the other a standing joke and an object infinitely precious. Presently a red and blue haze of Neon lights appeared in the distance. They had reached the beginning of the Tottenham Court Road. Gordon put his arm round her waist and turned her to the right, down a darkish side-street. They were so happy together that they had got to kiss. They stood clasped together under the lamp-post, still laughing, two enemies breast to breast. She rubbed her cheek against his.

‘Gordon, you are such a dear old ass! I can’t help loving you, scrubby jaw and all.’

‘Do you really?’

‘Really and truly.’

Her arms still round him, she leaned a little backwards, pressing her belly against his with a sort of innocent voluptuousness.

‘Life
is
worth living, isn’t it, Gordon?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘If only we could meet a bit oftener! Sometimes I don’t see you for weeks together.’

‘I know. It’s bloody. If you knew how I hate my evenings alone!’

‘One never seems to have time for anything. I don’t even leave that beastly office till nearly seven. What do you do with yourself on Sundays, Gordon?’

‘Oh, God! Moon about and look miserable, like everyone else.’

‘Why not let’s go out for a walk in the country sometimes. Then we could have all day together. Next Sunday, for instance?’

The words chilled him. They brought back the thought of money, which he had succeeded in putting out of his mind for half an hour past. A trip into the country would cost money, far more than he could possibly afford. He said in a non-committal tone that transferred the whole thing to the realm of abstraction:

‘Of course, it’s not too bad in Richmond Park on Sundays. Or even on Hampstead Heath. Especially if you go in the mornings before the crowds get there.’

‘Oh, but let’s go right out into the country! Somewhere in Surrey, for instance, or to Burnham Beeches. It’s so lovely at this time of year, with all the dead leaves on the ground, and you can walk all day and hardly meet a soul. We’ll walk for miles and miles and have dinner at a pub. It would be such fun. Do let’s!’

Blast! The money-business was coming back. A trip even as far as Burnham Beeches would cost all often bob. He did some hurried mental arithmetic. Five bob he might manage, and Julia would ‘lend’ him five;
give
him five, that was. At the same moment he remembered his oath, constantly renewed and always broken, not to ‘borrow’ money off Julia. He said in the same casual tone as before:

‘It
would
be rather fun. I should think we might manage it. I’ll let you know later in the week, anyway.’

They came out of the side-street, still arm in arm. There was a pub on the corner. Rosemary stood on tiptoe, and,
clinging to Gordon’s arm to support herself, managed to look over the frosted lower half of the window.

‘Look, Gordon, there’s a clock in there. It’s nearly half past nine. Aren’t you getting frightfully hungry?’

‘No,’ he said, instantly and untruthfully.

‘I am. I’m simply starving. Let’s go and have something to eat somewhere.’

Money again! One moment more, and he must confess that he had only four and fourpence in the world—four and fourpence to last till Friday.

‘I couldn’t eat anything,’ he said. ‘I might manage a drink, I dare say. Let’s go and have some coffee or something. I expect we’ll find a Lyons open.’

‘Oh, don’t let’s go to a Lyons! I know such a nice little Italian restaurant, only just down the road. We’ll have Spaghetti Napolitaine and a bottle of red wine. I adore spaghetti. Do let’s!’

His heart sank. It was no good. He would have to own up. Supper at the Italian restaurant could not possibly cost less than five bob for the two of them. He said almost sullenly:

‘It’s about time I was getting home, as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh, Gordon! Already? Why?’

‘Oh, well! If you
must
know, I’ve only got four and fourpence in the world. And it’s got to last till Friday.’

Rosemary stopped short. She was so angry that she pinched his arm with all her strength, meaning to hurt him and punish him.

‘Gordon, you
are
an ass! You’re a perfect idiot! You’re the most unspeakable idiot I’ve ever seen!’

‘Why am I an idiot?’

‘Because what does it matter whether you’ve got any money? I’m asking
you
to have supper with
me
.’

He freed his arm from hers and stood away from her. He did not want to look her in the face.

‘What! Do you think I’d go to a restaurant and let you pay for my food?’

‘But why not?’

‘Because one can’t do that sort of thing. It isn’t done.’

‘It “isn’t done”! You’ll be saying it’s “not cricket” in another moment.
What
“isn’t done”?’

‘Letting you pay for my meals. A man pays for a woman, a woman doesn’t pay for a man.’

‘Oh, Gordon! Are we living in the reign of Queen Victoria?’

‘Yes, we are, as far as that kind of thing’s concerned. Ideas don’t change so quickly.’

‘But
my
ideas have changed.’

‘No, they haven’t. You think they have, but they haven’t. You’ve been brought up as a woman, and you can’t help behaving like a woman, however much you don’t want to.’

‘But what do you mean by
behaving like a woman
, anyway?’

‘I tell you every woman’s the same when it comes to a thing like this. A woman despises a man who’s dependent on her and sponges on her. She may say she doesn’t, she may
think
she doesn’t, but she does. She can’t help it. If I let you pay for my meals
you’d
despise me.’

He had turned away. He knew how abominably he was behaving. But somehow he had got to say these things. The feeling that people—even Rosemary—
must
despise him for his poverty was too strong to be overcome. Only by rigid, jealous independence could he keep his self-respect. Rosemary was really distressed this time. She caught his arm and pulled him round, making him face her. With an insistent gesture, angrily and yet demanding to be loved, she pressed her breast against him.

‘Gordon! I won’t let you say such things. How can you say I’d ever despise you?’

‘I tell you you couldn’t help it if I let myself sponge on you.’

‘Sponge on me! What expressions you do use! How is it sponging on me to let me pay for your supper just for once?’

He could feel the small breasts, firm and round, just beneath his own. She looked up at him, frowning and yet not far from tears. She thought him perverse, unreasonable, cruel. But her physical nearness distracted him. At this moment all he could remember was that in two years she had never yielded to him. She had starved him of the one thing that mattered. What was the good of pretending that she loved him when in the last essential she recoiled? He added with a kind of deadly joy:

‘In a way you do despise me. Oh, yes, I know you’re fond of me. But after all, you can’t take me quite seriously. I’m a kind of joke to you. You’re fond of me, and yet I’m not quite your equal—that’s how you feel.’

It was what he had said before, but with this difference, that now he meant it, or said it as if he meant it. She cried out with tears in her voice:

‘I don’t, Gordon, I don’t! You
know
I don’t!’

‘You do. That’s why you won’t sleep with me. Didn’t I tell you that before?’

She looked up at him an instant longer, and then buried her face in his breast as suddenly as though ducking from a blow. It was because she had burst into tears. She wept against his breast, angry with him, hating him, and yet clinging to him like a child. It was the childish way in which she clung to him, as a mere male breast to weep on, that hurt him most. With a sort of self-hatred he remembered the other women who in just this same way had cried against his breast. It seemed the only thing he could do with women, to make them cry. With his arm round her shoulders he caressed her clumsily, trying to console her.

‘You’ve gone and made me cry!’ she whimpered in self-contempt.

‘I’m sorry! Rosemary, dear one! Don’t cry,
please
don’t cry.’

‘Gordon, dearest!
Why
do you have to be so beastly to me?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Sometimes I can’t help it.’

‘But why? Why?’

She had got over her crying. Rather more composed, she drew away from him and felt for something to wipe her eyes. Neither of them had a handkerchief. Impatiently, she wrung the tears out of her eyes with her knuckles.

‘How silly we always are! Now, Gordon,
be
nice for once. Come along to the restaurant and have some supper and let me pay for it.’

‘No.’

‘Just this once. Never mind about the old money-business. Do it just to please me.’

‘I tell you I can’t do that kind of thing. I’ve got to keep my end up.’

‘But what do you mean, keep your end up?’

‘I’ve made war on money, and I’ve got to keep the rules. The first rule is never to take charity.’

‘Charity! Oh, Gordon, I
do
think you’re silly!’

She squeezed his ribs again. It was a sign of peace. She did not understand him, probably never would understand him; yet she accepted him as he was, hardly even protesting against his unreasonableness. As she put her face up to be kissed he noticed that her lips were salt. A tear had trickled here. He strained her against him. The hard defensive feeling had gone out of her body. She shut her eyes and sank against him and into him as though her bones had grown weak, and her lips parted and her small tongue sought for his. It was very seldom that she did that. And suddenly, as he felt her body yielding, he seemed to know
with certainty that their struggle was ended. She was his now when he chose to take her. And yet perhaps she did not fully understand what it was that she was offering; it was simply an instinctive movement of generosity, a desire to reassure him—to smooth away that hateful feeling of being unlovable and unloved. She said nothing of this in words. It was the feeling of her body that seemed to say it. But even if this had been the time and the place he could not have taken her. At this moment he loved her but did not desire her. His desire could only return at some future time when there was no quarrel fresh in his mind and no consciousness of four and fourpence in his pocket to daunt him.