When not walking she wanted to be lying down, but was terrified at never getting up again, so she went along muddy lanes of wintry trees in Holland Park, with a plastic bag of shopping, and several crumpled telegram forms in her pocket. She looked in a pool of water, and saw a squirrel run over her face. The pain of its claws and grey bush paralysed her lips more than the wind, but children passing in a gang from the school were happy, and she smiled at them.
The semi-circular screen of the peacock’s tail was blue-gold and veined-red against darkening foliage. She fed bread to sparrows. Her pride would never forgive her if she sent a telegram saying she didn’t like it here. She was two people. One was imperious and able to cope, plain but presentable, cheerful, imaginative, solid in all her perceptions. The other person was timid, incompetent, everchanging, and half-mad. She knew them well, often walked with one at each hand, like two illegitimate children that she was forced to drag along for their daily outing.
She was neither of them. She was somewhere in between – but now that she lived on her own each fought more violently for her absolute attention. At her best moments she inclined firmly to the former, and at her worst lapsed alarmingly towards the latter. In spite of such inner turmoil, she liked it here, even though it meant spending most of her time being afraid. A long walk was needed before her thoughts became helpful. She passed Lord Holland’s statue for the fourth time, and decided to go home.
Hunger was as real as the rain as she crossed the main road. Motor-cars speeding on either side were also real. She stayed on the island, unable to go back or forward, even when there was no traffic. Time passed, and she was unwilling to reach a decision. Her fingers were frozen. Then she found herself on the opposite pavement without having made up her mind.
She bought a pair of heavier shoes because her own got damp in the slightest moisture. Her second pair were also too thin. She bought grey tights and woollen stockings. In Nottingham, George had driven her in the car, or she knew all the buses, or she would occasionally drive the car herself, but here she was often afraid to do other than walk to get anywhere. There were blisters at both heels and along the tops of her toes, but she refused to limp. Pain wasn’t considered while finding a way through the parks to Oxford Street. She got used to the nagging sores, glad when they made her feel that what remained of her was still alive. It was better than nothing.
The door key had been in her hand during the walk up Ladbroke Grove and into Clarundel Crescent. A drizzle beating against her face tasted of dustbins and petrol fumes, making her glad to get inside. The drilling-men had gone, and her footsteps creaked. Halfway up the stairs the automatic switch flipped off and left her in the dark, and she pressed the button again on the next landing. It came up immediately. Last night someone had stuck in a matchstick which kept the light on till morning. So she went up and let herself into her room by feeling the key into the lock.
She looked into the small alcove of a kitchen to make sure George wasn’t there. It was colder than being outside. Keeping her coat on, she lit the gas fire, then closed the curtains in case George should look in at her. She turned on the cooking stove to get heat from that as well – not forgetting to open the oven door to check that George wasn’t sitting curled up inside, ready to leap out.
She wouldn’t have been seen within a mile of such an antique grease-caked monstrosity of a stove when living in her immaculate house furnished with labour-saving knick-knacks from the start of her marriage, but which made no difference because what had she done with any of the time that had been saved? The grease had been washed and scoured, so it didn’t stink whenever a chop was laid under the grill.
She put on carpet slippers, hardly noticing the pain, knowing that as the hours went by she would begin to wonder where she was. Sooner or later her feet would harden and the throbbing would decrease. If George found her she prayed they’d be better so that she could tell him to go to hell before running as far away as she could get.
The knife and fork, on the small table set opposite the bed-wall, had cost a few pence from a barrow on the Portobello Road. So had the saucepan and frying pan. She regretted not having brought half the belongings of the house on a lorry. She ought to have deliberated, not fled, talked to George calmly and made arrangements by first finding a flat in London, then organizing a van from a removal firm to carry down what was hers. It was easier said than done. She had acted like a refugee, had fled in peril of her life, and was now hiding from George and his secret police.
But she liked the surprise of how simple life could be. The only expensive item was the shelter of her room, otherwise frugality attracted her. The pleasure of buying a knife and fork for ten pence instead of new ones for a pound or more gave a moral purpose to her existence. If she had never married, this was how she would have lived. Only the cup-and-saucer was new.
She wouldn’t go back even if he crawled every inch of the road on his hands and knees and begged her. Emptying her pockets, she spread the half-filled telegram forms on the table. Why hadn’t she noticed at their first meeting his deadly hollowness that could only be filled by whoever he latched on to for life? She laughed. He wouldn’t want to see her again, in any case. And he was saying worse things about her, she could bet.
No need to see anything. But she dreamed about him, and woke up sweating because he was pulling her back into the trap. He was more interested in his motor magazines than talking to her. As he turned a page his fingers were immediately fixed at the bottom, ready for flipping to the next. He would go on the whole evening if she didn’t say something, and when she did he answered in such a way as to make her feel guilty, implying that because he had worked hard all day, which he certainly had, he didn’t want to be disturbed by her in the evening.
She had seen half a dozen of his magazines full of coloured photographs of naked women, their show-off figures strangely attractive, though most of the faces brazen or apathetic. Her own body could not compete, but was still firm enough, she thought, for him not to hanker after these pushed-out bosoms. When she mentioned them, he laughed. Most men liked to look at such things, if only for the sake of beauty. Some had their legs wide open, with hair and flesh exposed. He had found them, he said, piled up in Ted’s room, and had taken them away from him. But Edward’s only fourteen, she said. I know, he said. You’re right: that stuff’s for the youngsters, not chaps like me. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. There was a threat in his voice, drawing her towards an area of life that she didn’t care to take part in. His eyes wanted her to go on talking. He’d left the magazines under some shirts in his bedroom cupboard, where he had known she would see them.
She’d chosen autumn to leave, the pagan-piggery of Christmas yet to pass, but a season to be ignored because that too had been part of her slavery. Best not to think of the winter drizzle still to come, but to smell the springtime in anticipation, no matter how long it took. The freezing room ponged of mothballs, disinfectant and cold whitewash. Even after a week there wasn’t the cleanliness she had striven for. It hadn’t been possible to sleep more than a night without swabbing every square inch of the green and brown wallpaper with a bleached cloth. Pans of dust had come from windowsills, pelmets and skirting boards. A rag tied to a sweeping brush had brought cobwebs from every corner. Four buckets of water had been used in flushing the lino and floorboards under the so-called carpets.