‘You reject me!’
‘No. I’m sorry. I haven’t got that much concern about you. I haven’t any concern about you. I just don’t want to see you.’
‘That can’t be true! Why are you taking up this attitude? Why are you so angry with me? What have you been thinking about me?’
‘I am not angry with you. I have not been thinking about you. You are simply making a mistake. Just go away.’
At that moment the front door bell rang.
John Robert, looking exasperated at last, moved past George to get out into the hall. George stood in the doorway, conscious now of the violent beating of his heart, and gazed at his teacher’s bulky form in the dim illumination that came through the little fanlight above the door. The next moment the grey but clear light of the street revealed the apparition of Alex, in her best fur coat, with her long eyes aglow, and her long pale mouth smiling. As John Robert, saying nothing, stepped aside, and she stepped forward, she saw George. The expressions of mother and son were suddenly similar, brilliantly cat-like. Alex stopped smiling, then smiled again, a quite different smile. George intensified the frown he had been wearing for John Robert, adding an accompanying smile or sneer.
John Robert, turning, said to George, ‘Good-bye.’
Alex moved forward again, past John Robert, who was holding the door open, and stood at the foot of the staircase to get out of George’s way. George passed her with averted head. His hand touched the soft grey fur of the long coat which she wore pulled well in to her slim waist with a steel chain belt. He smelt her face powder. He passed John Robert with a shudder and the door closed.
Once outside George was consumed by hate, jealousy, misery, remorse, fear and rage. Emotions blackened the sky and tore his entrails like vultures. He imagined taking his shoe off and breaking the window. However, his face was impassive; even the frown had left it. He walked quietly away from the house, walked on about twenty yards, and then stopped and stood perfectly still for several minutes. Two students from Ennistone Polytechnic who were going to drop a notice about a political meeting in on Nesta Wiggins, recognized him and promptly crossed the road.
George knew himself. He knew what a terrible piece of work had been accomplished that morning, what a mass of material for his grief and chagrin he had heaped up during that short visit. Everything he had said to Rozanov had been wrong. He had behaved like a petulant child, not like his real self at all. He now saw clearly what he ought to have said, what tone he ought to have adopted. He had deliberately not decided on any policy beforehand, had prepared no speech. That was folly. He should have said … or else have written a letter explaining … He began to walk along, recalling with nausea the pleading accents with which he had begged for what he wanted. And then Alex arriving. What on earth did that mean, what unholy alliance, what threat to him? He had never connected Alex with John Robert; she had never spoken of him except for vaguely mentioning that she had met him. How sickening. Was Alex to be friends with John Robert excluding George? Would John Robert turn Alex against him? What were they talking about now, those dreadful two, they must be talking about him.
As he came up toward the Roman bridge he remembered the hammer. An elderly lady, a Miss Dunbury, retired from doing very fine work at the Glove Factory, who lived at number three Blanch Cottages, saw with excitement a man pause to pick a blunt instrument (as she perceived it, being a great reader of detective stories) out of her privet bush. She began to search for her glasses in order to scan the Ennistone Gazette for murders. Being short-sighted, she had not recognized George. If she had, she would have been even more excited.
Alex, who had arrived by taxi and combed her hair on the doorstep, recovered quickly from the shock of seeing George, upon which she had no time to speculate. For some reason, George had not figured at all in her imaginings, as if she had perfectly forgotten that he had been Rozanov’s pupil. She felt a quick physical tremor as he passed, which blended quickly into her general nervous agitation.
John Robert went past her into the back room and she followed him. The glimpse at the Baths had prepared her to see him older. Now, dressed in a big loose shabby corduroy jacket falling off one shoulder and wearing a grey pullover under his braces, he looked less old. Unbid, Alex pulled off her coat and threw it on a chair. She took in the room, so small, with a thin little black grate and a narrow little grimy mantelpiece and a couple of miserable sloppy armchairs and a shiny little sideboard with a crumpled lace cover on it. There was a small school desk, the top open, stuffed with papers and a general dotting of china ornaments, puppy dogs and ballet dancers and such, placed there long ago by John Robert’s mother. There was a hole in the carpet and dust everywhere and a damp smell.
John Robert seemed momentarily tongue-tied, which set Alex more at her ease. She smiled at him.
‘How kind of you to come.’
‘Not at all. I’m very glad to see you.’
‘Would you like some - some tea?’
Alex would have liked a whisky and soda but she remembered that John Robert had been a teetotaller. She said, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Or coffee - I think there’s some?’
‘No thanks.’
He said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m a non-drinker, there isn’t anything else in the house. Would you please sit down?’
Alex sat on the arm of one of the armchairs, raising a little puff of dust.
‘What a pretty garden, so small and - and easy to manage.’ As there was a little silence she added, ‘I’m sure George was very glad to see you.’
The mention of George was just a nervous urge, she did not want to talk about George.
‘Oh yes, yes.’
John Robert sat heavily into the other armchair, then finding himself almost on the floor pulled himself up again, grunting, with some difficulty and sat on a creaky upright chair which swayed alarmingly.
Alex said, ‘Are you glad to be back?’
John Robert considered the question seriously. ‘Yes, I am. I remember a lot of faces of people round here, in the shops and so on, changed of course. My parents liked living here, it was always a friendly neighbourhood.’
‘After America, Ennistone must seem so quiet and small.’
‘Nice and quiet, nice and small.’
Alex stared at John Robert who was not looking at her, and her heart moved within her. His big head sunk inside the collar of his jacket, he looked almost like a hunchback. She saw the coarse pitted texture of his skin and the strength of his nose of a bird of prey and the way his large wet mouth pouted and drooped. She felt an impulse to reach out and touch, not his knee but the shiny dirty material of his trouser leg.
‘Mrs McCaffrey — ’
‘I wish you’d call me Alex. We have known each other a long time.’
‘Indeed, I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes –?’ Alex’s eyes stared as if she would flatten him with them and pin him to the wall.
‘You must say frankly if you feel you don’t want to, or that you’d like to think it over — ’
‘Yes —?’
‘In any case it may be impossible After all — ’
‘Yes, yes —?’
‘I was wondering,’ said John Robert, ‘if you would be so kind as to let me rent the Slipper House.’