Cotter's England (43 page)

Nellie burst out suddenly, "You're betraying me, George Cook. I can't stand it. I've no home and no husband. I've nothing."

George went on reading.

Nellie said, "I see, I've nothing to lose. I've made up my mind. It's for me to give the ultimatum. I was ashamed to play the woman's part, snivel and talk about the rights of a married woman. I've never mentioned them nor asked you to look after me. I've never tried to keep you at home or asked for a home. Our home just came together of itself and it's been my joy, my only great joy in all my life. You came, it was a miracle; it came, it was a great joy. If I've lost that I thought, I'm not going to try any tantrums or groveling tactics. You were free to pick me and you picked me. I never did believe my joy, but I felt my pride. I felt so high and sweet. Oh, my dear boy!" She straightened up, however, and began to abuse him: now she would fight. Perhaps later she'd become brave again but at present she felt sore and she was fighting. "And not for myself only, but if you quit on the British working class, which has been your life, I'll quit you. That's how I feel about it."

George had his mind made up and was unmoved by anyone's arguments. He had no apologies to make to the working class. He knew what he was doing and he had not gone back on anyone he said, unless it was on Nellie and that was her fault. She had only to follow him.

"And leave England?"

"Why not?"

"Then it's you or England?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"What about my family? My brother."

"Don't try to fool me," said George laughing, "you don't give twopence for any of them: you get exalted about them but they're nothing to you."

"I never betrayed anyone," said Nellie.

"No, you'll never betray anyone," said George, "but you'll kill people with your curious ideas of loyalty. I'd rather you weren't so loyal."

Nellie looked at him intently. "How's that pet?"

At this moment, there was so great a sound that they thought some bomb must have fallen by mistake, perhaps a mock war or a real war started. The house shook and screams and shouts were heard. They ran out and the air, as in wartime, was full of fine dust. Mrs. Yates with her baby in her arms appeared on the landing and rushed outside. Lewis, the dockers' representative, came tearing down from the top landing, covered with white and holding his hand to his face. A short crash followed.

"The ceiling fell down," called Lewis who had been sleeping in the front attic.

This was not surprising as the ceiling had fallen down in the top hallway a few months before. The cellar was blocked up from war days when a bomb fell, crushing entirely the house next door.

No one cared very much, except George who kept laughing angrily and saying he was glad he was getting out of it. He'd sell the wreck if he could. No one would want to inherit it. But Nellie wept and said it was her only home, the only home she'd ever had, it was happiness, security, peace to her. It was love. What else had she? she asked George.

If the house went, there was George and if George went, what else was there for her in life.

"You see," remarked George calmly, "all this about England is more smoke than flame. Unless it's your friends," he said in an inquisitive tone, trying to look at her face.

"My friends!" she cried passionately: "they mean nothing to me. I'm alone. I've always been alone. They don't understand me. There's only you George. You understand me."

George laughed. "It's not so hard."

"And you don't take me seriously, you bugger!"

"That's the way to understand you!"

"Ah, you belittling blighter! We're going to have a real fight."

She bit his ear. George howled and jumped off the sofa. He hotly resented physical attack. They tumbled about, smacking and tussling, shouting and insulting.

Lewis, with plaster on his face, stood in the hallway and shouted up, "Hey!"

Nellie looked over the banisters cheerfully, "Don't fret, sweetheart. We're all right."

"The roof will be coming down on you," cried Lewis anxiously.

Nellie shouted with laughter, and so did George. They made it up, but they started again. Nellie flew off to work without tea, because George had thrown the teapot on the floor saying the tea was all water.

As soon as she got to work she received a telephone call from George, but she was at that moment in the canteen having breakfast. Later she had to call him back and they spent ten minutes loveydoveying. Before she left work she received a love letter from George, left downstairs as he was on his way to some consulate.

When she got home in the evening, she found another love note in her dressing-gown, "My dearest darlingest angel, how do you put up with a rotten-tempered pug like me? Forgive me darling sweetheart? I adore you."

When George came home with a few more necessary signatures and permits for his job abroad, she flew at him and they went into a long series of embraces. She wept and got supper for him. They abused everyone in the Labour movement, all their friends. She told him scandal and gossip, he retailed his conversations with people, in which he had come off best and chortled over his very near departure.

"And I'm taking you along in the baggage so don't pull that dear old England stuff on me any more. I know it's eyewash. You read it somewhere in a Schoolbook. You're a fighting woman. You don't want their England."

"It's my England too," she said proudly. "Why don't you stay at home and help take it from them."

"I've got no time: Life is too short now," said George. "Supposing I only live till ninety-two? I'm not going to spend the best years of my life fighting the police."

They growled a bit but neither was ready for a fight at that moment.

George, who said cheerfully that he'd be gone for two or three years he hoped and expected, had bought presents for several people. He was a generous man and had spent a lot of money— a clock, a purse, a blouse, some wine glasses and for Mrs. McMahon a soft-hued Shetland blanket which must have cost him eight pounds or more. It was glorious, but for the money, said Nellie, though it was beautiful of him, he could have bought two blankets, which she so sorely needed. The McMahons had only one blanket and he could have got bargains. But George said stubbornly he wanted to give Mrs. McMahon some lovely thing, not blankets for her bed. This was a blanket, too.

"What would her husband think if I start giving her blankets?"

Mrs. McMahon did not show the gifts to Nellie and went about her duties with wet eyes. After George's departure she would come no more; Nellie could not afford her. George gave her a month's pay and told her to go to Bob's farm when she could arrange her summer holiday with her husband.

"George is a pet, a sweetheart," said Nellie to Eliza, "you would not think the big block of northern granite had it in him, but underneath he's soft as honey."

Nevertheless she was surprised and moved softly as a bird, watching, and two days before George went she found Mrs. McMahon standing at the mantelpiece in front of George's photograph. It was a fine one, taken at a street corner meeting, George with his mouth open and his arm in a gesture, but it was very George. "The old docker come to life," George had written in his pretty, bold hand underneath.

"It's so very like him, isn't it, Madam?" said Mrs. McMahon. "You haven't got another? My husband and I would like to have it."

"No, pet, I haven't," said Nellie dryly.

"If Mrs. McMahon would like any piece of pottery, let her have a piece," said George the same evening, "she's got fine taste for a working girl. I want her to develop her taste."

"For a working girl me foot," cried Nellie, "you big humbug. You've been making sheep's eyes at her. The woman's crying tears all over the place. It's the noble old baron himself making free with the servant-lasses! You've got beyond yourself, George Cook. I think it's the bloody absolute limit, while I'm out at me job, you staying at home seducing the woman. She's an honest working woman or she was. Now she's thinking about sex all the time. You've been making love to her as you call it, you bloody hypocrite, for years. I wondered, it stuck in me mind that you were in no hurry to tell me you were home. It was the soldier's farewell to his lass, eh? Ah, it's a bloody shame, there's not a drop of honest blood in you, you went straight from her to me, I can't credit it, I can't understand why, if not for perversity. You take a woman that's satisfied though she's miserable, an honest girl bearing her burden bravely, with a husband and kiddie and you wreck her home. Do you think McMahon doesn't notice, that she's weeping for you?"

George threw himself down on the daybed with a pleased expression.

Nellie continued to rave and cry about her hard luck, the faithlessness of all men, and that he couldn't even wait till he shook the dust of England from his feet to betray her again.

"I can't look in the faces of my friends without thinking, Has George been sweethearting here too? It's poisoned friendship for me."

George had shut his eyes and now pretended to be asleep, but they had a great fight.

Mrs. McMahon came the next day and Nellie opened the door to her, saying, "I'm glad you came early, Gwen, there's a lot to be done."

The little girl was there too. They made the same pathetic group on the doorstep. Mrs. McMahon wore her usual black coat.

"Come into the kitchen and you can play in the front room, Georgie," Nellie said briefly, not unkindly.

Mrs. McMahon was cheerful but pale.

"You've been seeing a good bit of my husband while I've been away on jobs," said she while the worker was putting her clothes, as usual, in the front room. "What has he been doing?"

"He mostly reads the paper, Madam," said Mrs. McMahon. "Or he sits in the back yard."

She did not look at Nellie, but without haste put her things away and put on her apron.

"We'll all miss him now he's going. It's a great pity but it's got to be: a man's work comes first," said Nellie. "Men must work and women must weep for the buggers: we're fools, Gwen, to get involved with them."

Mrs. McMahon said nothing for she was on her way to the kitchen.

"Aye, pet," said Nellie entering the kitchen, "what you can do first if you're a good soul, is to make a good pot o' tea, me angel: I'm starving; and thirsty as an old boot in a storm. We'll have a cup o' tea, sweetheart, and then I've got to be off, duty calls. Aye, it's a damn hard life, Gwen. You work and the minute your back's turned the bastards play you false."

Gwen made the tea, set the tray and poured out two cups, handing one to Nellie and putting the other beside the washing-up basin.

"No, sit down a minute, pet, and let's have a talk," said Nellie. "I've got to be going. Are you very upset then, Gwen, chick, that me old man's leaving us? Ah, the bastard, leaving his harem high and dry, a traitor, eh?"

"I'm sorry, we're both sorry," said Mrs. McMahon: "and Georgie's been talking about it ever since she heard. She thinks the world of Mr. Cook. Here comes Cookie, she sings, you ought to hear her; it's cute."

"Aye, it must be," said Nellie.

"He's been so generous to her, talking to her. He told her a long story about the sparrows one day and she's been talking about it ever since and teasing him, Tell me about a squirrel. He's like a father, an uncle to her."

"Aye, I get it, pet."

"And always so kind and noticing everything you do for him."

"Yes, he's lovable," said Nellie.

"Do you think he'll stay away so long, Madam?"

"He'll stay too long for us," said Nellie amiably.

Mrs. McMahon looked at her questioningly.

"Eh, chick, don't be building up hopes on George Cook's coming back to lie to you. You've been kissing him haven't you, Gwen?"

Mrs. McMahon flushed and looked away. Then she looked at Nellie, "Yes, we kissed," she said proudly.

"Well, when you've finished your work today you can leave here for good, Gwen, I think it's a damn shame and I've got no use for traitors. Do your work, I'll not rob you of the money, and then let us say goodbye."

"I'd rather not stay."

"I want you to stay, I've got to go in half an hour, and George has got to have his lunch if the house burns down. I'm disgusted with you, I'm revolted: there's no friendship in you."

Nellie took the money out of her purse and put it down.

Mrs. McMahon left it on the table, and as Nellie turned to go up the steps out of the kitchen, she said, "Mrs. Cook! It's not what you think. It's that he loves me."

"And he's proved it to you," said Nellie; "is he going to marry you, Gwen?"

Mrs. McMahon said nothing.

"Let's not talk about it any more. It's the dirtiest trick that's been played yet and I ought to be able to take it, but I don't feel very generous at the moment. I am Mrs. Cook and I'm going to stay Mrs. Cook."

Mrs. McMahon looked after her, at the strange cut and strange dress, the wild and dirty bohemian, cursing and smoking, disorderly and perverse and she felt just as if a wild cat had come snarling into a decent household. She was an innocent woman and believed George meant her for his wife. All the stages between, two divorces, all the arrangements, were wiped away by George's splendid, easy manhood. She had great trust in him. She never doubted that she was the next wife and she looked upon Nellie as the unworthy woman.

Mrs. McMahon for some little time now had been encouraged in her daily struggle with penury. She put money aside in various forms of door-to-door insurance and saved up the clothing her married sister sent her, so that she would have provision for Georgiana and a little clothing for herself, when the break between George and Nellie occurred. She was prepared to wait a long time for George. Her own husband, Bernard, would have all his salary for himself, and would be able to get along, she considered. He was middle-aged, he had few wants. He loved the child and so did she, but she was sure some arrangement could be made. All this she had planned in her mind. George Cook had also suggested that as she was very bright, had a clear memory of all she had ever learned, she should study in evening school and learn office work. Then she would get off her feet and get better pay. She did not see at the moment how, after working in houses all day and doing her own housework, cutting, sewing, knitting and mending for her two at home, she could study at night. Nellie had lent her her own lesson books in typing and shorthand and Gwen tried to study while she was sewing.