18891923
When the literary gentleman, whose flat old Ma Parker cleaned every Tuesday, opened the door to her that morning, he asked after her grandson. Ma Parker stood on the door-mat inside the dark little hall, and she stretched out her hand to help her gentleman shut the door before she replied. We buried im yesterday, sir, she said quietly.
Oh, dear me! Im sorry to hear that, said the literary gentleman in a shocked tone. He was in the middle of his breakfast. He wore a very shabby dressing-gown and carried a crumpled newspaper in one hand. But he felt awkward. He could hardly go back to the warm sitting-room without saying something something more. Then because these people set such store by funerals he said kindly, I hope the funeral went off all right.
Beg parding, sir? said old Ma Parker huskily.
Poor old bird! She did look dashed. I hope the funeral was aasuccess, said he. Ma Parker gave no answer. She bent her head and hobbled off to the kitchen, clasping the old fish bag that held her cleaning things and an apron and a pair of felt shoes. The literary gentleman raised his eyebrows and went back to his breakfast.
Overcome, I suppose, he said aloud, helping himself to the marmalade.
Ma Parker drew the two jetty spears out of her toque and hung it behind the door. She unhooked her worn jacket and hung that up too. Then she tied her apron and sat down to take off her boots. To take off her boots or to put them on was an agony to her, but it had been an agony for years. In fact, she was so accustomed to the pain that her face was drawn and screwed up ready for the twinge before shed so much as untied the laces. That over, she sat back with a sigh and softly rubbed her knees.
Gran! Gran! Her little grandson stood on her lap in his button boots. Hed just come in from playing in the street.
Look what a state youve made your grans skirt intoyou wicked boy!
But he put his arms round her neck and rubbed his cheek against hers.
Gran, gi us a penny! he coaxed.
Be off with you; Gran aint got no pennies.
Yes, you ave.
No, I aint.
Yes, you ave. Gi us one!
Already she was feeling for the old, squashed, black leather purse.
Well, whatll you give your gran?
He gave a shy little laugh and pressed closer. She felt his eyelid quivering against her cheek. I aint got nothing, he murmured.
The old woman sprang up, seized the iron kettle off the gas stove and took it over to the sink. The noise of the water drumming in the kettle deadened her pain, it seemed. She filled the pail, too, and the washing-up bowl.
It would take a whole book to describe the state of that kitchen. During the week the literary gentleman did for himself. That is to say, he emptied the tea leaves now and again into a jam jar set aside for that purpose, and if he ran out of clean forks he wiped over one or two on the roller towel. Otherwise, as he explained to his friends, his system was quite simple, and he couldnt understand why people made all this fuss about housekeeping.
You simply dirty everything youve got, get a hag in once a week to clean up, and the things done.
The result looked like a gigantic dustbin. Even the floor was littered with toast crusts, envelopes, cigarette ends. But Ma Parker bore him no grudge. She pitied the poor young gentleman for having no one to look after him. Out of the smudgy little window you could see an immense expanse of sad-looking sky, and whenever there were clouds they looked very worn, old clouds, frayed at the edges, with holes in them, or dark stains like tea.
While the water was heating, Ma Parker began sweeping the floor. Yes, she thought, as the broom knocked, what with one thing and another Ive had my share. Ive had a hard life.
Even the neighbours said that of her. Many a time, hobbling home with her fish bag, she heard them, waiting at the corner, or leaning over the area railings, say among themselves, Shes had a hard life, has Ma Parker. And it was so true she wasnt in the least proud of it. It was just as if you were to say she lived in the basement-back at Number 27. A hard life!
At sixteen shed left Stratford and come up to London as kitching-maid. Yes, she was born in Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare, sir? No, people were always arsking her about him. But shed never heard his name until she saw it on the theatres.
Nothing remained of Stratford except that sitting in the fire-place of a evening you could see the stars through the chimley, and Mother always ad er side of bacon anging from the ceiling. And there was somethinga bush, there wasat the front door, that smelt ever so nice. But the bush was very vague. She d only remembered it once or twice in the hospital, when shed been taken bad.
That was a dreadful placeher first place. She was never allowed out. She never went upstairs except for prayers morning and evening. It was a fair cellar. And the cook was a cruel woman. She used to snatch away her letters from home before shed read them, and throw them in the range because they made her dreamy. And the beedles! Would you believe it? until she came to London shed never seen a black beedle. Here Ma always gave a little laugh, as though not to have seen a black beedle! Well! It was as if to say youd never seen your own feet.
When that family was sold up she went as help to a doctors house, and after two years there, on the run from morning till night, she married her husband. He was a baker.
A baker, Mrs. Parker! the literary gentleman would say. For occasionally he laid aside his tomes and lent an ear, at least, to this product called Life. It must be rather nice to be married to a baker!
Mrs. Parker didnt look so sure.
Such a clean trade, said the gentleman.
Mrs. Parker didnt look convinced.
And didnt you like handing the new loaves to the customers?
Well, sir, said Mrs. Parker, I wasnt in the shop above a great deal. We had thirteen little ones and buried seven of them. If it wasnt the ospital it was the infirmary, you might say!
You might, indeed, Mrs. Parker! said the gentleman, shuddering, and taking up his pen again.
Yes, seven had gone, and while the six were still small her husband was taken ill with consumption. It was flour on the lungs, the doctor told her at the time. Her husband sat up in bed with his shirt pulled over his head, and the doctors finger drew a circle on his back.
Now, if we were to cut him open here, Mrs. Parker, said the doctor, youd find his lungs chock-a-block with white powder. Breathe, my good fellow! And Mrs. Parker never knew for certain whether she saw or whether she fancied she saw a great fan of white dust come out of her poor dear husbands lips.
But the struggle shed had to bring up those six little children and keep herself to herself. Terrible it had been! Then, just when they were old enough to go to school her husbands sister came to stop with them to help things along, and she hadnt been there more than two months when she fell down a flight of steps and hurt her spine. And for five years Ma Parker had another babyand such a one for crying!to look after. Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her; the two boys emigrated, and young Jim went to India with the army, and Ethel, the youngest, married a good-for-nothing little waiter who died of ulcers the year little Lennie was born. And now little Lenniemy grandson.
The piles of dirty cups, dirty dishes, were washed and dried. The ink-black knives were cleaned with a piece of potato and finished off with a piece of cork. The table was scrubbed, and the dresser and the sink that had sardine tails swimming in it.
Hed never been a strong childnever from the first. Hed been one of those fair babies that everybody took for a girl. Silvery fair curls he had, blue eyes, and a little freckle like a diamond on one side of his nose. The trouble out and Ethel had had to rear that child! The things out of the newspapers they tried him with! Every Sunday morning Ethel would read aloud while Ma Parker did her washing.
Dear Sir,Just a line to let you know my little Myrtil was laid out for dead. After four bottils gained 8 lb. in 9 weeks, and is still putting it on.
And then the egg-cup of ink would come off the dresser and the letter would be written, and Ma would buy a postal order on her way to work next morning. But it was no use. Nothing made little Lennie put it on. Taking him to the cemetery, even, never gave him a colour; a nice shake-up in the bus never improved his appetite.
But he was grans boy from the first.
Whose boy are you? said old Ma Parker, straightening up from the stove and going over to the smudgy window. And a little voice, so warm, so close, it half stifled herit seemed to be in her breast under her heartlaughed out, and said, Im grans boy!
At that moment there was a sound of steps, and the literary gentleman appeared, dressed for walking.
Oh, Mrs. Parker, Im going out.
Very good, sir.
And youll find your half-crown in the tray of the inkstand.
Thank you, sir.
Oh, by the way, Mrs. Parker, said the literary gentleman quickly, you didnt throw away any cocoa last time you were heredid you?
No, sir.
Very strange. I could have sworn I left a teaspoonful of cocoa in the tin. He broke off. He said softly and firmly, Youll always tell me when you throw things awaywont you, Mrs. Parker? And he walked off very well pleased with himself, convinced, in fact, hed shown Mrs. Parker that under his apparent carelessness he was as vigilant as a woman.
The door banged. She took her brushes and cloths into the bedroom. But when she began to make the bed, smoothing, tucking, patting, the thought of little Lennie was unbearable. Why did he have to suffer so? Thats what she couldnt understand. Why should a little angel child have to arsk for his breath and fight for it? There was no sense in making a child suffer like that.
From Lennies little box of a chest there came a sound as though something was boiling. There was a great lump of something bubbling in his chest that he couldnt get rid of. When he coughed the sweat sprang out on his head; his eyes bulged, his hands waved, and the great lump bubbled as a potato knocks in a saucepan. But what was more awful than all was when he didnt cough he sat against the pillow and never spoke or answered, or even made as if he heard. Only he looked offended.
Its not your poor old grans doing it, my lovey, said old Ma Parker, patting back the damp hair from his little scarlet ears. But Lennie moved his head and edged away. Dreadfully offended with her he lookedand solemn. He bent his head and looked at her sideways as though he couldnt have believed it of his gran.
But at the last Ma Parker threw the counterpane over the bed. No, she simply couldnt think about it. It was too muchshed had too much in her life to bear. Shed borne it up till now, shed kept herself to herself, and never once had she been seen to cry. Never by a living soul. Not even her own children had seen Ma break down. Shed kept a proud face always. But now! Lennie gonewhat had she? She had nothing. He was all shed got from life, and now he was took too. Why must it all have happened to me? she wondered. What have I done? said old Ma Parker. What have I done?
As she said those words she suddenly let fall her brush. She found herself in the kitchen. Her misery was so terrible that she pinned on her hat, put on her jacket and walked out of the flat like a person in a dream. She did not know what she was doing. She was like a person so dazed by the horror of what has happened that he walks awayanywhere, as though by walking away he could escape.
It was cold in the street. There was a wind like ice. People went flitting by, very fast; the men walked like scissors; the women trod like cats. And nobody knewnobody cared. Even if she broke down, if at last, after all these years, she were to cry, shed find herself in the lock-up as like as not.
But at the thought of crying it was as though little Lennie leapt in his grans arms. Ah, thats what she wants to do, my dove. Gran wants to cry. If she could only cry now, cry for a long time, over everything, beginning with her first place and the cruel cook, going on to the doctors, and then the seven little ones, death of her husband, the childrens leaving her, and all the years of misery that led up to Lennie. But to have a proper cry over all these things would take a long time. All the same, the time for it had come. She must do it. She couldnt put it off any longer; she couldnt wait any more. Where could she go?
Shes had a hard life, has Ma Parker. Yes, a hard life, indeed! Her chin began to tremble; there was no time to lose. But where? Where?
She couldnt go home; Ethel was there. It would frighten Ethel out of her life. She couldnt sit on a bench anywhere; people would come arsking her questions. She couldnt possibly go back to the gentlemans flat; she had no right to cry in strangers houses. If she sat on some steps a policeman would speak to her.
Oh, wasnt there anywhere where she could hide and keep herself to herself and stay as long as she liked, not disturbing anybody, and nobody worrying her? Wasnt there anywhere in the world where she could have her cry outat last?
Ma Parker stood, looking up and down. The icy wind blew out her apron into a balloon. And now it began to rain. There was nowhere.