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Many Are Disappointed
359
couple and he'd be spliced,' they said. 'Not me,' he said, 'look at
Ted.' A man with no ideals, Bert thought, a man whose life was
hidden behind the syrup-thick lens of his glasses. Flash Sid. See the
typists draw themselves up, tilt back their heads, and get their
hands ready to keep him off. Not a man with ideals. See them
watch his arms and his hands, see them start tapping hard on the
typewriter keys and pretending to be busy when he leaned over to
tell them a story. And then, when he was gone, see them peep
through the Enquiry window to watch where he went, quarrel
about him, and dawdle in the street when the office closed, hoping
to see him.
'Well,' said Harry when they had cleared the table and got out
the map.
Sid said: 'You gen'lemen settle it. I'll go and fix her up.'
Sid's off, they said. First on the road, always leading, getting the
first of the air, licking the cream off everything.
He found her in the kitchen and he had to lower his head because
of the ceiling. She was sitting drably at the table, which was cov-
ered with unwashed plates and the remains of a meal. There were
unwashed clothes on the backs of the chairs and there was a man's
waistcoat. The child was reading a comic paper at the table and
singing in a high small voice.
A delicate stalk of neck, he thought, and eyes like the pale wild
scabious you see in the ditches.
Four shillings, she said, would that be too much?
She put her hand nervously to her breast.
'That's all right,' Sid said, and put the money in her hand. It was
coarsened by work. 'We cleared up everything,' he said.
'Don't get many people, I expect,' he said.
'Not this time of year.'
'A bit lonely,' he said.
'Some think it is,' she said.
'How long have you been here?' he said.
'Only three years. It seems,' she said with her continual wonder,
'longer.'
'I thought it wasn't long,' Sid said, i thought I seen you some-
where. You weren't in - in Horsham, were you?'
'I come from Ashford,' she said.
'Ashford,' he said. 'I knew you weren't from these parts.'
She brightened and she was fascinated because he took off his
360
V. S. Pritchett
glasses and she saw the deep serious shadows of his eyes and the
pale drooping of the naked lids. The eyes looked tired and as if
they had seen many things and she was tired too.
'I bin ill,' she said. Her story came irresistibly to her lips. 'The
doctor told us to come here. My husband gave up his job and
everything. Things are different here. The money's not so good —'
Her voice quickened. 'But I try to make it up with the teas.'
She paused, trying to read from his face if she should say any
more. She seemed to be standing on the edge of another country.
The pale-blue eyes seemed to be the pale sky of a far-away place
where she had been living.
'I nearly died,' she said. She was a little amazed by this fact.
'You're O.K. now,' Sid said.
'I'm better,' she said. 'But it seems I get lonely now I'm better.'
'You want your health, but you want a bit of company,' Sid said.
'My husband says: "You got your health, what you want com-
pany for?'"
She put this to Sid in case her husband was not right, but she
picked up her husband's waistcoat from the chair and looked over
its buttons because she felt, timorously, she had been disloyal to
her husband.
'A woman wants company,' said Sid.
He looked shy now to her, like Bert, the young one; but she was
most astonished that someone should agree with her and not her
husband.
Then she flushed and put out her hand to the little girl, who came
to her mother's side, pressing against her. The woman felt safer and
raised her eyes and looked more boldly at him.
'You and your friends going far?'
He told her. She nodded, counting the miles as if she were com-
ing along with them. And then Sid felt a hand touch his.
It was the child's hand touching the ring on his finger.
'Ha!' laughed Sid. 'You saw that before.' He was quick. The child
was delighted with his quickness. The woman put the waistcoat
down at once. He took off the ring and put it in the palm of his
hand and bent down so that his head nearly brushed the woman's
arm. 'That's lucky,' he said. 'Here,' he said. He slipped the ring on
the child's little finger. 'See,' he said. 'Keeps me out of mischief.
Keep a ring on your little finger and you'll be lucky.'
The child looked at him without belief.
Many Are Disappointed 361
'Here y'are,' he said, taking back the ring. 'Your mother wants
it,' he said, winking at the woman. 'She's got hers on the wrong
finger. Little one luck, big one trouble.'
She laughed and she blushed and her eyes shone. He moved to
the door and her pale lips pouted a little. Then, taking the child by
the hand she hurried over to him as if both of them would cling to
him. Excitedly, avidly, they followed him to the other room.
'Come on, Mr Blake,' said Ted. The three others rose to their
feet.
The child clung to her mother's hand and danced up and down.
She was in the midst of them. They zipped up their jackets, stubbed
their cigarettes, folded up the map. Harry put on his gauntlets. He
stared at the child and then slowly took off his glove and pulled
out a sixpence. 'No,' murmured Ted, the married man, but the child
was too quick.
They went out of the room and stood in the road. They stretched
themselves in the open air. The sun was shining now on the fields.
The woman came to the door to see them. They took their bicycles
from the wall, looked up and down the road, and then swung on.
To the sea, the coast road, and then perhaps a girl, some girl. But
the others were shouting.
'Good-bye,' they called. 'Good-bye.'
And Bert, the last, remembered then to wave good-bye too, and
glanced up at the misleading notice. When they were all together,
heads down to the wind, they turned again. 'Good God,' they said.
The woman and the child had come out into the middle of the road
hand in hand and their arms were still raised and their hands were
fluttering under the strong light of that high place. It was a long
time before they went back into the house.
And now for a pub, a real pub, the three men called to Harry.
Sid was ahead on his slim pink tyres getting the first of the new
wind, with the ring shining on his finger.
SEAN O'FAOLAiN • 1 9 0 0 -
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