Free Back by Henry Green Page B

d’you think you are to say how I’ll laugh with my own mother?”
    “You could. I hadn’t thought.” What had come to him, was that this might only be too possible, mother and daughter both suffering, as they must be, from lost memories. In that case they might very well, the two of them, twist their guts inside out with laughing.
    “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now will you please get along. I don’t know where we’re coming to with the war effort, but I can’t find time to nurse strangers.”
    He sat on, his head in his hands. He could not face it.
    “All you want is a good feed,” she said. “You try the Army. A month or two in that, and you’ll be as right as rain.”
    “I’m discharged. I lost my leg. I wrote you.”
    She opened her mouth to reply, and by the look on her face he was going to catch it, when her eyes followed, down one of his legs, the creased cloth which lay as this never does over flesh and bone. It silenced Miss Whitmore.
    “They repatriated me in June,” he mumbled.
    It came over her that he was going to cry.
    “You’ve been a prisoner, then?” she asked.
    He did not answer. He was quite still.
    “Well, I mean,” she said softer, “you’re back now, after all? Must be a change after what you’ve been in. Look,” she said quite soft, “there’s nothing terrible about this, is there? I mean there’s others have come up to me in the street, respectable people mind, and have fallen into the same error. And when I’ve put them right they’ve always gone off about their business. I mean, be reasonable,” she said. “I had to close the door just now so you couldn’t be seen in the state you’ve gotten into. Why don’t you just pull yourself together, and go?”
    “Did they call you Rose?” he asked. She knew he was watching her again, desperately. And she could not look at him, or reply, because they had indeed. So she just stood there.
    “It was your father sent me, Rose.”
    Again she could not speak.
    “Mr Grant, Rose,” he said.
    She whirled herself round, turning her back on him, so he could not see her face. He took what he imagined to be his advantage.
    “You wouldn’t deny him, Rose?” he softly asked.
    “What is your name, then?” she said in a low voice.
    “Charley Summers.” He spoke confidently.
    “Never heard of it,” she answered right out, turning round. He saw this was the truth, yet there was something here he had never seen in Rose, that he hadn’t ever known of her, and it was shame. Then he realized she was now so angry as well that shecould not stoop to a lie. “What?” she said, “You come along, you play some dirty trick to get in, pretending to faint?” and she stamped her foot, while keeping her arms rigid at her sides, “Then you bring his name up?” she said, in a voice breaking with rage and something else, “Him?” she cried, “Why you aren’t a man, a real man would never do a thing like that. And how did you ferret his name out?” she shouted. “What is he to me? What’ve I had in my life from him, from Mr Grant?” and she burst into tears, spreading a small handkerchief to cover as much as possible of her mouth and eyes.
    “Rose,” he said, shocked, “you’ve forgotten yourself.”
    She cried uglily. He did not dare go near. When she was a little recovered, she turned her back on him once again.
    “Now look what you’ve done,” she stammered. “Won’t you be content? Now won’t you go?”
    “Rose darling,” he said, “you’re not yourself.”
    “I’m not your Rose,” she wailed, crying noisily once more, “and I never was, nor ever could be. Oh I rue the day that man had me, was my father,” she mumbled. “Didn’t give me his name,” she added, cried noisily, then began blowing her nose. Charley stood apart, absolutely flummoxed, yet a bit triumphant.
    “But your mother, Mrs Grant,” he said, archly.
    “That’s enough,” she shouted, “that’s enough. You don’t suppose I let you in