Free Cotter's England by Christina Stead

That was ten years ago and there she is yet, the good old faithful, the true, loyal working-class woman, better than ye read about, for she's a beautiful loving soul, patient and uncomplaining. Ah, but she thinks the world of George and he is very patient explaining things to her; and what a womanly care, love, for his bits of copper and pewter and china. Such simple devotion. Aye, I'd be jealous if I didn't know the woman's pure loyal heart. But the idea of wickedness never came to her."
    Caroline said, "If you're so fond of her, why should she think of wickedness? Among ordinary people there isn't any wickedness, is there? I've never seen any."
    Nellie was silent for some time. She suddenly said, in a rough tone, "You see slums full of rats and you don't believe in evil? That's weak, isn't it? There's your rose-painted specs again. You see? How you're tainted to the bone with the fairy-tale pink? It's weak, it's selfish, it's wrong."
    "Yes, it is weak; it is wrong."
    "Aye, but you won't set it right by signing papers in the Rehousing Committee; or reading The State and Revolution, as if it were a goodnight story. The truth is not in books; the truth is in humanity. You're sticking your eyes in a bookcase, you need eyes like a crab on stalks and you'll see nothing but the bottom of the sea. I'm disgusted with you!"
    Caroline turned round in frightened anger. But Nellie had not moved; she said, in a melancholy voice; "And the truth's right beside you!"
    "What truth?"
    "Sit down, love; and I'll explain to you."
    Caroline came and sat at a distance from the strange woman.
    Nellie smoked and said rapidly, "My life's been one of cycles. I look back on it and I try to divide up the tracts of time I've crossed. There was the era in Bridgehead, the era of wandering round the country taking one job and another; then the London era; and now, if me bold lad's going abroad, I'm going too; that will be the fourth. I often think I'll write about it. My mother came to London on her brief honeymoon and now time has come full circle, I'm in London myself. I was probably conceived here in the brief sad two nights of her first and only trip from the grime of her native city. Ah, the poor pallid waif. Taken from the convent at eleven and sent to work in the houses of relatives; and then to the aunt who kept a boarding-house and that's where she met the big gallant Tommy Atkins and that was when for her the meteor fell from the sky. Me uncle Geoffrey went to the Continent to work on overcoats when he was a young man and that's where George is now. Our life is a mysterious thing, Caroline; there are cycles and moments. There are fatal hours. If a man's destined to it, he dies young. It's a fact, pet; one can't shut one's eyes. You may talk about forgetting and losing yourself in a lot of cock-and-bull; stories like an infant, for what is revolution to you but a pretty pink teacup in a sitting room, something to toy with? Your life is moving in cycles now to a certain end and you can't escape it; though you run howling and bawling through the universe that's closing in on you. No, it's a fateful thing you went to Roseland; it's a fateful thing you met me; it's fate you lost so many. For haven't you, pet? Haven't your friends dropped off from you; like him too, like Barry. It's your fate; and they're weak creatures; they feel your fate. They feel the death in you. Don't give up, Caroline. Know it; face it. It's been well said, if you don't confess, you must commit suicide and suicide itself is a confession; and not to commit suicide is a terrible confession. But you haven't the strength to confess, have you?"
    "Confess what?" said Caroline wearily.
    "No, you haven't the courage to deal with your own life. I have no faith in you. That's why I wanted to talk to you. To make you face the stark staring realities. You're wandering. You haven't the strength of soul I thought I found in you. I'm comparing you now with my Southwark friend; what a woman,