Free Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns Page B

bedroom, and then Eunice sat on their bed and cried, “Oh, Norah, what am I to do, it’s … Joe Lott’s baby and he can’t marry me. Norah, don’t be cross with me.”
    She held her head in her hands and large tears rolled down her pink cheeks. Norah tried to think what to say or what suggestions to make and at last she said:
    “I blame myself. I should have looked after you better. I was so happy with Fig walking out together in the fields and I really think he was coming round to marrying me. But he won’t now, not with the disgrace, and all.”
    Then Eunice cried even more because she had ruined her sister’s chance of marriage, and Norah comforted her and they tried to make plans for the future. “I must see Joe just once more to tell him what has happened. I did kind of hint about it the last time I saw him, but he laughed, and said it couldn’t be true. Joe was always laughing, that’s what made me like him at first; but I don’t want him to laugh about the baby, just be kind.” And they sat there with their arms around each other until they were disturbed by the harsh voice of their mistress calling up the back stairs, “Come downstairs girls. Don’t you know it’s after four?”
    Ebin Willoweed had telephoned an account of the funeral to the Courier from the village post office, and he laughed to himself on his way home thinking how his mother pounced on his articles after breakfast each morning, even reading bits out loud to him, but never suspecting they were written by her own son. He felt guilty when he thought of the dreadful suffering and horror going on around him, which was directly the cause of his happiness and sudden prosperity. Then he thought of his mistress’s poor dead body, with its raddled old face, lying out in the yard.
    “I won’t think of it,” he muttered to himself. “They have had their happiness and I’ve been wretched for years. It’s my turn now. Perhaps I shall get the madness next, so I must enjoy the little time I have. Good God, I’m most likely mad now, talking to myself,” and he strode through the village in a purposeful manner to prove to himself he wasn’t going mad.
    While the family were at tea, his mother suddenly attacked him about the children’s education and wanted to know why their lessons had abruptly ceased. He had been expecting this, and had indeed been rehearsing imaginary conversations with his mother on this subject, and to his surprise the discussion went just as he had hoped and he was able to produce his trump card and say that it was time Dennis went to school and he was in a position to pay the fees. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of sending him into the Navy later on.”
    “As a stoker, no doubt,” his mother replied. “Anyway you are talking absolute nonsense. You are nothing less than a beggar dependent on my charity, and if you are counting on any publisher buying one of your trumpery novels you must be more of a fool than I already believe you to be.”
    “Now mother, calm yourself.” He spoke to her in a mockingly soothing voice. “I’ve been doing quite well lately. I think the last cheque I paid into my bank yesterday was for ninety-eight pounds, and I shall be paying in another nice little sum in a few days, I expect. You can leave Dennis’s school fees quite safely to me, Mother.”
    “I don’t believe it. You are lying. No one would pay you for the rubbish you write.” But as she spoke she remembered the sound of the long unused typewriter that had come floating down the stairs to be caught in her ear trumpet. “If you are speaking the truth you can pay … you can pay for your keep and for your children … all three of them,” the old woman spluttered out her words in jerks.
    “Well, if that’s the position Mother, I think I’ll return to London. It will be near my work and most likely cheaper,” and, as he got up to leave the table, he glanced at his mother and saw she was almost purple in the face