‘They are,’ said Bicket. ‘So long!’
With the receipt and the meat jelly in his left hand, he opened the door of his front room.
His wife was sitting before a very little fire. Her bobbed black hair, crinkly towards the ends, had grown during her illness; it shook when she turned her head and smiled. To Bicket – not for the first time – that smile seemed queer, ‘pathetic-like’, mysterious – as if she saw things that one didn’t see oneself. Her name was Victorine, and he said: ‘Well, Vic? This jelly’s a bit of all right, and I’ve pyde the rent.’ He sat on the arm of the chair and she put her hand on his knee – her thin arm emerging blue-white from the dark dressing-gown.
‘Well, Tony?’
Her face – thin and pale with those large dark eyes and beautifully formed eyebrows – was one that ‘looked at you from somewhere; and when it looked at you – well I it got you right inside!’
It got him now and he said: ‘How’ve you been breathin’?’
‘All right – much better. I’ll soon be out now.’
Bicket twisted himself round and joined his lips to hers. The kiss lasted some time, because all the feelings which he had not been able to express during the past three weeks to her or to anybody, got into it. He sat up again, ‘sort of exhausted’, staring at the fire, and said: ‘News isn’t bright – lost my job, Vic.’
‘Oh! Tony! Why?’
Bicket swallowed.
‘Fact is, things are slack, and they’re reducin’.’
There had surged into his mind the certainty that sooner than tell her the truth he would put his head under the gas!
‘Oh! dear! What shall we do, then?’
Bicket’s voice hardened.
‘Don’t you worry – I’ll get something;’ and he whistled.
‘But you liked that job.’
‘Did I? I liked some o’ the fellers; but as for the job – why, what was it? Wrappin’ books up in a bysement all dy long. Let’s have something to eat and get to bed early – I feel as if I could sleep for a week, now I’m shut of it.’
Getting their supper ready with her help, he carefully did not look at her face for fear it might ‘get him agyne inside!’ They had only been married a year, having made acquaintance on a tram, and Bicket often wondered what had made her take to him, eight years her senior and C3 during the war! And yet she must be fond of him, or she’d never look at him as she did.
‘Sit down and try this jelly.’
He himself ate bread and margarine and drank cocoa, he seldom had any particular appetite.
‘Shall I tell you what I’d like?’ he said; ‘I’d like Central Austrylia. We had a book in there about it; they sy there’s quite a movement. I’d like some sun. I believe if we ’ad sun we’d both be twice the size we are. I’d like to see colour in your cheeks, Vic.’
‘How much does it cost to get out there?’
‘A lot more than we can ly hands on, that’s the trouble. But I’ve been thinkin’. England’s about done. There’s too many like me.’
‘No,’ said Victorine: ‘There aren’t enough.’
Bicket looked at her face, then quickly at his plate.
‘What myde you take a fancy to me?’
‘Because you don’t think first of yourself, that’s why.’
‘Used to before I knew you. But I’d do anything for you, Vic.’
‘Have some of this jelly, then, it’s awful good.’
Bicket shook his head.
‘If we could wyke up in Central Austrylia,’ he said. ‘But there’s only one thing certain, we’ll wyke up in this blighted little room. Never mind, I’ll get a job and earn the money yet.’
‘Could we win it on a race?’
‘Well, I’ve only got forty-seven bob all told, and if we lose it, where’ll you be? You’ve got to feed up, you know. No, I must get a job.’
‘They’ll give you a good recommend, won’t they?’
Bicket rose and stacked his plate and cup.
‘They would, but that job’s off – overstocked.’
Tell her the truth? Never! So help him!
In their bed, one of those just too wide for one and just not wide enough for two, he lay, with her hair almost in his mouth, thinking what to say to his union , and how to go to work to get a job. And in his thoughts as the hours drew on he burned his boats. To draw his unemployment money he would have to tell his union what the trouble was. Blow the union ! He wasn’t going to be accountable to them! He knew why he’d pinched the books; but it was nobody else’s business, nobody else could understand his feelings, watching her so breathless, pale and thin. Strike out for himself! And a million and a half out o’ work! Well, he had a fortnight’s keep, and something would turn up – and he might risk a bob or two and win some money, you never knew. She turned in her sleep. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘I’d do it agyne…’