'Nine Years is a Long Time'
by Norah Hoult author of Persephone Book No. 59

It wasn’t until October was well under way that she began to wonder that she had had no word from him. Even then she didn’t actually worry. He had probably gone on some business trip.

Men in a good position, like he certainly was, often went away on business looking after their affairs. He might have gone to London: he was a member of some swell club there. That she did know, for he’d let out one day something about an important call being put through to his club in town, and he had had to return to Rotherfield sooner than he had expected.

All the same she found herself watching the posts, watching for the appearance of the telegraph boy – he usually wired. All the time she was watching. When she dusted the front room, or went to fetch anything from the cupboard, she would find herself come to a standstill in front of the window, and staring up and down the road. By the end of the month she admitted that it was a good piece over his usual absence.

Her husband thought it funny too. They had a talk about it one evening when their daughter, Irene, was out at her shorthand class.

She started the subject herself. She said: ‘What do you think about it, Harry? What’s your real opinion? You can say right out what’s in your mind, you know?’

They were sitting in the kitchen over the fire. He took up the poker, and knocked the coal about with it making a better blaze, before he answered. Then he said in a very thoughtful voice: ‘Well, of course, he might be dead.’

She nodded her head. ‘I’ve thought of that myself.’ So she had. But to have it put into words from him made it more real. Like hearing a thunder-clap when before you had just wondered if there mightn’t be a storm about.

He added, leaning back in his chair, and looking at her out of small eyes blinking over their comfortable creases: ‘He could die sudden and you not a penny the wiser seeing that you don’t know his name or address or anything about him.’

‘I’ll tell you this much,’ she said a little sharply, ‘if he did die, there’d probably be half a col-umn at the least about him in the Rotherfield Telegraph. He’d be one of their leading citizens; there’s no doubt about that. I wouldn’t mind betting that he’s the director of several companies.’

‘Well, what of it? You’d be none the wiser, since you don’t know his name. There’s several leading Rotherfield men died lately; about his age, too. I don’t know that you’d do much good if you went over to Rotherfield, and looked up the papers. You wouldn’t know, see, would you?’

She looked into the fire. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t.’ She thought a little, then she said: ‘Tell you what. I wouldn’t be surprised if his name started with a ‘Mac’.

He had a Scotch accent all right. Though he wasn’t mean.’

No, he wasn’t mean. Three pounds a time came in very useful to help out. She was going to miss it, if it stopped. And so would Irene, and Mr Scott. Mr Scott was how she always thought of her husband.

He agreed with her this time. ‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t say that he was mean. But reserved. Scotch people, of course, are like that. That was why he never let out a word about himself or his occupation.’

The flames from the fire were beginning to scorch the front of her legs. She rubbed her hands up and down them. Then, crossing one leg over the other, she hazarded: ‘I often had the idea that ship-building was his line. Else, what brought him to Merseyhead so regular? I mean he came here before he met me.’

‘Very likely,’ said Mr Scott. ‘Quite likely, I’d say.’

He took out his pipe and his pouch, and began to press tobacco into the bowl.

She watched his red face bent forward with some hostility. If her Rotherfield friend didn’t turn up. soon, he’d feel it. He’d have to go without tobacco. All she had now was Irene’s pound a week and about a pound profit on Miss Halpin, their paying guest, who had a good post as manageress of Bailey’s, the big drapers. Two pounds a week didn’t go far towards keeping them well fed, and with good fires. Seeing as he was the one who was out of a job, who didn’t contribute nothing, it was only fair he should give up things.

‘So that’s what you think, that he’s dead?’ she asked, resuming the conversation, but as if she were attacking him.

He took a draw at his pipe, before answering. He was always one like that, one to take his time over things. It would annoy you if you didn’t know him. It annoyed you when you did know him, too.

‘I didn’t say that he was dead, for I don’t know. What I said was that he might be dead, for all you know, or that I know, or for all that we would know.’

He stopped and looked at her, as if hoping that at last she had got the position clear. Deciding to take no risk he added patiently, ‘Because, you see, you are not in possession of his name, or of his address, or anything about him except that he lives, or lived, at Rotherfield. So that you can’t find him, or satisfy your mind.’

‘I know that. I don’t need you to tell me that.’

 ‘Well, then…’

‘And I tell you, Mr Scott, you’ll find it no bloody joke us losing three quid a month.”
‘I know that.’ His mouth pursed into lines of bitter resignation. ‘How long is this going on, I wonder?’

 What he meant was, how long before his father kicked the bucket? Before their two minds was a picture of an old paralysed man. Just sitting in a big chair holding on grimly to life. When he died there’d be money com-ing to Mr Scott as his only son.When he died. All over the world there were people waiting for other people to die, and settle their financial problems for them. And it seemed like that the longer you waited, the longer you had to wait.

 Mr Scott said what they’d each of them said many a time: ‘You’d think that with nothing to do, nothing to live for as you might say, he’d be glad to go. I’m sure I should in his place.’

She nodded her head. But that topic was threadbare.

Her mind went back to her own problem. Why didn’t her Rotherfield friend write? Wasn’t she going to see him again ever?

The fire was too hot on her other leg now. So she reversed her position. Then she held out both legs in front of her. She used to have good legs; they were a little on the fat side now. She’d put on eight pounds this last year. Eleven stone ten was her weight.

‘Do you think I’ve got to look much fatter lately?’ she asked him.

Mr. Scott looked at her indifferently.‘I don’t know. Maybe you have.’

‘My legs are fatter, aren’t they?’

‘You always had a good calf.’

‘Yes, but my ankles were slim.

I used to be able to get my thumb and middle finger to meet round. Now I can’t.’
She showed him. There was a good inch of flesh-coloured stocking to spare over the squeezed flesh.

‘Hmmm.’ He stared. Then he said: ‘Thinking of slimming or what?’

‘Doctors say it’s very bad for you. Besides, it wasn’t as if I was a big eater. And heaven knows I get my share of exercise with all the housework.’

‘I’d leave it. I don’t think it makes much difference. Nature intended there to be two kinds of women, big and small. I like the modern slim woman myself.’

She had heard him say this till she was tired of hearing him. Whenever he came in from the pictures, he’d go on talking about some lovely slim little girl till you’d think he was daft. Getting into his dotage he was. Pinning pictures of girls up on his bedroom walls; just legs and scraps of lingerie. Sixty! An old man really. She could ask him, why he married her then? Of course she’d been slimmer then, but she’d always had a figure.

She said: ‘My Rotherfield friend said he always liked a woman with a figure. Something to get hold of.’

‘Some men do,’ he agreed, nodding his head in deep assent, so that you could see the thin hair brushed neatly across the top. ‘There was a time, I remember it well, when most men liked them big. Fashions change in women like they do in everything else. I think Edward liked them on the full-figured side. But I believe the Prince of Wales likes·them skinny.’

‘Go on with you! What do you know about what the Prince of Wales likes in the way of women?’

‘As much as anybody else,

I suppose. Why only the other day I walked back from the library with a man who knew someone who knew… ’

‘You told me that bit before. Anyone can pretend they know anything, can’t they? Well, I’d better get Irene’s supper.’

She got up from her seat with a jerk. Anyhow it was no good worrying. Worrying never did any good. She might hear from him tomorrow.

But she didn’t hear. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that…

A depression settIed slowly and abidingly on her spirit. It was a bad time in the garden. You couldn’t do anything with it just now, but prop up the chrysanthemums against the wind. And the daily housekeeping round, making the list for Mr Scott to go to the shops, cooking meals, washing clothes, ironing, dusting, and for diversion talking to Miss Halpin – who was as dull as ditchwater, and had probably never had a man in her life – hung heavily. When she lay down after clearing up from the one o’clock dinner, she didn’t go to sleep, but her thoughts went round in a dull painful question. It seemed to rain every day, so that you had no heart in you to go for a bit of a walk or up to see the shops. It was a pity, because they said there was nothing like a walk or a change to take your mind off things – and walking reduced the weight too.

What she was really missing was the change her Rotherfield friend made, she decided. It had been a sort of holiday when she got his wire or letter. Then Mr Scott knew that he’d have to manage everything himself. She’d be the rest of the morning having a bath, and dressing herself with special care. The last touch was a drop or two of Coty’s Chypre, that was too expensive to use for any but very special occasions. Then after a light lunch – no steak and onions – off to the Queen’s, where they always met. She liked sitting in the lounge of the Queen’s, with well-dressed people about her, and having a drink and a chat, and then another drink before they went off to the hotel.

They were nearly always able to have the same bedroom, with the red curtains and the alabaster vases on the mantelpiece, so that it was really homelike in its familiarity. Mrs. Weston always had the gas-fire lit for them ready.

It wasn’t that her Rotherfield friend really attracted her in the way one or two men – no, really only one man in her life – had attracted her. But still a woman wanted to get into bed with a man now and then. It was only natural. She had always felt better in herself afterwards. Mrs. Weston sent them tea up, or if they preferred they had it downstairs in the lounge. You’d see quite a good class of people having their tea, too; you’d be surprised. Mrs. Weston knew some really famous theatrical people, like the time when Daisy Allen had stayed with her. Handy the place was. And central. Well Mrs. Weston would be wondering what on earth had happened to her.

Almost every month – he’d missed now and again, of course – as regular as regular for nine solid years.

It had been a change. He went off pretty soon afterwards. Had some dinner engagement usually, he said. And she’d meet Irene coming out from the office, and they’d go off to the pictures, and have a little bit of supper somewhere afterwards. It always seemed to her that when she went into Spinetti’s with Irene men used to look at her with increased attention. They looked at her a damn sight more than they did at Irene, pretty and slim and young as she was. Anyhow she always felt pleased with herself and warm and comfort-able inside.

Now, if he never came to see her again, or if she never saw him again, life would just go on as if it were a wet November all the time.

She began to spend more time in front of her looking-glass. One morning she went out, and recklessly bought a special pot of expensive skin food. Irene saw it when she came back from the office.

‘What’s that? Is that yours?’

‘Yes. I treated myself for a change. Mrs Rosenbaum was telling me that it’s terribly good for the skin. Works marvels. So it should at the price.’

‘Well, I just hope to goodness, mother, you are not going to start making yourself up the way Mrs Rosenbaum goes on. I think it’s disgusting. An old woman
like that.’

‘She’s not an old woman.

She’s only about fifty.’

 ‘Well, I do think there’s nothing more repulsive than to see a woman of that age trying to make herself look young. They never do; they just look repulsive, revolting. Why should a woman when she’s past forty go on fussing about herself?’

‘I suppose you’d like me not to use powder or lipstick, even?’

‘Well, I don’t say I mind a little powder, but…’

She stopped, and shrugged her shoulders. Standing there scornful and young, with her smooth skin and hard eyes. She was always bossing her now. Last time they’d gone out together, she’d said: ‘Mother, you’ve got too much rouge and lipstick on,’ rubbed it off herself. And she wouldn’t let her smoke on top .of trams: when once she had wanted to light up – ‘Please don’t, mother. If any of the girls at the office should get on!’

The whole thing was that she was beginning to put on airs and graces, to fancy herself. But Irene wasn’t a bit like an ordinary girl, like she’d been when she was eighteen. She said she hated men. Once she had told her straight: ‘Well, if it hadn’t been for some of my men friends, you’d have had a thin time when you were a kid, I can tell you.
It wasn’t your father supported you and him at the war.”

Did her good to be told straight out. Of course, young people were like that, very intolerant. They thought no one should look nice but themselves. She said, and now there was anger in her voice: ‘Well, if you think I’m going to look dowdy just to please you.’

‘I don’t want you to look dowdy. But if you have a lot of stuff on your face with your red hair – and honestly, mother, it suits you better if you’d stop henna-ing it so much – if you put on a thick cream and lipstick with your hair and big figure, it makes you look conspicuous, that’s all.’

‘You’re jealous. Because when we’re out together more men look at me than they do at you.’

‘I’m not at all jealous…’ Irene looked at her mother as if she were going to say hard words, then she went out of the room with her lips tightly pressed together.

Mrs Scott sat down in front of the fire, holding the skin food in her hand. There was a pain at her heart which she tried to banish by getting up quickly and putting a record on the gramophone:

There’s a lovely lake in London…

‘Pom pom pom-pom pom pom pom-pom’ she hummed to her-self defiantly, but her thoughts went on all the same. So Irene thought she was too old to bother about herself, that she looked fast when she took a bit of trouble with her appearance. She wasn’t too old. She tried to cheer herself up thinking of the story her Rotherfield friend had told her about the old man who was asked at what age sexual desire had left him. But the smile faded, because it took her thoughts back to him again. Why hadn’t she heard from him?

Had he got tired? Might as well face it, Irene thought of her as old and fast-looking. Had he come to think that about her? She got up and took down the oval mirror that hung over the mantelpiece and examined her face intently; then she held it farther away, so that it included the reflection of part of her figure as well.

She couldn’t see that she looked so old. There was something cheeky and attractive about her face, especially when she made her eyes laugh. Experienced, of course.Well, why not? Well, wouldn’t she be a fool at her age if she didn’t look as if she had had something to do with men? Withering on the virgin thorn – somebody, not her Rotherfield friend, somebody else had used the phrase once, and she remembered it with satisfaction. That wasn’t her line. Though it just about suited her lady lodger.

Of course she was on the plump side.That was upstairs. Her hips were still slim, and, thank God, she didn’t stick out behind. And her friend had always said…

She heard Irene’s steps in the hall, and replaced the mirror quickly. The hall door banged. She had gone back to work without saying ‘goodbye’. Bad- tempered. Not got over her buying something for herself. What she was going to do straight off was to go upstairs, and give her face a good massage with the skin food.

She came down to the after-noon cup of tea in a good temper. Her skin felt as soft as velvet to her touch, and the lines from nostrils to the corners of her mouth showed a lot less. Even Mr Scott noticed it.

He said: ‘You do look smart.’

He said that because she had on her best satin blouse and men always liked satin.Satin or velvet. But he wouldn’t have said any-thing, if she hadn’t done her face up. They chatted amiably, and when he said: ‘Do you know Bessy Morris is on at the Palace:
I wouldn’t mind seeing her,’ she surprised herself by saying:

‘Let’s go.’

 ‘But what about her ladyship’s supper?’

‘Let her have it cold for once. I’ll do her up a nice salad and leave the coffee, so that it only wants heating.’

‘And Irene?’

‘It just won’t do that girl any harm to get her own eats for once.She’s getting above herself.’

‘Haven’t I said she puts on too many airs? Ever since she went to that office she’s been a changed girl. And you always stick up for her.’

‘Well, I did stick up for her. But as a matter of fact you’re right for once. She’s getting to think there’s no one in the world but herself.’

‘That’s just what I’ve often said.’

‘I know that, and I’m agreeing with you. See?’

Pleasantly they set off for the Palace. It wasn’t often that she went out with her husband. Not likely. It was treat enough for her to give him the money to go to the pictures. But he didn’t look so bad when he was dressed nicely, with his hat brushed and everything. Irene would think she’d gone off her chump going out with him. It would show Miss Scott that she wasn’t everybody.

She did it in style, too. At the interval, she slipped him half a dollar, and they went into the saloon, and had a Scotch and splash. He passed her back the change, and it warmed you up, so that you enjoyed the second half better.

Still, wasn’t it funny, even in the Palace, a place he’d never be likely to go to, unless compelled by some business function, she found herself looking for her Rotherfield friend. Once she really thought she saw him, looked a bit like at the back, and her hand stiffened, ready to clutch Mr Scott’s arm. But when the man turned, it wasn’t a bit like him really.

Bessy Morris sang one of her old songs. She sang: ‘I don’t want to get old; I don’t want to get old;

I want to stay just as I am…’

Running furiously up and down the stage, and making everyone die laughing. ‘I want to come home at half-past four and have a row with the woman next door; I don’t want to get old… ’

She laughed a lot; and she also laughed loudly at the jokes of the comedian who followed. Thank God, she had a sense of humour and could enjoy a saucy story.

A man in front, a very nice-looking, well-dressed fellow, too, kept looking round and trying to catch her eye. She didn’t take any special notice: after all it wasn’t playing the game to give a man encouragement when you were out with another – even if it happened to be only her husb-and, and she was paying for him.

All the same it just showed that she wasn’t quite on the shelf whatever Irene thought. When they stood up for God Save The King, he just stared and stared at her. Mr Scott noticed it. He whispered: ‘Would you like me to slip away quietly?’ but she shook her head. No, she didn’t feel like it, and after all she had given all that up.

When they were sitting in the tram, she slipped out the mirror attached to her hand-bag, and was satisfied. There was a green light in her grey eyes that beckoned. Putting it back she hummed: ‘I don’t want to get old;

I don’t want to get old...’

The next day wasn’t so good. To begin with she had found herself with the definite expectation that she would hear from her friend that morning, and by twelve o’clock, when nothing had come – he was considerate; he always let her know before twelve – her spirits went down, plop, and she as definitely decided that it was the finish, and that she might as well face the fact. She stood at the window, and told herself so in good round language. Then she stared up and down.

It was one of those not infrequent days when without actually raining, it looked as if it were going to rain, that it would rain if the weather wasn’t too indifferent and spiritless to be able to do anything so positive.

It should rain. A grocer’s van passed; the woman from two houses up went by on her morning’s shopping. Mrs Scott’s ey followed her critically. What a way to go out, shoes all muddy, old mackintosh… oh, who cared! An errand boy wheeled by on a bicycle, whistling cheerfully.

Let him whistle. He knew damn all about life.

Yes, he must be dead, and if he was dead, that was that, she couldn’t do anything about it.

Or he’d found another woman, younger and better-looking than she was. But that didn’t seem reasonable. After all if he’d stuck to her for nine years, when he could have any girl he wanted as any rich man could, why should he change now? Nine years showed that he was the faithful sort. Or he’d made it up with his wife; of course there was a wife somewhere; she knew that though he kept his mouth close. Perhaps she’d been in a lunatic asylum, and been let out cured. And he was sticking to her. That was another thing about married men. They might be ever so bitter about their. wives, say they’d spoilt their lives, and all that stuff. And the very next thing, for the sake of his children, or for the sake of his home, or for the sake of his bloody position, or his bloody conscience, he’d turn you down as if you weren’t flesh and blood at all.

Still, nine years was a long time, and she’d have thought he’d have done it before if he were going to do it.

Well, everything went in time, and it was no good moping about it. ‘The best of friends must part,’ as the old saying was. It wasn’t as if she’d actually been in love with him, still you got used to having a man. At this very moment, she wouldn’t mind... it was last night’s outing, and being near her period. That was why she felt so depressed, too.

Depression or not, no good standing there. Mr Scott would be wondering when he was going to get his dinner. Dinner-time was what he spent all his morning waiting for. Like his blasted cheek, but there it was.

When they were sitting over a cup of coffee and Irene had gone back to work, Mr Scott said suddenly: ‘Do you know when I was coming back I saw a telegraph boy cycling up the road this morning, and I made sure he was going to turn in here. He just went a few doors on: I think it would be for Tilson’s.’

‘Who the hell would be sending us a wire? The Sweep isn’t on now. Did you think your father had died at last?’

‘Not likely!’ Mr. Scott sniffed contemptuously through his nose. ‘No, he’ll never die. I thought it was from your friend, of course.’

‘Well, you can give up thinking about him. It’s over three months now.’ She put her cup on the table, and then turning towards him, raised her voice emphatically.

‘I shan’t hear from him again.

Not never. See?’

‘I don’t know. Christmas is coming. That might bring you something. Why are you so sure of a sudden?’

‘I couldn’t tell you why I’m so sure. I just know it today. I feel it in my bones. Somebody has been making mischief, saying that I’m a married woman, not a widow, like I told him, and my friend is so straight that he wouldn’t go with a married woman. He told me that once, and I remember it now. Somebody might easily have seen me and him at the Queen’s, and known us both. Or else he’s dead. Or else… anyhow I just know I shan’t see him again.

So that’s enough about that.’

Mr Scott looked at her face. She was getting quite worked up about it. He sought for sympathetic words. ‘Well, no wonder you’re upset. It must be – I was working it out in bed last night – must be a good nine years since you first ran into him – just by the Arcade, wasn’t it? – and he turned out so lucky. Ah well, no use crying over spilt milk.’He waited for her to speak, but as she said nothing he went on tentatively: ‘Dare say you could easily pick up someone else if you fancied?’

She gave him a hard look. ‘Could I? Well, I might. But you know damn well that having Irene going to an office, I can’t do what I please. Besides, after being so regular with just the one man…’ She stopped and her lips began to be unsteady. Horrified, she comprehended in a lightning flash that she had got the habit of being faithful. Why, if that chap last night had spoken to her, and she’d been on her own, she’d have behaved like a silly kid and rushed away. She had just got out of the way of all that... pretty awful to think that she, Sally Scott, had dwindled into a Miss Prim and Steady for the rest of her life. Not a single man in her life, for you wouldn’t count Mr Scott. Past work and past everything he was. She choked back a sob. That’s what her Rotherfield friend had done to her. That’s what a woman got for being so blasted loyal. She took out her handkerchief.

‘Don’t take on about it,’ said Mr Scott, rising uncomfortably. ‘Course I can understand your feeling sore. Nine years is a long time.’

‘Oh, shut up, can’t you? Don’t you know any other words? Shut up, can’t you?’

The tears were coming. She couldn’t stop them. Aghast at herself, she got up; and turned her back, trying for self-control.

Mr Scott stood a few seconds contemplating her back, her downcast head. Her hair looked pretty when it caught the sun. It wasn’t like Mrs Scott to give way. If it were Irene it would be different. She often threw fits about nothing at all. But, whatever her faults, Mrs Scott was generally a sensible cheerful woman. Why couldn’t she see that she’d been lucky to keep her friend as long as she had done? Should he pat her shoulder? Better not. She might only fly out at him.

Mrs Scott put an end to his dilemma by saying: ‘Hadn’t you better put the kettle on for washing up?’

‘Right you are,’ said Mr Scott, and shuffled rapidly away into the scullery.

Mrs Scott replaced her handkerchief, and took out her flap-jack. She dabbed her nose with powder, saying under her breath: ‘That’s that.’ Then, moving briskly, she started to collect the dishes and bring them into the scullery.

 © Selected Stories by Norah Hoult, Maurice Fridberg, 1946, first published in Nine Years is a Long Time & Other Stories, 1938