The Collected Short Stories by Jean Rhys

Author:Jean Rhys
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241290859
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

The Lotus

‘Garland says she’s a tart.’

‘A tart! My dear Christine, have you seen her? After all, there are limits.’

‘What, round about the Portobello Road? I very much doubt it.’

‘Nonsense,’ Ronnie said. ‘She’s writing a novel. Yes, dearie –’ he opened his eyes very wide and turned the corners of his mouth down – ‘all about a girl who gets seduced –’

‘Well, well.’

‘On a haystack.’ Ronnie roared with laughter.

‘Perhaps we’ll have a bit of luck; she may get tight earlier than usual tonight and not turn up.’

‘Not turn up? You bet she will.’

Christine said, ‘I can’t imagine why you asked her here at all.’

‘Well, she borrowed a book the other day, and she said she was coming up to return it. What was I to do?’

While they were still arguing there was a knock on the door and he called, ‘Come in . . . Christine, this is Mrs Heath, Lotus Heath.’

‘Good evening,’ Lotus said in a hoarse voice. ‘How are you? Quite well, I hope . . . Good evening, Mr Miles. I’ve brought your book. Most enjoyable.’

She was a middle-aged woman, short and stout. Her plump arms were bare, the finger nails varnished bright red. She had rouged her mouth unskilfully to match her nails, but her face was very pale. The front of her black dress was grey with powder.

‘The way these windows rattle!’ Christine said. ‘Hysterical, I call it.’ She wedged a piece of newspaper into the sash, then sat down on the divan. Lotus immediately moved over to her side and leaned forward.

‘You do like me, dear, don’t you? Say you like me.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I think it’s so nice of you to ask me up here,’ Lotus said. Her sad eyes, set very wide apart, rolled vaguely round the room, which was distempered yellow and decorated with steamship posters – ‘Morocco, Land of Sunshine’, ‘Come to Beautiful Bali’. ‘I get fed up, I can tell you, sitting by myself in that basement night after night. And day after day if it comes to that.’

Christine remarked primly, ‘This is a horribly depressing part of London, I always think.’

Her nostrils dilated. Then she pressed her arms close against her sides, edged away and lit a cigarette, breathing the smoke in deeply.

‘But you’ve got it very nice up here, haven’t you? Is that a photograph of your father on the mantelpiece? You are like him.’

Ronnie glanced at his wife and coughed. ‘Well, how’s the poetry going?’ he asked, smiling slyly as he said the word ‘poetry’ as if at an improper joke. ‘And the novel, how’s that getting on?’

‘Not too fast,’ Lotus said, looking at the whisky decanter. Ronnie got up hospitably.

She took the glass he handed to her, screwed up her eyes, emptied it at a gulp and watched him refill it with an absent-minded expression.

‘But it’s wonderful the way it comes to me,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a long book. I’m going to get everything in – the whole damn thing. I’m going to write a book like nobody’s ever written before.

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