Read Love, Let Me Not Hunger for Free Online Page B

“I’m driving on to Chester. That’s my next stand. I’ve got three days at the Alhambra. You can stay if you like.”
    Rose said, “All right.” And that was how she came to remain with him.
    When, after his three-day stay in Chester, Williams turned his van south-west to drive to his next engagement, Rose was still with him. At night when he came home after the last show she was waiting up for him. They either went to a nearby cafe for something to eat or Rose would fix him a meal. And when he went to bed sometimes she went with him.
    For that matter, nothing was said at all about whether she was to remain with him, or for how long, or be turned out at the next stop; whether or not he liked her or even found her attractive. Williams seemed mainly occupied with his own thoughts and spoke very little. His four performances a day seemed to absorb a good deal of his energy and at night he was tired. Sometimes he made brief, disinterested, and almost absent-minded love to Rose, and sometimes he did not. But at no time did he ever speak any words of affection.
    He lived in his wagon like a pig amidst unmade beds, unwashed clothes, pots, pans, and dishes, amidst dust and dirt, his windows grimy, his floors filthy, and the ceiling of the van black with soot from the little paraffin stove he had installed to do his cooking. He lived thus because in many ways he was a pig and enjoyed being like one. Actually, the interior of the van had been cleverly laid out and rebuilt by himself. There was ample room to store Rose’s meagre wardrobe. There was even a kind of a hip bath which one could stand in, and which Williams used on a Saturday night. And the driving seat up forward was not uncomfortable; Rose shared it with him on the long hauls between towns where he had bookings.
    There was little in Williams’ untidy manner of living that Rose had not been accustomed to all her life. He was not ungenerous. He liked to eat well and in Crewe he bought her a warm cloth coat, or rather let her go and pick one out for herself when they passed a window which had a sale of coats all at one price. He made no comment when she returned to the living wagon with one of electric blue colour which set off her fox-coloured hair.
    But Rose was wary. She longed for cleanliness, to “get at” things, but she was as cautious as a child tiptoeing through the room of a sleeping parent. She hardly dared more than to wipe out the greasy frying pan with a piece of old newspaper, as she had seen Williams do. She would have liked to have busied herself housekeeping. It was, if one wanted to think of it that way, like a little travelling house with a chimney coming out of the roof. It had a “front room,” bedroom, kitchen, bath, and rear porch, the latter being when the ladder was let down and one could sit on the steps. But it was not her house to keep.
    She made little tentative moves timorously, and always with the knowledge that at any time he might dismiss her. She knew no more about him than when she had first met him; whether he was married or single; well off or poor; what his salary was; or even a great deal about his likes and dislikes.
    She began by “making up” his bed. There was not much to make—a mattress beneath, a blanket to lie on, a blanket to cover with, and two pillows without cases. But she folded them straight, smoothed them out, and turned them down. If Jackdaw—she was calling him Jackdaw now like everyone else—noticed it, he made no comment. Next, she dared little tidyings which were almost unnoticeable, or if they were noticed Williams continued to ignore them. Then she surreptitiously washed a glass, a cup, the coffee pot, and the frying pan. And during the afternoons at such time when through the winter smog the sun shone palely for an hour or two, she opened the windows and the back door and let air into the place. If Williams was aware that the atmosphere within the living wagon was sweeter, he again did not refer