Frank Scott and Dorothy Livesay. She said Rose must read them. Rose must read this, she must read that. Rose became sullenly determined not to. She was reading Thomas Mann. She was reading Tolstoy.
Before she came to Dr. Henshawe’s, Rose had never heard of the working class. She took the designation home.
“This would have to be the last part of town where they put the sewers,” Flo said.
“Of course,” Rose said coolly. “This is the working-class part of town.”
“ Working class?” said Flo. “Not if the ones around here can help it.”
Dr. Henshawe’s house had done one thing. It had destroyed the naturalness, the taken-for-granted background, of home. To go back there was to go quite literally into a crude light. Flo had put fluorescent lights in the store and the kitchen. There was also, in a corner of the kitchen, a floor lamp Flo had won at Bingo; its shade was permanently wrapped in wide strips of cellophane. What Dr. Henshawe’s house and Flo’s house did best, in Rose’s opinion, was discredit each other. In Dr. Henshawe’s charming rooms there was always for Rose the raw knowledge of home, an indigestible lump, and at home now her sense of order and modulation elsewhere exposed such embarrassing sad poverty in people who never thought themselves poor. Poverty was not just wretchedness, as Dr. Henshawe seemed to think, it was not just deprivation. It meant having those ugly tube lights and being proud of them. It meant continual talk of money and malicious talk about new things people had bought and whether they were paid for. It meant pride and jealousy flaring over something like the new pair of plastic curtains, imitating lace, that Flo had bought for the front window.That as well as hanging your clothes on nails behind the door and being able to hear every sound from the bathroom. It meant decorating your walls with a number of admonitions, pious and cheerful and mildly bawdy.
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALL
BE SAVED
Why did Flo have those, when she wasn’t even religious? They were what people had, common as calendars.
THIS IS MY KITCHEN AND I WILL DO AS I DARNED PLEASE
MORE THAN TWO PERSONS TO A BED IS DANGEROUS
AND UNLAWFUL
Billy Pope had brought that one. What would Patrick have to say about them? What would someone who was offended by a mispronunciation of Metternich think of Billy Pope’s stories?
Billy Pope worked in Tyde’s Butcher Shop. What he talked about most frequently now was the D.P., the Belgian, who had come to work there, and got on Billy Pope’s nerves with his impudent singing of French songs and his naive notions of getting on in this country, buying a butcher shop of his own.
“Don’t you think you can come over here and get yourself ideas,” Billy Pope said to the D.P. “It’s youse workin’ for us , and don’t think that’ll change into us workin’ for youse.” That shut him up, Billy Pope said.
Patrick would say from time to time that since her home was only fifty miles away he ought to come up and meet Rose’s family.
“There’s only my stepmother.”
“It’s too bad I couldn’t have met your father.”
Rashly, she had presented her father to Patrick as a reader of history, an amateur scholar. That was not exactly a lie, but it did not give a truthful picture of the circumstances.
“Is your stepmother your guardian?”
Rose had to say she did not know.
“Well, your father must have appointed a guardian for you in his will. Who administers his estate?”
His estate. Rose thought an estate was land, such as people owned in England.
Patrick thought it was rather charming of her to think that.
“No, his money and stocks and so on. What he left.”
“I don’t think he left any.”
“Don’t be silly,” Patrick said.
AND SOMETIMES Dr. Henshawe would say, “Well, you are a scholar, you are not interested in that.” Usually she was speaking of some event at the college: a pep rally, a
Before she came to Dr. Henshawe’s, Rose had never heard of the working class. She took the designation home.
“This would have to be the last part of town where they put the sewers,” Flo said.
“Of course,” Rose said coolly. “This is the working-class part of town.”
“ Working class?” said Flo. “Not if the ones around here can help it.”
Dr. Henshawe’s house had done one thing. It had destroyed the naturalness, the taken-for-granted background, of home. To go back there was to go quite literally into a crude light. Flo had put fluorescent lights in the store and the kitchen. There was also, in a corner of the kitchen, a floor lamp Flo had won at Bingo; its shade was permanently wrapped in wide strips of cellophane. What Dr. Henshawe’s house and Flo’s house did best, in Rose’s opinion, was discredit each other. In Dr. Henshawe’s charming rooms there was always for Rose the raw knowledge of home, an indigestible lump, and at home now her sense of order and modulation elsewhere exposed such embarrassing sad poverty in people who never thought themselves poor. Poverty was not just wretchedness, as Dr. Henshawe seemed to think, it was not just deprivation. It meant having those ugly tube lights and being proud of them. It meant continual talk of money and malicious talk about new things people had bought and whether they were paid for. It meant pride and jealousy flaring over something like the new pair of plastic curtains, imitating lace, that Flo had bought for the front window.That as well as hanging your clothes on nails behind the door and being able to hear every sound from the bathroom. It meant decorating your walls with a number of admonitions, pious and cheerful and mildly bawdy.
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALL
BE SAVED
Why did Flo have those, when she wasn’t even religious? They were what people had, common as calendars.
THIS IS MY KITCHEN AND I WILL DO AS I DARNED PLEASE
MORE THAN TWO PERSONS TO A BED IS DANGEROUS
AND UNLAWFUL
Billy Pope had brought that one. What would Patrick have to say about them? What would someone who was offended by a mispronunciation of Metternich think of Billy Pope’s stories?
Billy Pope worked in Tyde’s Butcher Shop. What he talked about most frequently now was the D.P., the Belgian, who had come to work there, and got on Billy Pope’s nerves with his impudent singing of French songs and his naive notions of getting on in this country, buying a butcher shop of his own.
“Don’t you think you can come over here and get yourself ideas,” Billy Pope said to the D.P. “It’s youse workin’ for us , and don’t think that’ll change into us workin’ for youse.” That shut him up, Billy Pope said.
Patrick would say from time to time that since her home was only fifty miles away he ought to come up and meet Rose’s family.
“There’s only my stepmother.”
“It’s too bad I couldn’t have met your father.”
Rashly, she had presented her father to Patrick as a reader of history, an amateur scholar. That was not exactly a lie, but it did not give a truthful picture of the circumstances.
“Is your stepmother your guardian?”
Rose had to say she did not know.
“Well, your father must have appointed a guardian for you in his will. Who administers his estate?”
His estate. Rose thought an estate was land, such as people owned in England.
Patrick thought it was rather charming of her to think that.
“No, his money and stocks and so on. What he left.”
“I don’t think he left any.”
“Don’t be silly,” Patrick said.
AND SOMETIMES Dr. Henshawe would say, “Well, you are a scholar, you are not interested in that.” Usually she was speaking of some event at the college: a pep rally, a
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