An Unsuitable Job for a Woman Read Free Page A

manoeuvred down the narrow staircase, watched by eyes from the half-opened doors of other offices; the last policeman had left. Miss Sparshott had gone for good, violent death being a worse insult than a typewriter which a trained typist ought not to be expected to use or lavatory accommodation which was not at all what she had been accustomed to. Alone in the emptiness and silence Cordelia felt the need of physical action. She began vigorously to clean the inner office, scrubbing the bloodstains from desk and chair, mopping the soaked rug.
    At one o’clock she walked briskly to their usual pub. It occurred to her that there was no longer any reason to patronize the Golden Pheasant but she walked on unable to bring herself to so early a disloyalty. She had never liked the pub or the landlady and had often wished that Bernie would find a nearer house, preferably one with a large bosomy barmaid with a heart of gold. It was, she suspected, a type commoner in fiction than in real life. The familiar lunchtime crowd was clustered around the bar and, as usual, Mavis presided behind it wearing her slightly minatory smile, her air of extreme respectability. Mavis changed her dress three times a day, her hairstyle once every year, her smile never. The twowomen had never liked each other although Bernie had galumphed between them like an affectionate old dog, finding it convenient to believe that they were great mates and unaware of or ignoring the almost physical crackle of antagonism. Mavis reminded Cordelia of a librarian known to her in childhood who had secreted the new books under the counter in case they should be taken out and soiled. Perhaps Mavis’s barely suppressed chagrin was because she was forced to display her wares so prominently, compelled to measure out her bounty before watchful eyes. Pushing a half-pint of shandy and a Scotch egg across the counter in response to Cordelia’s order, she said: “I hear you’ve had the police round.”
    Watching their avid faces, Cordelia thought, they know about it, of course; they want to hear the details; they may as well hear them. She said: “Bernie cut his wrists twice. The first time he didn’t get to the vein; the second time he did. He put his arm in water to help the bleeding. He had been told that he had cancer and couldn’t face the treatment.”
    That, she saw, was different. The little group around Mavis glanced at each other, then quickly averted their eyes. Glasses were momentarily checked upon their upward way. Cutting one’s wrist was something which other people did but the sinister little crab had his claws of fear into all their minds. Even Mavis looked as if she saw his bright claws lurking among her bottles. She said: “You’ll be looking for a new job, I suppose? After all, you can hardly keep the Agency going on your own. It isn’t a suitable job for a woman.”
    “No different from working behind a bar; you meet all kinds of people.”
    The two women looked at each other and a snatch of unspoken dialogue passed between them clearly heard and understood by both.
    “And don’t think, now he’s dead, that people can go on leaving messages for the Agency here.”
    “I wasn’t going to ask.”
    Mavis began vigorously polishing a glass, her eyes still on Cordelia’s face.
    “I shouldn’t think your mother would approve of you staying on alone.”
    “I only had a mother for the first hour of my life, so I don’t have to worry about that.”
    Cordelia saw at once that the remark had deeply shocked them and wondered again at the capacity of older people to be outraged by simple facts when they seemed capable of accepting any amount of perverse or shocking opinion. But their silence, heavy with censure, at least left her in peace. She carried her shandy and Scotch egg to a seat against the wall and thought without sentimentality about her mother. Gradually out of a childhood of deprivation she had evolved a philosophy of compensation. In her