I must have been in a foolish state those first weeks after Rachel
was born. I don’t believe I was ill really, but I felt very ill;
and things worried me that should not have worried me at all.
I got bothered again about the bathroom; about the paint coming
off the bath, and the wall that was dirty where the cedar mop
hung up. I kept thinking about that bathroom over and over again;
I could not get away from it. I thought how nice it would be
to have another bathroom; all white tiles with nickel taps and
glass shelves, like bathrooms I had seen in shops. I had never
lived with a bathroom like that, for at Yearsly the bath was
a big old-fashioned one in a wooden casing, and at Campden Hill
Square it was the same. I don’t know why this got into my head,
or why it stayed there, but it became an obsession. I kept planning
how it would be, and where the glass shelf would be, and how
many white tiles would be needed, though I knew, of course, that
it could not be done; even if we had the money to spend, our
bathroom was not big enough to be like the one I planned; but
it kept me from thinking of the War, and about Hugo, and Guy,
and George; it kept me also from thinking about getting up again
with two babies to look after instead of one, and Mrs. Sebright
gone away.
Walter found me crying one day when he came in to see me, and
he asked me what was the matter, and I said that I did not like
the bathroom, and the paint peeling off the bottom of the bath.
That sounded so silly, that it made me cry more.
‘And the wall is all grey behind the mop,’ I said.
Walter put his hand to his head in his tired, bewildered way.
‘But, Helen dear,’ he said, ‘you can’t be crying about _that_?’
And I nodded my head.
‘I do so want a bathroom, all white, with tiles and glass shelves
and shining taps,’ I said.
‘But, Helen, you know we can’t afford that sort of thing,’ he
said, ‘even if it were reasonable to do it. Tiles are very expensive.’