Nine

i

I made my room as decent as possible, and on my first Saturday there, before going to meet Jessie, I glanced round at it anxiously. It was still bleak and dreary, nothing would alter that. But now there were sketches, sent from home, which I had pinned up to cover the walls, and on the dressing-­table, in a little blue vase, was a bunch of anemones. I wondered what else I could do; then gave up in disgust. Something anonymous and wretched, connected with the passing in and out of successive tenants, had steeped everything in its solution and made it squalid. There was no defeating that. It was like the linoleum in the hall with its pattern rubbed off, worn to a colourless blur by all the indifferent feet. It triumphed over everything.

At the station, when I saw her step down from the carriage and stride eagerly towards me, swinging a small bag, my doubts and fears dropped away. There was something pale and tense about her face, as she drew closer, that made me uneasy. Yet when she spoke her voice was excited and happy.

“Hallo,” she cried. “Guess what I’ve got here!”

We were walking along hand in hand.

“In the bag, d’you mean?”

“Yes, a surprise. Guess what.”

I laughed gently at her; she was so full of her secret.

“I give up,” I said.

She stopped among the taxis to show me, under the high glass roof of the station entrance.

“Things for your room,” she explained, and uncovered the contents of the bag, one thing after the other, so that I could glimpse them. “A gay bedspread, a red-­and-­white check table-­cloth, and a bowl for fruit. There—aren’t I good to you?”

“Very good,” I said. “I wonder why.”

“Don’t ask me,” she laughed merrily. “I must be mad.”

She hugged my arm as we walked along, then took my hand, giving it a sudden squeeze. A tenderness came into my eyes and throat and I could not speak. I wanted to take her somewhere, to my room, but I had decided to wait until the evening. I was ashamed of it in the daylight, and the time was only one o’clock.

We rattled towards Oxford Street in the tube, and she asked about the room. I told her how drab it was, and about the colour of the walls.

“O dear,” she said ruefully, “is it that bad?”

“Worse,” I said. “You wait and see.”

“I don’t believe it. Where are we going now?”

“I’m not sure,” I confessed, and she looked at me in mock astonishment, shooting up her eyebrows.

“Are you hungry?” I asked her.

“A little, I think. How about you—how d’you go on for meals now? Do you cook for yourself?”

“Sort of,” I said evasively.

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?” she persisted.

“Nothing, really. I couldn’t be bothered.”

“Good heavens—let’s find somewhere, then. Why don’t you take more care of yourself?” she cried. I was touched by the concern in her voice.

We went into a small restaurant in Oxford Street. It was crowded.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” she said, as she sat opposite me. “Any paintings, yet, for me to inspect?”

“Only this,” I said, and showed her the sketch of the old man I had done on the back of the envelope.

“Oh!” she said in surprise. “Who is he? What a strong face—but he’s an ugly piece of work. Ugly but attractive—is that what you meant him to be?”

“I suppose so,” I said awkwardly. How difficult it is to talk about such things, I thought. “It’s not really a success.”

“I like it,” she said firmly. “Eat your dinner, young man. Anything else to show me?”

“No, only me,” I grinned at her.

“Then what have you been up to for a whole week, in a room all to yourself? Aren’t you mysterious!”

“I’ve been looking for a job. I went after one in Deptford, where they wanted a warehouseman, but they didn’t think I’d be strong enough. They wanted somebody to lift tiled fireplaces about—that sort of thing.”

“Oh no, that wouldn’t be suitable for you. I’m glad you didn’t get it. Couldn’t you get a job at your trade—wouldn’t that be better?”

“I could do, easily, but I hate factories. It’s like being in prison.”

“Yes, I know. How about a clerk? Would you take to that, d’you think?”

“God knows,” I said, pulling a face. “I’m a queer fish. And what do I know about clerical work?”

Jessie sniffed her amusement. “If you can write your name you can be a clerk,” she said. “It isn’t as though you’re not intelligent.” And she widened her eyes, bending forward across the table. “Have my job in Brum,” she offered grandly. “I’m sick of offices, and the boss gets on my nerves—you’d adore my job! Last August the manager called me in to his little glass-­walled pen to speak about a very delicate matter. Those were his words, Nick—and what d’you think it was?”

“Go on,” I said.

“I wasn’t wearing stockings he said, and he hoped I wouldn’t be offended, but it was a rule that stockings must be worn. Only I was wearing them—some very thin ones! I felt like lifting my skirt up and saying ‘Yah!’”

Laughing, we got up to go.

“Now what?” she asked, turning to me.

“Well, we could go to the Monument, and climb up, and then come back by river to Westminster Bridge.”

“Can we do that?” she cried. “You mean by boat?”

“Yes, if you want,” I said casually, proud of my superior knowledge of London.

“I’d love to!” she said.

Once more we entered a tube station, descending a long draughty slope which streamed with people, and stepped into a train almost immediately to be whisked to the City.

We wandered through the deserted streets between large, blind buildings, towards Billingsgate.

“What a smell,” said Jessie, as we drew nearer.

“It’s not these offices,” I said, grinning. “It’s coming from the fish market.”

We entered a square, and I pointed at the tall column of stone, poking out of the refuse and stench of fish into the murky sky. It looked ludicrous in its isolation, like something left there by mistake.

“Is that the Monument?” Jessie asked incredulously, as we walked up to the scored base of it. She had expected something grander altogether.

When we came out at the top, dazed by the violent rush of light, she was afraid. A powerful wind pulled at us, and she shrank back from the parapet with a little shudder.

“It’s like falling through space,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve always been hopeless at heights. I should have remembered.”

Apart from us there was only a middle-­aged couple standing close together in silence, looking in the same direction like one person, and perfectly still there at the dirty rim of stone, as though the vast fuming spread of London had petrified them.

ii

We arrived at Greenwich just as it was getting dark. I hurried Jessie along the narrow pavement in the fog-laden street, smelling soot in the fog. The street lamps loomed out at regular intervals like vague yellowish fruits.

“Here we are,” I said, halting on the pavement outside the house.

“Why, it’s quite large,” she exclaimed. It did look rather big and impressive from the outside. But it was like a decayed tooth.

I opened the front door very quietly and shepherded her into the shabby hall, praying that Mr. Lawton would not hear us and come out. Women friends were probably not allowed. His kitchen door opened on to the hall at the end. It was slightly ajar but there was no sound from there. At the top of the house somewhere a radio was wailing out dance music.

From the landing I reached into my room and switched on the light, before standing back for her to pass in.

“Look at your sketches!” was the first thing she said, darting glances everywhere in keen approval. “And what lovely anemones. Why, it’s much better than I expected. After all, you’re on your own, and you can do what you want now, without interference from awful landladies, once you’re in. I think you could be very snug here.”

“Let me take your coat,” I said, thinking only of time slipping away, the hours being eaten up with words, squandered in conversations. Soon we would have to go back to the station.

Jessie looked at me with calm bright eyes. My hands trembled slightly as I helped her remove her coat. Beneath she wore a transparent little blouse, tinted by her flesh at the shoulders.

“Isn’t it strange, having somewhere to go?” she said softly. “Isn’t it nice?”

“We’re usually wandering about like lost souls,” I laughed.

“We are, aren’t we? I can’t get used to it, not yet.”

“I’ll make some tea,” I said. I had left everything ready. “Sit down and get accustomed to things while I fill up the kettle.”

I went downstairs. There was no one about. Most of the tenants­ went out on Saturday night.

When I came back into the room she was perched on the bed, facing me.

“It won’t be long,” I said. It gave me an intense pleasure, waiting on her.

“Sit down yourself for a minute,” she said. “I like to look at you.”

A strange silence fell between us, full of desire. Her face softened with love as she let her eyes dwell on me, and a warm, grateful feeling ran into my heart.

I went out on the landing again to make the tea, and returned to find Jessie pouring milk and putting sugar in the thick white cups.

“You needn’t have done that,” I said.

“It’s automatic,” she smiled. “I’ve been a wife, you know.”

“Cecil told me something about it, not very much.”

“Did he?” she said startled. For an instant her eyes were hard and acute, over her tea-­cup. “I didn’t know that.”

“Hardly anything. All I know is that his name was Victor—Victor——”

“Massarella,” she said, and added with a touch of pride or affection, “He was half Italian. You remember those little figures I showed you, at Cecil’s meeting? He taught me how to do them.”

“Oh, he was an artist,” I said involuntarily.

“In a way. He was at a loose end, like you. He didn’t know what he wanted. He was waiting for circumstances to decide for him. That sounds very nice, but it’s no good to live with.” She gave me a sharp look and ended, “I don’t like poverty.”

“And that made you come back to England?”

“No, not just that. It was a combination of things. I didn’t mind the poverty at first, or the waiting to decide what he wanted—but it turned out that he didn’t know exactly who he wanted, either. There was another woman over there, that he hadn’t mentioned. I don’t suppose it was all his fault; I probably drove him to it. I’m hell to live with. Marriage doesn’t seem to suit me. It brings out my worst qualities—or perhaps it’s my real self coming out then. God knows.”

Her mouth was hardened by an interior, past bitterness that was incomprehensible to me. It burned into her talk. I had wished I had not pursued the subject now. Her face had gone unseeing and abstract, chilling to look upon. Then she changed, holding out her cup for more tea, smiling across.

“You remind me of him a good deal,” she said gently. “He was narrow and long-­legged, too, and he had your dark looks.”

“That’s it,” I said, half seriously. “You’ve made me a substitute for him.”

A twinge of pain went across her face. “What nonsense!” she said, almost in anger. “Don’t say such a silly thing.”

“Why not,” I said quickly. I wanted to soften my wild remark. “I’m jealous of him.”

She looked up again suddenly, her face warm, showing her pleasure.

“Are you?” she murmured, putting down her cup.

“Hopelessly,” I laughed in relief. “I’m jealous of all the time he spent with you, when I think of my miserable few hours.”

She gave her low, excited laugh. “When are you going to kiss me?” she asked softly.

I got up and went over to her, sitting by her side on the bed. We sat there mutely, then she took my hand and pressed it, turning up her face to me. She sat very still, her feet not quite touching the floor, waiting for me to kiss her. Her wistfulness had gone now, and her eyes were strange and heavy. There was something naked and yearning in her face, taking possession of it, making it shameless and animal. The change was startling. Desire fumed up into my mind, darkening it, as I looked at her.

I took her in both arms, silently, and she pressed her small head like a hard ball against my chest. Still I did not kiss her. She was stroking my hand.

Then I was kissing her face and ears and throat, touching her hair. She kept lifting her head up with a faint cry to avoid my mouth. All around us bloomed a deep silence. It had formed itself into a cup to hold the tiniest sounds.

“Turn off the light,” she begged, as she unfastened her blouse.

Her body flowed away under my hands like silk. I touched her breasts, almost in veneration, and they grew big and heavy, round and fat, like full moons. Her belly, a full vessel overflowing silkily, quivered between us as she pulled me to her. I tried to make myself light, so as not to crush her, but she was spreading herself under me like a mattress, pulling my full weight down upon herself, as if the humbling discomfort gave her added pleasure.

Yet she did not become humble, but grander, until her woman­hood seemed to fill the room with all the archaic richness of life. And instead of shaming my tense skinny body, she ripened it with her presence, which I knew was something immense and magnificently generous, sun-­like; not just for me. It waited for every man.

I pressed my face into her belly, and felt its flesh spilling past my mouth, a warm silky tenderness, running into the dark hollow of her lap. I could hear her voice murmuring and crooning softly above my head, and I hardly recognised it, for it had taken on this same quality of silkiness. Then I sank into deafness, within my hot desire.

It was my first act of love. In her wild spasmodic passion Jessie dug her fingers into my sides, so that I almost cried out, hearing her own involuntary final cry, before she relaxed and went slack, weeping hysterically, quite brokenly, for a moment. For me it was as if all the accumulated bitterness of my body had poured away, like poison released from an aching, malevolent place, leaving me calm and free of pain, full of wonder and gratitude. We lay in the darkness, still as stones, as though buried in black earth.

She was peaceful now, and seemed very far away, the strange wheel of her desire moving her off. Then she came back, as it revolved once more. I felt her give a start of fear as someone tramped heavily and loudly up the stairs towards us.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’ve locked the door.”

Someone else began to climb up. Now it was delicious to listen to the footfalls coming nearer and louder, then dying away. They passed only a few feet from where we lay, naked and white as peeled wood.

“I shall miss my train,” she said suddenly. “Oh, Nick, I shall have to go.”

She asked me not to turn on the light until she had dressed. When I switched on, the callous blaze of electricity was a shock. We both winced, squinting ruefully at each other and rubbing our eyes.

“Don’t look for a minute, please,” she pleaded. “Turn the other way.” She was peering into the rickety mirror above the dressing table, powdering her face.

Then she had gone quiet, combing her hair.

“What a freak. Oh God, what a mess,” she said in disgust.

I stood behind her and put my arms round her waist.

“Shall I miss my train?” she asked pathetically, speaking to my image in the mirror.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“There’s my mother, Nick. She worries so.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t want you to go.”

She touched my hand, smiling.

“But I must,” she said.

“Will you marry me? Can’t we be married?”

She started, exactly as she had done when someone came up the stairs, and turned to face me, the comb poised in the air.

“Don’t ask me that, please,” she said with great bitterness, out of a white face.

The words fell in a shower, cruel pointed drops, scalding me.

“Don’t ask . . . ?”

She did not answer, but tugged bitterly at her hair, combing.

“I want you . . . don’t you understand?” I said dully, in a hollow voice.

She tried to pull away. “I can’t, Nick. Not again,” she said stonily. “Why talk about it? Be happy with me like this.”

“Happy?” I sneered, lost in misery.

“Yes, happy. There’ll be other times . . .”

“No!” I shouted in frenzy.

Quivering, I let her go, and we left the room and descended the stairs in silence.

“We must hurry,” she said, as we came out in the street. She hesitated, a little ahead, not sure of her direction, and as she turned her head I felt a spasm of hate for her, and for life. I could not understand what had happened to ruin everything, when we had been so happy. It seemed like a blasphemy.

I glanced at her face as we sat in the tube train, swaying towards Euston. It had altered terribly, as though something had stripped it, bared it to the nerves, and I looked at her in despair, blaming myself for this whitened, bared look. In London I often saw such faces, as if the people were victims, pitifully turning this way and that, torn by unseen stresses that they should never have been called upon to bear. Had I helped to make Jessie like these others?

But I wanted her. Nothing else mattered. To let her go now was impossible, like a mutilation.

We reached the station fifteen minutes too late. Her train had gone out on time. There was nothing for it but to wait in the great dismal hall, or go into the streets again.

“You’ll be so late,” I said. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“What shall we do now?” she asked, in a strangely calm voice.

“Perhaps there’s a café open somewhere.”

Hope tumbled back into me. I could not help rejoicing because of my short reprieve.

It began to drizzle as we left the station. We searched street after street, but everywhere was closed. It was nearly midnight. I drew her into a doorway, unable to bear the tension between us.

“Jessie, I want you, I want you . . .” In the taut, dropping silence my voice was a hoarse whisper, and I hardly knew what I said. I kissed her throat, pressing my lips against her soft flesh, unable to speak. She shivered, stroking my head gently. Then she held me away and looked into my face with large sombre eyes.

“Do you?” she said helplessly. “Are you sure?”

We stood in a deserted square some distance from Euston. Now, as I watched, her expression changed with a weird slowness, as though a mask was being peeled from her face, and a look of horror came into her eyes. She was staring over my shoulder, and when I turned I nearly cried out myself in terror. At my elbow a man stood swaying on his feet, blood streaming down his face. Under the street lamp, the empty space of the square behind him, he looked hideous. A drizzling rain soaked down on his head and shoulders.

“Call . . . an ambulance,” he mumbled. “They . . . they . . . beat me up.” He did not fall, but stood straddled with closed eyes. I snatched Jessie’s hand and ran with her to the phone box. My hands shook as I made the call. Then we fled from that nightmare scene, back to the station. My fists were clenched, my face stiff with disgust. I felt cursed with ugliness, and hated all men, all life. The whole city seemed an unclean, repulsive place. I shrank away from the contagion of things.

At last, after nearly three hours, the train to the north was ready to leave the windy, early-­morning platform. At the door of one of the dripping coaches Jessie faced me and grasped my hand, gripping it in a firm handclasp like a man.

“It’s all right, darling,” she said. “Goodbye for a little while . . . till next time.”

“I want to come with you.” I felt numbed and withered.

“Stay here,” she said. She stood in the corridor, leaning out.

“Come back,” I said wretchedly. “Come back and marry me.”

“I’ll come back,” she said in a dazed voice. “I want to. Yes, I’ll come.”

iii

She came several times, but she would not marry me.

“Oh, don’t ask me,” she said fiercely. “It wouldn’t be any good. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. You’d hate me after a few months, and I should be disappointed in you, perhaps. Isn’t it better like this, as lovers? Besides, I’ve had my fill of marriage. Once bitten, twice shy.”

There was a pause. The memory of the man she had left in America made her voice shake, when she tried to go on.

“Marry me,” I pleaded in a yearning voice. I no longer cared how I humiliated myself.

She shook her head sadly. The obstinacy in her face and figure suddenly goaded me.

“Then leave me,” I shouted, choking with fury. “Go away. Why do you come here, if you don’t want me?”

She put her hands quickly to her face, as though warding off a blow, and the tears came. She sat on the bed, on the brown hairy blanket, her shoulders shaking. It was the first time I had attacked her. I stared helplessly at her stricken face, and standing there all my passion drained away, leaving me cold and empty.

“I can’t go,” she said at last, in a suppressed, strangled voice. “I can’t leave you, I don’t know why. I wish I could.”

Gradually I came to understand that the part of her that was deeply hurt, when she had lived with Victor, was afraid of exposing itself to more injury. So she held back. In my letters I kept prising away with words, stubbornly, with all the selfishness of love. I wanted her. I knew the strength of my hunger and tenderness; and she had only been waiting for someone to really need her.

“You haven’t even got a job,” she said. It was her last refuge: she was about to give in.

“I’ll get one,” I said grimly.

One Wednesday in December I packed my suitcase, pressed down the cheap tin locks, and left for Woodfield. I went straight home and told my mother I had come back to get married.

“Oh yes,” she said. “When is it to be?”

“I’m serious,” I told her.

“I should hope so!”

I floundered before her contempt. “That’s that, then,” I said.

“Don’t talk so daft,” she said. And her eyes clouded with tears. “Oh Nick, how will you live?”

Her voice wrenched at my heart. I turned from her, afraid, because she was so near in the blood. She understood me through and through.

I was glad to see them all again. My sister Irene was becoming a tall, wispy girl, her mouth thinned by timidity, not attractive. And the old man seemed still as strong as ever, still lively; he had not lost any of his curiosity and greediness for life. He was beginning to be more of a fixture, to sit longer in the house, reading Edgar Wallace and watching everything over his spectacles which were bound round on the bridge with black cotton. Though he was undeniably part of the household, people were apt to overlook him, like a piece of furniture they ceased to notice. And this gave him an advantage. He sat apart in his corner looking slightly sardonic about the head, stiff and grizzled, encased in deafness and old age. He had seen too much to stir himself now. He let others worry and get themselves excited. Nobody was concerned about him because it was obvious he was not unhappy.

After a few weeks I found a job in an insurance office in New Street. I felt less of a prisoner in a strange job which had no connection with my trade. It seemed temporary and different, and not the turning-­back in my tracks which I dreaded.

In Birmingham I went to the registrar’s office, and a fortnight later we were married. The problem of a home was solved for the time being, when Jessie’s mother offered to have us in the top two rooms of her house. It was a raw, ochre-­coloured place, fairly new, stuck on a hillside about four miles from the city centre. It had an arbitrary look. The remnants of a village straggled around it, crumbling old walls and damp cottages which were being replaced by square brazen bungalows, thrown in from the edge of a suburb.

Mrs. Hammond was a widow and a semi-­invalid. She had moved from the village to the bigger, isolated house, and remembered the time when the tramlines were extended and a terminus created at the end of her little street below, linking it to the centre of the city. That was the end of village life. But an open countryside stretched out beyond; I thought I would enjoy living there for a while, even though Mrs. Hammond did not approve of me. She was prepared to do all she could to make us comfortable, but she thought Jessie had brought disgrace on her: first of all with the divorce, and now this affair. She was a curt grey-­haired Yorkshirewoman, looking out bleakly from her little hoard of insults and tribulations. Her own husband had left her years ago. Then he died, and I imagined her grim satisfaction. She looked on me as one more misfortune, and accepted me stoically, with a wintry smile of distaste.

From the beginning she was very kind. But there was an underlying silent hostility always present. She spoke in a quiet, exhausted voice, giving her daughter sidelong, vindictive looks. It made me flinch at first, when I had to face her alone and talk to her. Her icy smile unnerved me. It was a delicate situation. And I understood perfectly well why she resented me, and was ready to pounce bitingly on Jessie. I had a dubious background and an even more doubtful future. But slowly the atmosphere relaxed, and I got the measure of her. We were all forced to adjust ourselves and make allowances, in order to live together.

In her good moods Jessie seemed to almost relish the atmosphere of tension. It seemed to amuse her.

“How she hates you!” she chuckled one day, when we were alone in the house.

“Is that funny, according to you?” I asked, on my high horse.

“I think so,” she laughed.

iv

We were given our own brass key to the front door. One evening, as I stood slipping it in the lock and glancing sideways down the hill, I had the strange feeling that I was repeating a characteristic action of my father’s; that he had gone through these very movements hundreds of times, glancing sideways just as I did. Yet I could not remember ever seeing him do it. And when Mrs. Frost poked her head out of her door a few yards below, beaming up at me, I called “Good evening” exactly as I knew my father would have done. I even detected in my voice that same bright, nervous note which was the eagerness to please, so characteristic of him. It made me wonder how alike we really were.

When we visited Woodfield at Christmas I seemed to sense a change in him. I noticed it most of all in his attitude towards me. If he still regarded me as a hot-headed young fool, bridling and arrogant, then he had come to accept me as one. But I doubted if he saw me in that light now. I was with Jessie, married, and therefore a potential family man. So a good many things were changed.

I wondered if the change had taken place mostly in myself. Certainly I was more tolerant now, and felt I understood my father better than ever before. There was no desire to fight against him; those days of anger and revolt were done with. For the first time in years I felt a real sympathy stirring in me, as I watched him making those familiar gestures of the shy man, when he greeted us on Christmas Eve. He was casual and restrained, and if I had been a stranger I would have thought him indifferent. But he had the northerner’s distrust of words, and the queer, gruff shyness of the workman, the man who uses his hands. He was friendly but unruffled, showing no surprise, as though I brought home a wife every bank holiday and he found it rather monotonous. I was grateful because he did not fuss over us, and a pang of love or admiration went through me. I saw how full of quietness he was.

Later, when he began telling us in a serene voice about all his jobs, the hardships and misfortunes of his life, stretching his long legs before the hearth, I liked him more than ever. He sat there in his navy-­blue suit that was rubbed shiny at the seat and elbows, speaking very quietly, out of a nostalgia of his own. When I looked at my mother she was dreamy-­eyed, drinking in each word. He spoke out of a simple dignity, his grey eyes shrewd with humour, and I remember glancing at Jessie’s face, suddenly proud that she should hear the story of this independent, unbeaten spirit. But she gave me an unmistakable look which said, ‘Like father, like son. What have I let myself in for?’

My mother was smiling gravely, shaking her head.

“Sometimes I just don’t know how we managed,” she said. “Many’s the time I’ve gone without food to feed him,” and she pointed half-­humorously at me, making a rueful face. “But the worst time was when we lived in those awful rooms, in that condemned house in Castle Bromwich, and you worked at that rubber-­tyre factory for thirty shillings a week, during the slump—remember?”

She had turned to my father impulsively, her face flushed with so much reminiscence.

“Remember!” he exclaimed, looking up in wonder. “I’ll say I remember.”

“What a terrible place it was,” she marvelled. “All those rats! They were a real nightmare to me. I never knew where one was going to jump out from.” She dwelt on it all luxuriously, relapsing into silence. Memories flushed over her face as she sat there. “Remember those rats?” she asked him.

He laughed.

“I’ll never forget that rat I found in my shoe once,” he said. “I nearly jumped out of my skin when it squealed—I’d put my foot on it!”

And my mother gasped in appreciation, shuddering her shoulders­.

“What a house that was,” she said.

v

With the short Christmas break behind me I was back at the office, clattering up and down the long slopes on the tram again, morning and evening.

When I arrived home on New Year’s Eve Jessie told me in one breath that her mother had gone to bed with a sick headache and that we were both invited next door, to drink a toast to the New Year.

I let out an exaggerated groan. I wanted to paint, and I hoarded all my free hours like a miser now. Also I was hopeless at small talk.

“You go,” I said. “I don’t want to sit there and make conversation. Tell them I can’t drink, it makes me dizzy. It’s the truth, anyway. I’m intoxicated enough without wine.”

“Very funny,” Jessie said. “You know they’ll be offended if I go by myself. We shan’t be there long, and after all it’s only this once.”

I knew I should give in, but made a show of independence.

“Why should I want to drink to the New Year? How do I know I’m going to like it? I may hate the sight of it.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, they’re only trying to be friendly. Eat your dinner, it’s getting cold.”

Jessie decided to dress up for the occasion. She put on a thin woollen dress with a wide green belt, then dashed back to the bedroom for earrings and a coral necklace. I refused to do anything, though I needed a shave.

‘Next door’ was a bungalow about twenty yards away. We stood shivering in the night frost, knocking at the door. Then we went in.

We hardly knew the young couple who had invited us. But they were determined to be warm and friendly; it was the season of goodwill. For the rest of the year they would probably nod vaguely in our direction; but now they were set on entertaining us.

“Please don’t stand on ceremony, either of you,” cried the young woman. “Call me Jane, not Mrs. Franklin. And this is Dick. What will you have to drink?”

Her husband was a fair, courteous fellow. He drifted politely about the room as if he wanted to efface himself. At the right moments we found him hovering at our elbows to attend to us.

“Care to try these pastries?” he murmured. “Or some cake?”

“Do have something else,” called Jane, from her seat near the radio.

They were both kind persons. I sat primly, struggling to force my speech down the normal channels. Then Jane snapped on the radio, and a sentimental voice ran into the room, low and musical, with sugary intonation, recalling the events of the past twenty years.

“Switch that off, darling,” said Dick, in his gentle voice. “They don’t want to hear that, surely.” He was being manly and considerate.

Little by little we became less stiff, more informal, though still very guarded and polite. A syrupy, nostalgic note crept into the conversation, similar to the radio programme, and somehow Jane began talking about the end of the war in Europe, and her experiences. She had been a telephonist at some fire station in the heart of London. And as she described the mad scenes, when she was unable to resume duty because the streets were so jammed with people, I asked myself automatically what I had been doing on that same Victory Night. Yet I did not have to think. It was enough to focus my memory on what happened then.

I remembered it vividly. It was two years after we moved from the old district. The whole street was out for the celebration, dancing and singing and getting drunk. I was alone in the house. I sat grimly in the living-­room with taut nerves, reading a book, perhaps with a foreboding of what was to come. Unable to absorb the sentences, I gave myself principles and reasons for sitting there, instead of joining in with the others. The din outside sounded false and loutish and mongrel-­like, but that was not my real reason. I always avoided communal activities.

Hearing a faint sound, I looked up to see the inner door opening. Then a young marine and his girl entered the room. I gazed at them in a kind of dazed expectation, at the youth’s pink scoured face above the rough cloth of his uniform; yet they were both total strangers. As I looked I thought how natural this was, on such a night. The very air was seething and electric.

“Hallo there!” the marine said, exactly as if I were an old friend and he had caught sight of me in the street.

I sat transfixed, although I was not surprised. It was like watching a nightmare. Then I felt a shock of rage, as the intruder shut the door carefully behind him and lounged there, his hand on the doorknob.

He was grinning broadly, though a little bashfully at first, throughout the whole incident. But the slim, dark-­haired girl had a worried look. She cast anxious glances at her companion, who seemed to have enough confidence for them both. For him the commotion outside was sufficient justification for anything.

I sat still, holding my book.

“What about coming out, old man?” the marine asked, and his grin widened. “Why not join in the fun, eh? Come on, be a sport. Nobody’s indoors tonight.”

“Sorry,” I said in a cold voice, “I’m reading.” Under my assumed nonchalance I was bristling with hate. My remark made him tighten his face and lose some friendliness. Then his manner of speech changed abruptly, as he tried a different approach.

“Aw, come on, brother. Not that important, is it? This is something special, you know. Isn’t it, Joyce? You don’t want to sit here reading, not tonight, surely! What is it, anyway—political?”

This stupid question enraged me. I supposed he was referring to the forthcoming General Election.

“It’s a book,” I snapped. “It’s got print on the pages. I’m reading it, or I was. Do I have to fill in a questionnaire? You go along, I should. Join in the fun and don’t worry about me. It’s very nice of you, but I’m anti-­social, I’m afraid. I shouldn’t enjoy it, believe me. I’m only being selfish by refusing.”

It was my first attempt at a sarcastic speech, and in my anger I had got it out without faltering. The youth laughed uncomfortably, glancing at his girl. He meant to exchange an arch look with her, but she did not respond. She seemed unhappy. The marine was not so sensitive. He was slowly becoming more baffled and annoyed. My outburst had nettled him.

“Come to please us, then,” he said, lounging and grinning mechanically, “and make the party bigger. How about that?”

It had got beyond a joke, and he was beginning to appear a fool in front of his girl. His eyes went sharp with irritation above his grin.

“Well, what about it, chum?” he grinned with constraint.

“No thanks,” I said coldly. “I’d rather not.”

I could feel myself trying to sink down, to rivet myself to the chair, in opposition. Nothing would make me move.

“Why though?” asked the marine, and swung round to his girl again, as though nonplussed. “I don’t get you. What’s the objection?”

“Don’t you want to consider me?” I countered. “I was enjoying myself, reading this novel, till you came in. I didn’t ask you to come. Why not let me go on enjoying myself?”

My opponent came farther into the room. He put one hand on the table and lounged on his other hip.

“What’s it about?” he said insolently. “What’s so good about it, that you can’t put it down?”

The ugliness in his voice, even more than his words, made my hands tremble with rage. The girl stood back near the door in painful silence, as if the scene distressed her. I wanted to give in because I felt sorry for her, but everything had gone too far now.

“Is it exciting stuff?” he repeated.

“You wouldn’t think so,” I said.

He came forward once more, chuckling ominously, looking backwards at his girl.

“Listen,” he smirked playfully, standing directly over me, “if you don’t come quietly, we shall have to use other means! Eh, Joyce? We shall have to employ service methods! We’re not having anybody indoors in this street tonight—is that clear? You can read another time, can’t you? You can do that any night. Not that important, is it? Can wait, can’t it?”

He leaned down confidently and grasped my arm.

“Come on, there’s a good chap,” he said.

I snatched my arm away viciously.

“Stop that!” I shouted. “Hop it!” I was choking with rage, and as I sat there I yelled up into his face. Through the half-­open front door came gusts of laughter and singing, and the sounds goaded me further into fury. The marine stepped back in alarm, his face comical with surprise. Yet his mouth was still fixed in its expression of grinning amiability. I knew I was behaving like an idiot, but an intolerable mixture of fear and outrage had taken possession of me. It worked in my blood like poison.

“You fool!” I snarled. Nothing else would come. “You blasted fool!”

I sprang to my feet and stood facing them. The marine had retreated to the door. It was all too much for him.

“All right, keep your shirt on,” he was saying, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously as he turned to his girl. He muttered a sarcastic comment that I failed to hear completely. My face was twitching. I kept trying to check the wild storms of emotion whirling about inside me.

“Won’t you come . . . really?” the girl faltered, smiling painfully, as they paused in the doorway. It was like an apology.

I could only glare speechlessly at them both. When they had gone, and I heard the front door bang, I was at first unspeakably relieved; then a bitter shame spread over me. I never saw them again.

Looking back now, I was inclined to despise those times of extreme seriousness, when I was so raw, so rigid with youth. Besides, it was perhaps dangerous to be like Orpheus and look back; though I felt I was safely out of that underworld.