by John Bingham
“A whisky, if I may.”
I noticed that he still had his old habit of talking with his cigarette in his mouth, so that it bobbed up and down as he spoke. I ordered two large whiskies and sodas and we raised our glasses to each other.
“So you’ve left the bank?”
He nodded. “I don’t think I was cut out for a banking career. Not in England, anyway.”
“I don’t think you were. What sort of business are you in?”
“We buy and sell. Do a little importing, too.”
“And they pay you all right?”
“Not too badly. But I have a feeling that Herbert Day will be paying me more soon, or else he and Max will find themselves in—” He broke off.
“Find themselves in what?”
A hint of fire, indicative of excitement or anger, flickered for a moment behind Prosset’s eyes and was extinguished.
“Find themselves in—difficulties,” he answered lightly. “That’s all. Just in difficulties.”
“What sort of stuff do you deal in?” I said at length.
He took a deep pull at his whisky. “Anything really. We’ve got one or two chaps who go round the country buying up bankrupt stocks. Then we sell them again, cheap. I have to travel about a good deal at the moment, as I told you in my letter. But when we get really going, of course, I’ll just do the organizing.”
I could well believe it. I thought it would just about suit Prosset to sit back and tell other people what to do.
“It must make a change after being stuck in a bank.”
“We could do more, if we had a bit more capital. I suppose you haven’t got £250 you want to invest in a nice, growing concern? We’re going to do big things one day.”
“Newspapermen don’t have much opportunity to acquire capital. How’s Margaret?”
He signed to the waiter to fill our glasses again.
“Margaret’s all right, I believe. She got married, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” I said in surprise. “I thought she was rather keen on you.”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “As far as she could be stuck on anybody, I think she was. But Number One came first for little Margaret, you know.”
“Whom did she marry?”
“Some producer chap. You remember how keen she was on the stage. I’ve no doubt he dangled a few minor parts before her eyes. The funny thing is, from what I hear, I understand that no sooner were they married than he decided that he would like to have a wife who looked after his home and who would give him some children. I believe she more or less had to give up her acting ambitions. You never know what turn life is going to take, do you?”
He thought for a moment.
“Take ourselves, for instance. You imagined you were going out to Africa or somewhere, and I thought I was going to end up in charge of our Shanghai branch or something like that. Now you’re a reporter stuck in London, and I’m buying and selling things. Oh, well, I suppose it might be worse.”
He gave one of his careful smiles. “Good old Mike. I’m glad to see you again. You bring back some happy memories.”
“So do you. Do you ever hear from David?”
He shook his head. “I wrote a few times, but he hardly ever answered, the lazy swine.”
We stayed drinking and talking about old times until nine o’clock, and then went to a nearby restaurant and had a meal. I told him about life in Palesby, and how lucky I was to be transferred to London. I think I wanted to show him that all in all I had so far made more of a success of life than he had done. I thought that he would be impressed that I was now a Fleet Street man. But he was not.
I was irritated and disappointed at his attitude. I could tell from the disinterested, patronizing tone with which he greeted my remarks that while he was inclined to regard all journalists as inkstained and shabby, he saw himself, already, as one of the directors of a large and flourishing business.
He talked about the pleasure one got out of building something up out of small beginnings, about the zest it gave one to be organizing—indeed, to be creating something almost from nothing. And how enjoyable it would be in due course to be able to regard one’s creation and find it good.
“You sound rather like God,” I remarked.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “You’ve changed, you know.”
“Have I?”
“You’ve sharpened up, somehow. Frankly, you needed it. I always thought you a bit of a dope at school, you know.”
“I dare say I was in some ways.”
“A nice dope, of course. David and I used to talk about you. We agreed that it was almost impossible to imagine you in bed with a girl. It seemed ludicrous, somehow.”
“I suppose it did.”
“You looked so funny. I remember once, when we had been beaten in a House match, I mentioned to some chap that we weren’t up to full strength, and I said you weren’t playing, for one thing. Do you know what he said?”
“I’ll buy it. Go on.”
“He said, ‘Who’s Sibley? Oh, you mean that chap who looks like an influenza germ.’”
“Complimentary sort of chap.”
When I got home that evening I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw what he meant. My face was dark, irregular, bespectacled and pale.
I went to bed and lay thinking about Cynthia. I recalled her circle of friends, and her sudden change of mind about wanting to get married when she heard that I had been transferred to London. Doubtless I seemed to be heading at least for a greater measure of success than the lads she already knew in Palesby.
I reflected suddenly, and with some bitterness of heart, that if you were a practical girl like Cynthia it might almost be worthwhile to marry an ugly man, provided he could give you a nice, steady home and background. This train of thought led me to think once again how strange it was that although I was better off than Prosset in every way he still contrived to make me think of myself with contempt. I knew for a certainty I had not shaken off the feeling of inferiority to him, which had started at school and which had caused me even in those days to hate him. He was the first person I had ever hated.
I knew, lying in the dark watching the street lamp outside my window, that I still hated him.
I decided not to see him any more. It wasn’t worth it. I would have to be firm. It had been easy in Palesby, but here in the same city it would be more difficult. But I would do it. I would break with him. It was absolutely absurd that I should go on seeing a man socially if I did not wish to do so.
It would have to end. It would end. I fell asleep content.
I went to Kate’s after all, on the Thursday evening. I knew she would more than half expect me to turn up. It was a pouring wet night and I took a taxi. This was one of the little luxuries which I could now afford without a thought of the cost. I had still not quite got over the pleasure of finding that I had more money than I really required for my immediate needs. After years of counting, if not the pennies, at least the shillings, I got a real kick out of thinking that if I liked the look of a fountain pen in a shop window, or a pipe or a knife, I could go in and buy it for myself without a qualm.
Kate had bought half a bottle of gin and some lime juice, and gave me a drink, and we chatted until Marjorie arrived. She told me again how much she had enjoyed going out on the previous Sunday.
Hardly had I been introduced to Marjorie when she said she had been hearing what a lovely day Kate had had with me the previous Sunday. I was growing tired of these constant references to the matter, until it occurred to me that what had been for me a pleasant but unexceptional day had in truth been something to be remembered and talked over by Kate. Even Marjorie Barnes had obtained a kind of vicarious pleasure from it.
Somebody, and that somebody a man, had taken one of them out. There had been a break in the endless monotony of working days, cheap lunches in drab restaurants, suppers cooked over a gas ring, visits to the cinema together, and weekends spent mending, washing a
nd reading. Somebody had actually considered one of them sufficiently good company to wish to take her out and spend money on her. Wonderful!
Marjorie worked in the same office as Kate. She was short and plump and red-faced, and over-enthusiastic about everything. She adored her boss. She thought the chief clerk “a real old darling,” and the office boy absolutely sweet. She considered the gin and lime divine, while the eggs and bacon were in her view a feast fit for a king.
We spent part of the evening chatting and part listening to gramophone records. It seemed that it was Kate’s gramophone, but they each bought records for it. Kate bought classical music, Marjorie jazz. We listened to both. Music leaves me cold, but I simulated some sort of enthusiasm, while Marjorie greeted the end of each piece with her loud little cries of ecstasy, and hurried forward obligingly to wind up the machine and put on another record. At 10:30 I left.
Marjorie was going to stay on for a short while. I knew that she would tell Kate what charm I had, what wit; what good looks, in an ugly sort of way, perhaps; and would probably add that she much preferred ugly men to handsome ones. They were much less spoilt, so much steadier, so much more reliable.
It seemed to me that women like Marjorie were like bright, welcoming fires on a cold night. The world was the better for them. One couldn’t deny it. They were unselfishness personified, invariably cheerful and helpful, optimistic, generous; they were ready to do anything for anybody at any time except be quiet. They bubbled over with good neighbourliness. It was distressing that they were such bores.
Kate came down to see me out.
She had stopped her pretence of not really needing to wear spectacles. She stood in the hall, under the dreary yellow rays of the hall light, and put out her hand. She thanked me for coming. I told her it had been a delightful evening.
If she hadn’t come down and stood under that depressing hall light, looking thin and lonely, I wouldn’t have said, as though it were an excuse: “I’ve got to go up to Palesby this weekend. Maybe I’ll see you on Sunday week?”
I saw the light in her eyes brighten up her whole face. I thought: Oh, blast, hell and damnation. Why the devil did I go and say that?
CHAPTER 10
In human relationships no major effect can be unhesitatingly ascribed to a single cause. The issue is swayed by details, by eddies and cross-currents of emotion, some from the distant past, some of the present, some based upon hopes or fears for the future. All of them are intermingled and confused, some exercising a restraining influence, others urging the subject forward, until, for better or for worse, the matter is decided. Later, it is hard enough for an individual to uncover even to himself the secrets of his own mind, to gauge the relative importance and weight of each of the strands which pulled him onwards or held him back.
Although I am tempted to ascribe my change of relationship towards Kate as stemming directly from an incident which occurred the following spring, it is certain that other factors were at work which played parts equally important though less apparent.
All that winter, I had spent an increasing amount of time with her. At first I had taken her out once a fortnight. I regarded this as a charity which I could well afford, and anyway I found her company quite congenial. Inevitably, I found myself compelled as a matter of courtesy to accept invitations from her to have supper in return in her room, usually on a Thursday, when Marjorie was present.
Ironically, Marjorie must bear some of the responsibility for subsequent events. Twittering enthusiastically, hopping about the room like some cheerful robin, always good-humoured, always over-eager to please, finding everything and everybody nice, she began to get on my nerves to such a degree that I found the evenings at Manchester Square dates to which I looked forward with misgivings. To avoid the ordeal, I began making excuses about being tied up with work for the office on Thursdays. Instead, I would invite Kate to come to the cinema on the Wednesday. I learnt later that Kate considered this to be a move on my part to enable us to spend the evening alone, and although such was basically true it was not for the sentimental reasons she thought.
So we would make some minor excursion every other Sunday, and each Wednesday we would go to the cinema. I still had not told her about Cynthia; I said that every other Sunday I had to spend the day with my Aunt Edith, and if she thought it strange that I never invited her to renew her acquaintanceship with my aunt she made no comment. Only my comparative lack of experience with women prevented me from seeing the increasing significance which Kate attached to these regular meetings.
So matters continued all that winter until the second Sunday in April of the following spring. We had taken our lunch in the form of sandwiches and driven to Whipsnade. Normally on such occasions we had a cheap supper in some restaurant, but on this day we arrived back late and tired, and Kate offered to fry some sausages and bacon in her room. Afterwards I sat in the chair watching her wash the few utensils we had used. I sat smoking my pipe and felt relaxed and contented. When she had finished she came and sat down on a cushion on the floor at my side, and lit the little gas fire. I offered her a cigarette and gave her a light.
After a while I said, “Got any plans for your holidays this year?”
It was a natural sort of question to ask in the spring of the year. Just as in the past I failed to see the significance in her eyes of my repeated invitations to go out with me, so now it was only when it was too late that I realized along what lines her thoughts were running.
“No,” she said, “I’ve no plans at all yet. What are you going to do?” She looked up at me.
“I don’t know either,” I said. “Will Marjorie be going with you?”
“No; we always go on holiday alone. It’s better. We see such a lot of each other during the rest of the year.”
“I thought I might go on a two weeks’ cruise of the Norwegian fjords,” I said. “It’s a bit expensive, of course, but I’ve never been on a cruise and I believe you have quite good fun.”
I went on talking about a colleague of mine who always went on cruises and swore by them.
“What about your third week?” she asked.
“I haven’t thought about it.”
This was a lie. I had thought about it, and I knew that Cynthia had already arranged to go with me to the same hotels at Whitney Bay as we had stayed at the previous year.
I forget what I said to Kate next, but it was some remark entirely unconnected with holidays. Kate made no reply. She turned to stub her cigarette out on an ashtray which lay on the ground by her side. She had her face bent over the ashtray, so that, looking down, I could see only the top of her head. It was quite a well-groomed head nowadays, but I noticed how the blonde, rather lank hair turned dark towards the roots. She was a long time stubbing out the cigarette and when she had finished began to play about with the ash, drawing designs in it with a burnt matchstick.
As I watched I saw a drop of liquid splash on to the back of her hand. She quickly wiped it away. I dropped my hand lightly on to her shoulder and bent down.
“What is the matter, Katie? What is it?”
I tried to turn her face towards me, but she drew herself away and sniffed and groped for her handkerchief. I gave her mine.
“What is it, Katie?” I said again.
By now she was crying silently, her head bent forward into her hands, her shoulders shaking. Sitting on the floor, her legs drawn under her, she looked more like a child than ever. I put my hand on the back of her neck and ran my fingers caressingly up through her hair. I did not know the cause of her tears and felt helpless.
“I’m just being silly,” she said at length.
“Tell me what has upset you, Katie dear.”
“It’s nothing.”
She blew her nose, dabbed at her face, and looked at my handkerchief now damp with tears and smeared with lipstick.
“I’ll wash it for you,” she said.
“Never mind about the damned handkerchief. Tell me why you were crying.” Bu
t she only shook her head again and said it was nothing important, and that she wouldn’t embarrass me again in that way. I slipped down on to the floor beside her, put my arm round her shoulders, and said, “Don’t you trust me, Katie?”
“Of course I do.”
“Tell me the trouble. I won’t laugh at you or anything.”
“It’s no use me telling you; otherwise I would. I don’t want to tell you. I’m angry with myself as it is.”
But I was going over in my mind all that we had said just previously. I was beginning to have a shrewd suspicion of the cause of the tears. She got up and went to her handbag and took out her compact and came and sat down on the floor again beside me. I watched her making-up her face afresh.
I felt deeply troubled, for now I knew just where pity had led me.
I had been taking her out partly because I liked doing so, and partly because I knew she was lonely and was sorry for her. To a girl who had received few attentions from men, and none of lasting nature, there was only one conclusion which she could draw from it all.
I do not think that at that period Kate was in love with me, but I think she was desperately in love with the human warmth I brought to her, and such moderate and courteous male attentions as I paid to her. A new vista of the future was opening out before her, and had been slowly taking shape until the moment when I failed to include her in my holiday plans.
The realization of it filled me with a strange mixture of dismay and tenderness. Hitherto I had had nothing to do with the dispensation of power and authority except to adjust myself to it as best I could when it was wielded by others. At school I had spent much time doing the will of masters, prefects and Prosset. At Palesby I was engaged in carrying out the orders of an Editor and Chief Reporter. I had never even kept a dog for whose welfare or otherwise I was responsible.
In a sense, the same considerations had applied to my affair with Cynthia. It had been Cynthia who had been the dispenser of good things and I who had been the recipient, according to her moods. It had been Cynthia, certain of her own power to attract men, practical, clear-sighted and logical, who had decided to marry me, rather than the other way round. And Cynthia, much as she undoubtedly enjoyed it herself, had used our physical union to form the cement in the edifice which she was building for the future. Neat and well ordered though it certainly would be, the cornerstone of that building would be Cynthia.
