Hangover Square (14 page)

After a while the fair, unpleasant-looking man went out, and the girl was left alone on a stool at the bar. At this George became completely distracted in his conversation: and it was obvious that he wanted to go over and speak to the girl. Finally he said ‘I say – forgive me a moment will you?’ and went over to her.

Johnnie tactfully looked out of the door at the street, and a few moments later George came over with the girl and introduced her.

‘How do you do,’ said Johnnie affably. ‘Come and sit down. What will you have to drink?’

‘No – this is my go,’ said George, as the girl sat down, and when they had decided upon what they would have, he went to the bar to get it.

Left alone with the girl he found nothing to say, and it was clear that she was not going to help him. She was not the type to help in such an emergency. She was the sort of girl who would not be in the smallest way embarrassed by not talking to you or not looking at you as she sat with you. She was also, Johnnie could see, in a hostile mood because she had been forced to be introduced to and to sit with a common-looking little man in spectacles about whom she knew nothing. This, he thought, was reasonable enough. She might, however, have
made the best of a bad business, and the fact that she was unable to make the effort was undoubtedly largely due to a general scorn of his friend George. That was one of the first things he noticed about her – her scorn of George. Another thing he noticed was that she was even more attractive near to than at a distance.

Chapter Three

George came back with the drinks, pleased, flustered, shy.

‘I’m frightfully glad you two have met,’ he said. ‘Johnnie’s my very oldest friend. We were at school together – weren’t we, Johnnie?’ He sat down.

‘Yes, rather,’ said Johnnie. ‘Well – here’s how.’ And they drank.

At this the girl, though still plainly annoyed, evidently realized that she was embroiled for the next ten minutes, and found it convenient to ease the situation.

‘Was he always as silly?’ she said, and with a hearty, humorous ‘My God – was he as silly?’ from Johnnie, they all laughed, the atmosphere became less difficult and they began to talk.

He noticed that George’s face lit up, that he became twice the man, when she spoke about him being silly, and he saw him looking at her on the sly in a puzzled, simple, manifestly adoring way. There was no doubt that he was hopelessly in love, and that the girl was unusually attractive.

It was Johnnie’s turn to order drinks next, and they all had short ones. Johnnie went to the bar to get them, and when he returned George let out of the bag a cat which Johnnie had been certain would be released before long.

‘I wonder you two haven’t met before, as a matter of fact,’ said George, looking at Netta. ‘Johnnie works with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott. You know them, don’t you, Netta?’

‘Oh really?…’ said Netta in a curious voice. ‘Do you?…’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Johnnie, and as he took a sip at his drink he was aware that the girl Netta was staring at him, no
doubt wondering what on earth such an insignificant little person had to do with these great men. It was not the first time that Johnnie had evoked this sort of reaction in strangers – particularly, of course, those connected with the theatre. To be a member of this powerful firm was to have, as it were, a quick and magic passport into the respect and favour of theatrical snobs and hangers-on on the middle or lower plane, and caused in such circles as much furtive consternation as the news that one had been to Eton and Oxford might cause in a Folkestone boarding-house for old women. Whether this girl Netta was such a snob and hanger-on remained to be seen.

‘Yes. He’s their accountant,’ said George. ‘He’s a genius at figures, is Johnnie – always was.’

They talked about other things for a few minutes but soon enough they came back to the firm.

‘so you work for the Eddies, do you?’ said Netta…

The firm was often alluded to familiarly as ‘The Eddies’ or the ‘Two Eddies’ (meaning Eddie Fitzgerald and Eddie Carstairs) by those who had dealings with them, and Johnnie felt that in speaking of them in this way she was trying to establish the fact that she herself had connections with them, and was anxious to get more out of him on the subject generally. Indeed it was quite possible that, as an actress, she smelt afar the possibility of making a connection which might lead her to a job.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They’re great people, aren’t they? Do you know them well?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I just know Eddie Carstairs… and I’ve been up to the office.’

She had quite a funny look in her eye when she mentioned Eddie Carstairs, and he wondered how well she knew him. Perhaps she was one of those women who had got a passion on Eddie: there were dozens of them: Eddie just had that about him. But he didn’t imagine she knew him well, as he would have seen her up at the office. He noticed that George was looking mightily pleased at the turn of the conversation, and he thought he could understand why. Probably he believed he was gaining prestige with the girl he loved by introducing her to one whom he could truthfully claim as his oldest friend, and who might be
of use to her in regard to her profession. Well, he must help poor old George.

‘Yes. He’s a great fellow, Eddie Carstairs,’ he said. ‘I’ve known him for years. I got into the firm through him, actually.’

They began to talk about the firm, and about the theatre, and the more they talked the more friendly they became and the more pleased George looked. Soon the time came to order more drinks and it became clear to Johnnie that they were all going to get drunk.

He came to this conclusion with a certain amount of gloom, as he always did nowadays, but he realized philosophically that on this occasion it was more or less a practical necessity. His friend George was in a state of happiness he could not spoil: the girl, previously hostile, had become mellow and friendly, and he himself was elated and talkative. So, at a given moment, he resigned himself to the joys of alcohol, wisely telling himself that if there was to be a hateful and repentant morning after the night before, he would at least see that the pleasure of the night before was not marred by the hatefulness of repentance – so that the night before and the morning after, the one in its pleasure, and the other in its pain, might from the true perspective of a long-distance view in time seem to cancel each other out. It was largely a question of time, and Johnnie always thought that if you could only have your morning after first, and your night before afterwards, the whole problem of drinking, and indeed of excess and sin in life generally, would be simplified or solved.

The first thing, of course, for those in the suburbs who realize they are going to get drunk is to hop into a taxi and move towards the West End. This they now did almost without consulting each other. They rose automatically when the round was finished, and took their conquering spirits out into the air.

A taxi was found in the Earl’s Court Road and at first they could not decide where they wanted to go. Then Johnnie said he would take them all to eat in a place he knew in Soho, and its address was given to the man. But on the way a discussion of places and pubs arose, and their plans were altered in favour of
Shepherd’s Market, because of a place which Netta knew about.

Here they had three more rounds, and talked madly at each other. Netta and Johnnie talked about the theatre and its personalities, and Johnnie and George talked about their schooldays and their friends in common. Then they went on to another pub near by and began again. But before they had had two rounds here the lights went down on them and the ‘All out’ was being called. They rushed a last drink, and made for Odd-enino’s, where they could have more drinks with sandwiches on the extension.

Periods of slight gloom and dizziness were now overtaking Johnnie, as they always did on a long steady drunk without eats, but he saw that George’s spirits were maintained at the same high level. It was as though he attached some enormous significance to this meeting of his two friends, and that he was unable to get over the wonder of it.

When they got to Oddenino’s, and were having beer and sandwiches, this enthusiasm of George’s reached a sort of peak, and caused a conversation which next morning Johnnie was inclined to regret.

He had happened to remark that on the day after the morrow he was going down to Brighton for the night, to see one of the firm’s new shows, which was having a prior-to-London week at the Hippodrome.

‘I wish I could come,’ said George. ‘I’d love a bit of sea air. In fact, I wish we could all go.’

‘Well, why not?’ said Johnnie politely.

‘Yes – why not?’ said Netta, and at this Johnnie saw George look at her in an incredulous way.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Would you come to Brighton, Netta?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why not; in fact, if I wasn’t so broke, I would.’

But still George wasn’t satisfied.

‘You mean you’d come down to Brighton?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Netta. ‘In fact, if you’ll lend me the money if s a date.’

‘Lend you the money,’ said the intoxicated George, ‘I’ll
give
you the money! Why – this is grand! This is great!’

And in the next few minutes he became quite beside himself. He got an A.B.C. from the waiter and discussed trains; he discussed hotels, how they were all going to meet, how they would go to the theatre and how long they would stay. Johnnie, of course, had to get back the next morning, but Netta said that she wouldn’t mind staying until the week-end. This set George into further paroxysms of joy, and in point of fact, in a mixture of drunkenness and pleasure, he began to make a bit of a fool of himself. Johnnie had seen George like this before when he was drunk, in the old days with Bob Barton.

Trying to get more drinks they were now refused, for it was past twelve. Acknowledging defeat they came out into the cool street, and there, swaying, shouting and affectionate, they said good-bye. George was to give him a ring in the morning, and their next meeting was to be at Victoria Station.

George and the girl Netta got into a taxi, but Johnnie, who had a room in Fitzroy Square, decided to walk it.

On his way back in the summer night his head cleared and he decided tactfully to get out of this Brighton business. In his life nowadays he had enough necessary drinking to do as it was, and he didn’t mean to burden himself by getting into fresh circles in which he had to do more. Besides, if he saw George again, he wanted to see him alone. He liked George, but he liked him for himself and by himself. He still didn’t like the girl.

The Fifth Part

PETER

           Tell me, Mends
,

Am I not sung and proverbed for a tool

In every street? Do they not say ‘How well

Are come upon him his deserts’? Yet why?

J. MILTON
Samson Agonistes

Chapter One

In the mornings, nowadays, George Harvey Bone was awakened by a fluffy white cat belonging to the hotel. At about seven o’clock he would hear a little cry – petulant rather than appealing – outside his door, and he would blunder out of bed in the darkness and open the door. He would blunder back into bed and hear no more.

Then there would be a sudden springy soft weight on his body, and the cat would begin to manoeuvre near his head. Sleepy as he was, he could put out his hand and stroke its fur.

After a while this motion seemed to generate an electrical disturbance within the animal – an aeroplane-like throbbing, slowly growing in volume and drawing nearer – the purring of the cat in his ear. The purring, this surrender of its being to a rhythmic and externally audible throbbing, in its turn seemed to induce in the cat a sort of frenzy, a frenzy manifesting itself mainly in its front paws, which, in an agony of restless pleasure, stretched and relaxed, the right paw stretching while the left relaxed, and the other way about, in eager alternation. George called this ‘playing the piano’. He did not know the name of the cat so he called it ‘Pussy’. ‘Don’t make such a noise, Pussy,’ the big drinking man would gently murmur in the darkness. ‘And stop playing the piano.’ But the cat would not stop until a place had been found under the bedclothes near George’s head: then it would go to sleep, and George would attempt to do the same.

But usually it would be too late, and in a few moments he would be wide awake, grinding out the problems of his life, delving into the night before to see where he had got to exactly, where he had left off. This morning he knew, because of the sickness in his heart, and the giddiness in his head, that he had got drunk, but he couldn’t at first remember how or where…

Then it all came back – Johnnie Littlejohn and Netta! They had all been out together. And something else… What else?… Brighton!…

Yes. Brighton. That was why he had got so drunk – because Netta had said they would all go to Brighton. What a fool. As though it would ever come to anything. They must have all been drunk. Or were they?

To go to Brighton with Netta… The old dream of dreams… To take her away and have her to himself, away from everybody, from Peter and Mickey, away from London, away from the noise, peacefully, in the country, or by the sea. A small hotel. Not necessarily to sleep with her – just to have her to look at, to talk to, quietly.

That had been his idea of paradise once – but of course it was too late now. Since the cupboard everything was too late. It was all over. He was not in love in that way with Netta any more. At least he was not supposed to be.

The cupboard was weeks and weeks ago now – the cupboard was in early spring – the first real warm spring day – it was like summer. After the glaring sunshine on Earl’s Court pavements, the evening had come in warm and velvety, and they had had the window open…