Wild Geese Overhead (13 page)

Warmth, life warmth: that's what the grey men craved. That's why they were here. Freedom from the burden of creeping misery. Warmth and light and a man speaking out of his own breast; a man uttering blasphemies in the certainty of himself; a man challenging, face to face, spitting oaths, and ready with the liberating blow. Close the pubs and you'll have a revolution.

“So long!” said Will, as he gulped his drink and pushed his way out.

In the next pub he came to, he had only one drink. In the third, he had two drinks and a football argument. From the fourth pub, he wandered down by the river. He would meet Joe, but not just yet. As he lit a cigarette he smiled. “I'm beginning to feel at home,” he muttered, and a sensation of ease slowly pervaded him, as if in some queer unaccountable way he had come home to some one or something.

He saw the river through an iron railing, with gleams on its dark surface as if it were a dreaming forest pool. How remote from last night's image of Jamie's one-armed body and its convoy of eels! As he gazed upward, finding no star, he heard Ettie's voice say from so far off that it was suddenly thin and near:
I am very tired
.

He stood quite still, and, instead of fear and rebellion, there came about his spirit an infinite pity.

It may be the whisky! he thought, as he turned his eyes away. But though he could still joke with a wry mouth, he knew that for these still moments he had penetrated near to the core of understanding. So near, that perhaps he had to break the contact.… Was it a real voice? He turned round. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hallo, dearie?”

His reaction was instinctive flight from being trapped, the first real personal anxiety he had felt that night. It died down in a moment. He stood looking at her, and, taking this as invitation, she came close up.

In the rather dim light, with her make-up, she looked about eighteen. As she spoke again to him endearingly, he shook his head. “I'm no use to you to-night.”

She began to exercise her art upon him, with the appropriate notes of endearment and gaiety.

He shook his head: “No use.”

“Ah, come on! Just for a little while. I know a place. If you don't want to walk with me—you can follow me.”

That silenced him for a moment.

“A girl like you—surely you can get a fellow any time?”

“Yes, but—not one like you.”

“Why aren't you in a better part of the town?”

“Now you're asking, aren't you?”

“I beg your pardon.”

She laughed, teasingly.

“I'm not feeling that way,” he persisted.

She tried to show him that he might change his mind, but he held her off. She was afraid of his detached manner and overacted.

“Have you nothing but questions? Besides,” she added lightly, “what's half a dollar to you?”

“It wouldn't break me. Still—that's not the point.”

She was going to produce a witticism, but hesitated and went on another tack.

“What a lovely smell off your breath! You're lucky!”

“Like me to stand you one?”

“You're asking me!” Her eyes assessed him glitteringly.

“Well, I'll stand you one. But remember that's all there is to it. If you agree to that, then all right. Do you agree?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Well, where'll we go?”

“This way.”

What astonished Will was the complete absence of any awkwardness in himself as he walked along with her. Had this happened a month ago, he would have been all conflicting emotions and furtive eyes. Now he felt a curious freedom, as if he were being liberated from a past self.

But he made no effort to understand this or even to wonder why. What he was wondering about was the girl herself, and now he felt that he had no right even to ask her personal questions. After all, the assumption that this girl was a social problem rather than a human being was a rather terrible comment on middle-class complacency. That he should get her “story” and “pass it on”, whether by way of ribaldry or an awful example—or, dear heaven, as a politico-economic illustration—seemed to him now so appalling an intrusion on that lonely entity called the human soul that it affected him with a sense of monstrous humour.

She was telling him about the place they were going to and he was interested because he wondered just where—short of the expensive lounges of the great hotels—in this holy city a fellow could take a girl like this. It turned out to be a quiet, rather dingy saloon bar down a side street, and as he passed the policeman at the corner, Will looked at the man and then smiled to himself.

“Does he know you?” the girl asked, with a quick note of mistrust.

“Yes. I met him last night. He obviously knows you, too.”

“Only by seeing me now and then.”

“Good. I feel as if we had gone up and duly registered.”

She did not know how to take him, but here was the door and she led him in.

The atmosphere of secret assignations struck Will so strongly that the undigested whisky turned over in his stomach. Two or three here plying their ancient trade; and a few men, too, committed and not yet committed. Meantime there were drinks anyhow. “What's yours?” asked Will.

“Gin,” she said.

“A large gin,” said Will, “and a large whisky.” He turned to her. “A tonic?”

“All right.”

It was not a very big room and the corner tables were occupied, so Will accepted the small round vacant table in the middle of the floor and waved his companion to a chair. Raising his glass to her with a quiet smile, he drank.

“Ivy is my name,” she said in an undertone as the glass touched her lips.

He saw now that she was older than eighteen; probably twenty-five. She had quite good bone in her face but the features were thin. Her hair and eyebrows were naturally dark, and the colour on her cheeks and lips and the artificial glitter in her brown eyes consorted well enough with this darkness. She was quite good-looking, if in a rather hard way. Even though he did not regard her very directly, she knew he was appraising her.

“Your first to-day?” she asked, with an effort at humour.

“Not exactly,” he said. “Yours?”

“Actually, yes.” Her eyes were wondering what impression she made.

“Can you stand much of that stuff?”

“Why? Feel like trying me out?”

They chatted until they were accepted by the room and forgotten—except for a woman's occasional straying eyes.

With her elbows on the little table, she murmured: “Why won't you come?”

“I'm meeting a man down here to-night.” He smiled to her lifted eyes. “You think that's an old one?”

“No, I believe you.”

“Don't be personal,” he said. “Don't soften me.”

“I wish I could.”

He looked at her thoughtfully, with a considering smile. She met his look, giving him her eyes. Her skin, he thought, judging perhaps from her mouth, had a curious elastic quality, as if it could be readily stretched. The colour was laid on with a thin fresh bloom. Her anxiety to get hold of him was palpable. And in this anxiety Will felt there was something more than cash, more than sex—of which, often enough, she must surely get sick—and he wondered vaguely if he were deluding himself.

“I have a room,” she said.

“Have you?”

She nodded.

“Share it with some one, or have it all to yourself?”

“Lily and me—we arrange that—when——”

“Quite.” He nodded. “And where does Lily go then, poor thing?”

“That's all right,” she said.

“Tell me,” he asked. “Why exactly did you mention that just now?”

“Because you are the kind…who wants time.…”

He suddenly laughed, then begged her pardon. “I understand you.” He added: “Would you really like to spend the rest of the night with me?”

“Yes, of course!”

He shrugged, as if she had missed his meaning.

“You know I would,” she said, on a lower tone.

“I'm hanged if I can understand that—apart from the cash. Is that brutal?”

She considered him. “You're queer.”

“For God's sake, don't say a thing like that.”

“I can't make you out.”

“I'm too simple for you.”

She still looked at him, through the glitter of her trade and her hard mistrust, afraid to trust herself. He could see she had a considerable amount of experience and not a great deal of intellect. Her choice of profession, after an “accident” or two, had probably been deliberate. Not that that explained much, for inevitably such a choice must have been deliberate rebellion—against what?

She shook her head and said nothing.

“That's clever of you,” he remarked of her silent gesture.

“What is?”

“Tell me this, Ivy. I want to be quite friendly with you. I do feel friendly, to tell the truth. You couldn't forget yourself and just be friendly with me? As you know quite well already, I am not in the right mood for the lusts of the flesh. I could spend a few hours with you—but what am I saying? Have another drink?”

She nodded, watching him, the dark in her eyes flooding.

She took her drink but did not speak. He was silent, too.

“I would like that,” she said, looking at her glass.

“Sure?”

“Yes.” She rather spoilt the effect with the glitter of a quick professional glance, for she was anything but certain of him. She saw, too, that his own mind was rather startled, for he tended to stare.

“You needn't be frightened of coming,” she suggested. “I'll make you comfortable.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I mightn't”, he said slowly, “be such a saint as all that.”

Automatically she smiled her small knowing smile. He didn't like it.

“There's one thing,” she murmured.

“Yes?”

“I'm quite clean. I see to that.” This time her low voice went through his heart.

He nodded. “I had not thought of that.”

“Do come,” she said. Her darkness had gone into her voice and made it moody.

“All right, Ivy,” he said slowly, staring dreamily past her, “I'll come.”

Mind and instinct concentrated in her eyes, but they could not read him. It was not desire, not despair, not sorrow, not any need for sympathy, it was nothing in all the world she knew. And she wondered if this slim good-looking educated fellow knew himself. He had such attractive eyes and a smile, when it came, that drowned the heart in a queer warmth.

His eyes came upon her face. “Will we go now?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her for a moment. “Come, then.”

“You haven't finished your drink.”

“Oh, haven't I?” He settled down again, and appeared to smile at himself as he emptied his glass. But it was a good-natured smile, and as he set down his glass he looked at her humanly. “I warned you, of course, that I might meet my friend, and if we do—well, I'll have to go with him.”

“Where were you to meet him?”

“We had no fixed appointment. I just came here to find him.”

She saw that he was speaking the truth and vaguely regretted having told him he hadn't finished his drink.

“But—weren't you to meet him some place?”

“No.” Her puzzled expression seemed to amuse him.

“Does he know you were coming here?”

“How could he, when I didn't know myself? I should say he doesn't even know of the existence of this place. And yet—he probably does. He knows most things—about how folk live.”

“Who is he?”

“I think—perhaps—he's God.”

She couldn't make a joke of it by asking him if he was loopy, because of the humour with which he watched her expression. So she tried to smile in the way he did. Her smile was not a success, for she was uncertain of herself, a little on edge.

“Are you trying to pull my leg?”

“No, Ivy. Not really. I just have the odd sort of feeling that he may be standing outside, talking to the policeman.”

She stared at him, a glint of fear in her eyes.

“Sorry, Ivy,” he said. He put his hand out over one of hers and pressed it. “You need have no fear of me. I am a wanderer, like yourself.” Fear of the trap vanished from her eyes in a restless confusion. She swallowed, and picked up her cheap gloves.

“Ready, then?” he asked.

She nodded and got up.

As they reached the door, a female voice cried: “Cheero, Ivy.”

By the little start which Ivy gave, it was clear that in these last minutes she had forgotten where she was. Will raised his hat and called: “Good night,” in a friendly voice, then followed Ivy through the doorway.

Across the narrow street, directly opposite, Joe was standing with the policeman.

“There he is,” said Will to Ivy. He saluted Joe and called: “Just a minute.” Then he walked on a few paces with Ivy.

“I told you it might happen like this,” he said.

“You knew!” she accused him in a low voice.

He shook his head. “You know I didn't know. I just had a hunch. Sorry, but there it is.”

“But will you not come? Please. What has he got to do with it?…” The pleading note was deep in her voice. And it was genuine enough to affect her breathing.

From his pocket-book he took a pound note. “A small present for you.”

She kept looking at him. He shoved the note into her left hand which was against her breast. “You need it more than me. And I've enjoyed our talk.”

Her whole woman's nature rose to him. There was no artifice now. There was something in him she did not want to lose, something she suddenly and desperately craved. And she had no words for it.

“Good night, Ivy,” he said tenderly, as he took her right hand and shook it; then, lifting his hat, he stooped and kissed her. Her lips remained quiet and cold.