Hangover Square (29 page)

He was for a moment taken aback by this, for a split second entertaining the notion that this was a crude frame-up, that she was letting him kiss her and playing him up simply in order to get more money out of him, but he again dismissed the idea as unthinkable in the case of so proud and aloof a girl, and said,
‘Oh, Netta, what does
that
matter? What does money matter, if you’ll only come away?’

‘But it does matter,’ she said, ‘I owe you fifteen pounds already.’

‘Oh, Netta. It doesn’t matter. Forget about the fifteen pounds.
Nothing
matters, if you’ll only come away.’

There was a pause after this, in which she turned her face sideways again, and he looked at her.

‘All right,’ she said at last, ‘I’ll come away. We’ll go to Brighton. I’d like some sea air.’

Again he had a feeling of a frame-up. When Johnnie had come round to her flat that night, they had talked about the new farce which was being tried out at Brighton, and they had said that if she had not been ill they might all have gone down there, thus fulfilling the proposal they had made over the other show earlier in the year, but had failed to put into practice. Now that she mentioned Brighton again, he saw that she had some reason for wanting to go there – probably in the hope of getting in thicker with Johnnie, who was staying with Eddie Carstairs, or even with the hope of actually meeting, through Johnnie, Eddie Carstairs himself. No, there was something suspect about Brighton (quite apart from the awful time she had given him there before) and he wasn’t going to have any of it.

‘No,’ he said, ‘not Brighton. I hate the place. Let’s go somewhere fresh. Come away somewhere else, Netta – won’t you? Do say you’ll come away.’

‘Why?’ she said, again looking at him, and putting her hand back on his cheek. ‘Aren’t all places the same, my dear Bone?’

And at this, what with her hand on his cheek, and a certain enigmatic look in her eyes, and the sole glorious interpretation he could make of her words (that all places were the same for one purpose), his passion blinded and emboldened him, and he kissed her again and again, her face, her hair, her hands. Then he looked at her, wildly, incredulously, and she murmured, ‘I think you’d better go and get my medicine now, hadn’t you, George?’

He had said, ‘Yes, I think I had,’ and here he was walking along the street to the chemist’s with her breath still on his face,
and her mouth and cheek still on his lips, telling his heart and senses to be quiet and not to be beguiled again.

What had happened? He had got to get it clear and behave sensibly, Had it all started again – was he back on the rack? After getting clear and sane, after all his firm, quiet, healthy resolutions to get away, was he going back to the old torture? Had she only to beckon to him, to be amenable for a minute and condescend to allow him to kiss her face, to have him prostrate before her again?

Or had a change taken place? ‘Of course, you don’t love me any more, do you George?’ Was that pique at his recent neglect? Possibly – but he had not known until now that it was within his capacity even to pique her. Was it a desire to have him back – to make some sort of amends to him? Inconceivable! Or was it conceivable? What if she had repented, what if she had been made sorry by his recent neglect and coldness, what if she had been touched by his faithfulness, by his kindness in looking after her when she was ill, in waiting upon her at all hours and looking after her comforts without any hope or desire of reward? What if a change had come? – what if he had won her at last!

No. Stop that. Not that again. He knew her now for what she was. Whatever happened now it could never be the same. She was entirely promiscuous – a sort of prostitute. Whatever happened now there was the thought of Peter behind – Peter and the little school bully at Brighton. If she ever gave herself to him, she could still never give him what he once desired. He could only rise to the level of Peter and the others.

But if she was a sort of prostitute, if Peter and strangers could enjoy her favours in that way – why shouldn’t he? Hadn’t that been the whole root of his misery, his idealization of her, his longing to take her away and have her and cherish her exclusively for ever, to marry her? If he had been a man, if he had behaved like other men, might he not have succeeded with her already and got her out of his system. Might he not try to be a man now?

Had the opportunity now arisen? What was the meaning of what had just taken place? He remembered her face, her indolent
and enigmatic expression, her hand on his cheek, her amazing acquiescence in his kisses, her consenting to come away. ‘Aren’t all places the same, my poor Bone?’ What meaning could that remark have save one?

Was she just playing him up because she was short of money again? She had, he noticed, not failed to mention money. Well, what if she was? If she was a kind of prostitute, and was willing to give herself in an indirect way for money, was he going to refuse the offer?

Did he still love her in spite of his knowledge of her? He looked into his weary soul for the true answer, and found it soon enough. Yes, he did, God help him. He adored her, and he would never do otherwise. After all his firmness he had just blurted out as much to her. Whatever she had done, whatever he knew about her, she could never be sordid – she was too beautiful to look at and be with; she was still too incredibly lovely. She just took him that way, and there was no use fighting it. She was not a mercenary slut in Earl’s Court. She was violets and primroses in an April rain, and her cheek and lips, the breath of violets and primroses, lingered on his mouth, stupefying him with pleasure and longing.

He knew he was making a fool of himself: he knew he ought to run for his life: but how could he? After an eternity of longing, of hanging outside and beating at her door, it had seemed at last that she was going to let him in. She had put her hand on his cheek and as good as told him that he might, if he was careful, if he was man enough, come in. Not on the terms he had once hoped for – only as a shady equal of Peter and the rest – only, perhaps, because he gave her money – but nevertheless he might be admitted. He was not going to lose the chance.

Life was very exciting. He was going back to see her in a few minutes. He was going to be a man at last. And by the way, if he was going to be a man, he wasn’t going to have any nonsense. It was the whole thing or nothing. He wasn’t going to be fooled again – and he wasn’t going to Brighton. He had got to make that clear.

And it had all happened in a few minutes! Twenty minutes
ago he was a beaten dog: now he was a man, and the breath of the goddess was on his face, and her lips and cheeks were on his mouth. He entered the chemist’s shop and asked for the medicine, and waited. The bald, grey-haired chemist in the blazing light of the shop, his white-coated assistant, his jars of flaming red and green shining on to the pavement, his bottles and array of patent medicines and lozenges, were all her breath on his face and her lips and cheeks on his mouth, his manhood, his surprise, his sudden bliss.

Chapter Two

As he put the key in her door, he heard her voice in the distance. She was on the phone.

He tried to listen, but could hear nothing.

He put the key softly in the door and went in, hoping that she would not know he was in the flat and still trying to hear what she said.

‘No, I don’t think he even wants to,’ he heard. ‘No… No, really… No – he doesn’t seem to like the idea at all.’ She laughed. ‘He’s off it, apparently… Well, you know what a fool he is…’

‘Hullo – is that you, George!’ she shouted through the door, evidently having heard him, or having suddenly suspected his presence.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is me.’

She went on cheerfully: ‘Look here, I’ve got to go now. There’s somebody in the flat and I’ve got to go… What… Yes… Well, I’ll ring you tomorrow, anyway, and then we can see where we are… Right you are… Good-bye… Oh –
much
better, thanks… Good-bye… Right. Good-bye!’

She put down the receiver and he went into her room.

‘Hullo,’ he said, smiling. ‘Here’s your medicine.’ And he put it on the table beside her bed, beside the phone.

‘Thank you, George,’ she said, and she broke the red sealing wax and began to undo the crackling white paper.

‘Who was that?’ he said, going to the window and drawing the curtains to.

‘Oh,’ she said in her quiet voice, ‘nobody…’ And she crunched the chemist’s paper into a ball and threw it across the room.

He wondered what she meant by nobody – he tried to think of any of her friends he knew about – but he didn’t pursue the matter further. It was not his business.

It did just occur to him that it was his friend Johnnie at the other end of the line, that the ‘he’ referred to was himself, and that the idea that ‘he’ didn’t like it at all was that of going to Brighton; but he was easily able to dismiss this notion as another example of his diseased fancy.

Soon enough, at a sign from her (he did not know what sign, but she somehow gave him a sign), he was on his knees before her again, and begging for her love.

‘Netta!’ he said, ‘is it true? Are you going to come away with me?’

‘Yes… I’ll come away with you…’

‘Where shall we go, Netta. Where do you want to go?’

‘Well, I wanted to go to Brighton, but you don’t seem to like the idea.’

He was struck by her use of this phrase ‘don’t seem to like the idea’ twice in the space of a few minutes – once to absolutely nobody on the phone, now to him, but again dismissed his thoughts.

‘No, not Brighton, Netta,’ he said. ‘I had such an awful time there last time. Besides, there’d be people there.’

He said ‘people’ as vaguely as possible, but he meant, of course, Johnnie, Eddie Carstairs, the new show. He saw now that she had wanted to be in on the new show, that she had hoped to meet Eddie Carstairs down there with Johnnie, and that in consenting to come away with him (quite apart from any feeling she might now have towards him), she had some idea of killing two birds with one stone – that of getting her fare and hotel paid and of making this contact with the big manager. Knowing her ruthless character he did not blame her, but he was not going to have it that way. He was going to be a man.

‘Of course, there’d be people,’ she said. ‘That’s why I wanted to go. Don’t you like people?’

‘But I want you alone, Netta. Don’t you understand? Do say you’ll come away with me alone!’

There was a pause in which he looked at her face turned sideways on the pillow.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘It’s your party.’

‘Oh, Netta, thank you,’ he said, and took her hand.

‘Where do
you
want to go then?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I haven’t really thought about it. I thought we might go down the river, right away from where we know. Cookham or Maidenhead, or somewhere like that. What about Maidenhead? I used to love it there a long while ago.’

‘Very well,’ she said, the ghost of the ghost of an incomprehensible yet somehow mocking smile on her face. ‘We’ll go to Maidenhead.’

‘Are you laughing at me, Netta?’ he said, referring to the ghost of the ghost of a smile.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not laughing at you.’ But the ghost remained.

‘When can we go, Netta? When will you be well enough?’

‘Oh. Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow? But will you be well enough?’

‘Yes, I’m quite well. We’ll go tomorrow.’

He looked at her. Tomorrow. He thought of all that he had suffered at her hands, and it just didn’t make sense.

‘You’re not fooling me, are you, Netta?’

‘No, I’m not fooling you,’ she said, and added softly, ‘You know, George, don’t you, that you’ll have to help me out?’

By a pressure of her hand she seemed to invite him to draw his face nearer to her, and he did so.

‘Why yes, Netta. Of course I’ll help you out. I’ve always helped you out, haven’t I?’

‘Yes,’ she said. You’ve been very nice indeed – all along…’

All along. Something in the way she uttered these words, something in her manner, touched and convinced him. He looked at her, and for a space believed that she had a soul: that she was sorry for him, that she appreciated all he had done and
suffered, and that she meant to reward him. In fact, he was certain of it.

Well, he wouldn’t fail her. He would go on being nice to the end. ‘What do you want, Netta?’ he said. ‘I’ll give it to you now.’

‘I don’t want anything, really,’ she said. ‘I’m going to pay you back anyway when I get a job. But I’ve got to have five pounds just to get out of the flat. Otherwise they simply won’t let me leave.’

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I’ll give it to you now.’ He rose, went into the sitting-room, found her pen and ink, and wrote a cheque for five pounds. His hand trembled with passion and generosity. He returned to her and put the cheque by the telephone.

‘There you are, Netta,’ he said.

‘This is very sordid, I’m afraid, my dear Bone,’ she said.

‘What’s sordid?’

‘Oh – money generally.’

Irresistibly moved he flung himself down again and kissed her. ‘Oh, it’s not sordid, Netta,’ he said, ‘it’s not sordid! Nothing’s sordid with you. You’re too beautiful. Nothing
can
be sordid with you!’

‘All right, Bone,’ she said, ‘keep calm.’ And she looked at him mockingly, yet kindly. There was a pause.

‘Netta,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Now we’re going away together you’re going to be nice to me, aren’t you? You’re going to be really nice?’

He meant, of course, ‘You’re going to give yourself fully to me, aren’t you? You’re really going to give yourself to me?’ And he looked wildly into her eyes for her assurance.

She again put her hand on his face, and looked at him.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m going to be very nice.’

He wanted no more. He believed her. She had repented. ‘Oh, Netta,’ he said, and kissed her hair and laid his head on her breast.

After a few moments she said, ‘Listen, Bone…’

‘Yes’

‘I’m tired now, and want to go to sleep. Will you be a nice Bone, and put out the light and leave me?’