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  They now had a little conversation about the recent holiday, and then he went out into the day again, with the bank clerk’s laughter, and richly friendly ‘Good morning, Mr Bone!’ ringing in his ears.

  He walked up Earl’s Court Road northwards feeling lighter, more resilient in spirit. This was because of the kindness and cordiality of the bank clerk, who had called him Mr Bone (as though Mr Bone were somebody), and treated him as an equal. The bank clerk, of course, knew nothing about Netta, his disgrace, the fact that he was not treated as an equal by her, or by any of her friends, or by people generally. And yet he did not believe that it was because the bank clerk did not know these things that he acted thus. He believed that this bank clerk was one of those few, warm-hearted, indiscriminate, easy-going people, who were naturally unaware of any superiority or inferiority in individuals, or who, even if they were aware of such things, were not impressed by, or at all interested in them. He had known a few people like that – but they were so few. Bob Barton had been like that, of course. He was like that at school. Although you were a fool and a butt to everybody else, he would suddenly come up behind you in break and take your arm and walk round with you, talking like mad about something which happened to interest him at the moment. He had no sense of his being himself, and you being yourself, no envious discrimination, no condescension. And he carried that through into life. When they were together later, when they were ‘partners’ in that awful fiasco of trying to sell wireless parts in Camden Town (‘Barton & Bone!’), Bob Barton was just the same – kindly, considerate, talkative, too busy mentally in what he was doing to be conscious of his own superior, or your own inferior, intelligence and quickness. If you made a howler, he never made you feel it. He just looked a bit shocked for a moment and then a little later he took your arm, as he did in break back at school, and you went round and had a beer, and nothing more was said or thought.

  Those were the days all right – the happiest in his life. He had a bit of money: Bob Barton was his friend, and life was opening out and wasn’t school any more. It had taken him four or five years away from school to awaken fully to this truth, and it was this period with Bob which had given him the strength and vision to make the mental leap. So long as he was with Bob he was as good as anybody, ready to make friends with barmaids and tell anybody beastly to go to hell. No lessons, no disgraces, no restrictions, no being laughed at, no being snubbed and sent to Coventry. Just beer and fun and phoney projects with your own money. Barton & Bone!

  But all that was gone. He hadn’t seen Bob Barton for five years, hadn’t heard from him for three. He was in America (Philadelphia) doing well – or was when he last wrote. If Bob came back now, it might be a different story. He might wake up again: throw off his illness: get away from Netta, feel unsnubbed and be able to tell people to go to hell again. Bui Bob, of course, had gone for good, and he would never feel like that again. Instead of Bob, he had to make do with a friendly bank clerk to remind him that he was a man amongst men.

  Bob had genuinely liked him, that was the whole point. There must have been something in his own personality which, whatever its shortcomings (perhaps because of its shortcomings), Bob understood and liked. No one else had actively liked him, so far as he could remember. Except, of course, his sister, Ellen. (He just couldn’t bear to think about Ellen, nowadays.) Or was there anyone? What about Johnnie Littlejohn? That dated back from school again. Yes, Johnnie had seemed to like him. And he liked Johnnie. But then he was all part of the Bob Barton period. He had nearly come in on that wireless racket: he had had enough sense to keep out of it! He wondered where Johnnie was now He wished he could see him again. If only he had some friends to go back to, to have as a background, to show off every now and again, he could keep up his end so much better. It was this complete loneliness and absorption in Netta’s orbit which was getting him down.

  Yes. Johnnie was one of them – so far as he remembered – one of the non-snubbers, the non-sneerers, the people who were too cheerfully interested in things to think about themselves, or others in relation to themselves, to make comparisons, to watch, to suspect, to wound, to hate. The bank clerk was another. You could tell them at sight.

  By now he had crossed Cromwell Road, and her window was in sight. Every morning, after breakfast, wet or fine, cold or warm, he made this trip up the Earl’s Court Road to look at the house in which she lived. After he had passed it he walked on for about fifty yards, and then he turned and looked at it again as he came back. He had never seen her at this time of the morning, and he had very little hope of doing so: but the habit was now formed, and it never occurred to him to try and break it. He was prompted, perhaps, by the same sort of obsessed motivation which might make a miser ever and anon go and look at the outside of the box which contained the gold which was the cause of all his unhappiness. Then there was the miserable pleasure of mere proximity. For that appalling halo around Netta, that field of intense influence emanating from her in a room to a distance of about two feet, was only the inner, the most concentrated halo. It, in its turn, gave forth another halo – one which came out of her room, and out of the house and into the open street to as far as fifty or even a hundred yards – as far as any point, in fact, from which the house in which she lived might be espied by her lover. This second halo was infinitely weaker, of course, than the inner one which gave it birth, if only because it was more spread-out and in the fresh air, but nevertheless it pervaded the whole, trembling atmosphere amidst the roar of passing traffic, and cast its enthralling, uncanny influence upon every fixed object or passing person in the neighbourhood.

  Finally, in this daily walk after breakfast past her house, there yet remained the lurking hope that he might see her ‘by accident’, that she might be coming out of the house for a walk, or on her way to some appointment; that she might be in some sort of distress in which she could make use of him, that he might go in a taxi with her somewhere, or be allowed to be with her or near her. In such a way he might be enabled to discover, and enter, Columbus-like, that unknown world, that mysterious earthly paradise, whose existence he knew about only by logical inference and hearsay, and whose character he could only imagine – the world of Netta’s early morning life, her world before eleven o’clock – eleven o’clock being the earliest time she permitted him to phone her, let alone see her.

  Chapter Three

  As usual, he walked back to the station, bought his News Chronicle and went in to the Express nearby for his small coffee.

  He bought the News Chronicle nowadays because it was ‘liberal’, and he supposed that was what he was, and also because it was getting pretty hot against Munich. He just couldn’t stand Munich. Somewhere at the back of his mind it was weighing on him: it had become part of his general feeling of disgrace, of the shame in which he in particular, and the world generally, was steeped. He still couldn’t get over the feeling that there was something indecent about it – Adolf, and Musso and Neville all grinning together, and all that aeroplane-taking and cheering on balconies. And how Netta had loved it! It was about the first time he had ever known her show externally any enthusiasm over anything.

  He scanned the headlines gloomily, ‘TRAINS CRASH IN SNOWSTORM: 85 DEAD, 300 INJURED.’ He experienced a momentary feeling that he was about to be shocked, and then saw that the news came from Budapest, which meant that he did not have to be shocked. Train disasters, like Netta, had their own tragic haloes which grew faint and dissipated at a great enough distance.

  ‘PLAYWRIGHT OF MECHANICAL AGE IS DEAD…FRANCO CLAIMS 18-MILE THRUST IN GREAT CATALAN BATTLE… £4,000 FOR “PERFECT NURSE”… TONGUE-TWISTING RADIO BEE ENDED LEVEL… PALACE OUTWIT GRIMALDER SHOT DEFENCE…’ He read until his coffee came, and then he put the paper aside, lit a cigarette and began thinking again.

  His cigarette, as it always did at this time of day, set him on edge. It was now five and twenty to eleven, and he had to make his plans for the day. Phoning Netta was obviously the first requisite for
this, but the question was, what time?

  Every day he had this problem to face: every day this morning existence of Netta’s, this earthly paradise she created merely by existing, by being awake and moving about in a flat a quarter of a mile away – a paradise made a thousand times more agonizingly interesting and desirable by the fact that he was permanently excluded from it and had no idea of what went on in it – had at last to be interrupted, violated by his own courage and deed. The marvel was that after a certain time of the morning (eleven o’clock) it was possible to make such an assault. It was not necessarily wise – on certain days she might be furious if he phoned at eleven – but it was possible; it was not expressly forbidden. The problem which always exercised his mind was what time to choose, how long he should, or could, hold off. He sometimes tried to get some information on this subject from herself the night before, but she was seldom informative. She was not an informative girl: he had to find out everything for himself by experiment and disaster. From many such experiments and disasters, however, he had deduced certain scientific rules which were of service to him. He had now some knowledge, through deep thought, inference, and hearsay, of the main complications with which, daily, he summoned up the effrontery to interfere. In the forefront of these complications was her bath. There was the bath which she genuinely took each day shortly after she rose; there were also the spurious baths he had foisted upon him when Mrs Chope was there to answer the phone. The best time to phone her, the time at which she was likely to be in her best mood, was about a quarter of an hour after her genuine bath. Half an hour after, it was too late: she was often already out of the house. The principal thing to do, then, was to guess accurately the time of her rising, which might, to a certain extent, be deduced from the time she went to bed, and to link up such a guess with the general knowledge he had acquired, over a long period, of the likelihood of the irregular Mrs Chope having arrived at the flat. For the presence of Mrs Chope threw out all other calculations based on the premise that she was not there.

  Today he did not feel that the same caution and foresight were necessary, for he had been definitely invited to phone her. Moreover, it would be advisable to phone early as, if she intended to keep her promise and come out with him in the evening, she would want to have it fixed up, so that she could tell, if she desired to do so, the appropriate falsehoods to Peter or Mickey, or anyone else who phoned and tried to engage her for the evening. To this day he did not know whether Peter or Mickey knew about these occasions when he took her out by herself. Nothing was ever said about such things in front of them: on the other hand nothing had ever passed between Netta and himself consciously to cause this silence. It was only very seldom anyway, only when he had money, that he took her out alone.

  He waited till the clock pointed to eleven o’clock, then he paid his check and went into the station.

  In the line of telephone booths there were a few other people locked and lit up in glass, like waxed fruit, or Crown jewels, or footballers in a slot machine on a pier, and he went in and became like them – a different sort of person in a different sort of world – a muffled, urgent, anxious, private, ghostly world, composed not of human beings but of voices, disembodied communications – a world not unlike, so far as he could remember, the one he entered when he had one of his ‘dead’ moods.

  As soon as he was shut in, he lit a cigarette, and thought of what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. Then he put in his pennies and dialled.

  There was a click, and it began ringing at once… Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!…

  He was mystically transported to the unknown paradise – himself, an imaginary wire, and the bell ringing in her flat being all one instrument – ringing in her flat, ringing on the table by her bed…

  Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… He was on the table by her bed, breaking into her privacy, adding another complication to the mysterious complications already prevailing! It was very thrilling to have got right into her flat, right into her bedroom, disguised as a bell, merely by paying twopence; but the suspense was horrid.

  Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… Definitely Mrs Chope wasn’t there. Perhaps she was in her bath. Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… ‘Do not dial’, he read, ‘until dialling tone is heard after lifting the receiver…’ Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… ‘If you hear a high-pitched “buzz-buzz-buzz” (the “engaged” tone) it indicates that the number dialled or the connecting apparatus is engaged…’ Brr- brr.’… Brr-brr!… This was getting bad. Perhaps she wasn’t going to come to it at all. Anyway, if she did come now, she would be in a temper, because it was obvious that he had interrupted her in something. Brr-brr!… Brr-brr!… There was the longed-for click – a click which relieved the tension in his heart in rather the same way as the click in his head relieved him from one of his ‘dead’ moods – and he heard her say ‘Hullo!…

  The Third Part

  PERRIER’S

  earnest, wistful, eager, breathless; fer-vent, -vid; gushing, passionate, warmhearted, hearty, cordial, sincere, zealous, enthusiastic, glowing, ardent, burning, red-hot, fiery, flaming; boiling, – over…

  impressed – , moved – , touched – , affected – , penetrated – , seized – , imbued &c. 820- with; devoured by; wrought up &c…. enraptured &c. 829.

  Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

  I can give not what men call love;

  But wilt thou accept not

  The worship the heart lifts above

  And the Heavens reject not:

  The desire of the moth for the star,

  Of the night for the morrow,

  The devotion to something afar

  From the sphere of our sorrow?

  P. B. SHELLEY

  indifferent, lukewarm; careless, mindless, regardless; inattentive &c. 458; neglectful &c. 460; disregarding.

  unconcerned, nonchalant, pococurante, insouciant, sans souci; unambitious &c. 866.

  un-affected, -ruffled, -impressed, -inspired, -excited, -moved, -stirred, -touched, -shocked, -struck; unblushing &c, (shameless) 885; unanimated; vegetative.

  callous, thick-skinned, pachydermatous, impervious; hard, -ened; inured, case-hardened; steeled – proof-against; imperturbable &c. (inexcitable) 826; unfelt.

  Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

  Chapter One

  He pressed button A and heard his pennies fall. He said ‘Hullo’.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘Yes!’

  She was in a temper all right. He could tell that because there was an exclamation mark, instead of a note of interrogation, after her ‘Yes’. Funny how she got into these tempers – after being so peaceful and saying ‘Perhaps it’s because he’s so big that he’s so silly’ the night before – but oh, how characteristic! He knew his Netta all right by now.

  ‘Oh, hullo, Netta,’ he said in studiedly polite and gentle tones, though of course this would only add to her fury. ‘This is me.’

  ‘What? Who is it?…’

  ‘This is me. George’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have I interrupted you in your bath or something?’

  ‘No. I was asleep. What do you want?’

  ‘Oh, I’m awfully sorry. I was ringing up about today – that’s all’

  ‘What do you mean – “today’?”

  ‘I mean this evening.’

  ‘What do you mean – “this evening”? What about this evening?’

  She knew exactly what he meant, of course; but because she was in one of her tempers, which might have been brought about by his having wakened her by phoning, but which was more probably quite spontaneous, arbitrary, and gratuitous, she was going to cross-examine him, make him explain himself, make him look a fool. It was an absolute marvel what he put up with from this woman.

  ‘This evening,’ he repeated like a little boy saying his lesson, ‘I thought we were going out together.’

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a pause as he waited to see if she would add anything to thi
s ‘Oh’, but he was certain she wouldn’t, and he was proved right. It was for him to go on explaining himself, to go on saying his lesson like a little boy.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘can you come, Netta?’

  ‘Yes, I think I can.’

  ‘Oh. Good. Then when shall we meet?’

  ‘You’d better call for me.’

  ‘Right. When shall I come along?’

  ‘I don’t know… When?…’ Now she was going all vague.

  ‘About six-thirty?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll be along about six-thirty then. Is that Okay?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘All right, then, Netta. Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye.’

  He waited to hear her slam down the receiver, and he came outside into the fresh air again and began to walk.

  He cut up through Cromwell Road and St Mary Abbotts to High Street Ken., and into the Park. He went by the Round Pond, and watched some sailing, and down to the Serpentine, and along it to Rotten Row and out by Hyde Park Corner. Then up Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus, where he had a couple of beers downstairs in Ward’s Irish House. Then it was a quarter to one, and he went into the Corner House and got a small table to himself on the second floor, and ordered fried fillets of fish (i), fried potatoes, roll and butter and a lager. He still had his News Chronicle and he read this and looked down the list for a movie to go to in the afternoon. There was Astoria, Ger. 5528. Racket Busters (A), 1.35,4.20,7.10,10. Rich Man, Poor Girl (U), 12, 245, 5.30, 8.20. News, etc There was Gaumont, Haymarket. Doors 10.45. Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You (U), 11.20,1.45, 4.10, 6.40, 9.10. Don. Duck (U)… There was New Gallery Suez (U) with Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Anabella, 12.45, 2.30, 445, 7, 9.20. Disney’s Col. Farmyard Symphony (U)… He got tired of concentrating and decided to go to the Plaza, because he usually went there when he was up like this. Here there was Say it in French with Ray Milland, Olympe Bradna and Star Cast! (U). Akim Tamiroff in Escape from Yesterday (A), ‘Popeye’! is. 6d. seats till I o’c. Whi. 8944.