Hangover Square Read online

  He cried a little at the end of each film, came out over the super-soft carpet into the thronged electric-lit darkness of the winter’s afternoon at a quarter to five, and took the tube to Earl’s Court. He bought a Standard and had a cup of tea at the Express. Then back to his hotel to wash and change. He had time to get in two drinks – two large Haig’s at two different pubs before he called on her at 6.30 exactly.

  He knew, by the darkness behind her windows, and (when he got upstairs) behind her front door, that she was not back, but he rang the bell four or five times, with a pause of nearly a minute between each ring. Then he went down into the street, and looked each way, and went and had another drink. He came back ten minutes later, and rang the bell again four or five times. Then he went and had another drink. He didn’t expect she would turn up now, so there was no sense in not getting drunk. But when he went back the next time he saw a light in her window and knew she was back.

  When she had let him in she went back into her bedroom, and he followed her in there. She sat in front of her mirror making up her mouth. He didn’t think it advisable to mention the fact that she was three-quarters of an hour late, and when she herself did so, with ‘I’m late – aren’t I?’ he passed it off with ‘Oh yes – I did look in’, and nothing more was said about it.

  She spoke to him, or rather answered him, fairly politely – but it was obvious that she was still in one of those moods when she couldn’t stand him at any price, and that she would let him know as much before the evening was finished.

  Chapter Two

  She was wearing her navy blue coat and skirt over a scarlet silk blouse. She was, in fact, in her ‘best’ clothes and she was making herself up with more care than usual, certainly more than she usually showed when she went out with him.

  He knew, why this was – it was because he was taking her to Perrier’s. That was the lovely part about it – she was a wonderful little snob at heart. Although it was convenient for her to act this free-and-easy Earl’s Court life – irregular, unpunctual, self-consciously ‘broke’, unconventional – she really liked the other things, good clothes, ‘smart’ places and people, snob restaurants. She no doubt thought Perrier’s was ‘smart’. She wouldn’t be coming out with him, of course, unless he was taking her to Perrier’s. She had seen to that last night.

  He realized, in a resigned way, that this navy blue coat and skirt thing with the red blouse underneath, was the most heavenly thing he had ever seen her in. But then, of course, it wasn’t, either – there was that consolation. Everything she wore, at any time, was the most heavenly thing she could possibly be wearing. To make comparisons was like saying that daffodils in a wood were lovelier than roses in a garden, or that violets in the rain were lovelier than primroses in the evening… All the same, what she was wearing now still remained the most heavenly apparel she could have put on. She was daffodils and roses, and violets and primroses, in a wood, in a garden, in the rain, in the evening, all the time and in every mood or garb. He didn’t dare to look at her and think about it: he had to look at her without thinking about it. He could do that nowadays. It gave him a sort of vague backward look in the eyes.

  He believed she had had her hair done too. Freshly clean, dry and crisp, it came flowing away from her lovely, serene, yet bad-tempered forehead down low on to her neck behind, in simple, gracious, voluminous lines.

  Was this in honour of Perrier’s too?

  When she had finished making up, she went into the sitting-room to change her shoes, and he followed her. He was always following her, like her shadow, like a dog. She offered him a drink: she had some gin and French, and she told him where to find the bottles and the glasses. He made up the drinks on the mantelpiece, and she went into the bedroom again. When she came out the drinks were ready, and she came and stood at the mantelpiece drinking them with him.

  He felt he ought to be very happy. He was getting his ten pounds’ worth all right, if only in being alone with her like this for a few minutes, if only in shutting out Peter and Mickey, if only in participating in her private life, for however brief a period, while others were not participating in it.

  But he was not happy because she was not paying the slightest attention to him; and he was not even now participating in her life. He noticed how every now and again she glanced at herself surreptitiously in the glass. She did not often look into the glass at herself like that, and it told him everything. It told him that this evening she had given him was for a definite purpose, and that purpose was, for some extraordinary reason, Perrier’s. He was of no more importance, had no more significance, than the taxi which would take them there.

  He sometimes marvelled at the way she never said ‘Thank you’ for anything – the way she let him spend his money on her and was bad-tempered or mildly and insecurely good-tempered at will. He not only knew she wouldn’t say ‘Thank you’ when it was all over tonight, he knew she wouldn’t even behave ‘Thank you’ during a single moment of the evening while it lasted. He supposed other women behaved like this with men by whom they were not attracted. But he rather doubted it. He rather thought that the majority of women (except real bitches) if they were making use of you, as Netta undoubtedly was, would get in or suggest some sort of Thank you’ somewhere. Not her. She was in a class by herself.

  He noticed this again when she had got into the taxi which he at once hailed when they got outside. How had she known that he, a poor man, wasn’t going to take her by bus or Underground train? Would not another woman have somehow subtly suggested an awareness of his gesture, instead of walking into it in the same way that a tired and somewhat irritable typist might walk into a tram, and then sitting looking out of the window without uttering a word?

  Then again, when they were half-way there, he was struck by the same thing. He told her that he had rung up and reserved a table.

  ‘Upstairs?’ she said.

  ‘No, downstairs. Did you want to go up?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I want to go upstairs.’

  ‘Well – I’ve done it now. I suppose I can change it though’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I definitely want to go upstairs.’

  She added nothing to this, and the subject was changed. ‘I definitely want to go upstairs.’ ‘I want.’ Equalling they would. He couldn’t help feeling that another man would have asked her who the hell she thought was taking her out, who was paying for the party, who was sacrificing the little he had and getting nothing in return. It would have been different if they were both rich, if ten pounds had been like ten pence. It would have been different if she hadn’t known he hadn’t a penny. But she did know. She knew that neither he nor she had a penny, yet she ‘definitely wanted’ to go upstairs.

  Or was he being morbid, ultra-sensitive? Was she merely employing the convention he was accustomed to with her gang, the convention which he still hated and thought a fake, the one in which you said and did what you liked, were deliberately rude. (’do you want me to go?’ ‘Yes please’ – ‘Can I have one of your drinks?’ ‘No, you can’t,’ etc.). He supposed this would be her alibi if he accused her of rudeness and ungraciousness. Not that she would go to the trouble of directly using such an alibi. She would just make some retort which would make him feel more out of things, more divorced and excluded from her convention, and so from her life, than ever.

  And yet that didn’t work, either. The convention of being rude and unpunctual and unconventional and broke, didn’t fit in with spending a lot of money and going to Perrier’s – did it? If she was going to forsake her conventions in one way, he didn’t see why she shouldn’t in another.

  However, it was no use worrying. He knew his Netta by now, or ought to. He was getting his ten pounds’ worth – the ten pounds’ worth he had bargained for – neither more nor less.

  As they looked out of the window he put out his hand on hers, and she did not withdraw it. He might even be getting a little more.

  Chapter Three

  Befo
re they ate they had two more large gin things, and he began to feel a bit tight. Two large ones before he called on her – then two while he was waiting for her – one in her flat, and now two more – seven in all, and mixing whiskies with gin. Well, that wasn’t eight yet – and the old rule applied with him – he was all right until he had had one or several over the eight – large ones, that was to say.

  She sat against the wall and he faced her. This small upstairs room was quiet and contained few people, all of whom were behind him.

  From behind him, out of the subdued, pink lighting, a man’s voice suddenly burst into his ears.

  It said ‘Hullo – how are you?’ in polite but rather nonchalant tones. At the same moment Netta’s face lit up into a smile, and she shook hands with the man, saying ‘Hullo – how are you?’

  The man, without waiting to be introduced, now smiled at him and shook his hand, saying, ‘How do you do?’ in the same polite but off-hand way. He was a tall, dark, slim man, with indolent brown eyes and an indolent air – a young forty, an air of having money, and negligently well-dressed. There was something faintly mocking, sarcastic, challenging in the brown-eyed indolence of this man – a quality which also made itself felt in his quiet, well-modulated voice. He obviously, for some reason or other, impressed Netta beyond measure. He hadn’t seen her face light up like that for ages – if ever. And her comparatively eager ‘How are you!’ in answer to his cool ‘How are you?’ was a turning of the tables indeed! In the ordinary way it was she who threw the offhand ‘How are you?’ and the men who grinned and gushed ‘How are you!’

  ‘Won’t you come and have a drink,’ she said, ‘or are you too involved?’

  ‘No, I won’t, thanks,’ he said in a kindly but unhesitating tone. ‘I’ve got some film people here, and we’ve got to talk. You’re looking very well.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes. Very,’ he said. ‘Well. Good-bye.’ And smiling at both of them he walked away.

  He could see that she was secretly in a considerable state of perturbation after having met this man, and so he refrained from asking her who he was. Instead he asked her to have another drink, and she accepted. He stopped the waiter and ordered two more. He was aware that the waiter was decidedly opposed to this drinking and refusal to order a meal, but he was not in a mood to worry about waiters.

  By the time the drinks came she had settled down and he said, ‘Who was that man?’

  ‘What man?’ she said. She knew, of course, who he meant, but she was pretending she didn’t in order to make it seem that the man had been dismissed from her mind.

  ‘The man who came and spoke to us,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That was Eddie Carstairs.’

  ‘Who’s he?… Something to do with films?’

  ‘No. Not exactly,’ she said. ‘He’s Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott.’

  Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott… The plot thickened… He had heard of these people who were, as far as he could make out, big theatrical managers, agents, presenters of plays and what-not. He had seen their names on the top of theatre bills, and ever since he had known Netta he had heard talk about them. He had heard her theatrical gang talking about them – ‘Eddie Fitzgerald’ and ‘Eddie Carstairs’ – the ‘Two Eddies’. They always called them ‘Eddie’, though he would bet they did not know them well enough to do so to their faces – that was the way with theatrical people.

  But they were important people all right – he had gathered that much. He had sensed profound awe behind the spurious familiarity with which their names were mentioned. He suddenly remembered a remark of Netta’s from some long ago drunk, he couldn’t remember where or when. ‘Oh yes,’ she had said, ‘they’re always upstairs there in Perrier’s. It’s just over the way from the office.’

  ‘Always upstairs there in Perrier’s…’ He saw it all. This was why she had made him take her to Perrier’s: this was why she had had her hair done and was got up to kill!

  Incredible! Incredible, that the cool, rude, aloof Netta could nourish in secret such aspirations, could be so ambitious, so ambitious as to scheme, to prepare and enhance all her charms, for a doubtful chance of an encounter with an important man! It might be that she had a soul after all! It might be that she had no soul as far as he was concerned, but that she had one elsewhere. He was almost inclined to like her better for it.

  But what was she up to? Were her motives purely commercial? Was she haunting the haunts of Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott in the hope of getting a job – the job she hadn’t been able to get (and, of course, in her laziness hadn’t really tried to get), for something like a year? Or was she interested in Fitzgerald, or in Carstairs, or in Scott? Remembering her unusual perturbation while Eddie Carstairs was speaking to them, he rather thought the correct answer would include both motives. And was it Eddie Carstairs (of Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott) that she was after? He rather thought so.

  Here was a nice state of affairs – he had a big theatrical manager against him now! He managed to turn his head to look at his distinguished rival. He was sitting where he could see Netta directly, and he was looking at a menu while he talked to the two men he was with. Yes – an attractive man all right – one who would attract women, anyway – they would go for that friendly indolence, that quiet voice, that brown-eyed faint sarcasm, all the time. But would he go for Netta? That was more doubtful. He didn’t look as though he was particularly interested in women; or rather he looked as though he was on the whole too successful with women to be particularly interested in them.

  ‘Do you know him well?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no… I’ve just met him at a party or two,’ she said, and he saw her glance over at him.

  ‘I suppose he’s quite an important bloke in your job, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he is.’

  The funny thing was that he was not made miserable by this new discovery – by the fact that he and his money were being used by Netta to further some obscure design of hers on another man. On the contrary, with the drink he had had, he was rather exhilarated. It was nice to find Netta out in something – to enjoy the brief feeling of superiority which that brought. It was nice to realize that she was human – human somewhere, if not to him. (Who knew? If she had it in her, one day she might be human to him!) Above all it was nice to think that she probably didn’t have a remote chance with this Eddie Carstairs, that there was someone in the world who knew her but didn’t think about or want her, that she was for once in a lowly state and had to resort to subterfuge to see a man. He was delighted – almost grateful and friendly, rather than jealous and hostile, towards the man who had brought this about.

  She was being nicer to him now, too. She began to talk, to answer him, to enter into something resembling a conversation. This was almost certainly done for effect, because she knew Carstairs might be looking at her, but it made things a good deal easier. The drinks had probably gone to her head a bit, too.

  Netta! Foul as she was to him, there were moments when, because he understood her so well, he was almost sorry for her. Piecing together what he knew of her, he could see her as a whole, from beginning to end. He could see her as the bad-tempered, haughty, tyrannical little girl she must have been in the nursery, at home, or at school: he could see her as she must have grown up, encouraged in her insolence, hardness and tyranny by the power of her beauty and the slavishness in others it inspired: he could see her later, with a cold decision to exploit this power to the full in a material way. So she got out of the country and came to London, and, sure enough, got on to the stage and into films in a small way.

  But after that she was a flop. Why? Largely because in spite of her intelligence and quick wits she couldn’t act for nuts (he had ascertained that); but principally because she was spoiled and lazy, and drank too much – because she had expected success without having to work for it, and now drank and was lazy in a sort of furious annoyance at the fact that success was not to be had that way –
a vicious circle of arrogance, and laziness and drink. In other words she had never got out of being the bad-tempered, haughty, tyrannical child she was at the beginning. She lacked the imagination and generosity to do so. And that brought him to the present Netta he had in front of him – the one who was making use of him in order to be near a man who might be of use to her. For the moment he was sorry for her, and rather happy.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Then what do you want from life, Netta?’ he asked. ‘What are you getting at in it all?’

  When their food had come he had ordered wine, and now, if not drunk, he was careless and bold with drink. Otherwise he would never have asked her a serious, direct question like that. To ask Netta a serious direct question, in the ordinary way, was simply to ask for one of those hideous cuts across the soul she knew so well how to administer. But now, because of what he had drunk, he felt he could take the cut if it came. If it hurt he was anaesthetized.

  They had finished their meal and were having coffee. Eddie Carstairs was still at his table in the corner, though most of the-other tables were deserted. There were, however, three people making a good deal of noise at a table nearby, so he could speak in a normal voice without being overheard.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘What do I want from life?’

  ‘Just what do you want from it?… Do you want to be a success on the films, do you want to be married, do you want children – what?’