Hangover Square (10 page)

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?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you must, Netta. You must know something about what you want.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said vaguely, looking at a passing waiter, and speaking as a mother, watching the screen at a cinema, might speak to her talkative child. ‘Do you know what you want?’

‘Yes. Of course I do. I know what I want’

‘What?’ she said, and looked at him.

He paused a moment, reluctant to start anything. He knew it could lead nowhere, could do him no good. But why
shouldn’t
he make love to her once in a way, why
shouldn’t
he get something back for the money he was spending, a little of the luxury of telling her he loved her, of speaking his heart. He hadn’t opened his heart to her for months.

‘I want you, Netta,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘That’s all I want.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘so what?’

‘What do you mean,’ he said, ‘so what?’

‘Just “So what”,’ said Netta, and she was again looking at people in the room behind him.

‘Tell me, Netta,’ he began again. ‘Don’t you
ever
feel you want to get away from this racket?’

‘What racket?’

‘Oh – just the racket generally. Boozing, doing nothing. It’s all such a waste. Don’t you ever want to cut it all out?’

‘Cut what out? Drinking?’

‘Yes. Drinking.
I’d
cut it out if I could only get my life straight – if only things made sense.’

‘This is a new departure, George,’ she said. ‘You as a temperance expert. How long have you been like this?’

‘Always. I hate drinking really.’

‘Yes. That’s the impression I got.’

‘No. Don’t be sarcastic. It’s the truth. It’s only because of this life one leads.-Don’t you ever feel the same? Don’t you ever wake up in the early hours of the morning and feel the same?’

‘Alcoholic remorse?’

‘No. Not alcoholic remorse. Just wanting to get things straight. You
must
know what I mean. You must feel something of what I feel.
You
can’t be content going on living the life you lead.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘No.’

‘Do you mean,’ she said, after a pause in which she flicked the ash of her cigarette into her coffee saucer, ‘that I’ve got to go away and live on a chicken farm in Sussex with you, because you’ve given me that one before, and I don’t want to a bit.’

He marvelled at her cruelty but he had known he was throwing himself open to the cuts.

‘No, Netta – not a chicken farm in Sussex…’ he said, momentarily beaten.

‘Oh, not a chicken farm in Sussex… That’s a definite relief… Go ahead.’

‘All right, you can laugh at me, Netta, but there’s something in what I’m saying. You must want something in life. You must want to be a success, or to be in love, or something. You must be human somewhere. Don’t you want to be in love?’

‘There’s nothing I’d like better.’

‘Oh, you
would
like to be in love?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Who with? What sort of a man?’

She paused.

‘Oh… Boyer,’ she said, with a little smile which conveyed a world of wicked and selfish meaning, and she again flicked out her ash in the saucer and looked round the room.

‘I still think you’re wrong,’ he said, ‘and that one day you’ll come to want what I’ve been talking about.’

‘In other words the chicken farm at Haywards Heath?’

‘Yes,’ he said, defiantly. ‘The chicken farm at Haywards Heath, or something like it. Something with a shape to it. Something which makes sense. I’ve got to think that. I’ve got to hope it anyway. If I didn’t do that I wouldn’t go on hanging about you the way I do – would I?’

‘I don’t know, my dear George… Why ask me?’

He had already noticed that her attention was distracted, and
the next moment her face lit up into a smile, and she held up her hand.

‘Good night!’ she said.

He heard a man’s voice saying ‘Good-bye’ and, looking round, he saw Eddie Carstairs going out with his two friends.

There was a pause in which he looked at her. He had a sudden feeling of tiredness – a feeling that the evening was at an end. Her loveliness and inaccessibility came over him in a fresh wave of misery. He had been a fool to take her out. He had had too much to drink: he would feel awful in the morning: he had again beaten his head against the brick wall of her imperturbability. He had exhausted his nervous system, and it would take him days to get over it.

‘Oh, Netta,’ he said, ‘I do love you so. Can’t
something
be done about it?’

She paused, and then, for answer, she put her hand on her bag.

‘Will you excuse me,’ she said, ‘if I go to the cloakroom.’

And without waiting for him to answer, she pushed back the table a little, rose, and walked away.

While she was gone he thought he might as well call the waiter and pay the bill. It came to two pounds thirteen and sevenpence. He put down three pound notes and said ‘That’s all right’ when the waiter brought back the change.

She returned in six or seven minutes (she always took hours in a cloakroom), and sat down opposite him again. It was now twenty past nine. He had an idea of taking her to the pictures, and then of going on drinking down at Oddenino’s or at the Café Royal.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘where do we go now?’

‘We go home now,’ she said. ‘That is, when we’ve paid the bill.’ And she looked round for a waiter.

‘I’ve done that,’ he said. ‘But we don’t want to go home yet, do we? It’s only twenty past nine. We can’t go home yet.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘
I
am. I don’t know about you.’

‘Very well,’ he said, abruptly springing to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

All at once he was in a fury. It took a lot to get him into a temper, but that cool, impersonal, indescribably insolent ‘
I
am’
had done the trick. She had just brought him here so that she could see a man, a bloody theatrical manager: she had taken his money, she had taxied, wined and dined at his expense: and now the man had gone, she was going too. ‘
I
am.’ He felt he could smack her face: he felt he could kill her.

Chapter Five

Seemingly not noticing his rage (though of course she noticed it because she noticed everything), she rose, and walked out of the room in front of him. As she walked down the stairs he had an insane desire to kick her from behind, to seize hold of and shake her, to make a scene in a public place, anything to humiliate her, to dislodge her from the throne of her effrontery, but instead ‘Taxi, sir?’ said the man at the door, and he murmured ‘Yes’ weakly…

The taxi came at once. He was in such a temper with her, with the whole evening, with everything, that he didn’t give the man a tip for his hat and coat, and he didn’t give a tip to the man who opened the taxi door. Let them go to hell. He was hysterical with hatred. He shouted Netta’s address to the driver, and the taxi moved away.

For the time being there was a certain joy in his hatred. Like a local anaesthetic around a tooth it numbed the pain around his heart – the heart, which, normally, ached with the pain of Netta continually. He could feel, for a moment, that he was through with her; that hatred had killed love; that her beauty and power over him had been rendered null, inoperative, by her loathsomeness of character. If only he could make his feeling last he would be through with her for good.

But how could he make it last? Already he felt it slipping away. She sat silently in her corner as the taxi sped on – sped on home.

In ten minutes’ time the evening would be over. How could he remain silent and sullen when there were only ten more minutes – when he would shortly be dismissed at her door? He
couldn’t.
She
could. He could see that she knew he was in a temper and that she did not mean to utter a word until he spoke: she would leave him without even saying ‘Good night’ if necessary. Such was her advantage over him, and such was her strength of character. The lights of London whirling across the taxi lit up her wonderful face in bright whirling mauve… He looked at her and had to speak.

‘Oh, Netta,’ he said, ‘you are a beast! Why do you treat me like this?’

And as soon as he had spoken, and felt the self-pity of his own tone, all the hardness, the anaesthetic around his heart, faded away and he was begging for her mercy.

‘You’ve got yourself into a state, haven’t you, George?’ she said, looking out of the window. ‘I’d shut up and go to bed if I were you.’

‘No, Netta,’ he said, ‘you
are
a beast. Even if you
hate
me I don’t see why you should treat me like this.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you. Like what?’

‘Like
this
! If you’re going to come out with me I
do
think you might treat me
decently
! If you’re
going
to make use of me, you might give me
something
in return – a little kindness of some sort.’

‘How do you mean – make use of you?’ She spoke sharply, with a note of rising temper in her voice. He had gone too far. He saw that although she made use of him, she was ready to be extremely angry at any suggestion that she did so. If he cared to mention Eddie Carstairs now, if he let her know that he now knew perfectly well the objects she had in mind when she came out with him, he could probably make her lose her temper properly. But he wasn’t going to do that. His temper had gone and he could only beg for mercy.

‘But you do make use of me, Netta,’ he said. ‘After all I am taking you
out
, aren’t I? Can’t you be nice if I’m taking you out?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

‘I don’t see how you can’t see,’ he said. ‘After all, I’m paying for everything, aren’t I? I know that sounds an extraordinary thing to say, but it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Most extraordinary,’ she said. ‘In fact I’ve never actually heard anyone say a thing exactly like that before.’

‘No, Netta, listen.’ He put his hand on her arm and pleaded with her. ‘Do listen, for God’s sake. You
must
be human somewhere. I know I’m a fool. I know you don’t care a damn about me. But if you agree to come out with me, can’t you even be
civil
? You just treat me like dirt – as though I’d done something wrong. I haven’t done you any harm, Netta. The only harm I’ve done is being in love with you…’ His voice began to break, and tears came into his eyes as he went on… ‘What’s wrong with that? You’re civil to other people. Why can’t you be civil to me? Oh, Netta, do be kind to me. I can’t go on unless you’re kind to me. It’s all getting too much. Say something civil to me, Netta. Can’t you say something
civil
? I’m worn out. I’ve spent what I’ve got on you – I’ve tried to please you… Can’t you be
civil
? Can’t you look at me and say something
civil
?’

There was a pause. He looked at her and she looked out of the window. He waited for her to speak but she did not. In the faint hope that his tears and eloquence were moving her, he went on:

‘What have you got against me, Netta – what harm have I done? If anyone else took you out, you’d be nice enough to them, but just because it’s me you treat me like dirt. You don’t treat the others like dirt – you wouldn’t treat Peter or Mickey like this. What have I done? – That’s all I want to know. I love you, Netta – but I don’t interfere with you. I only hang about. I’m
harmless
, aren’t I? Aren’t I harmless?’