Hangover Square (19 page)

So she was coming! He could hardly control himself in front of the porter, as he went out and talked with the excellent man on the steps of the hotel, and watched the sunny people in the sunny street. She was coming! He was sober last night; he was cool, well, and happy, and she was coming! She – Netta – the holy and terrible one – had taken the trouble to wire him!

How was he to spend the delicious day? The porter left him and he looked at some notices on the board. Visitors were requested, etc. etc…. Then, ‘
Ringdean Golf Course
, 2
S
. 6
d. perround
’. The porter came out again and he asked him about it.

The porter told him you could get there easily by tram from
Castle Square, and a heavenly ‘Why not?’ sprang up in his soul. Why not borrow some clubs from the pro and mess about? He would! He got his hat and was on the tram in five minutes.

Golf! How long was it? Not since the Bob Barton days – he had simply forgotten about it. And they used to make such a fuss of him – Bob and all of them – even the nasty ones – it was the one thing he was any good at. That was the one decent thing at school – the nine-hole golf course they were allowed on a mile or so away. ‘Well, Bone,’ old Thorne once said in his pompous way, ‘with a drive and iron play such as yours I think you may be said to have lived not
wholly
for nothing.’ And he
could
play, too, if it came to that. He was down to two when he left school, and everyone said that if he could only keep it up he could be a crack. But of course he hadn’t kept it up and he hadn’t thought about it for years.

The pro was a nice man, and let him have quite a decent bag, and explained the lie of the course, which began high up at the back of the town and led over the Downs. It was half past eleven when he started, so there was no one about.

He teed up at the first hole – a long short one – a difficult three downhill to a banked green. With delicious pomposity (how it brought it all back!) he looked at his card for the length, and decided that against the wind it was a spoon. He teed up his ball and had some swings. There was nothing to it, there never was anything to it – you had only got to relax, relax, relax, and keep your chin pointed at the back of the ball all the way. No clues or nonsense, just relax and your chin pointed. Just pretend you’ve been playing frightfully well for the last few holes, and keep your chin pointed. He went up to the ball.

He was on! He was on! He was on! All the way! He had socked it bang in the middle – the spoon was the club all right, and he was on! He was about twelve feet from the pin…

He knew his putt was going down before he hit the ball, and in it went! A two. Thank you very much – that would do all right for a beginning.

He pulled his next drive, but it lay well, and he hit a screaming number four up to the back of the green. He was playing
golf! He knew he was playing golf! You either had that feeling or you didn’t! He had got it. He was going to hit the blasted ball all the way round!

He got his bogey four, and at the next hole – a five – got his four with a glorious chip (like a pocket-knife closing) and a putt. Nothing could stop him now. He was out for their blood. He had gone ‘mad’ and he was going to keep mad.

He was out in thirty-four. He chuckled aloud as he sunk his putt and he breathed deeply and braced himself for the battle home…

He walked alone along the Downs, this sad, ungainly man with beer-shot eyes who loved a girl in Earl’s Court – carrying an old bag of borrowed clubs and thinking of nothing but his game of golf. His face shone, his eyes gleamed, and he felt, deep in his being that he was not a bad man, as he had thought he was a few hours ago, but a good one. And because he was a good man he was a happy man, and if he could only break seventy he would never be unhappy again.

He got a six at the fourteenth, but he didn’t let it rattle him, and he came to the last hole, a long five, with a five to get for his sixty-nine.

He wasn’t going to get rattled. Nothing could rattle him now. His drive went into the rough on the left, that didn’t rattle him. It didn’t lie too badly. He debated whether to take his three (he hadn’t got a two) and play safe, or try it with a spoon. He decided on the spoon – he wasn’t going to get rattled.

It was a rotten shot… but it was on, it was on, it was
on
! One of those awful low, curly S-shaped things, right over to the left and then fading away to the right, but it was on! It was about twenty feet away from the pin on a hilly green.

He didn’t want a sixty-eight – he only wanted sixty-nine. He wasn’t going to try for a sixty-eight; he was just going to hit it firmly up to the hole – so firmly that it went well beyond the hole – for two putts and his sixty-nine. He took the line carefully and he knew the moment he had hit it that his sixty-eight was in the bag. It went less than a foot past the hole on the right, and he knocked it in with one hand.

Sixty-eight! Hadn’t played for years – borrowed clubs on a
strange course, and sixty-eight! He was giddy with joy. He wanted to tell somebody. He saw two men approaching the first tee and he wanted to go and tell them. He only just kept himself from doing so. The pro, fortunately, was still in his shop. ‘Well,’ he said as he handed him the clubs. ‘They’re all right. I did a sixty-eight, anyway. Not bad on a strange course. I haven’t played for years either.’ And his voice was vibrant with pride. The pro congratulated him warmly and they had a little talk about the course.

He went to the rather ramshackle club-house, which was empty, got a half of beer, ordered some sandwiches and sat down.

Sixty-eight! Golf! How had he come to forget golf – the fact that he could play a game well – the fact that he was good at something, anyway?

Good at something. The thought brought Netta back. He hadn’t thought of her for three hours, and she was joining him tonight. What would she think of his sixty-eight? Nothing, of course. But it wasn’t nothing. He’d like to see Peter shoot a sixty-eight! Perhaps, tomorrow, she would come and play with him. Perhaps she would come and
watch
him play. She might… But it wasn’t the sixty-eight so much as the golf – the fresh air and sanity. What with his quiet night last night, he hadn’t felt so well for years. Why not take up golf and give up drinking? A holiday, a golfing holiday – that perhaps had been what he had wanted all the time. If he had had a holiday before he wouldn’t have got into such a mess. Now was the time to pull himself together. Yes. Now. Now or never.

And Netta joining him tonight. Alone with Netta, quietly for the first time in his life, and feeling well, on top of his form. Surely this moment had come, and everything was conspiring for his good. If only he could take the opportunity and keep calm. Like in golf, confidence and relaxation – that was all there was to it.

He wasn’t going to get drunk. She could drink if she wanted to, but he wasn’t going to – at least only a little. He was going to keep his head.

And then, if he couldn’t make any headway with her, he’d
cut her out. For the first time since he had known her, he felt he could cut her out. He would play golf, and cut her out and start all over again.

But why cut her out? Hadn’t she been entirely charming to him recently, and wasn’t she joining him in the most delightful manner at a seaside resort? Why should a sane man talk of cutting her out? Wasn’t this the very moment when he might hope to get his way, to make her respect him, to make her love him?

It was all very exciting – this almost clandestine meeting in Brighton. It was like being in love when you were a boy for the first time. That was how he was going to think of it, and that was how he was going to treat her when he met her. He was going to pretend to himself that he had only met her a little while ago – forget all the past. Already he had a plan at the back of his mind. Down here he wasn’t going to be just a boozy hanger-on. He was going to spend money and do the thing properly. He was going to meet her in his best suit: his hair would be brushed: and he would just have had a bath. She would be taken aback by his appearance. Then he would take her in a taxi to the hotel: and then, when she had unpacked, they would go out in another taxi to Sweetings. Sweetings was the place, he didn’t care what it cost. There they would have dinner, and afterwards, if she liked, they would go to a theatre or the movies. Sober. Civilized. Unruffled. Sane. He would show her that he knew his way about.

He had another beer. He had done a sixty-eight and was on top of the world. His sandwiches came and he saw that it was nearly three o’clock.

He ate his sandwiches. No more beer. He was a sober man now. He lit a cigarette, left the club-house and took a tram back to the hotel.

He lay on his bed and slept, slept to sleep off his golf, and to be fresh for her at seven. The porter, on his instructions, woke him at a quarter to six, and he went and had a bath. He put on his best blue suit and brushed his hair.

No drinks. Plenty of time for that when he met her. He took a bus and was at the station at a quarter to seven.

The station was very crowded, and it made him feel a little scared – so many people and so much rolling, echoing noise, and not having had anything to drink. And then you didn’t meet Netta alone, in a seaside town, when you were feeling well and knew that your one chance had come, exactly every day of your life! But he still wouldn’t have a drink. His feeling of wellness and freshness, his sixty-eight that morning, his resolutions, his blue suit and his bath would see him through until she came.

The train was very punctual – came wobbling grimly into its hissing standstill almost before he was ready for it. The doors opened and crowds poured out and bore down upon the barrier.

It was not long before he saw Netta. Then, through the bobbing heads, he saw Peter, who was holding her arm.

Then he saw that on Peter’s other arm there was a stranger – a young man, about twenty-two, wearing his hat at an absurd angle over his eyes, and slouching along absurdly. As soon as they had reached the barrier, and Peter had hailed him, he realized that they were all three aggressively drunk – had been aggressively drunk for several hours.

Chapter Four

‘Hullo, Bone!’ cried Netta. ‘How are you!’ And she waved her hand and smiled without a flicker of guilt in her eyes. ‘Where’s the bar? We want a drink.’

She was quite tight, though, as usual, she did not show it, like the men, by complete silliness, but by a voice much louder, harsher and crisper than usual, a brighter eye, a manner at once inconsequent and dictatorial.

‘Hullo, George Harvey Bone,’ said the strange young man. ‘I’ve been hearing all about you. Sorry I can’t shake hands. I’m the beast of burden.’ (He was carrying Netta’s suitcase.)

‘Come on,’ said Peter, ‘park that bloody thing and let’s go and have a drink.’

‘No need to park it,’ said George, ‘I’ll take it.’ And he took it from the stranger. He presumed the two interlopers were shortly going back to London, and he felt that by taking charge of Netta’s suitcase he was making manifest the private nature of his assignation with her, and also hinting that their early departure would be desirable.

‘Good old George!’ said Netta. ‘Good old beast of burden. We’re all very fond of you, George.’ She took his arm. ‘Come on. You may now conduct us to the ale-house.’

‘The ale-house,
ho
!’ said the young man. He was a nasty-looking piece of work, short, virile, stocky – with a darkly tanned, scarred, pugilistic, Rugby-football face – a full mouth and the burning brown eyes of the school-bully. When they had lined up at the buffet bar he ordered double whiskies for all of them without consulting anybody.

‘Who’s this?’ said George, quietly aside to Netta, as they waited for the drinks to come.

‘Who’s what?’

‘This,’ he said signifying whom he meant by his eyes.

‘Oh, him. I don’t know,’ said Netta. ‘Here! You! Whats-your name! Who
are
you? George Harvey Bone wants to know!’

‘Me?’ said the young man. ‘I don’t know. Who am I? Here. You. Excuse me.’ He called to the barmaid. ‘Can you tell me who I am? There’s a gentleman here wants to know.’

‘I don’t know I’m sure,’ said the barmaid, smiling wanly as she passed.

‘But this is disgraceful. I come into a bar and ask in a perfectly reasonable way who I am and nobody can tell me. I mean to say it’s absurd. I mean…’ He started a long wrangle with the barmaid, which finally became boring even to Peter and Netta.

‘No, who is he, really, Netta?’ asked George, while this was’ going on, and she replied as she looked into her bag for some lipstick, ‘I don’t know. We just picked him up. We all got blind at lunch-time and just picked him up.’

‘I don’t like the look of him a bit,’ he was bold enough to say.

‘Don’t you?’ said Netta. ‘I rather like him.’

‘Well, George’ said Peter, ‘you don’t look very bright at seeing us.’

‘On the contrary. I’m delighted. It’s just that I haven’t had any drinks, that’s all.’

‘Really… This is most unusual. You must have some quickly nd make up.’

‘Well, I was aiming to have a meal,’ said George. ‘What’s the general idea? When are you two going back?’

‘Oh – we’re not going back,’ said Peter quickly, swaying slightly with drink, and looking at him, his glass in hand, with a look of pure malice such as George had never seen quite so vividly on his face before. ‘I rather thought you thought we were going back.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said George. ‘I just wondered what you were going to do for luggage.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. It’s all in Netta’s. We all dashed about collecting things and packed up at Netta’s.’

‘What’s all this?’ said the young man, to whom the barmaid would no longer listen. ‘What’s this about packing?’

‘I was just telling George how we packed,’ said Peter. ‘He thought we were going home.’

‘Going home? What do you mean? We’re staying with you, aren’t we! I understood we’re staying with you. What’s the matter with you, George Harvey Bone?’

‘Yes, of course, we’re staying with him,’ said Netta. ‘We’re at the Little Castle Hotel. He got us rooms. Shut up, Bone darling, and buy me a drink.’