Hangover Square (34 page)

There was nobody about, except an occasional policeman, and the echoing streets were so cool and fresh that he wondered more people didn’t walk to London like him, instead of stuffing in trains. They had lost the use of their legs.

He passed Brighton Pavilion, and then the big church, and was soon well on the London road going under the vast Roman-aqueducty bridge. Then along by Preston Park and Withdean Nurseries, and out to Patcham with its petrol pumps and church. Then out on the great motor road, with its two white pillars, saying you were in Brighton, and on to Pyecombe. He meant to go via Hassocks and Burgess Hill. Occasionally a motor-car or lorry blinded and flashed by him.

Dawn was in the sky as he climbed the long, slow slope of Clayton Hill, with its windmills and strange little forts – funnels from the great black dreadnought which was the tunnel beneath – and when he reached the top the sun had risen and he could see the whole shire stretched out and gleaming in mauve, rook-calling mist below. He did not feel weary, but it occurred to him that he had a long way to go.

Then it occurred to him that he had made a mistake. He was supposed to be walking to London to kill Netta, but actually Netta was in Brighton. Also he had forgotten – he kept on forgetting things, it was getting bad – that he had to kill Peter too. Oh, well – it didn’t matter. She would be going back to London today, and they would both be ready for him.

Half an hour later he was so tired and weak that he realized he would have to rest He sat down by the roadside, and lit a cigarette, and dozed off as he sat the swish of a passing car every now and again interrupting his heart-beat and disturbing his reverie…

It was broad daylight when he went on again, and he realized he would have to give in and go to bed. somewhere. He couldn’t remember quite why it was that he had to walk to London instead of taking a train, but he was sure that was how the thing stood.

He branched off to Hassocks, and found a pub opposite the station, where they stared at him, but, on his producing money, gave him breakfast and a room. He drew the curtains to, and undressed and slept in his shirt.

He did not wake till half past five in the evening. He went out in a dazed way and bought a paper at the station to see what day it was, and saw they had gone into Poland. He supposed that meant war.

He didn’t go back to the hotel, but began to walk on again to London. He now saw that there was no need to walk to London at all: he could easily take a train, and he didn’t know how the idea had got into his head. Muddle again. But he knew this part of the country, and he had a fancy to see Apple Lodge, a little farmhouse, with cows and a donkey and ducks, where he had stayed as a child and been happy, before they sent him to school and made him miserable. It was on the way to Burgess Hill, and he would like to have a look at it, as when he had got to Maidenhead there would be no coming away and looking at anything like that again.

He passed it in the dusk, and said good-bye, and walked on to Burgess Hill, where he found himself exhausted again, and where they seemed to have no street lighting. He found another pub near the station. He had some beers in the saloon bar, and they were all talking about Poland and the war. It bored him stiff, though he realized that it was rather useful actually, that they should be having their war while he was killing Netta and going to Maidenhead, because that way he would get out of the war too. Netta and
Peter!
– he mustn’t forget Peter! It kept on slipping from his mind.

He went to bed early and slept long and late. He was not up till half past ten, but they gave him some breakfast in a parlour. After this he found a barber’s and had a shave. It was all war, war, everywhere. The barber went on about it all the time. He supposed it interested people in a small place like Burgess Hill, because they had nothing else to think about.

He had quite a few beers after that, and worked out exactly how he would do Netta in. He had a longing for some yellow
pickles he saw on the bar, and ate them ravenously with an arrowroot biscuit.

He looked out trains and there wasn’t a decent one till after four o’clock, and as he wasn’t at all impatient now, he went to the local picture theatre and saw ‘Tarzan Finds a Son’, with Johnnie Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan.

He didn’t get into London until nearly six o’clock, and when he came out at Victoria Station he thought he was having a liver attack because the sky was full of distant gnats. These were barrage balloons. They were getting down to it now all right. He was only just in time.

He had some drinks at the ‘Shakespeare’ opposite Victoria, and everybody was very excited. There was a strange atmosphere altogether. Then he went back to the station and tried to phone Netta to make sure she’d be there tomorrow, but he couldn’t get her. Then he went into a draper’s shop to buy some thread, because he had decided at Burgess Hill that that would be necessary, so that nothing was disturbed.

The girl asked him what colour thread he wanted and what it was for. He couldn’t explain, of course, and he said any colour would do. He came out with four reels of grey thread. Then he went to a shop he knew in Victoria Street which provided things for dogs, and bought a basket for a cat. He had decided to take pussy with him. He put the reels of thread into the basket and carried them into another pub, feeling rather like a fisherman.

He had a lot of whisky to drink because he had a lot to think about, and because this was his last night on whisky and he might as well enjoy it. When he got to Maidenhead he would only be having an occasional beer. He went from pub to pub and the wirelesses were going in all of them, and people were listening, but he couldn’t be bothered. The streets were pitch black because they had put all the lights out. At eleven o’clock he got a taxi to his hotel.

He found the white cat in the bathroom and brought it into his bedroom, and put it into the basket to see if it would fit. It fitted all right, but the cat didn’t like it, and sprang out. He
undressed and got into bed. The cat came in with him, and they both slept.

He woke up at about three o’clock in the morning of Sunday, September the third, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, with the cat still beside him, and realized that he would be unable to take the cat to Maidenhead after all, because the cat was a bit of Earl’s Court, and if a bit of Earl’s Court, however small, got into Maidenhead, it would upset Maidenhead completely. This made him miserable, because he loved the cat, and saw that this was the last time they would ever be together. ‘I’m sorry, pussy,’ he said, ‘but you can’t come with me after all.’ And he hugged the cat closely, and even kissed it, and went to sleep again, while it purred.

Chapter Two

He awoke at seven and had a bath and dressed. At eight o’clock he went down to the hotel phone, and phoned Netta.

She was, of course, angry at being phoned at such an hour, but he couldn’t bother about things like that.

‘What?…’ she said. ‘It’s only eight o’clock. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘I only just wanted to know if you were there – whether I could come round and see you this morning.’

‘No,’ she said in her old bad-tempered way. ‘I’m afraid you can’t. I’m going out.’

‘When will you be going out?’

‘
I
don’t know,’ she said rudely. ‘When I get up… It’s eight o’clock now.’

‘Did you get back from Devon all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right you are, Netta,’ he said, ‘sorry. I’ll phone you some other time… Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye.’

He didn’t mind about her saying she was going out and not
wanting to see him. He just wanted to know she was there. He could get in with the key she had given him when she was ill.

Next he phoned Peter, who was almost equally rude. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I just thought I’d phone you to see if you’d got back.’

‘Yes. I’m back,’ said Peter. ‘What do you want? What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, I just wondered whether I’d be seeing you about. It’s a long time since we met.’

‘Look here, I’m in bed,’ said Peter, and a few moments later they rang off. He only wanted to know that Peter was there.

He then had breakfast alone (the first in the dining-room instead of the last as usual), and then went for a walk to the top of the Earl’s Court Road and back again to his hotel.

He went up to his untidy, slept-in room, meaning to pack a bag, but found one already packed for the journey he had meant to take with Netta a few days ago. It was odd how always everything fitted in. He took the reels of thread from the basket he had bought for the cat, and put them into his pockets. Until this moment he had had no feeling of nervousness, but when he came to say good-bye to the cat, which still lay asleep on the dishevelled bedclothes, he had a slight feeling of not being altogether calm – a feeling like the feeling you got just before you went on the stage in the plays they did at the end of term at school, or before you had an important interview to get a job. This was really final. ‘Good-bye, pussy,’ he said, and kissed it again. It blinked its eyes lazily, but did not open them, and, not daring to look at it again, he walked out of the room.

He walked out into the Earl’s Court Road, and by the time he had reached her house he had lost his nervousness completely. It was five and twenty to eleven. He walked up the bleak stone stairs and let himself in with the key she had given him when she was ill.

He walked into the sitting-room, and heard her call out from the bedroom, ‘Hullo – who’s that?’

‘It’s all right,’ he called back. ‘It’s only me.’

Chapter Three

There was no answer, and he heard her geyser bath-water running into the bath in the bathroom off the little hall.

A few moments later she came out from her bedroom, and looking at him irritably yet curiously, said, ‘How did
you
get in here? What do you want? I’m going out’ She was dressed in pyjamas and dressing-gown.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I only came to give you back your key.’ And he showed it to her and put it on the mantelpiece.

‘Oh…’ she said, and went back into her bedroom.

A few moments later she came out of her bedroom, with a sponge-bag and a bottle of nail varnish in her hands, and, passing through on her way to the bathroom, stopped to take a cigarette from a box on the table, and to light it.

‘Do you mind if I stay a bit,’ he said, ‘while you have your bath?’

‘No,’ she said, without looking at him. ‘But I’m going out afterwards. I’ve got a date.’ And she went into the bathroom.

She didn’t properly close the door of the bathroom (she never did) and he heard the water still running in. He knew that she wouldn’t be able to hear him because of the running water, and he at once went into her bedroom, to her phone, and dialled Peter.

‘Yes!’ said Peter, angrily.

‘Look here, Peter,’ he said, ‘I’m at Netta’s. She wants you to come round as soon as you can. Can you manage it?’

‘Yes, I think so. What’s the matter?’

‘I can’t tell you over the phone. It’s all rather weird. Can you come round straight away…’

Yes, I think so. What’s the matter?’

‘Can you come round in about ten minutes?’

‘All right. I’ll be round.’ And they rang off.

He came back into the sitting-room and took off his overcoat. The water had now stopped running. He hesitated as to whether he should take off his ordinary coat or not, and then decided to
do so. Then he walked into the bathroom. She was sitting up in the full, already soapy bath, facing him.

‘All right,’ he said, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Don’t bother – don’t bother. Don’t be frightened. Don’t bother.’

He saw her staring at him, first in surprise, then in terror: he saw that she was trying to speak, but that nothing would come from her throat: he saw that she was trying to scream, but that nothing would come out.

‘Don’t bother!’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Don’t be frightened! Don’t bother!
Don
’
t bother!
’

He seized hold of her ankles firmly and hauled them up in the air with his great strength, his great golfer’s wrists. Then he grasped both her legs in one arm, and with the other held her, unstruggling, under the water.

His shirt and waistcoat were soaking wet when he came out – he hadn’t allowed for that. He lit her gas-fire and tried to dry them off on his body. Poor Netta – he had made a good job of it and hadn’t hurt her – he was sure of that. That was the one thing he had sworn – that he wouldn’t hurt anybody.

Soon he heard Peter coming up the stairs. He put on his coat quickly and looked about the room. Peter rang the bell, and he went to the door and let him in.

The blond fascist was dressed in his high-necked grey sweater and grey trousers. ‘Well, what’s all this about,’ he said, in his pasty, moustached, nasty way.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Netta’s out for the moment. I’ll tell you in a moment. Come in.’

Peter went in, and he picked up the golf club – the number seven – which he had already put carefully in the little hall, and he got behind Peter, and with all his strength swung at his head just behind his ear where he understood it would kill instantly. Then he went in front of Peter and said, ‘Are you all right, old boy? I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Are you all right?’

Peter, still standing, looked at him with complete seriousness and interest, as though entertaining a rather good new idea, for four or five seconds, and then slumped down, bringing down the table and the cigarettes and the ash-tray and the lamp with him.

That was all right. It was all right now, and he hadn’t hurt either of them. Now for the thread, the thread so that nothing should be disturbed, so that there should be no intruders, and it was all over.

He got the reels out of his pocket and wondered where he should start. He chose the leg of the upset table. He tied the thread round that in a knot, and then, unwinding it from the reel, took it over to the latch of the window, and twisting it round it, came right back over the room again to the nail of the picture over the fireplace, and twisted it round that. Then to the electric-light switch, and then to another picture. Then to the table again, and then to the door-handle of her bedroom, and then round the chair and back to the electric-light switch, and then criss-cross to this and then criss-cross to that. He had to be careful not to fall over it and break it, he had to be cautious and patient and climb through…