The Furnished Room (12 page)

‘Oh, all right. Actually I want one too, but I thought that if I waited for you to ask first you'd have to get up and get them.'

‘Well, that's where you went wrong.'

‘Lazy little beast.'

She said smugly: ‘I know.'

He lit both cigarettes and gave one to her. They lay in companionable silence, with only the sound of lips on filter-tips and the exhalations of smoke. He had one arm round her shoulders. They lazily rubbed their feet together.

Then she giggled and said: ‘Well, go on, you haven't told me anything really vulgar yet.'

He grinned too, pressing closer to her. ‘I can't think of anything else. Oh yes, I use the slop bucket because I can't be bothered to go down to the lavatory.'

‘Lazy hound. Do you know, Katey did it in our kitchenette sink, and the sink came away from the wall. We had to call the plumber.' The traitress added: ‘Of course, she's rather fat. Disgusting, really, I think, all that fat wobbly flesh, and great breasts and things. Like that Georgia you were so keen on.'

‘Stop teasing me about Georgia.' Then he added: ‘Poor Katey.'

‘Oh, she wasn't embarrassed. Are you ever embarrassed?'

‘It's one of the penalties of being civilized. We're all afraid we're going to fart in public.'

‘Did you ever do that? What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?'

‘Oh, I don't know,' he considered. ‘I remember I was once trying to make some fabulous girl….' He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Before I met you, of course.'

‘So I should hope. Go on.'

‘Well —'

She interrupted. ‘How do you mean, fabulous? What was she like?'

‘Oh, blonde. A fashion designer. Very svelte.'

‘What, better than me, do you mean?'

‘No, of course not.'

‘All right,' she said. ‘Go on.'

‘Well, I had everything laid on for the big seduction scene. First I took her to some very sexy French film, and then back to my room. I had prepared the room beforehand, and everything. Swept the floor, tidied up, clean sheets on the bed. Put the clock back half an hour so that she would miss her last bus. I'd even bought a bottle of drink, which I couldn't afford.'

‘I didn't know men were so cold-blooded. Planning it all in advance, and putting clean sheets on and everything!'

‘Sorry to disillusion you.'

‘Never mind. What happened?'

‘Everything went off fine at first. We both got slightly drunk, we were sprawling on the bed and I was kissing her. My hand was working lower down all the time. And she wanted it too, I could tell that. Then we decided to get undressed, and somehow everything went wrong. I stood there naked, and it was as if I had taken off my desire together with my clothes. I didn't want her any more than I wanted a lump of dead meat. I had gone completely limp, and as sober as yesterday's empty glass. All that was left of the drunkenness was a bad taste in my mouth and a cold distaste for the whole adventure.'

‘How terrible,' Ilsa said.

‘The damn' girl was writhing around on the bed, she kept saying: “Oh come to me, darling! Oh take me, darling!” which killed the last vestiges of my desire. However, being the perfect gentleman, I climbed on top of her and gallantly did my best. But it was no use. I couldn't do a thing.'

‘How terrible,' Ilsa said again. ‘Was she furious?'

‘She was quite nice about it, actually. Said she quite understood, and all that. But all the same I felt awful about it. And I'm sure she told the whole story as a huge joke to all her friends.'

‘Poor darling, did he have his reputation ruined, then? Never mind, I'll always supply you with any references you may need to impress girls.'

‘Thank you.'

She leaned across him to throw her cigarette-end at the grate. There was an expression of furtive excitement on her face, like a child behind a door. He pulled her down so that she lay half across him.

She said: ‘Will you miss me when I go home for the week?'

‘Of course. Hurry back soon.'

‘Did you miss me when we parted for nearly a year, before?'

‘Yes.'

‘I missed you, too. Did your bed list grow any, during that time?'

‘They were only loveless one-night stands.'

‘Do you write your bed list down?'

‘No, I trust to memory.'

‘I write mine down,' she said. ‘It's in the back of my diary.'

‘Ilsa, you must be faithful to me.' His voice went loud. ‘I'd rather see you dead than with another man.'

‘Would you really?'

‘I mean it, Ilsa.'

Alarmed, she protested with wide-eyed cross-my-heart honesty: ‘Oh, honey. I will be faithful to you.' She stroked his cheek. ‘Honestly. Honest and true.'

‘Darling!'

After a while she said petulantly: ‘You've had so many women.'

‘No, I haven't.'

‘Haven't you?'

‘Not compared with some men. And most of mine were meaningless one-night stands. You know, drunk after a party, or in the back of a car, or a quick bash on the sofa before her husband came home. That sort of thing doesn't amount to much.'

‘But it's fun, it's experience, and you're not tied to the other person.'

‘You don't really mean that, Ilsa. You go in for that sort of experience because you think you ought to want to, not because you really want to. You do it because it's fashionable.'

‘But I do want to.'

‘You don't. No woman really does. Women are promiscuous for emotional reasons, not because of physical desire.'

‘Oh, all right, expert.' She yawned. Then said: ‘Who was the first woman you ever slept with?'

‘Girl called Margaret. She was older than I was. She worked in a transport café I used to go to.' He smiled into the darkness, caressing Ilsa, and remembering the wood in autumn and the woman's plastic handbag lying amid the fallen leaves. ‘She seduced me in a wood.'

‘Was it nice?'

The irrelevance amused him. ‘Oh yes.'

‘How old were you then?'

‘Nineteen.'

‘Same age as I am now. You were a bit old to still be a virgin, weren't you?'

‘I suppose so. I was pretty much of a moralist and a prig.'

‘You still are, in some ways.'

‘I think people should be. I mean, people should have

some central notion, they shouldn't just live haphazard.'

‘You live haphazard yourself, though.'

He said: ‘Yes, I suppose I do. But I don't like it.'

‘Are you sleepy?'

‘A bit. Are you?'

‘A bit,' she said. ‘I bet it's terribly late.'

‘Yes.'

‘And I have to get up early to catch the train.'

‘I'll come with you to the station.'

‘Will you?' she said. ‘Thanks.'

‘We can have a coffee or something on the platform.'

‘Nice. Oh well, I suppose we'd better go to sleep now.'

Then she asked: ‘What did you do before you were nineteen and met this woman?'

‘Masturbate.'

‘Did you? I did that when I was a child, but not when I was an adolescent.' She sighed, sleepily. ‘I used to look up my parents' medical encyclopaedia, too, and read the dirty bits.'

‘Sweet child.'

‘Oh, I was. I used to go to Sunday School, and they made me Virgin Mary in their nativity play because' — she switched to a twangy American accent — ‘I was such a pure-browed lily-white kiddo.'

‘Who, you?'

‘Yeah, me.' Normal voice again: ‘I used to grow my nails long and pinch the other kids, and make them carry my books for me.”

‘I bet they loathed you.'

‘No, they didn't. I was the most popular girl there. They were always inviting me to tea.'

‘We really ought to go to sleep.'

‘Yes.'

‘Turn over then, and I'll cuddle you.'

‘All right.'

In the morning she was already removed from him, insulated in her world of make-up things which she had regimented on the washstand. She peered into the mirror that she had moved from the mantelpiece and created her mask from numerous bottles, tubes, and jars.

He sat in vague irritation as the dust of face powder settled on his threadbare carpet. He watched the line of her arm as she pencilled her eyebrows into the correct arch of aloof disdain.

At Victoria he carried her case down the platform. She walked slightly ahead. Her hair was swept up into a Grecian knot at the back; her dress was new to him: slim-fitting white with a gold belt.

He felt like a porter trudging after the model in a travel advertisement.

On the step of her compartment she coolly inclined her mask face, proffering an alabaster cheek to be kissed.

When Ilsa had gone Beckett reverted to his monastic life, as if there was a battle to be fought out with the four walls of his room. He got the daily papers in order to follow the case of the little girl who had been raped and murdered. An arrest had been made. He wondered a lot about the killer's state of mind. He formed an idea of a man bored and frustrated within the cage of his own personality, who had determined to break out into a more intense life even at the cost of his own ruin.

When he saw the newspaper photographs of the murderer, the stupid face above the open-neck shirt belied his theories. The man was twenty-eight; he had been in a low grade at school and even now could hardly read or write.

Every day Beckett walked down Portobello Road and bought cheap meat and vegetables at the market. Once he met Michael, who said: ‘Oh God, dear, isn't life boring? I wish I'd been in the SS; how marvellous to wear one of those dramatic black uniforms.'

When Beckett mentioned that he was out of work Michael insisted on buying him a spaghetti meal at an espresso bar. Beckett felt touched and grateful at this gesture. Over the meal, Michael talked politics. He had a good, though fascist, political sense, and an admiration for the dictator figure. Michael the narcissist played to his reflection in the mirror opposite while talking.

They had been in the espresso bar for some time when Dyce came in. He saw Beckett and started towards him. Then he noticed Michael, and a look of annoyance crossed his face. Instead of joining Beckett, as had been his original intention, he merely nodded curtly before selecting a table as far away as possible. He seemed to have an intense dislike of queers.

Dyce had a coffee, and a croissant, and flipped through a copy of
Oggi
from the pile of magazines. On his way out he sat down at Beckett's table for a brief conversation. Ignoring Michael, he asked Beckett: ‘How's life treating you these days?'

‘All right, thanks. And you?'

‘I want to talk to you one day soon. I have a proposition to make which may interest you.'

Surprised, Beckett said: ‘Yes, certainly. Call round any time; I'm in practically all day. I'll give you my address.'

‘Don't bother. I already have it.' Dyce stood up, and remarked to Michael: ‘About time you got a job, isn't it?'

‘Is it?'

‘Wake up to it: you're a man, you should be self-supporting by now. Lot of lads your age are helping to support their parents as well. Pity you weren't born into the working class. Mining village or something. That would have killed you or cured you.'

‘Well, actually, if you want to know, I get on very well with the working class. I think Cockney boys are fab.'

Dyce tightened his lips. Then, turning to Beckett, he said: ‘See you again, Joe. Keep fit.'

When Dyce had gone, Michael said: ‘Oh God, dear, isn't he norm? Isn't it depressing when people are all moral and norm?'

One day Beckett bought a second-hand radio. He ran it from the light and put the set beside his bed. It worked all right, even the light behind the control panel. He was pleased about the control-panel light working. He turned the knob and got music from various stations. If he moved, he would take the radio with him.

The radio enabled him to listen to a gramophone record performance of Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
. He lay on the bed, with his feet raised at the pillow end. The music possessed him. He was immobile and relaxed, like the drowsiness after drinking wine. On the window ledge above his head was a jam jar containing a branch of chestnut leaves. The leaves lifted against the window. The music and the leaves seemed so miraculously beautiful that he wondered how, if God had not made the world, it was so wonderful. He wanted the music to go on for ever. When it ended he felt cleansed and blessed and slightly dazed. He turned the radio off, and wrote in his notebook:
The function of music and painting is to give praise
. Then he lay on the bed again, trying to make the peace last. It was one round to him in his battle with the four walls.

The purchase of the radio made a hole in his dwindling supply of money. He had, however, no inclination to find another job. He had no inclination to do anything except hang around, bored, in his room. At Union Cartons he had not been free because he had been confined in the office. Now he was no longer obliged to sit at a desk between nine and five-thirty, but he still was not free. He concluded that freedom was not lack of obligations, and that boredom and depression excluded freedom. Having thought this far, he came to a standstill. He had discovered what freedom was not, but not what it was.

One evening he walked through the slum district of Notting Hill. The air smelled of gas from the Kensal Green gasometer. He passed a fence sloganed BAN THE BOMB, and a block of Peabody Buildings with tiled entrances like public conveniences. In Goldthorne Road the people leaning out of the windows looked like laundry. More people sat on the front steps of the houses. All the radios seemed to be turned on; a programme could be heard continuously by walking down the street.