The Furnished Room (15 page)

‘Oh, goodness, yes.'

Wainwright told Beckett: ‘The trouble with you, Joe, is that you have no beliefs and no commitments. You flatter yourself on your objectivity, but the result of your fence-sitting is that you're cut off from humanity. Your objectivity may mean that you don't hate, but a man without hate is also a man without love.‘

‘Oh yes, I agree.'

‘I can't make you angry, can I?'

Beckett said with surprise: ‘Were you trying to?'

‘For your own sake I'd like to get some sort of reaction, other than your usual indifference.'

‘All right.' Beckett picked up the bottle and poured out the rest of the beer into the three glasses. ‘Let's finish this. All right, I'll take you up on one point. You say I'm not committed; but I'm sufficiently committed to prefer the truth, even if it's a vision of futility, to swallowing lies in order to give meaning to my life.'

Wainwright asked Georgia: ‘And what do you think?'

‘Oh, I don't know, really.' She glanced at the clock.

Beckett, seeing her glance, said: ‘Well, we'd better be going, Reg. I think Georgia is worried about the meal she has waiting.' He drained his beer.

‘Oh no,' Georgia said. ‘It's been very nice meeting you. I'd like to read some of your books.'

Outside, she slipped her hand through Beckett's arm. ‘Oh, wasn't he nice? I thought he had a very warm personality.'

‘Yes, he's very decent. He puts his humanist principles into practice in his own life.'

‘Of course, I couldn't really follow everything you both said, but I thought you were both very clever. But I did think his ideas were a bit kinder than yours. I mean, when he was talking about wars and things, you could tell from his face that he hated the thought of people suffering in wars. You could tell he loved people.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘I suppose Marion is a brainy type, too?'

‘I don't know, really.'

‘What does she do, then?'

‘Runs the house and writes short stories.'

‘Oh well, she must be brainy, then.' Then she added: ‘Well, I'm glad we didn't meet any of the black fellows you said live there. I mean, I know we're all equal, and they're as good as us, and all that, but they give me the creeps. I wouldn't fancy kissing one of them.'

Her room was large and pleasant, and looked more like a drawing-room than a bedsitter. The carpet and curtains were pale green, and the armchairs oatmeal. The divan, with cushions on it, looked like a sofa. There was a bowl of flowers on the table.

‘Here we are,' Georgia said. ‘I have this room, with bathroom, and kitchenette attached, so it's just big enough to be called a flat.'

‘It's a good place.'

‘I try to make it homelike. Well, I'll pour you a drink and then I'll go and prepare the food.'

‘Can I do anything to help?'

‘No, you just sit down and make yourself at home. Would you like gin-and-orange, or whisky-and-soda?'

‘Whisky, please. Neat.'

She poured him a large drink and then went out to the kitchen. Alone, he looked round the room. A prod at the divan told him that it was interior sprung. He inspected the tiles in the bookcase:
Death Strikes at the Rectory
;
The Questing Heart
;
Lady in Waiting, an Historical Romance
.

From somewhere in the house he could hear a vacuum cleaner. Georgia called from the kitchen: ‘It's the couple upstairs. They're both out at work all day, so they do their cleaning in the evening.'

He called in answer: ‘Oh yes.'

The books in their bright dust-jackets looked new. They were all her Woman's Book Club editions. There was nothing he wanted to borrow.

He returned to the armchair and picked up his whisky, feeling grateful to Georgia for providing it. The hum of the vacuum cleaner was pleasantly lulling.

After a while she called: ‘It won't be long now. Help yourself to another drink while you're waiting.'

‘Thanks...' He poured himself another whisky and took it out to the kitchen. ‘Sure there's nothing I can do?'

‘No, nothing, thanks. It's almost ready.'

The clean, modern kitchen made him feel scruffy and ill-nourished, as if he had eaten from tins and gas rings for too long. Georgia had tied an apron round her waist, and he wanted to hug her.

‘Here,' she said, ‘you take this plate of salad in, and I'll follow with the tray.'

The meal consisted of ham, eggs, salad, French dressing, and buttered rolls. She put the things down on the low table between the armchairs.

He said: ‘You are wonderful.'

She said in an Irish accent: ‘Sure, 'tis nothing.'

The food was good, and she replenished his glass when necessary. The drink relaxed him.

There were two framed photographs on the mantelpiece, one of a man, the other of a child. He asked: ‘Who are the photos?'

‘My husband and my little girl.'

‘Oh. Where are they now?'

‘My husband and I separated years ago. He sends me some money through the bank, which is how I can afford this place. My little girl lives with my mother. I go and see her as often as possible, and sometimes she comes here for weekends.'

‘I see.' He found it difficult to imagine her married. It was strange to look at her and realize that she had a past life in a different setting from her present one.

‘Teresa, that's my daughter, doesn't look like that now. That photo was taken three years ago, and now she's left the toddler stage and reached the child stage. She's lost one of her front teeth and there's a funny little gap when she smiles.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘And she's getting on very well at school. The teacher said she's one of the best in the class at reading.'

‘Oh, good.'

When they had finished eating, Georgia said: ‘Well, I'll just move this out of your way...' and removed the tray and table. Then she turned on the electric fire. It was made to look like a basket of logs. The order and ease of her living bemused him. It was pleasant to have someone thoughtful enough to clear away, so that he could stretch his legs and did not have to look at dirty plates. He compared it with the messy way in which he lived. He had an unsatisfactory method of piling dirty crockery into the china bowl, carrying the bowl down to the bathroom to wash up, and afterwards poking the scraps down the plug hole with his fingers.

He leant back in the armchair, letting comfort and whisky spread over him. He imagined having a servant, a housekeeper. It would be pleasant to have someone to look after his comfort. On the other hand, there would be the disadvantage of a woman talking when he wanted to read.

‘Now,' Georgia said, ‘tell me what you've been doing with yourself lately.'

‘Oh, nothing much.' He offered her a cigarette, leaning close to her when he lit it.

‘Thanks.' She smoked as if it was a deeply satisfying sensual experience, her eyelids sexily lowered.

He said: ‘All this is very pleasant. The room and the meal and everything.'

‘I'm very glad you came. I would have spent a lonely evening otherwise.'

‘Me, too.'

‘Then what about Ilsa Barnes? I heard that you two were together again.'

‘Where did you hear that?'

‘Ah-ha, the grapevine! Actually I'm delighted, I think Ilsa's a sweet girl.'

‘Do you?'

Georgia regarded the tip of her cigarette. ‘Well, she's certainly very bright and amusing, anyway. I saw her about a week ago at a party. She was sitting on the edge of the table, and showing rather a lot of leg, and another girl made a bitchy comment about this. And Ilsa said, quick as a flash: “Well, you could hardly do it with
your
legs, could you,
dear
?”'

He felt a quick stab of jealousy that Ilsa should exist and say things and swing her slim legs when he was not there. She had no right to exist out of his life. He said: ‘Anyway, she's staying with her parents at present.'

‘For long?'

‘No, only a week.'

‘Well, anyway,' Georgia said, ‘you're happy with her, and that's the main thing.'

‘Happy? No, she doesn't make me happy. Another person can make you unhappy, but can't make you happy. Happiness has nothing to do with other people. Sometimes, for instance, I know I'm a god and that everything is good. It's a feeling of certainty and affirmation. But this feeling comes when I'm alone.'

‘Do you often feel like that?'

‘No, on the contrary, generally I feel only a paralysing despair. It settles on everything like grey dust.'

‘Can't you decide which of the two is right?'

‘It's not a question of one being right. They are just states which occur.'

Georgia did not answer. Instead, she put her hand on his arm. He automatically covered her hand with his own.

He said: ‘It annoys me when people talk of happiness, as if it was an object that could be kept. Something you get when you marry, together with vases and tea services. My definition of happiness is spiritual intensity, and it certainly can't be kept. Most people have to grub along as best they can without happiness; it's senseless to try and chase it and pretend that happiness is a necessity.'

She considered this for a while, then asked: ‘But how do you feel about Ilsa?'

‘Oh hell, Georgia, I don't know. My feelings for people are so contradictory. I say things I don't mean; I even feel things I don't mean. There are always elements of unreality and absurdity in my relationships. Sometimes I think that I don't really feel anything for people at all, and only pretend to because it's the expected convention.'

‘Don't you think you fight yourself too much? That may be the reason you can't genuinely feel. I may be wrong, Joe, but my intuition tells me that you should stop fighting yourself and learn to accept yourself.'

The whisky and her kind, womanly voice hummed in his head. He was not really listening to her.

She said: ‘After all, proper living means accepting yourself, being adjusted to yourself.'

He woke with a start, and energetically thumped the chair arm. ‘You're wrong, Georgia, you're wrong, wrong, wrong! There are thousands of people who contentedly accept their stupid, limited, mediocre selves. They're even proud of themselves, for God's sake! They call themselves the little man, or an ordinary man, or the man in the street, as if mediocrity was something to be proud of! Not one of them interests me in the least. The men who interest me are the ones who are dissatisfied.'

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to annoy you.' Her blue eyes, staring into his, had the unfocussed look of a drunk woman's.

‘You didn't annoy me. How could you annoy me? I think you're sweet.'

‘Do you?'

He pulled her out of her chair to sit on his knee. Kissing her was an oblivion. It was any mouth, any arms.

After a while, she said: ‘Excuse me a minute...'

‘Where are you going?'

‘I won't be a minute.'

He released her, and watched her leave the room.

Alone, he said to himself: ‘You're a bit drunk, boy.' He went over and threw himself on to the divan. The embroidery on the cushions made him laugh; he picked at the flower design. Lying and laughing and picking at the embroidery silk, he felt irresponsible.

He heard music outside and got up to look out of the window. The music came from the pub on the corner.

He could see a man in a raincoat and brown felt hat walking very straight along the centre of the pavement, as lonely men do. Farther up the street a youth came out of a house, wheeling a bicycle. Beckett said aloud in North Country: ‘Eee lad, it's a right rum do all right.'

He heard Georgia's footsteps returning, and lay down again on the divan.

When she came in, she said: ‘I see you've made yourself comfortable.'

‘Very comfortable. Come and join me.'

She had taken her nylons off, and he guessed that she had also removed her roll-on. When she snuggled against him, he noticed that she smelled of fresh soap.

‘Talk to me,' Georgia said.

‘What about?'

‘Oh, anything. There's something friendly and reassuring about a human voice.'

He smiled, strumming his fingers on her bare shoulder. He could hear singing from the pub across the road: ‘Saturday Night at the Crown'. It occurred to him that they had been singing that same song all the time he and Georgia had been making love. Then he thought: no, they must have begun and ended with that song, and sung others in between. But he could not remember any of the other songs. Only ‘Saturday Night at the Crown' to a honky-tonk piano.

The pub music was broken by an angry voice, drunk and Irish. ‘Don't you shove me!' the voice yelled. ‘Don't you shove me!' Other voices joined in, but the Irish one rose above them, solitary as the cry of an animal. ‘Don't you shove me, that's all! Don't you shove me!'

‘They always make a row in that pub,' Georgia said. ‘Do you think there'll be a fight?'

‘I don't know.' He sat up, preparing to get out of bed and go to the window.

‘Ah no, don't go.' She pulled him back. The odour of sex stirred between her thighs when she moved.

He looked down at her, seeing her placid face, and the mark where her brassiere strap had cut into the soft flesh of her shoulder. The thought came coldly: I could strangle her now... He imagined his hands seizing her throat, his thumbs gouging in. And then the completed act, with the woman sprawled on the bed and the embroidered cushions fallen on the floor.

When he examined the urge it disappeared. He knew he would not do it. His analytical mind prevented any spontaneous actions.