The Furnished Room (24 page)

An Italianate youth lay full length on the bench, with his narrow, blue-black head supported on his clasped hands. He was sharply dressed in a vee-neck pullover, tight jeans, and shoes with pointed toes. He had the tough, cynical expression of one who intends to get rich quick, and doesn't mind doing a bit of laying about and hanging around in the meantime.

One man was asleep, clasping a brown-paper parcel. Beckett knew him by sight from Mick's Café. He was middle-aged, dressed like a bank manager with a homburg hat. Only his mad, sad eyes, and the, tautness of the skin over his cheekbones, showed that he was a gentle tramp.

Beckett was unable to relax. He drummed his feet on the floor. His eyes were sore and tiredness was a permanent frown between his brows. He furiously twiddled the stem of the rose. Then he gave an exasperated sigh, laid the rose on the bench beside him, and strummed on his knees instead.

The seaside poster irritated him. He would have liked to smash its glass. Everybody and everything irritated him. The one-eyed man was still muttering. ‘When did you last have your shoes repaired? I've asked many people that, and I'm asking you. No, you can't answer, because you're shy of work. Haven't got any self respect.'

The three soldiers were trying to shove each other off the bench, guffawing and uttering inarticulate half-sentences. One exclaimed: ‘Let's give 'em the regimental song of the Fird Foot 'n' Marf….'

A hand gripped Beckett's shoulder. ‘Joe!'

He looked up to see Dyce standing over him.

‘Come on,' Dyce said, ‘let's get out of here.'

Beckett jumped up and followed Dyce out.

Dyce inserted coins into the Auto-Snack, jabbing the red button. ‘I'm getting a ham sandwich. And for you?'

The thought of food nauseated Beckett, tightening his stomach. ‘I'm not hungry.'

‘I'll get two packets, anyway. I've been to an awful dance. It's like playing tennis, dancing with some of those hefty hearty deb girls. Still, they provide some decent food and drink, and you get to know people.'

Dyce gave him the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches.

‘Hang on to these, will you?' He slapped his pockets. ‘I came here for cigarettes. Run clean out. Now where the hell is the —'

‘Machine over there.'

‘Fine.' Dyce strode forward, saying: ‘Yes, I passed the waiting-room and happened to see you in there. What on earth were you doing? Not travelling anywhere, are you?'

The cigarettes bought, they started for Dyce's car, which was parked outside.

‘I lost my room. I'm broke. I had to stay somewhere.'

Dyce stopped, and gave him a hard, long look, like a recruiting officer assessing men for physical fitness and psychological stability. Finally he said: ‘You look a wreck, man. Your nerves are all gone to pieces. I've never seen anyone degenerate as quickly as you have.'

‘That's not so. I'm stronger than you think. There's a core of hardness inside me, a hard core inside me,'

Under the influence of the pills, Beckett's words were like an express train. ‘Some things do not touch me, they are nothing to do with me. For instance, if I have a job, it is nothing to do with me. If I owe rent, it is nothing to do with me. If I stole five pounds, it would be nothing to do with me. For me, the only sins, the only things I feel moral about, are the things which soften my centre. For instance, laziness, boredom, wasting my time in trivialities, I regard as sins.'

Dyce opened the car doors. They got in and sat talking in the parked car. ‘How did you get in such a state, anyway?'

Beckett's express-train mind was now racing in another direction. ‘My mother is very ill. She is going to die, they think. I want to take her to Lourdes. You know, the shrine there.' He started off about autosuggestion, a fusillade of words dealt with miracles and faith healers. He had once known a hypnotist who had cured a woman of asthma, but it had been useless because the woman had later developed cancer. The hypnotist had refused to practise any more, because he said he could only change the physical symptoms, not root out the psychological cause.

‘Then why fool around at a useless shrine? You know that sort of twaddle helps nobody except the local hoteliers and relic-sellers.'

Beckett put his rose in the glove-rack on top of the AA books. ‘Only ex-Catholics can attack the Church. From people like you it is merely ridiculous, because you have no conception of the greatness of the structure you are attacking. I mean —'

Dyce cut him short. ‘Not another spate of words, please.'

‘Well, give me a cigarette.'

Dyce did not answer. Then, very deliberately, he peeled the cellophane from the new packet, transferred the cigarettes to his case, and held the case in front of Beckett without looking at him.

Beckett fumbled out a cigarette. When it was lit, he inhaled greedily, relaxing in the comfortable seat.

Dyce was wearing a dark, well-tailored suit. His body, hard and commando-fit, emanated vitality that

was almost tangible, like heat from a radiator. Beckett felt shabby and sick by contrast. The contrast was symbolized in the two packets of ham sandwiches, which Dyce had casually bought and neglected to eat. Beckett, to whom every penny was important, could not comprehend this casual treatment of food and money.

Dyce said: ‘It's idiotic, this sleeping in waiting-rooms. To start with, the police do a nightly check there. If you aren't a bona-fide traveller with a ticket they want your name and address and your reason for being there. And, secondly, if you are really set on this crazy scheme of —'

‘Of what?'

‘Perhaps it isn't such a crazy scheme after all, taking your mother on holiday. No, on second thoughts, I think it's a good idea, old boy.'

‘Do you? I don't.'

‘Now look here. I know the way it works out, all this sleeping rough and the rest of it. Seen it too many times. And it's bad. While you're sleeping rough and looking like a tramp, you can't get a job. And if you don't have a job, you can't pay for a room and so have to sleep rough. It's a vicious circle.'

‘Yes, I know.' Beckett leant across and pressed the hooter, which uttered a two-note war-cry.

Dyce frowned. ‘If I were an employer, I certainly wouldn't hire you. Not only on your appearance, but on your past record. I'd want a man who was smart, keen, a hard worker. And when I received your references...'

Dyce held imaginary papers between finger and thumb, ‘I'd find that your previous employers had described you as unreliable, uninterested, habitually late, and forever taking days off under the pretence of illness.' He made the gesture of dropping the references into a waste-paper basket. ‘No, I certainly wouldn't employ you. And nor would anyone else. You're going to find it very difficult to get another job.'

‘I don't want another job.'

‘The rest of the community have to work.'

‘Yes, but many of them enjoy it. At Union Cartons there was a girl who typed invoices; a boring enough job I should have thought. She didn't need this job, as her husband was earning easily enough for both of them. She said she worked because she liked it. She enjoyed the companionship of the office, and would have felt at a loose end if she'd stayed at home all day.'

Dyce said: ‘Look, you're ill. You need to rest up somewhere.'

‘No I don't.'

‘You need food, and sleep, and to smarten up your appearance to get back some self respect. If you don't get these things, you're going to collapse in the street and wake up in Paddington General Hospital.'

‘I'm all right.'

‘I know what I'm talking about. I've seen it happen before. I've kicked around a bit and I've seen it happen to plenty of people. One was a girl, nice kid, but a tramp, I wouldn't touch her.' Dyce turned on him. ‘Is that what you want? Do you want a girl? Some fat mother type, like Georgia, who'll take you in, and stroke your suffering brow, and feed you up, and murmur: “Poor boy, what you must have been through”?'

Beckett said impatiently: ‘I don't know what you're talking about. You irritate me.'

‘I'm just trying to tell you how a woman would behave. She'd look after you and sympathize with you. And it would be just about the worst thing she could do.'

Beckett pressed the hooter again. He experienced, rather than merely heard, its sound. When he tried to express this experience, the only words he could summon were: It's triumphant!' This was inadequate, so he tried again, expressing the intensity of his inner knowledge by saying the words passionately. ‘
It's triumphant!
'

‘Maybe,' Dyce said curtly. ‘Now get this, Joe. I could give you money now, this instant. I could provide you with food and a place to stay. And if I was a false friend, if I was weak enough to act emotionally instead of having the strength to act for your good, I would give you money. But I'm not going to give you money. You're on your own, and it's a service to you to make you realize it. If you want money from me, you've got to earn it, not lie back on my charity.'

‘Yes, yes, I understand.'

‘Good. Someone like Georgia would help you, but in return you would have to become soft and sloppy, so that her mother-love could feed on your weakness. Well, I say, keep your guts. Have the guts to either starve alone, or earn money the hard way.'

Beckett got out of the car.

Dyce said through the open window: ‘Well, you know my address if you decide to take up my offer. Needless to say, I'll give you a cash sum down if you do.'

Watching the scarlet car speed away, Beckett remembered that he had left the rose on the glove-rack. Momentarily, he felt regret. Then he returned to the waiting-room.

The next day, lying on the gentle lawn in Holland Park, he knew that Dyce was right. He must either get money or starve.

Suddenly, he had an image of his mother's face. She turned her head and smiled. The image was very clear; he could see everything, from the way she had her hair to the flowered overall over her cardigan. For some reason, he had the impression that she was standing by the kitchen table cutting sandwiches for a picnic. There was no reason why the idea of a picnic should occur to him, and he concluded that the image was a childhood memory. He must have seen her smile in that way, wearing that overall, and cutting sandwiches. They had often had family picnics.

He thought: She shouldn't die, she shouldn't die! She had so much love: for God, for her family, for simple things like flowers that could make her face light up. Why should she die when she belonged to love and therefore to life?

Agonized, he thought: Why should she die? She's so good.

The emotion made him feel physically sick. He groaned, and banged his head on the ground like a man in pain.

Grosvenor Court Gardens was a block of service flats. A taxi drew up and a couple alighted. The man was corpulent, with greedy eyes and fat lips. The girl was about twenty-five, with a hard, made-up little face and pearl-coloured hair. Her black suit had a lace jabot, and a diamond brooch on the lapel.

Beckett followed them up the drive to the flats. He did not envy their wealth. He had a benevolent attitude to the wealthy, almost as if he owned them. He could, however, understand Dyce's envy. To Dyce, the wealthy had got more counters in the game than he had, and as such were a challenge and an insult.

The revolving doors led into an entrance hall with fern-patterned panelling. Beckett joined the couple to wait for the lift.

The couple spoke only once. The man said: ‘The Van Houtens are coming at seven.'

‘I thought it was half past.'

‘No, seven.'

They got into the lift and glided silently upwards. The lift was filled with the girl's Chanel Number Five perfume. Beckett accidentally met her eyes in the mirror; kitten-blue, outlined in black pencil.

The lift stopped at the second floor. The man waited for the girl to alight first, but she said: ‘I'm going up to Peggy's. She borrowed my white stole.'

‘Well, don't stay nattering to her. I want you to hand round the drinks.'

The man got out, leaving Beckett and the girl in the lift. Without looking at her, he reached his hands towards her.

Her hand came to meet his, and they gripped. The next moment she was in his arms, with her pearl-coloured hair resting against his shoulder. They held each other close, as if to comfort and protect. Then she raised her small, expensive face to be kissed.

When the lift stopped and the automatic doors opened, she said: ‘This is my floor,' and got out.

Beckett took the lift down again to the third floor. Flat 34 was at the end of the corridor. He rang the bell, and heard the double chime sound within.

Dyce opened the door almost immediately. ‘Well, here you are, old boy. Come in.'

The living-room had smart modern furniture. The effect was impersonal, like a hotel room. The suite was bi-coloured in lime-green and grey. Radiogram, cocktail cabinet, television, and a pile of American magazines completed the décor. There was central heating, and wall lights with fan-shaped shades.

‘Make yourself at home,' Dyce said. He moved like a combatant, easy and relaxed, but with preparedness always there like a hand resting lightly on a holster. Beckett had noticed this before. Dyce, entering a place, would scan it swiftly, in the manner of one long practised in coolly assessing vantage, danger, and cover, before issuing the command. Now Dyce was moving around the room, mixing drinks, and lowering the volume of the television. On the screen a troupe of girls in spangles and top hats were doing a dance routine. Then he took Beckett into the bedroom to show him the ultraviolet-ray lamp. ‘My latest gadget. Ultraviolet rays and exercise. That's the way to keep fit. A man gets soft and sloppy in easy living conditions like these, if he doesn't discipline himself to keep in tip-top form. Look at the other men in these flats. Fat and flabby. All the exercise they get is lifting phones and getting into taxis. Ugh. They can't even love their mistresses without taking vitalizing pills.'