Hangover Square

by Patrick Hamilton

  The Saloon Bar was unusually crowded, but they managed to find seats at a table in a corner. They drank beer and talked about the coming war.

  When she came, she was alone, and went and sat on a stool at the bar. He didn’t know whether she had seen him, and he went on talking to Johnnie. He didn’t know whether Johnnie had seen her, but rather thought he had, because their conversation became a little inattentive, and the atmosphere was curious They looked rather hard at each other as they talked.

  All at once he heard her voice, and she was sitting down beside them, her drink in her hand. ‘Well, well – how are we all?’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you when I came in.’

  From the beginning she took up the attitude that she was wanted, that nothing could have happened to make her not wanted, and that she expected to revive the atmosphere of the occasion when the three of them had met in here before. She was extremely cordial: he had seldom seen her so cordial: and he had no difficulty in seeing that the cause of this was Johnnie’s presence. He knew how much impressed she was by Johnnie because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs and Scott, and that she hoped somehow to make use of him in that connection. He knew, also, in his heart, that that was one of the reasons why he had brought Johnnie round to the ‘Black Hart’ – to show his friend off, and to spite her.

  ‘Well, what’s been happening to you, George?’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you about.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve had ’flu.’

  ‘ ’Flu?…’ she said, and asked why she hadn’t been told. She gave the impression that if she had known she would have come round with flowers and fruit.

  ‘You are a bloody fool,’ she ended up by saying. ‘You never look after yourself.’ And she appealed to Johnnie to support her in this.

  Once or twice before, in his relationship with her, he had known her behave like this. It had taken him in then, but he was too old a hand now. She was very lovely, but he didn’t react to her. He didn’t like her, and he wanted to get away.

  ‘Well, how are things up at Fitzgerald’s?’ she asked Johnnie, and soon the two of them were talking about the theatre. It appeared that the firm were again in production with another show – this time a farce – and that it was to be tried out in Brighton shortly.

  ‘And how’s Eddie?’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’

  ‘Oh – he’s all right,’ said Johnnie. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m staying with him now.’

  ‘Oh… are you?’

  ‘Yes. My ceiling’s fallen in, and he’s letting me put up with him for the time being. I’ve got to find somewhere to live. As a matter of fact, George and I are thinking of setting up together – aren’t we, George?’ said Johnnie, smiling at him.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, and smiled back.

  He had hoped to spite and snub her, but had never imagined he would do it in this almost spectacular way. That Johnnie should be actually staying at the moment with the famous Eddie Carstairs – whose name was on theatre bills all over London, in whom she took such a peculiar interest, and yet whom she was unable to approach – that he (George) should be Johnnie’s friend, and that Johnnie should be avowing in front of her a desire to set up house with him – here was a rich revenge indeed! He might not be such a useless nonentity after all!

  He looked at her face to see how she was taking it. She was looking at him.

  ‘Why – are you making a change, George?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve given notice at my place. I’m fed up with Earl’s Court.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So am I if it comes to that,’ and nothing more was said about it.

  A little while later he managed to wink at Johnnie as he finished off the remains of his glass, and looking at his watch he said: ‘Well, Johnnie, we’ll have to buck up if we’re going to be there on time.’

  Johnnie, playing up, said, ‘Yes – we certainly will,’ and a few moments later they were out in the street.

  The Ninth Part

  ’FLU

  But what availed this temperance, not complete

  Against another object more enticing?

  What boots it at one gate to make defence

  And at another to let in the toe,

  Effeminately vanquished?

  J. MILTON Samson Agonistes

  e-, pro-voke; raise up, summon up, call up, wake up, blow up, get up, light up; raise; get up the steam, rouse, arouse, stir, fire, kindle, enkindle, apply the torch, set on fire, inflame.

  stimulate; ex-, suscitate; inspirit; spirit up, stir up, work up; infuse life into, give new life to; bring –, introduce – new blood; quicken; sharpen, whet; work upon &c. (incite) 615; hurry on, give a fillip, put on one’s metal.

  fan the – fire, – flame; blow the coals, stir the embers; fan, – into a flame; foster, heat, warm, foment, raise to a fever heat;…

  Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

  Chapter One

  It was seven in the evening. He walked round to the chemist’s (her breath still on his face, her mouth and cheek still on his lips), to get her medicine and told his heart and senses to be quiet, and not to be beguiled again.

  It had all happened so absolutely out of the blue, and such a little while ago, that he was giddy and confused. Never before (save once, when he first knew her, and then she had turned him out of the flat without ceremony) had he felt her face on his. No wonder he was bewildered.

  It had been a weird week. She had been ill. She had had ’flu like him, and had phoned him up. Mrs Chope had deserted her, and he had found her lying in bed, pale, not made up, and plainly fevered. He had got a doctor: he had cleared up the flat: he had found a temporary woman: he had taken the doctor’s instructions (he still wondered what the doctor thought) and he had given her her medicine and her orange juice and milk.

  Her eyes hurt her and she liked to lie in the dark. She had given him her key, and he had hung about all day. He had had four days of it. One night he had brought Johnnie round and they had had drinks round the bed. Peter and Mickey were away on ‘holiday’. He had told his hotel he would stay on another week and today she had been much better, and talked of getting up tomorrow, and tonight she had made up her face and done her hair. She had put a red ribbon in it.

  He still didn’t know how it had come about. He had got her a fresh hot-water bottle and had been walking about her bedroom, talking quite casually, when, apropos of nothing he could remember, she had said (her face sideways on the pillow, and the rest of her body snugly wrapped in the bedclothes): ‘But of course you don’t love me any more, do you George?’

  The remark, presumably a joking one, was so odd, so entirely outside the character of their normal relationship, that he had turned and stared at her. He had said, ‘What do you mean, Netta?’ and there was a pause. And then, something in her silence, something in her expression (she wasn’t looking at him), something in her snug attitude in bed, something provocative yet altogether inviting about her generally, made his senses giddy, and the next moment he flung himself down by the bed beside her, and said, ‘What do you mean, Netta? You know I adore you, don’t you? You know I adore you!’ And he kissed her face.

  Then she had said, ‘What?…’ dreamily, as a girl will who is suffering herself to be kissed – who intimates that the situation may remain on its present footing and even be proceeded with – and he said, ‘Oh, Netta, I do love you so!’ and kissed her again.

  ‘Oh, I thought all that was over,’ she said, still not looking at him. ‘What with your going away, and all that.’

  At this, seemingly an invitation from Netta to stay, a soft reproach from a Netta allowing him to kiss her for the first time since he had known and adored and dreamed and schemed all day and night about her – he could hardly believe his ears and completely lost his head, and blurted out, ‘Oh, Netta, I don’t want to go away! I love you! Won’t you come away with me, Netta? Won’t you come away with me?’

  ‘How
do you mean?’ she said, ‘by “go away”?…’ But she didn’t say she wouldn’t.

  ‘Oh, anywhere,’ he said, ‘just to get away from this place! Just to be alone with you, Netta – if only for a little. Do say you’ll come away?’

  ‘How can I go away, my dear Bone?’ she said, now looking him in the face, and putting her hand on his cheek. ‘I haven’t got any money…’

  He was for a moment taken aback by this, for a split second entertaining the notion that this was a crude frame-up, that she was letting him kiss her and playing him up simply in order to get more money out of him, but he again dismissed the idea as unthinkable in the case of so proud and aloof a girl, and said, ‘Oh, Netta, what does that matter? What does money matter, if you’ll only come away?’

  ‘But it does matter,’ she said, ‘I owe you fifteen pounds already.’

  ‘Oh, Netta. It doesn’t matter. Forget about the fifteen pounds. Nothing matters, if you’ll only come away.’

  There was a pause after this, in which she turned her face sideways again, and he looked at her.

  ‘All right,’ she said at last, ‘I’ll come away. We’ll go to Brighton. I’d like some sea air.’

  Again he had a feeling of a frame-up. When Johnnie had come round to her flat that night, they had talked about the new farce which was being tried out at Brighton, and they had said that if she had not been ill they might all have gone down there, thus fulfilling the proposal they had made over the other show earlier in the year, but had failed to put into practice. Now that she mentioned Brighton again, he saw that she had some reason for wanting to go there – probably in the hope of getting in thicker with Johnnie, who was staying with Eddie Carstairs, or even with the hope of actually meeting, through Johnnie, Eddie Carstairs himself. No, there was something suspect about Brighton (quite apart from the awful time she had given him there before) and he wasn’t going to have any of it.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not Brighton. I hate the place. Let’s go somewhere fresh. Come away somewhere else, Netta – won’t you? Do say you’ll come away.’

  ‘Why?’ she said, again looking at him, and putting her hand back on his cheek. ‘Aren’t all places the same, my dear Bone?’

  And at this, what with her hand on his cheek, and a certain enigmatic look in her eyes, and the sole glorious interpretation he could make of her words (that all places were the same for one purpose), his passion blinded and emboldened him, and he kissed her again and again, her face, her hair, her hands. Then he looked at her, wildly, incredulously, and she murmured, ‘I think you’d better go and get my medicine now, hadn’t you, George?’

  He had said, ‘Yes, I think I had,’ and here he was walking along the street to the chemist’s with her breath still on his face, and her mouth and cheek still on his lips, telling his heart and senses to be quiet and not to be beguiled again.

  What had happened? He had got to get it clear and behave sensibly, Had it all started again – was he back on the rack? After getting clear and sane, after all his firm, quiet, healthy resolutions to get away, was he going back to the old torture? Had she only to beckon to him, to be amenable for a minute and condescend to allow him to kiss her face, to have him prostrate before her again?

  Or had a change taken place? ‘Of course, you don’t love me any more, do you George?’ Was that pique at his recent neglect? Possibly – but he had not known until now that it was within his capacity even to pique her. Was it a desire to have him back – to make some sort of amends to him? Inconceivable! Or was it conceivable? What if she had repented, what if she had been made sorry by his recent neglect and coldness, what if she had been touched by his faithfulness, by his kindness in looking after her when she was ill, in waiting upon her at all hours and looking after her comforts without any hope or desire of reward? What if a change had come? – what if he had won her at last!

  No. Stop that. Not that again. He knew her now for what she was. Whatever happened now it could never be the same. She was entirely promiscuous – a sort of prostitute. Whatever happened now there was the thought of Peter behind – Peter and the little school bully at Brighton. If she ever gave herself to him, she could still never give him what he once desired. He could only rise to the level of Peter and the others.

  But if she was a sort of prostitute, if Peter and strangers could enjoy her favours in that way – why shouldn’t he? Hadn’t that been the whole root of his misery, his idealization of her, his longing to take her away and have her and cherish her exclusively for ever, to marry her? If he had been a man, if he had behaved like other men, might he not have succeeded with her already and got her out of his system. Might he not try to be a man now?

  Had the opportunity now arisen? What was the meaning of what had just taken place? He remembered her face, her indolent and enigmatic expression, her hand on his cheek, her amazing acquiescence in his kisses, her consenting to come away. ‘Aren’t all places the same, my poor Bone?’ What meaning could that remark have save one?

  Was she just playing him up because she was short of money again? She had, he noticed, not failed to mention money. Well, what if she was? If she was a kind of prostitute, and was willing to give herself in an indirect way for money, was he going to refuse the offer?

  Did he still love her in spite of his knowledge of her? He looked into his weary soul for the true answer, and found it soon enough. Yes, he did, God help him. He adored her, and he would never do otherwise. After all his firmness he had just blurted out as much to her. Whatever she had done, whatever he knew about her, she could never be sordid – she was too beautiful to look at and be with; she was still too incredibly lovely. She just took him that way, and there was no use fighting it. She was not a mercenary slut in Earl’s Court. She was violets and primroses in an April rain, and her cheek and lips, the breath of violets and primroses, lingered on his mouth, stupefying him with pleasure and longing.

  He knew he was making a fool of himself: he knew he ought to run for his life: but how could he? After an eternity of longing, of hanging outside and beating at her door, it had seemed at last that she was going to let him in. She had put her hand on his cheek and as good as told him that he might, if he was careful, if he was man enough, come in. Not on the terms he had once hoped for – only as a shady equal of Peter and the rest – only, perhaps, because he gave her money – but nevertheless he might be admitted. He was not going to lose the chance.

  Life was very exciting. He was going back to see her in a few minutes. He was going to be a man at last. And by the way, if he was going to be a man, he wasn’t going to have any nonsense. It was the whole thing or nothing. He wasn’t going to be fooled again – and he wasn’t going to Brighton. He had got to make that clear.

  And it had all happened in a few minutes! Twenty minutes ago he was a beaten dog: now he was a man, and the breath of the goddess was on his face, and her lips and cheeks were on his mouth. He entered the chemist’s shop and asked for the medicine, and waited. The bald, grey-haired chemist in the blazing light of the shop, his white-coated assistant, his jars of flaming red and green shining on to the pavement, his bottles and array of patent medicines and lozenges, were all her breath on his face and her lips and cheeks on his mouth, his manhood, his surprise, his sudden bliss.

  Chapter Two

  As he put the key in her door, he heard her voice in the distance. She was on the phone.

  He tried to listen, but could hear nothing.

  He put the key softly in the door and went in, hoping that she would not know he was in the flat and still trying to hear what she said.

  ‘No, I don’t think he even wants to,’ he heard. ‘No… No, really… No – he doesn’t seem to like the idea at all.’ She laughed. ‘He’s off it, apparently… Well, you know what a fool he is…’

  ‘Hullo – is that you, George!’ she shouted through the door, evidently having heard him, or having suddenly suspected his presence.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is me.’

&n
bsp; She went on cheerfully: ‘Look here, I’ve got to go now. There’s somebody in the flat and I’ve got to go… What… Yes… Well, I’ll ring you tomorrow, anyway, and then we can see where we are… Right you are… Good-bye… Oh – much better, thanks… Good-bye… Right. Good-bye!’

  She put down the receiver and he went into her room.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said, smiling. ‘Here’s your medicine.’ And he put it on the table beside her bed, beside the phone.

  ‘Thank you, George,’ she said, and she broke the red sealing wax and began to undo the crackling white paper.

  ‘Who was that?’ he said, going to the window and drawing the curtains to.

  ‘Oh,’ she said in her quiet voice, ‘nobody…’ And she crunched the chemist’s paper into a ball and threw it across the room.

  He wondered what she meant by nobody – he tried to think of any of her friends he knew about – but he didn’t pursue the matter further. It was not his business.

  It did just occur to him that it was his friend Johnnie at the other end of the line, that the ‘he’ referred to was himself, and that the idea that ‘he’ didn’t like it at all was that of going to Brighton; but he was easily able to dismiss this notion as another example of his diseased fancy.

  Soon enough, at a sign from her (he did not know what sign, but she somehow gave him a sign), he was on his knees before her again, and begging for her love.

  ‘Netta!’ he said, ‘is it true? Are you going to come away with me?’

  ‘Yes… I’ll come away with you…’

  ‘Where shall we go, Netta. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Well, I wanted to go to Brighton, but you don’t seem to like the idea.’

  He was struck by her use of this phrase ‘don’t seem to like the idea’ twice in the space of a few minutes – once to absolutely nobody on the phone, now to him, but again dismissed his thoughts.