The Centre of the Green

by John Bowen

  He was passing a restaurant; there were white linen tablecloths and the smell of boiled vegetables. He went in, and sat at an unoccupied table. Why had he done that? Would it not have been more sensible to search for company? No, for it was more boring to make conversation than to read. He looked up, and caught the glance of the girl at the next table. She was too white, he thought; it was either her complexion, or the powder she used. White, with blonde hair, untidily confined by a tortoiseshell band. She had a small spot at the corner of her mouth. Her black suit had not been properly brushed. When she saw that Charles was looking at her, she lowered her own gaze, and picked at the tablecloth with a fork. Charles opened his book, and began to read. After some time, the waitress brought his order of warmed-up roast beef, with a small strip of Yorkshire pudding, baked potatoes and boiled greens. Charles continued to read as he ate, holding the page flat with the edge of his side-plate. When after finishing his second course of rhubarb tart and custard, he looked around again, the girl had gone.

  It was time for Speakers’ Corner. He walked through Kensington Gardens, where small boys played football on the grass, dogs romped, a few kites flapped high in the air, and boats were sailed on the Round Pond. He went on into Hyde Park, past the long row of benches, equally spaced, and each with its solitary occupant. At Speakers’ Corner, the crowds were already gathering. The Salvation Army were singing, “Wide, wide as the ocean, High as the Heavens above, Deep, deep as the deepest sea, Is my Saviour’s Love.” The easiest way to heckle singers is to sing oneself, so one raucous band of idlers had struck into, “Knees Up, Mother Brown”, and another younger band sang, “Nay-robi! Nay-robi!” in a nasal whine, copied to poor effect from Tommy Steele. Beneath the trees, a shabby bearded man spoke of the Second Coming, and a pink undergraduate was incoherently reasonable about the Necessity of Belief. “I mean, I wouldn’t be coming here if I didn’t believe,” he said. “I mean, you must see that God is at least likely.” American tourists, who had read about this before they came, moved from group to group taking photographs; the men wore snap-brim hats and lightweight jackets, and their women were in sleeveless dresses in bright colours, low-heeled shoes, and big leather bags hanging by a strap over one shoulder. Even on this grey day, the Americans wore sun-glasses. The bare arms of the women were slightly goose-pimpled.

  At Speakers’ Corner, the speakers take their stand in a rough arc along the asphalt where the paths meet at the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park. The religious speakers are at the Park Lane end of this arc, the politicians at the opposite end, and the Irish and coloured people in the middle; often there is an overflow meeting on the grass to the south, and this is usually held by some individualist who does not fit into any of these compartments. Every speaker has his own loyal corps of followers, and to these the drifters (who outnumber them) attach themselves for a while, before breaking away to sample someone else. The Irish and the coloured speakers have the largest corps, because on any Sunday afternoon in London, a great many Irish and West Indians are likely to be single, poor, and with nothing better to do. Consequently, the largest crowds are in the centre, for it is one of the natural laws of Speakers’ Corner that the drifters are most attracted to those speakers whom they cannot easily hear, and to the corps of followers and the normal run of drifters are added those unhappy men who do not want to hear the speakers at all, but simply to stand in a crowd, with their hands clasped behind them in the hope that some young person will brush against those hands and stay there.

  Charles drifted from group to group, and the time passed slowly. It seemed to him that the same things were said week after week. The same middle-aged woman with the same sallow face and eyes like a frightened hare pushed her way from group to group, interrupting the speakers and trying to carry part of each group away with her. The same shabby man in a trench-coat called out to the same Nigerians, “Why don’t you Wogs go back where you came from?” and the same foul-mouthed housewife chimed in with, “You f——ers! Sleeping ten to a room! It ought to be stopped!” The same rationalist heckled the Catholic; the same Catholic heckled the atheist. The same policemen in uniform walked by; the same American servicemen in tight trousers chewed gum; the same Guardsmen in coarse khaki cloth loitered by the same benches. It was all the same. If the weather were rainy or cold, the crowds were smaller; in winter they were more warmly dressed. But always the same words were said, the same things done. To participate was to be one of the damned, repeating over and over again the same meaningless pattern of behaviour.

  The backs of Charles’ legs began to ache; he had been on his feet for much of the day. He sat down for a while on a bench, and considered what to do next. Perhaps if he were not to think about what to do, if instead he were to find an interest outside himself in the people who walked past, or the dogs, or the pigeons, or the colours of the sky—but he could not pretend to an interest he did not feel; it was easier to kill time after all, and go to the movies. He began to walk back again towards Notting Hill Gate, since, although he took no pleasure in walking, a bus would get him there too early. A flurry of rain, driven by the wind, came down the path to meet him. He turned up the collar of his raincoat, and a tune began to form in his mind, and repeat itself over and over. Gloomy Sunday! he had heard that the B.B.C. had banned it because too many people had committed suicide while listening to it.

  He was early for the cinema, and had to queue until the doors opened. He noticed the girl he had seen at lunch ahead of him; they exchanged that tiny facial twitch with which strangers recognize each other. When eventually the people in the queue were allowed inside the cinema, Charles saw the girl again. She gave him half a smile, and made half a gesture of invitation, so Charles took the seat next to her.

  “Hullo,” he said.

  “I saw you at dinner.”

  “Yes. I saw you.”

  “So I thought we might as well sit together.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I mean, there’s no sense in going to the pictures by yourself, if you can go with someone else, is there?”

  “No.”

  Charles said, “Do you come here often?”

  “Sometimes. When there’s not much else to do.”

  “So do I.”

  They sat in silence for a while. The girl had taken off her raincoat, and folded it across her lap. She did not look at Charles, but stared in front of her. Since the programme was not due to start for some minutes, music from gramophone records was relayed to the audience through an amplifier. The girl tapped one foot in time to the beat.

  She said, “Did you come last week?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I thought it was quite good really.”

  “Yes. I didn’t care for the second feature though.”

  “No, it wasn’t very good, was it?”

  “I don’t know why they show them.”

  “Oh, I like a long programme.”

  Takes up more time, you mean, Charles thought. I suppose I like a long programme too.

  The lights faded. The programme began. Time passed. I suppose, Charles thought … I suppose …. He glanced sideways at the girl as she stared ahead, watching the film. Although she was not pretty, neither was she plain. She was not an uneducated floozy, nor an intelligent feminist being sensible about sex, but a nice C-class girl who had left a nice C-class home to live on her own in London. She had behaved, not brazenly, but like a shy person, determined to overcome her shyness. What did she expect of him? What—the two might be different—did he want to do? Picking people up in cinemas was Julian’s game, not his; he didn’t want to be involved, yet he lacked the defences of the habitual philanderer. He had accepted her invitation to sit next to her, but after all, this sort of thing was known to be casual; it was not an involvement. Like the movies, it passed the time.

  Her hand lay on the arm of the seat, and he put his hand on top, and gently squeezed her fingers. They sat, holding hands for a while, and then he put one arm around her shoulde
rs, and she rested her head against him. Other couples in front, he could see, were doing much the same thing. He moved his hand downwards to touch her breast, but, although she did nothing to stop him, he could feel her shoulders and neck go rigid, so he drew back his hand.

  When the film was over, and they stood together awkwardly in the street outside the cinema, Charles said, “Let’s go and have a drink somewhere, shall we?”

  “Well….”

  “Or coffee if you’d rather.”

  “I would rather have coffee really. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all. Where would you like to go?”

  “Anywhere you like.”

  Charles said carefully, “Why don’t we go back to my place then, and have it there?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  As they walked down the hill, the girl said, “I expect you think I’m a bit silly really, not wanting to go for a drink. It’s not that I’m against drinking or anything. I mean, I used to—like having a gin and lime if I was out with a boy, and that kind of thing. It was the woman underneath where I live put me off.”

  “Underneath?”

  “In the basement.”

  “Oh. She’s temperance?”

  “No. But she was always drunk, you see, and it quite put me off drinking.”

  “I suppose it would.”

  “It was her husband dying that started it. That was before I moved in. I’ve only been at the place where I live for a year, you see. I used to live at home before that. This woman—she was the caretaker of our place, you see, she and her husband. Everyone says she used to be such a clean woman—too clean really. She’d go off at him if he forgot to take his shoes off when he came into the house, and you could smell the furniture polish the moment you opened the door. But by the time I came, he was dead and she’d begun to drink. It was some sort of bronchial thing; he was older than her. She wasn’t really very old at all; more at what they call the difficult age. It was wine she drank.”

  “Did you see much of her, then?”

  “Well, it’s all flats and flatlets where I live, and I’m on the ground floor, you see; so when she wanted anything, she used to come up to me. She’d want me to get her things—you know, like bread. She was ever so thin and fallen-in looking. And dirty. I don’t think she ever had a bath or a wash or anything, from the day her husband died.”

  “What did she do for money?”

  “I don’t think she had much. She never paid me for most of the things I got her. She used to sell her furniture to buy wine. The place got into an awful state. Funny how the tenants never complained, but we felt sorry for her, you see. And she was never noisy. Being just above, I used to hear her crying at night sometimes, but there was never any singing or bad language or anything like that. In the end, it was the neighbours wrote to the firm that owned our place. They said the place was so dirty it was lowering the street.”

  “So she was put out?”

  “Yes. It was a Saturday. They had to burst open the door, because she couldn’t hear them knocking. She was lying in the front room on a sort of sofa with all the springs bursting out; it was the only furniture she had left. Then they took her away, and cleared the place up; there’s new caretakers in it now. I was sorry for her, I must say. She hadn’t done any harm; she was only lonely. But you can see why it’s put me off drinking.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  As they turned the corner into Charles’ street, they saw a policeman coming towards them. He drew closer. He was wearing a beard. “Oh look!” the girl said, “I’ve never seen a policeman like that before.”

  Charles said, “Perhaps he’s in disguise.”

  The girl laughed, and put her hand on Charles’ arm. “You are silly,” she said. “I ought to remember the things you say, and write them down.”

  They had arrived. In the front room, Charles put on the light, and drew the curtains. Then he put his arms around the girl, and kissed her. Again he felt a rigidity, a sort of deadness in her response, although she returned his kiss. Was it simply that she wasn’t very good at it? No there was something more, something like fear. He said, “I’ll put the coffee on,” and went into the kitchen.

  “It is sad really,” she said, as they sat opposite one another in the armchairs by the fire, and drank the coffee.

  “That woman downstairs?”

  “Everything really. I mean, I often think you can’t win. Like my friend, taking three years to die of Parkinson’s disease. She’s got about a year left now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I expect you’ll think I’m morbid, going on like this. I’m not usually, but it was talking about that woman downstairs made me think of it. My friend’s got two little children, you see, and she doesn’t know what to do. You’ll say she shouldn’t have had them when her husband’s an epileptic, but I suppose you don’t think about that at the time. She always says she’s not afraid of dying, but what’s going to happen to them when she passes on? He can’t look after them.”

  “Hasn’t she any one else?”

  “Her mother’s sixty-three. Then there’s a married sister, but she’s afraid to take the kids because of epilepsy being hereditary. So my friend doesn’t know what to do, and time’s getting shorter. It’s really only prayer now that keeps her going.”

  “Prayer. She believes in God, then?”

  “Well, of course. Don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  The girl said, “If Amy didn’t believe in Heaven, what would she have left? I mean, there has to be a future life, or it’s so unfair. Why should other people live happy, and her suffer? There has to be compensation, you know; I mean, that stands to reason. After all, it’s not only Amy. Think of all the people that was hurt in the war. They can’t even go out for a walk in the street, because nobody can bear to look at them.”

  “It does seem … hard.”

  “What do you believe then?”

  The feeling you had as you watched a child playing in the sunlight; pride in work well done—by yourself—by others—the pride of a father, whose child has brought a good report card home from school; the joy of physical action, all senses at a stretch; responsibility—the giving and getting of trust. It sounded so well. It should be true, but it was not true. Perhaps Charles had believed in all that once. Perhaps every human being had, as Aristotle thought, the possibility within him of being a good, an ideal human being, but too many things outside him could deny that possibility. It didn’t work for Amy, dying of Parkinson’s disease. It didn’t work for her children and her epileptic husband. It didn’t work for the drunken lady in the basement. It didn’t work for this girl. It didn’t work for him. It didn’t work, and yet there wasn’t anything else. So he only said, “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “We are having a serious conversation, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we are. Too serious.”

  He stood up, took her hands in his, and pulled her to her feet. “Come over here,” he said, and led her gently to the bed. Then he sat down, pulling her down with him. She was like a doll, allowing him to arrange her in any position he chose, but doing nothing for herself. “Put your feet up. Be comfortable,” he said. Obediently she began to swing her legs up on to the coverlet; then she stopped, looked at him half in shyness and half in guilt, and kicked off her shoes before completing the movement. He leaned back and over her so that she could rest against his right arm, while, with his left hand, he began to unfasten the buttons of her jacket. She lay quite still as he placed his hand over one breast, squeezing it gently and caressing the nipple. He found that he was shivering slightly in anticipation. He kissed her. “Would you like to stay the night?” he said carefully. She gazed up through him, beyond him, up to the ceiling. “After all,” she said in a little voice, “it’s only like friendship really, isn’t it?”

  Desire died in him. He took his hand from her breast, and began very slowly to fasten the buttons of her jacket again. He found that his throat and
mouth were dry, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “No. It isn’t,” he said. “It isn’t at all.” The girl made no reply.

  He could not explain. It’s only friendship—those words! and an abyss of loneliness had opened before him. He was frightened. “How can you be so lonely?” he wanted to say, but all he did say was, “I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry.” He searched for words to help him out. “My mistake, “he said. “I mean … I shouldn’t——” “Don’t you want to?” the girl said, and he replied, “No. No, I don’t.”

  She sat up on the bed again. She seemed composed, but it was the composure of extreme tension. Charles watched her; he was incapable of saying or doing anything to help. Her lips were held firm, and her gaze was steady, but a tear formed in each eye, grew to ripeness, and fell slowly. “I’d better be going now,” she said. “Thank you for the coffee. It was ever so nice.” Charles opened the door for her, and followed her up the basement steps into the street. “Good-bye,” she said. “It has been nice, talking and all.” Then she walked away up the street, turned the corner into Holland Park Avenue, and was gone.

  Charles wanted to run after her, but he did not. He wanted to run away, but he did not. He held on to the basement railings, feeling weak and empty. He told himself that it was foolish to be so shocked over so small an episode, but he knew that it was not foolish, and that he was shocked. What will become of her? he thought, meaning, “What will become of me?” And when, much later on that night, he fell asleep at last, his sleep was broken by a dream, in which the drunken lady from downstairs scraped at caked dishes in cold water with the stump of a mop, saying over and over again, “I used to be such a clean woman,” while the tears ran freely down her cheeks.