The Furnished Room

by Laura Del-Rivo

  ‘No.’

  Mr Glegg clasped his hands over his stomach. ‘This firm is like a boat in which we must all pull our weight. We are all cogs in a vast... all cogs. Everyone of us, from myself... I take work home with me every night, Beckett, did you realize that? And often I come in on Sundays too. I could tell you young fellows something about hard work. And/or all staff who pull their weight, and show keenness and ability, there are good channels of advancement and ... keenness has prospects. And the conditions and hours are excellent, very excellent.’

  ‘Oh yes, I suppose it’s no worse here than anywhere else.’

  Mr Glegg talked on about the excellence of the firm and the crass folly of leaving it. Beckett did not listen. It was nothing to do with him. He watched Mr Glegg’s lips, which writhed like pink worms under the moustache. He knew that Mr Glegg kept a bottle of anti-halitosis gargle among the gin-and-tonic bottles in the cabinet. He gargled before appointments with customers.

  ‘… your progress here has not altogether given satisfaction —’

  Beckett cut in: ‘All right. We both know that I’m inefficient, habitually late, and completely uninterested in the work that poverty forces me to do. Having agreed this, let’s end the matter without a long and boring discussion.’

  Mr Glegg stared at him, his mouth dead-fish open. Then he banged his fist on the desk. ‘Get out!’

  Beckett went.

  Later, walking with the rush-hour crowds towards the Tube, he saw the broken glass. It lay like a crystal fortune in the gutter. The wonder of it took him aback. He wanted to shout aloud the miracle of a broken milkbottle.

  It was a small incident, but it made him happy, as if he had been touched by grace. The happiness lasted, so that when he walked through the square where he always spent his lunch hours, he was pleased by it. The open-air café was pleasant, and there was a nostalgia about the iron tables, the pigeons, and the fallen leaves. He would miss his lunch hours spent reading in the square.

  The experience of seeing the glass, and others like it, were a compensation. They were the occasional visions into super-reality given to the victims of unreality.

  Chapter 8

  In the days that followed his departure from Union Cartons, Beckett did not bother to look for another job. He decided to lay off work until he ran out of money.

  He spent most of his time in his room, reading. Between books, he lay on the bed and looked at his view of washstand, armchair, and wallpaper. Occasionally, he had a beer at a pub that had tables on the pavement.

  Sometimes he visited Ilsa at Earls Court. It was her fortnight’s holiday from her office, but she did not go away because she could not bear to leave her habitat of cafés, pubs, and clubs. Her latest craze was to get brown. The back steps of her basement flat led up to the garden. The earth was barren except for old slop buckets and a few clumps of dusty grass, but she spread a blanket and lolled around listening to pop-song programmes on her red-and-cream plastic portable radio. Her favourite programmes were the Hit Parades, and it was of vital importance to her to know which tunes were in the Top Twenty. Under the dish-rag of London sky she chatted gossip, or was bored, or painted her toe-nails silver.

  Indoors, in her flat, she nibbled incessantly at her diet of biscuits and tea made with condensed milk. She never seemed to eat a proper meal unless she was taken out to a café or Katey cooked for her. Even in the daytime she always had the gas fire and electric light on; and the curtains with their Martini, Cinzano, and Dubonnet design were closed, making a permanent artificial night.

  In the grey wastes of SW5 she seemed like the one bright flame. Her radiance touched the whole district, so that Beckett, on his way to visit her, thought the 31 bus-stop at Earls Court a most glorious place. Passing the row of flyblown little shops where she got her groceries and cigarettes, he endowed them also with the magic reflection of her radiance.

  When he was with her he generally felt bored but he would rather be bored by her than interested by intelligent conversation. She had a passion for things which were trivial and fifth-rate and chatted about the latest scandals in her circle of friends, the plot of a film she had seen, or the clothes she wanted. Beckett listened, bored by her talk but enraptured by her presence.

  The second week of her holiday she had to go home to her parents’ farm in Sussex. She whined and complained at the prospect. ‘The only decent thing is when they’ve gone to bed I stay up and swig the drinks they keep in the bottom of the larder. Luckily they never seem to notice how the level goes down.’

  ‘Your parents seemed pleasant people to me.’

  ‘Oh God. They’re absolutely impossible. Dad never thinks of anything but the farm, and Mum never thinks of anything except making scones and bottling fruit and the socials at the Women’s Institute. They’re both terribly limited, really.’

  ‘Poor love.’

  ‘I don’t know how I’ll endure it. Oh, honestly.’

  The night before she left for Sussex she spent with him in his room. Her smart tweed suitcase was in the middle of his floor, her best dress for tomorrow hung in his wardrobe. She had her period and could not make love. Instead they lay, with limbs entwined, talking softly into the night.

  She moved as if she were uncomfortable.

  He said: ‘Huh?’

  ‘Sorry, I want to scratch my thigh.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. Oh, thanks.’

  ‘I can feel your bones. Sharp as a chicken’s. You are thin.’

  ‘Cheek. I’m slim, not thin. Sort of boyish.’

  ‘You’re thin. Skinny Liz. Oh, darling, I adore your thin body.’

  ‘M’m. I love being scratched.’

  ‘I’ll have to get you a Chinese back scratcher.’

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘Oh, you know, one of those things like wooden toasting forks.’

  ‘Marvellous.’ Then she said: ‘Aren’t I vulgar, darling, to like being scratched?’

  ‘I like vulgarity.’

  ‘Oh, so do I. I’m terrifically vulgar.’

  They were automatically caressing each other, occasionally giving little sighs of pleasure. He said: ‘What do you do that’s vulgar?’

  Giggle. ‘Well, for instance I pick my nose.’

  ‘So do I.’

  She giggled again. They were both suddenly wide awake, a conspiratorial midnight-feast awakeness.

  He continued: ‘And also, I smell my socks to find out whether they are still wearable.’

  One of her caresses made him sharply intake breath; he exclaimed: ‘Oh, darling...’

  ‘Darling. Am I good in bed?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Good. I’d hate to be no good in bed. And I have got sex appeal, haven’t I?’

  ‘You know you have. All your men friends are trying to make you.’

  She wriggled with flattered delight. ‘Are you glad?’

  ‘It makes me feel proud and victorious to have my property admired. But on the other hand I’m always worried that somebody will steal you. It’s like being the winner of a valuable prize that everybody wants to steal.’

  ‘Yes?’ Then she whined: ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Does that mean I have to get out of bed and get them?’

  ‘Oh, honey, be nice.’

  ‘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 us
e 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 penc
illed 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?’