“Oh, my God,” he mutters, “I’ll get outside that drum. Oh, my God!”
The uniformed attendant by his side coughs and draws attention to the fact that he is standing in the middle of the doorway, thus blocking the exit of two people behind him. He moves rapidly away and crosses the streets.
Follow him with me into the other café.
He is sitting at a marble table, drinking beer. His head falls forward into his hands, and he remains thus with eyes closed for some minutes. It is not yet ten o’clock and the room is only half full. A tall, thin man who enters the room presently notices him and sits opposite him at the same table. This man has an angular nose and jaw. His colourless eyes blink through a pair of thick spectacles; they are like the vacant eyes of a fish seen through muddy water. He is dressed quietly.
The young man raises his head and only half sees the thin man before him. He is looking for some one else, a girl with black hair, smooth, pale skin, and deep eyes; but she is not in the room. He orders more beer, and as he drinks splashes some on the table.
The thin man has been studying him closely for some time. Suddenly he speaks, leaning over the table and touching the younger man’s arm with a secret and confidential gesture.
“Would you like to see some photographs?” he asks quietly. He smiles.
The young man frowns; his head shakes uncertainly. “Photographs? What should I want to see them for?”
But his mind whirls round; he catches an obscene leer from the thin man.
“I thought,” says the man, “you would be interested in my pictures.”
“Why?”
He looks the thin man straight in the face, and the sharp angles of that sly smile cut deep into him.
“Why should you select me—of all people in this room—to show your pictures to?”
He drinks again. More and more people come in, but he does not see amongst them the person he came to seek. She, the woman called Olga, has entered and taken a table some yards away from him. She is alone and he does not see her.
The thin man is speaking.
“I saw you, sitting here alone—lonely, like me. I’m up from the country, you know. Came up for a little spree and to see these birds everybody’s talking about. And when I saw you there, I said to myself you were the very person who would enjoy my pictures. I said, there’s a person who appreciates beauty, like me.”
He brings out a small pocket wallet and lays it on the table.
“You can take them elsewhere,” snarls the young man.
“I have a little cottage in the country,” the voice dribbles over the table, “where it’s quiet, quiet, you know. And then, I come up here sometimes to see a bit of life. You’d like my cottage, you would.”
“Go away and leave me alone.”
Several people look up, hearing his voice. The woman, Olga, looks again at him, wrinkles her brow and then, with chin leaning on palm, watches him thoughtfully.
The thin man has opened the wallet and drawn out an inch of postcard.
“You will really enjoy these,” he insists.
Suddenly the thin man spills six or seven postcards flat on the table. The young man raises his hand to sweep them on to the floor.
Through a thick mist he sees pictures on the table. A rose-covered country cottage; a summer garden border; a cocker spaniel——
“My little place——” sounds the voice.
The young man is aware of a sharp, triumphant face burning into his.
“Now don’t you think these lupins are nice? Raised them from seed, too! Not many——”
Some people in the doorway draw aside as the young man pushes wildly towards them. He stands there for a moment looking round the room. He catches sight of Olga looking at him with her deep, thoughtful eyes. She smiles slightly. He gives a curious cry, and forces his way through a group of people out into the lounge.
Something is fluttering over his head. He hurls himself furiously through the revolving door and stands, swaying from side to side, on the pavement. His gorge rises in him; he is sick. The fluttering shape brushes his cheek as he stands with drooping head by the gutter.
A flashily dressed man calls out to him, “Look out, sonny! You got something flying round you.”
But he hardly hears. For now he is running across the road towards the steps of the underground railway, running frantically to escape from the bird that flutters and squeaks like a bat above him. He struggles down the moving staircase, pushing people aside in his panic.
A train is waiting and he jumps in, a moment before the doors crash to. Like a person walking in a dream he leaves the train at Finsbury Park, mounts an omnibus, and reaches the street where he lives. He walks quickly down the long hill, opens the front door, and staggers in, shaking, drenched with sweat.
His mother comes out from the front room and sees him standing stupidly in the passage, gasping and trembling.
“Why, son,” she cries, “you’re ill——”
“No, no—it’s all right, Mother. You leave me alone. I’m all right.”
But she follows him to his room, uneasy in her heart. She finds him lying face downwards on his bed, sobbing like a child, making spasmodic little sounds of drunken grief.
“Oh, son, what have you been doing?”
“I’m drunk. I’m drunk. Leave me alone, Mother—please—leave me alone——”
“But, son, don’t worry so. I understand——”
“No, you don’t, Mother. There was a girl—I went to see—a man with some pictures——”
“Yes, son, of course. Do you think your mother doesn’t know all that? Keep quiet, son; keep quiet.”
She holds him while he cries. Upstairs, Annie opens a door and listens carefully to their voices.
“I understand, son,” Lillian keeps saying. “I understand. You’ll be better in the morning. Shall I get you something to eat?”
But he begs to be left, and presently she leaves him.
The young man lies in his bed twitching convulsively. The windows of his room are closed. All night long there is a tapping on the pane, a metallic sound of bone upon glass. Under the bedclothes he hears it, louder and louder, until the sound seems like a knuckle rapping on the hollow curve of his skull.
*
I sat at the breakfast-table waiting for my mother. She came in presently in a faded pink dressing-gown.
“I can’t eat,” she said. “I can’t eat anything.”
I stared at the food on my plate. “I’m sorry, Mother,” I muttered. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“Yes, son, I understand,” she said. “Don’t think anything more about it. Eat your breakfast, there’s a good boy. I don’t expect you feel like it any more than I do.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. And for a second I glanced up and smiled at her.
For the next five minutes we tried to coax one another to eat. “Mother, you’re ill,” I said.
“No, I’m all right. It’s this dreadful heat; that’s all it is.”
“Yes,” I echoed. “It is hot——” Speech failed me. I did not even like to look at her. I knew she had not slept all night.
“You’ll come home early to-night, won’t you,” she said.
“Yes, early.” And again I muttered that I was sorry. I felt ashamed. Not that I had done anything particularly shameful in coming home drunk. What really drove at my conscience was the fact that I had seen Olga and had been too drunk to talk to her. It was infinitely worse than not having tried to see her at all.
My mother did not ask me any questions, for she seemed to know that I did not want to talk. The kindest side of her nature was revealed in her capacity for remaining silent at such times as these, content to wait until I should speak to her voluntarily. She came to the door with me, kissed me, and again told me to co
me home early.
“I’ll take you out for a walk,” I said.
But she shook her head. “No, no. It’s too hot for walking.”
In the train at Stroud Green four men were playing cards on a newspaper stretched over their knees. “Nap,” one of them called; “Misère,” cried another. The cards, dirty and crinkled at the edges, slid along the paper as the train swayed. I sat in a corner trying to read a book, but I could not concentrate on it. The mechanical gestures of the four men playing cards seemed to emphasize the utter futility of existence. They played cards and the world was shaking around them. They themselves were as powerless to move independently as the cards they dealt to each other. And they did not know it. “Have you heard about old Smithers?” asked one. “No,” replied the others. And they leant over while he whispered something to them.
The train drew into a station. I was seized with impatience. Pushing past the group I scattered their cards to the floor without apology, and got into another carriage.
Again I tried to read my book, and failed. I drew a pencil and a notebook from my pocket and began to write.
“I saw you at the café last night and I wanted to speak to you. I was drunk. I was——” My eye caught sight of something over the page that I had written the night before, some lines which seemed to have been written by another hand, the writing was so scrawly and uneven.
“How you shake, you man with peas. How little you know why you shake, you man with peas. Shaking, shaking. Like bears who once danced to man’s encouragement, you, man with peas, are driven; and men drive you as they did the bear. When man, tired of driving bears, has driven man, who then will be left to drive? Who, but himself? He will shake like a pea in a drum.”
I looked up to the rack opposite; something had stirred there. I saw it, crouched low, a shapeless grey figure like a bundle of dirty old rags with two gleaming buttons set in the middle. I wanted to leave the carriage but I could not. The other people seemed unaware of the spectre in the rack. Was I dreaming? I put my hand to my brow; it was sticky with sweat and my head drummed with a sullen pain. Was I dreaming? Was that thing in the rack real?
I could not look up there again. When the train came into Broad Street I jumped out quickly, forgetting my book, and ran along the platform without looking back.
In the office I signed my name in the attendance book and sat down to sort out the casualties from Lloyd’s List. I was early, not many people had arrived. The list was very long and the more I studied it, the more the words danced crazily before my eyes, so that I had to come back over and over again to re-read a paragraph. Eventually I made a list of casualties serious enough to notice, and went upstairs to another department where records of all our interests were kept. When I came down more people were in the room, and I saw by the shadow through the frosted glass of the private room that the Underwriter had arrived. His bell rang and I went in. His black hat was standing on the table, and as I looked at it, suddenly I laughed madly.
He looked up and began to speak. “What do you mean——” He was incoherent with rage. Then he saw me looking at his hat; his lips drew to a thin purple line in his face.
“Are you mad?” he said. He rang his bell again to summon some one else. Then I stopped laughing.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I’m very sorry.” I paused, aware that I had gone too far. What could I say? For every time I looked at his hat I was filled with this mad desire to laugh. It was a new hat, and one side of it was streaked by a long, dirty white dribble.
“I have given you several warnings,” he said. “This is the last time I speak to you.”
I looked at him and for a moment our eyes met. Then I left the room quickly, banging the door behind me.
The morning passed and I went to lunch at a cheap café called ABC. Again I pulled out my pencil and notebook and started to write to Olga. Then I stopped. What was the use of writing to a person whose full name and address I did not even know? How could I find out where she lived?
Stored somewhere in the office was a file of all the recent copies of a newspaper called Times. To these I referred, searching back to the issue that gave an account of the inquest on Paul Weaver some weeks ago. I found it, and my heart thumped with nervous excitement as I came to the words I wanted. “A witness who gave evidence. Miss Olga Mironovna, of Heath Street, Hampstead.” I rested my elbows on the pile of newspapers. Olga Mironovna, Olga——
The name was like wind sighing over quiet water. I thought of the lake in the mountains. Olga Mironovna. I could write to her now; it was so much easier. Why had I not thought of this before?
I was called back to my desk where three or four brokers waited. For the rest of the afternoon I was kept busy, and there was no time to think of anything but risks and perils of sea.
A young broker with a chubby red face leaned over the desk, dangling cover notes before me. “Got your gas-mask?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why, haven’t you heard? We’re all to be given gas-masks next week. Good opportunity to test their efficiency. Then they’re going to rout these bloody birds with poison gas——”
I did not believe him. “Where did you make that up?”
“Why, it’s in the papers,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you read the papers?”
High up in the ceiling I knew there was something swaying to and fro, as though it waited to drop lightly on my desk. I forced my hand to write and assured myself there was nothing there.
Then I gave him back his slips and looked up quickly. There was nothing. Had there ever been anything? I went on with my work, my hand shaking, sweat pricking through my forehead.
It was nearly five o’clock before there was any lull in work. Then I found paper and started again to write my note. “Dear Miss Mironovna.” It sounded silly. “Dear Olga Mironovna.” But that sounded too familiar. I wrote a dozen notes and tore them up dissatisfied. Finally, I managed to write a brief note in which I said that I wanted to meet her, and that I could not easily explain why in a letter; would she consent to meet me for a few minutes?
I put the note in an envelope, sealed and posted it. On the way home I thought of nothing else. I imagined her receiving it, her look of surprise, perhaps vexation, as she threw it away; or an expression of curiosity and amusement as she took up her pen to reply. Most likely, I told myself gloomily, she will never answer. And deadly apathy seized on this; it will be a good thing if she doesn’t answer. You will have done all you can, then you can go no further.
In the house we had one of those wireless machines which we generally used in the evenings to listen to the latest news. That evening I was particularly interested to hear whether the broker’s story of the proposed gas attack was true or not. So after supper we switched on the machine and sat listening.
We sat in the front room. It was very hot and almost dusk. In spite of this, only one window was open a little at the top. I sat near it, looking out and listening to the brisk, calculated voice of the announcer as it came through the loud-speaker. My mother sat away from the window near an old deal bureau upon which were two empty silver candlesticks. I noticed them and reflected, as I had hundreds of times, that I must buy some long candles to go in the sticks.
“Mother,” I said, “I must buy some long candles for those sticks.” But she made no reply, probably because she was tired of hearing me say it.
Then I thought, what is the use of buying candles now? The world may last no longer than their light would last. And yet, in a curious way it seemed to me that so slight a thing as two new candles, standing up there in the dusty gloom of that corner, might impart a new spirit of confidence into this room. Yes, I determined, I must buy the candles and put them there; it will be a sort of declaration of independence, a challenge to fate: “Do what you will; I will buy candles.” The announcer’s voice droned on dutifully. Then he came to the
information I wanted to hear. He announcer repeated what the broker had told me that afternoon. In a few days, gas-masks were to be distributed to the people; they would also be instructed to stay in their homes with doors and windows barred tight. Sirens would sound when the attack began. At noon fleets of aeroplanes were to scour over the City, emitting jets of poisonous gas whenever they came upon companies of birds. When the attack was finished and the atmosphere pure again, sirens would sound an “all-clear” signal. “It is to be hoped,” said the announcer, “that many volunteers will come forward to assist in the distribution of gas-masks and——”
—The voice ceased suddenly on a sharp, choking sound. Above it we heard a snapping as of some bony substance against the microphone; a rustling as of half-burnt paper. Then the connection was broken, we heard no more.
My mother had risen at these unexpected sounds and was standing in the middle of the room, wringing her hands together. We did not speak for a moment.
“What—has happened?” she asked.
I did not answer, for my thoughts had turned again to the empty candlesticks. I felt strangely unmoved by the sudden cessation of the announcer’s voice, though I knew well enough what it meant.
“Mother,” I said, “come over here. There’s a lovely moon rising.”
She came over to me at the window and I put my arm round her shoulders. She was shaking with fear.
“Mother, Mother,” I said, “oh, let us get away from here——”
She made as though to leave me and put on the light.
“No, don’t turn on the light,” I said. “Stay in the darkness here a moment. Listen to me. We must leave London; we must get away soon. I’ve been thinking—thinking of another country where there are flowers and it is cool. It will kill us if we stay here much longer. What have we to stay for?”
“I can’t go away, I can’t,” she muttered.
“Oh, why, Mother? Why must you always say that?”
“I’m too old for changes now. You go, son, and leave me.”
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