The Furnished Room (4 page)

Beckett suspected that Dyce had really been chucked out, but his natural politeness prevented him from voicing his suspicion.

‘Anyway, I was out, and I had to reorganize my life. Decided to sponge off my relations for a bit. I've got an old trout of an aunt who has more money than use for it, and there was no reason why she shouldn't spend some on her blue-eyed nephew. But, Christ, I couldn't stand her for long. She handed out mean little sums as if they were charity soup, and accompanied each quid with a pious prayer that I wouldn't squander it in riotous living. Putting up with her lectures meant that I earned every penny I managed to squeeze out of her. She's supposed to have a weak heart, and I was hoping she'd pop off and leave me her money. But I soon decided that the weak-heart business was just an act, and as I didn't have time to hang about waiting for her to die, I cleared out. Did a bunk. Put some ads in the Personal Ad columns of newspapers. “Officer, ex-public school, do anything, go anywhere.” You know the sort of thing. You ought to try it yourself. Were you an officer or public school?'

‘No, neither.'

‘Doesn't matter. They expect you to lie. Want you to, in fact. They want a man who knows how to bluff. I got some pretty interesting jobs that way. Some fairly legal. Others...' Dyce winked. ‘Oh yes, the world is full of rich cowards who are willing to pay somebody else to do their living for them.'

Beckett offered his cigarettes and they both lit up.

Dyce lay back, grinning, his eyes narrowed. ‘Shocked you, hey? The life of crime.'

‘No, not at all. Crime interests me. I think that today it mainly springs from boredom. A deprived man wants the object he is deprived of: food, work, political liberty. But the man who has no pressing material needs can suffer instead from spiritual sickness. He realizes he lives in a system of lies, and consequently believes in nothing.' Beckett sat up suddenly. ‘Well, look, I mean, what is nihilism? Inability to believe, inability to feel, a sort of paralysing insight into the meaninglessness of existence. Boredom. The nihilist is constantly undermined by his sense of absurdity and lack of meaning. Nihilism is a claustrophobic state; a prison. I think crime can be an attempt to break out of the prison; a dynamite to blast the walls.'

‘Carry on.'

‘The nihilist wants to feel, so he strikes at life in order that life may strike him back.'

Dyce said: ‘By putting him in prison?'

‘No, by making him feel sin, danger, or anything. Anything is better than nothing.'

‘Oh yes, I agree with you there.'

Beckett said: ‘Of course murder is the only absolute crime, qualitatively different from every other crime.'

‘Yes. Well, I hadn't thought along those lines myself. Probably because I'm seldom bored, I play life like a poker game, and it seems fun to me. It doesn't worry me that I live in a system of lies as long as my lies are more successful than the other fellow's.'

Beckett laughed, liking Dyce's frankness.

Dyce said: ‘But you over-glamorize the criminal. The blasé youths, the Teddy-boy types, probably don't believe in anything. But they wouldn't put it into the sort of words you use. And with the older ones it's mostly laziness.'

‘Oh yes. Most criminals, I suppose, drift into crime through laziness or through lack of free will.'

‘You believe in free will?'

‘I don't think we have as much as we should like to suppose.'

‘But a murderer might have it? You said murder was qualitative….'

Beckett said: ‘He might.' The grass was damp, and he stood up. ‘Let's go back inside.'

‘And collect our nympho, who probably thinks we've both deserted her. Well, which of us is going to stagger over the bridal threshold with that not inconsiderable weight?'

‘You are.'

‘Thanks, old boy. Sheer necessity, you know. Must have somewhere to sleep, and plug my electric razor. With any luck I might get her to wash my drip-dry shirt as well.' Dyce stood up, and collected his jacket from the rose bush.

At that moment Michael bounded into the garden, with his arms flung wide in ecstatic love for all humanity. Seeing Beckett and Dyce, he twined an arm round the neck of each, and swung his feet off the ground. ‘Darlings, are you gay? Let's all be gay!'

They staggered under his weight. Then Dyce disengaged himself and pushed the boy away. He exclaimed to Beckett: ‘That brat needs a few well-placed kicks.'

‘Oh, I rather like him.'

‘I can't stand queers. They give me the creeps.' Dyce returned indoors.

Beckett went to assist Michael, who was now being sick into the roses.

When Beckett rejoined the party, noise and brightness were like a wall. He inspected everybody to see whether they were Dyce and Georgia, but they were not.

There were some men wearing the rosettes and striped scarves of football-team supporters. They carried rattles and cardboard trumpets. Nobody seemed to know how they had got there. They all stood together, with their raincoat pockets stuffed with beerbottles, blowing raspberries down their trumpets.

He found Ilsa and said: ‘Hello.'

‘I'm drunk. I'm bloody drunk.'

‘You are a bit.'

‘Am I? Does it show?'

‘It doesn't matter.'

Her face was pale and strained; the skin was taut over the sharp cheekbones. She pushed her hair back with the hand that held the habitual cigarette, then squashed the cigarette out. ‘Don't know why I bother to get cigarettes,' she said. ‘Never finish the damn things. Never finish anything. Unfinished conversations, unfinished love-affairs. I get bored.' The cigarette had broken where she had squashed it, spilling tobacco. ‘See, I spoil things.'

He said: ‘You don't belong here.'

‘Don't belong where?'

‘To this party. To all these stupid drunks.'

‘You're crazy! Of course I belong. I love them all; they're my sort of people.'

‘You don't belong,' he repeated. He knew she was right, but wanted to convince her and himself.

‘Oh, you're making a big mistake. I'm like them; absolutely like them. They spoil things too, they never finish anything. That's why I'm at home here. That's why I'm happy. That's why I'm drunk. Are you drunk?'

‘No. I was, but I got sober again.'

‘Do you know, I was in a pub once, and they had some stuffed owls in a glass case. It was funny somehow; I can't explain. None of us could stop looking at them. We all sat looking at the owls and roaring with laughter.'

‘Ilsa —' he began.

‘Oh, listen! Is that a Bugloss record?' She pointed to the radiogram.

Irritated, he said: ‘Can't you stay in one place for a minute?'

‘Gotta keep moving, gotta keep moving.'

He followed her over to the radiogram. When she listened to the record her body tensed, and she tapped her foot as if the jazz was jerking her like a marionette. He felt annoyed that it should have such a hold on her. Looking at her thin arm with its golden down, he felt a sudden desire to seize her, to bend her physically and morally to his will.

‘Ilsa, let's get out of here,' he said.

‘Oh, but the party's only just started. It's going on all night. Loads more people are coming.'

‘All night?'

‘The parties here always do. We just flop on the floor when we're exhausted. In the morning we grab whatever food we can find from the larder. Then we all rave off to the Tube and go round to somebody's place for a coffee-and-record session.'

‘No, come on, let's go now.'

She concentrated, peering at him suspiciously. ‘Us? We going together, then?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I dunno about that.'

‘I can't go with anyone else, love.'

‘What about old fat cow Georgia?'

‘She's nothing to me.'

‘Old fat cow. I'll pull her hair out. She dyes it, anyway. That red colour's never natural. You can see the roots. Ugh! How disgusting!'

He took her hand, drawing her closer. ‘Come on, love, get your things. Or let me get them. Where are they?'

‘No, I've got to fix my face. Won't be long.'

On her way out she was taken up by the football supporters. She called them all ‘Darlings!' and blew down their cardboard trumpets.

When he had waited some time and she had not returned, he went to look for her. He tried a door, and found two children asleep in a cot, amid a rumple of toys and blankets. The next door dislosed a half-naked couple embracing on the bed.

Beckett said: ‘Oh, excuse me...'

The man asked: ‘Are you the host?'

‘No.'

‘Well, if you know him ask him if he minds us going to bed in his bed.'

‘All right.'

The third door he tried was the bathroom. He switched on the light, and saw Ilsa lying on the floor, asleep. The brave scarlet dress was crumpled around her. She had kicked off her shoes; the soles of her nyloned feet were slightly soiled. He touched her shoulder. ‘Ilsa...'

She shuddered and woke. ‘Oh, I feel awful. I feel sick.' She sat up, pushing the damp blonde hair from her face with both hands.

‘Poor love. You'll be all right; we're going now.'

‘Don't want to go anywhere. Want to stay here.'

He helped her up, putting his arm round her shoulders. She seemed very small without her high-heeled shoes. There was a brittle quality about her, as if she might snap.

‘I'm a bloody nuisance to you,' she said.

‘No, of course you're not.'

‘I'm a bloody nuisance to everybody.'

In the taxi Ilsa slept. The illness of her ashen face, with adult shadows under the cheekbones, was accentuated by the scarlet beret she wore.

He was glad she was asleep, because that removed the necessity for conversation. They had little in common. He could not speak to her of the ideas which preoccupied him, and her smart social small-talk bored him on the whole. In the past he had often told her he loved her because they had run out of other conversation.

The taxi sped through Fulham towards Earls Court. Ilsa's nearness was almost unbearable. He groaned inwardly with desire. Her thigh was touching his, making him turn to gold.

He thought: Physically, I adore her. She is the altar at which I worship. And I will go in unto the altar of God, to God, who giveth joy to my youth. With my body I thee worship. Her company bores me, but I want it. Her voice talking commonplaces is better than music.

She moaned occasionally, and he wondered if she were going to be sick. He hoped so. He wanted to hold her while she was being sick, and kiss the side of her neck and her damp hair. The idea excited him so much that he was in agony.

The taxi drew up outside her house in Earls Court. He got out and paid the driver, then woke Ilsa and helped her out.

Ilsa shared a basement flat with a girl named Katey. The décor of the flat included glass tumblers with a playing-card design, bowls of peanuts, a wooden dachshund with a corkscrew for a tail, and a doll dressed in bra and pants. The red curtains, through which a light now showed, were patterned with drink labels: Martini, Cinzano, Dubonnet. Ilsa's soul delighted in the sort of furnishings that she considered smart or novel. The girls used one room as a double bedroom and the other as a living room. This arrangement meant that Beckett was unable to spend the night at Ilsa's, but on the whole he was glad of it. He disliked sleeping away from his room.

Ilsa was leaning against the railings beside the area steps. ‘Christ, I feel awful. Do you want to come in and have coffee with us?'

‘No, I don't think I will. I like Katey, but I'm too tired to sit on the sofa being amiable tonight.'

‘Oh well, then. Thanks for bringing me home. I say, did we come in a taxi?'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought we did, but I wasn't sure.' She said again: ‘Oh well, thanks.'

‘When shall I see you again?'

Her eyes evaded his. ‘It's difficult to say, really. I'm busy.'

‘Well, what days aren't you busy?'

The easy promise: ‘I'll ring you.'

He wrote his number and gave it to her.

She said conciliatorily: ‘Anyway, I'm glad we can still be friends although not lovers. Platonic friendship's a great thing, isn't it?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm glad we're on good terms again. I don't want to quarrel with you. In fact we'll probably get on better now that we don't have the strain of a love-affair.'

‘Yes.'

She nodded coolly. ‘Oh well. Bye.'

‘Bye-bye.' Then he put his arms round her and kissed her, pushing her back against the iron railings. They stood with the length of their bodies pressed together, like lovers.

Soon she said: ‘Don't, Joe.'

‘Why not?'

‘As I said, I'd rather be platonic.'

‘But you were furious when you thought I was after Georgia.'

‘Oh, that. Well, I was drunk, and I just said anything.'

‘You want everything your own way, don't you?'

‘That's right.' She turned and tottered down the steps. ‘Oops... steady, Barnes...' In the doorway she yelled: ‘Hi, Katey, I've had a marvellous time...' in a voice pitched to wake the entire street.

Later, walking home alone, he thought of Ilsa, Georgia, and Dyce. He felt a long way removed from all of them.

Messrs Union Cartons & Packaging (Great Britain) Ltd occupied the ground floor of a building in Holborn. Beckett walked down the corridor to the Invoice Department. He was, as usual, late for work.

The office smelled of dust, radiators, disinfectant, and tea. One corner was partitioned to make a glass tank for Mr Presgate, the departmental manager. The remainder was equipped with green steel desks for the eight clerks. Over each desk hung a light with a metal shade. Beckett's light was held in position by means of a length of string from the flex to the window frame. The lights were permanently on, because two windows were of frosted glass and the other two were dirty. The little light admitted by the windows was further blocked by the dusty files and folders stacked along the ledges. The walls were bi-coloured; the lower half was chocolate brown and the top half yellow. There was a pin-up girl calendar, with August's girl wearing powder-puffs and high heels. Other calendars advertised the firms with whom Union Cartons did business.