Room at the Top Page 4

  "Do you act?" he asked me.

  "I have," I said. "There's never been much time for it, though."

  "You've a nice profile," Eva said, "and a deep brown voice. It's time we had a new man. This diminutive wreck plays practically all the juvenile leads. I joined the Thespians with the vision of being constantly embraced by handsome young men. And the only man who ever makes love to me is my own husband. I could do that at home."

  "That's right," said Bob and gave her a facetious leer. Suddenly I had a mental picture of them in bed together. Eva gave me a cool, appraising look; I wondered if she knew what I was thinking.

  "We'll introduce him to Ronnie, and arrange an audition," Mrs. Thompson said briskly.

  "Don't introduce him to Alice," Eva said. "She's hunting for fresh meat. She's never really recovered from Young Woodley ."

  "Shush," said Mrs. Thompson, "you're giving Joe the wrong impression."

  "Are you spoken for, Joe?" Eva asked.

  "No one will have me," I said.

  "I'll see that you meet some real nice girls."

  "Darling," Bob said, "what an awful combination of debauchery and respectability in that phrase. It always strikes me -- "

  Mrs. Thompson cut in. "No more of that Design for Living humour, Bob Storr." The smile which accompanied it took the sting from the reproof; but I was aware that she was in control of the conversation, that Bob had been steered away from some dangerous corner.

  "They'd no business to do that play," Cedric said. "It should be banned to amateurs. Yes, banned . They only put it on to show off their evening dresses, anyway."

  "I had a most glamorous evening dress," Eva said.

  "Yes," said Bob, "and God only knows how it kept up."

  Eva stuck her tongue out at him. Then she stretched her arms above her head and yawned, her eyes on me again.

  I hadn't fallen in love with her. And I wasn't sex-obsessed -- though there are worse things to be obsessed by. it was simply that I was an unmarried man of twenty-five with normal appetites. If you're hungry and someone's preparing a good meal, you'll naturally angle for an invitation.

  The meal was on the table, so to speak, and it was a long time since I'd eaten. After a dance at the Dufton Locarno, to be exact; I couldn't even remember her name. It had been quick and sordid and I hadn't enjoyed it very much. I was beginning to dislike that sort of thing: it was typically Dufton, something I had to outgrow.

  Suddenly I had an intuition that I could sleep with Eva. It was a genuine intuition, not simply a rationalisation of my desires. I've always found that intuitions are rarely wrong. Mine work very well because I'm not very fond of abstract thinking and I never expect anyone to be morally superior to myself.

  After tea we went to the Thespians in Bob's car. It was a new Austin Eight; it was very difficult to get new cars -- particularly small ones -- at that time, and it occurred to me that whatever he did in textiles must be outstandingly profitable.

  "You go in front with Bob," Eva said to Cedric. "Then you can stretch your legs. And you go in the back, Joan. And you too, Joe darling. Then I can sit on your knee."

  "You'd better ask Bob's permission," I said, feeling foolishly pleased.

  "Bobby dear, you don't mind if I sit on Joe's knee, do you? You're not going to be jealous and possessive and Victorian, are you?"

  "I don't mind if he doesn't. He'll be sorry before the journey's over, I may add. She only appears light and fragile, Joe. I never let her sit on my knee."

  "Pay no attention," Eva said. "Joe's strong enough to bear my weight. You like it, don't you, Joe darling?"

  I tightened my hands round her waist. "Drive as far as you like, Bob," I said. I could feel the warmth and softness of her distinctly.

  The quarter of Warley where the theatre was situated, was, as Mrs. Thompson had said, a positive maze of little streets. They reminded me of Dufton for a moment; but they had a warmth and cheerfulness which Dufton never had.

  Perhaps the presence of the theatre helped. Even the tattiest theatre radiates a certain gaiety, it's always as it were announcing the existence of a wider world, of things outside the drabness of washing day and taxes. And of course Warley had never suffered very deeply from the Slump; its eggs were in too many baskets. Three quarters of the working population of Dufton was unemployed in 1930; I remember the streets full of men with faces pasty from bread and margarine and sleeping till noon and their children who wore sneakers in the depth of winter. And that river thick and yellow as pus -- the final insult, worse even than Stag Woods, the last bit of unspoiled countryside in Dufton, which the Council cut down and surrounded with barbed wire fences, putting the dank orderliness of a pine plantation in its place. The Slump didn't only make Dufton miserable and broken-spirited while it lasted, though; even when full employment came there was still an atmosphere of poverty and insecurity, a horde of nasty snivelling fears left in the town like bastards in the wake of an invading army.

  I wasn't, I may add, bothered about all this from a political point of view. Though if I'd been in a job where I was allowed to take part in politics I might have tried to clear up the mess -- eventually, I suppose, from a place like Hampstead, which, believe it or not, is where Dufton's Labour M.P. lives. (I voted for him in 1945, incidentally, partly because Mother and Father would have liked me to, and partly because the Tory candidate was a relative of the Torvers, who owned the biggest firm in Dufton, and I wasn't going to help them in any way -- it would have amounted to licking their already well-licked boots.)

  Mrs. Thompson's voice broke in upon my thoughts. "When I was a little girl, I always used to imagine the Sire de Maletroit's door was somewhere around here. I loved to wander around, looking for adventures."

  The little car smelled of leather and tobacco and scent; my thighs began to register Eva's body again. I was in Warley riding in a car to the theatre; Dufton was far away, Dufton was dead, dead, dead.

  "Did you find any adventures?" I asked Mrs. Thompson. My face was against Eva's hair.

  "Once a little boy kissed me," she said. "An awful little tough with red hair. He just grabbed me and kissed me. Then he hit me and ran away. I've been attached to the neighbourhood ever since.

  "That man," said Bob gravely, "is today the richest in Warley. He has never looked at another woman since that fateful encounter. Everyone thinks him hard and unapproachable, caring only for money and power. But sometimes, sitting alone in his Georgian mansion right at T'Top, he remembers that winsome little girl, half angel and half bird, and tears soften his flinty eyes . . . It's rather touching, really, like Dante and Beatrice."

  He drew the car to a stop outside the theatre. "Dante had a wife and a large family," Cedric said mildly.

  "You win," said Bob, getting out of the car. "It's a beautiful story nevertheless."

  Mrs. Thompson said nothing, but smiled at Bob.

  The theatre had a façade of glaring white concrete and a big illuminated sign over the entrance. Its lower-case lettering made the theatre look like a night club, which I assume was the impression that had been aimed at. The auditorium smelled of sawdust and paint and chalk. It was decorated in cream and grey with the usual picture-frame stage; the atmosphere was somehow educational; though I can't be sure whether this wasn't due to its schoolroom smell. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the audience; I'd half expected the theatre to be full of people like Bob and Eva, being determinedly witty and theatrical at the top of their voices.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary about the play either. It had run for three years during the war; I'd missed it, being in Stalag 1000 at the time it was produced. It dealt with a very charming upper-middle-class family the members of which nearly committed adultery, nearly made a fortune, nearly made an unwise marriage, nearly missed their true vocation and so on, everything being made right in the end by the wise old grandmother who, rather daringly for this kind of play, spoke the prologue and epilogue swaying to and fro on her rocking chair and fiddling ab
out with a piece of knitting to break up her speeches.

  I enjoyed it for the same reason that people enjoy Mrs. Dale's Diary -- the characters belonged to the income group which I wanted to belong to, it was like being an invisible spectator of life in one of the big houses on Eagle Road. It was all very soothing, right down to the comic servants with hearts of gold. (Nanny offered Master her life's savings when it seemed that he was going bankrupt and I distinctly heard a woman behind me sniffling back her tears.)

  It was halfway through Act I that I saw Susan for the first time. She was the youngest daughter, the gay, innocent girl who nearly breaks her heart over an older man -- at least, that's how the Warley Clarion put it. I remember her first line. "Oh hell and death, I'm late! Morning, Mummy pet." The swear words of course had been picked up from the Older Man, a debonair, greying composer; he used them when his new symphony wouldn't come right, this being a sure sign of his extreme sophistication and wickedness.

  She had a young fresh voice and the accent of a good finishing school. She was supposed to be sixteen in that play, but she had none of the puppy-fat and slight clumsiness of that age and I judged her to be about nineteen. She couldn't act very well, but for me she brought the whole silly play to life. Not that the part needed to be acted; it was tailored to fit any pretty young girl with a proper mastery of the broad a and narrow u. What appealed to me most about her was that she was conventionally pretty. Black shoulder-length hair, large round hazel eyes, neat nose and mouth, dimples -- she was like the girl in the American advertisements who is always being given a Hamilton watch or Cannon Percale (whatever that is) sheets or a Nash Airflyte Eight. She might have been the sister of the girl I'd seen outside Sylvia's Café.

  Charles and I once worked out a grading scheme for women, having noticed that the more money a man had, the better looking was his wife. We even typed out a schedule, the Lampton-Lufford Report on Love. There was an appendix with Sex Summaries. I remember that a Grade One woman gave one such a marvellous time in bed that it was just as well that all Grade One husbands had inherited fortunes, because they couldn't possibly have had any strength to spare for earning money. And Grade Four men were awarded a little extra with each promotion (Oh dahling I'm so glad the Directors are appreciating you at last, she said with her eyes misty) and Grade Nine of course only indulged on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

  The grades corresponded, naturally, with the incomes of husband or fiancé, running from One, for millionaires and film stars and dictators -- anyone with an income over Ł20,000 in fact -- to Twelve for those under Ł350 and not likely to get any more. Charles and I belonged to Grade Seven, which was for the Ł600 and over deputy and assistant head group; we really belonged to the grade below, but the point of the whole scheme was that husbands were chosen as much on eventual as actual salary, a certain level of intelligence being taken for granted in women above Grade Ten standard. Our schedule didn't work out perfectly, of course: sometimes men in Grade Seven would have Grade Three wives, women capable of acquiring Ł5000-a-year men, and self-made Grade Three men would have Grade Ten wives whom they'd been hooked by before they'd made their pile. But the Grade Seven men generally lost their wives to lovers who really understood and appreciated them or, worse still, had to endure them grumbling about money for the rest of their lives; and the Grade Three men generally got Grade Three mistresses. This no doubt all seems very cynical but the fact is that Charles and I could eventually work out husbands' incomes to the nearest fifty pounds. There was a time when the accuracy of our system profoundly depressed me. (That was when my horizon was bounded by Dufton and the NALGO National Charter.) I knew that I was equally lovable and a damned sight more handsome than the Glittering Zombie, a young man with sleek black hair, a shiny red face and a gold Rolex Oyster, gold signet ring, gold cigarette lighter and gold cigarette case; but, not having a father who was a bookmaker, I could hope for a Grade Six wife at the best and he would automatically attract a Grade Three.

  Susan was Grade Two -- if not One -- whether or not she had any money; but I had a shrewd idea that she'd qualify for the grade financially as well as sexually. To be quite fair to myself, this wasn't the only reason that I was excited by her, that the genteel commonplaces of the play seemed profoundly poetic, that it seemed at any moment there'd be an annunciation which would transform existence into what it ought to be, hold, as it were, to its bargain the happiness which Warley had promised me. And I should have felt exactly the same if I'd been an honest simple type to whom the whole idea of grading women was beastly cynicism. She was so young and innocent that it nearly broke my heart; in a queer but pleasurable way it actually hurt me to look at her. If flesh had a taste, hers, I imagine, would be like new milk. I fell in love with her at first sight. I use the conventional phrase like a grammalogue in shorthand, to express in a small space all the emotions she evoked in me.

  When we were putting on our coats in the foyer afterwards Cedric said: "I assume you need some alcoholic refreshment after that bourgeois gallimaufry, Joe." I heard the words but did not connect them into a message.

  "Susan Brown's very beautiful," I said. Then I realised what a moon-struck calf I must appear and to my disgust found myself reddening. Eva laughed.

  "I'm livid with jealousy." She gave me a blow on my chest with more force than playfulness behind it. "As soon as I meet a handsome young man, he falls for that flibbertigibbet."

  "She always seems a bit insipid to me," Bob said, "strictly the bread- and-butter miss.

  "Oh no," said Eva quickly. "It's very nice of you, darling, to say she is not attractive, but it just isn't true. Joe has good taste. She's beautiful, yes, really beautiful, fresh as a rose on the day of battle or whatever that poem is, and a truly sweet-natured child."

  "Who wouldn't be, with a rich and adoring papa?" Bob said.

  "I think Joe had better meet her," said Mrs. Thompson.

  "No more of this prattle of beauty and sweetness," said Cedric impatiently. "I lust for strong drink. We'll see you at the Clarence if you're going backstage. Bob."

  He went out into the street, his scarf tucked into a pocket of his raincoat and trailing almost on the floor. He was talking at the top of his voice. "No life, no vigour, no poetry!" I heard him say as he went out of sight, Mrs. Thompson walking sedately beside him with her head cocked slightly to one side, an attentive but slightly amused expression on her face.

  "You really are smitten, aren't you, Joe?" Eva said as we walked down the passage behind the foyer.

  "I suppose she's already attached to someone," I said gloomily.

  "She's not engaged," Bob said. "But watch out for Jack Wales. Bags of money, about seven foot tall and a beautiful RAF moustache."

  I laughed. "I eat those types for breakfast," I said. "Besides, my admiration is purely artistic." Even to me it didn't sound very convincing, but I felt myself being pushed into the position of the poor man at the gate, the humble admirer from afar.

  The dressing room was already crowded when we reached it. It was a narrow room with a concrete floor and a long table with lighted mirrors above it. It smelled agreeably of make-up and tobacco and well-fed, well-washed bodies.

  Susan had just taken off her make-up and was wiping the remaining cream from her face. I noticed with a shock of pleasure how white and delicate her skin was.

  "This is Joe Lampton," Eva said. "He's come all the way from Dufton. He liked the show very much."

  "Particularly you," I said. Her hand was childishly warm and soft and I would have liked to have held it far longer, but ineffectual contacts like that were Zombie habits -- trying to make a dinner out of hors d'oeuvre -- so I didn't extend the handshake for more than a second.

  "I'm not awfully good, really," she said. I was close to her but I had to strain to catch the words. Susan always lowered her voice when she felt shy.

  "If I'd known, I'd have brought you some flowers," I said. Her dark lashes came down over her eyes and she looked away from me for
a moment. It was the kind of gesture which only a virgin could have got away with; because it was so natural and unstudied it moved me almost to tears.

  "If you'd known what?"

  "If I'd known you'd be so beautiful."

  Her blouse had a button too many unfastened. She saw me looking at her, but made no effort to fasten the button. The revelation of some kind of promise, though it hadn't, I was sure, been deliberate.

  "Coming over for a drink, honey?" Eva asked her.

  "I'd love to, but Jack and I are promised home for supper."

  "Bring Jack too," Bob said. "I want to explain the function of the cyclorama. His dawn came up like thunder, which is splendid for Burma but not the Home Counties."

  "You're horrid," Susan said. "It was a perfectly sweet dawn." She spoke as if the dawn were a small cuddly animal.

  They began to argue about it, and then Jack came in. I knew it was he straightaway. The big RAF moustache was worn with the right degree of nonchalance; he'd been an officer, it was an officer's adornment. I never grew one myself for precisely that reason: if you wear one and haven't been commissioned, people look upon you as if you were wearing a uniform or decorations you weren't entitled to. What annoyed me the most about him was that he stood four inches above me and was broader across the shoulders. He had an amiable, rugged face, the Bulldog Drummond type, and no doubt, I thought viciously, well aware of it.