I sat with my hands clasped tightly, waiting for the next blow. It didn't come; so when the bus reached Leddersford I went into the first pub that I saw.
It was an old building with an atmosphere of damp plaster and dusty plush; the front door opened directly into the saloon bar. As I opened it, the noise and light from the street outside was cut off. There were a lot of people at the bar, talking in subdued voices. I ordered a rum and a half of bitter, and stood at the bar staring at the pictures which were hung round the walls and on the staircase leading to the Ladies'; they were all battle scenes, rather pleasant coloured prints with energetic marionettes waving swords with red paint on the tips, firing muskets which each discharged one round puff of white smoke, planting their standards on little cone-shaped hills above the perfectly flat battlefield, advancing relentlessly in perfect parade-ground formation and, occasionally, dying very stiffly with their left hand clutching their bosoms and their right hand beckoning their comrades on to victory. The beer tasted like water after the rum, and for a moment I was nauseated, and couldn't face the idea of having another drink. Then I felt the first tiny glow of warmth in my belly and ordered another; the glow increased until, at the fourth or the fifth, a slatternly happiness sidled up to me: I had eight hundred in the bank, I was going to be an executive with an expense account, I was going to marry the boss's daughter, I was clever and virile and handsome, a Prince Charming from Dufton, every obstacle had been magically cleared from my path -
Every obstacle? That meant Alice. That wasn't magic. How long must she have crawled round in her own blood in the dark? Where was I now? There was Dufton, there was Cardington, there was Compton Bassett, there was Cologne and Hamburg and Essen from the air, there was the wine-growing country of Bavaria, there was Berlin and the pale schoolgirls and their mothers. Five Woodbines for the mother, ten for the daughter. And Dufton again, then Warley, only a year ago. I should have stayed in the place where I was born, and then Alice would be walking round Warley now with her hair shining in the sun or lying on the divan at home reading a play for the Selection Committee or eating chicken and salad if it were the season for salad. I put my hand to my head.
"You ill?" the landlord asked. He had a doughy, expressionless face and a gratingly heavy voice. Up to that moment he'd been talking about football to a knot of his cronies. Now, the wheels of whatever passed for his intelligence creaking, he turned his attention to me. I took my hand away from my head and ordered a brandy. He didn't move to serve me.
"I said, Are - you - ill?"
"Uh?"
"Are you ill?"
"Of course not. I asked for a brandy."
Everybody had stopped talking and were devouring me with glittering eyes, hoping that there'd be a fight and that I'd get my face bashed in; there was nothing personal about it, it's simply that, at any given moment, the majority of people are bored stiff. I glanced round the room and saw that it wasn't a pub for casuals; it was a betting-slip and pansy pub (there were three of them next to me now, standing out like sore teeth among the surrounding roughs).
"You've had enough," the landlord repeated. I scowled at him. There was no reason why I shouldn't have walked out; but my feet seemed bolted to the floor.
"I'll buy you one, dear," one of the pansies said. He had dyed hair of a metallic yellow and smelled of geraniums. "I think you're awfully mean, Ronnie." He smiled at me, showing a mouthful of blindingly white false teeth. "You're not doing anything wrong, are you, dear?"
"You'll get yourself into trouble," the landlord said.
"Yes, please ," the pansy said, and they all giggled in unison. I let him buy me a double brandy, and then asked him what he'd have. It was tonic-and-lemon; pansies only use pubs for picking up boy friends. They don't booze themselves, any more than you or I would if surrounded by bed-worthy women who might be had for the price of a few drinks.
"My name's George," he said. "What's yours, handsome?"
I gave him the name of the Superintendent Methodist Minister of Warley, who'd Struck Out Fearlessly Against Immorality (meaning sex) in last week's Clarion .
"Lancelot," he said. "I shall call you Lance. It suits you. Isn't it a funny thing, how you can tell just what a boy's like from his first name? Will you have another brandy, Lance?"
I went on drinking at his expense until five minutes to three, then slipped out on the pretence of a visit to the Gents'. Then I bought some peppermints at a chemist's and sat in a news theatre until half past five. Joseph Lampton was doing the sensible thing, keeping out of harm's way until the rum and the beer and the brandy settled down; and Joseph Lampton was keeping a barrier of warmth and darkness and coloured shadows between himself and pain. I came out into the acid daylight with that headachy feeling that matinees always induce; but I'd stopped thinking about Alice and I was walking steadily.
I went into a café and ate a plateful of fish-and-chips, bread and butter, two queer-tasting cream cakes (that was the time that confectioners were using blood plasma and liquid paraffin), and a strawberry ice. Then I drank a pot of mahogany-coloured Indian tea. When I'd finished my third cigarette and there wasn't a drop of tea left in the pot I looked at my watch and saw that it was half past six. So I paid the bill and strolled out into the street; I was pretty well in control of myself by then, and it occurred to me that my becoming hopelessly drunk wasn't going to help anyone, least of all Alice. I'd go home - for Warley, after all, was my home, I'd chosen it myself - and go to bed with a hot-water bottle and a couple of aspirins. I wasn't Alice's keeper; let George take over whatever guilt there was to bear. Then I saw Elspeth.
She stood in my path, a henna-haired, tightly corseted old woman swaying slightly on her three-inch heels. I had never seen her look such a wreck; her face was so bedizened with powder, rouge, and lipstick, all in shades meant for the stage, that only her red-rimmed eyes were human.
"You pig," she said. "You low rotten pimp. You murdering little - " she glared up at me - "ponce. Are you happy now, you bastard? Got rid of her nicely, didn't you?"
"Let me go," I said. "I didn't want her to die."
She spat in my face.
"You can't punish me anymore," I said. "I'll punish myself. Now for Christ's sake leave me alone. Leave us both alone."
Her face changed; tears began to furrow the make-up. She put her skinny hand on mine; it was dry and hot. "I phoned this morning and they told me," she said. "I knew what had happened. Oh Joe, how could you do it? She loved you so much, Joe, how could you do it?"
I shook off her hand and walked off quickly. She made no attempt to follow me, but stood looking sadly at me, like a young wife watching a troopship leave harbour. I half ran through the maze of side streets off the city centre, making my way to the working-class quarter round Birmingham Road. Birmingham Road, if you keep on for about a hundred and fifty miles, does eventually take you to Birmingham; that was another reason for my wanting to become really drunk. All the voyages of the heart ended in a strange city with all the pubs and the shops shut and not a penny in your pocket and the train home cancelled without notice, cancelled for a million years - Leave us alone , I'd said to Elspeth; but who was us ? Myself and a corpse, a corpse that would soon be in the hands of the undertaker - a little rouge, a little wax, careful needlework, white silk bandages over the places past repair, and we wouldn't be ashamed to face anyone. I was the better-looking corpse; they wouldn't need to bury me for a long time yet.