'If someone had given you LSD or hashish, would you have accepted?' the other asked, sipping a Coke and belching.
'I don't know. Perhaps.' Something to set him apart from the people at the office, though they'd never know: he hadn't even dared to wear his badge among them.
'You feel empty. You're looking for something to fill you, to expand your mind as they'd say.' The man's hands were shaking again: the glass jangled on the bar.
'Ja, iss right, Herr Koktor,' but it didn't work. 'I suppose you're right,' Charles said.
The Titus Groan was casting flowers into the crowd. Suddenly Charles wanted one—then immediately he didn't: it was trivial. Girls scrambled for the flowers; as they converged they changed from red to green. 'Gerroff!' yelled one. 'I think—' Charles said. 'I know,' the other agreed. 'Let's leave.'
In the entrance hall the pugilist behind the desk peered at them suspiciously. 'By the way, my name's Cook,' the man mentioned. 'Charles,' Charles said.
They emerged into the main street; behind the blue lamps the moon was choked by clouds. A passing couple eyed Charles' flower and 'Make Love Not War' and shook their heads, tut-tut. 'I know you bought that badge for the occasion,' Cook remarked. 'You might as well take it off.'
'I do believe in it, you know,' Charles said.
'Of course,' Cook said. 'We all do.'
Tomorrow Charles might say: 'Last night I met a philosopher'—but once he'd claimed as his own a description of a robbery told him by a friend, only to be taunted by his neighbor at the office: 'Yes, I saw that too. Last week on tv, wasn't it?' Two boys passed, tinkling with beads and bells. Charles was about to offer Cook a drink: he'd formed vague friendships at the office thus. But Cook was struggling to speak.
'I wonder—' he mumbled. The moon fought back the clouds, like an awakening face. 'I don't know you very well, but still—you seem sympathetic... Look, I'll tell you. I'm meeting some friends of mine who are experimenting with the mind, let's say. Trying to realize potential. It sounds dramatic, but maybe they can help you find yourself.' His head shook; he looked away.
He was nervous, Charles could see: it was as if he'd drained Charles' unease into himself, leaving Charles the power to calm him. 'I'll try anything once,' Charles said. Blinded by the lamps like photofloods, the moon shrank back into the clouds.
They walked toward a side street where Cook's car was parked. In the unreal light the shops rose to Victorian facades, annihilating time. Charles wondered what they'd give him: LSD, lights, hypnosis? In the Be-In the pounding sound and leaping lights had reminded him somehow of brainwashing. He didn't like the idea of hypnosis: he wanted to be aware of his actions, to preserve his identity. Perhaps he'd simply watch the others.
Down a side street, on a stage of light from a pub door, two men fought. Charles couldn't look away. 'I thought so,' Cook said. 'You're one of us,'
In the next street Cook's car waited, its headlights dull like great blind eyes. 'I hope you're not too perfect,' Cook mumbled, unlocking the door. 'They can't abandon me, not now. No, I'm just suspicious by nature, I know that.' Savagely he twisted the ignition key, and shuddered. 'They're in Severnford,' he said.
Darkness spread again over the last house like decay, and the road dipped. As they swept over a rise Charles saw the distant Severn: a boat drifted quietly and vanished. Hills were lit like sleeping colossi; over them the moon bounced absurdly before the clouds closed. Suddenly Cook stopped the car. The darkness hid his face, but Charles could make out his hands working on the wheel. Cook rolled the window down. 'Look up there,' he said, pointing an unsteady finger at a gap in the clouds exposing the universe, a lone far frosty star. 'Infinity. There must be something in all that to fill us.'
In Severnford they pulled up near the wharf. The streets were lit by gaslamps, reflected flickering in windows set in dark moist stone. 'We'll walk from here,' Cook said.
They crossed an empty street of shops. On the corner of an alley Cook stopped before a window: socks, shirts, skirts, bags of sweets, tins of Vim, along the front of the pane a line of books like a frieze. 'Do you read science fiction?' Cook asked.
'Not much,' Charles said. 'I don't read much.' Not fiction, anyway, and retained little.
'You should read Lovecraft.' Next to the tentacled cover a man fought off a razor, hands flailing, eyes pleading with the camera: Cook almost gripped Charles' arm, then flinched away. They entered the alley. Two dogs scrabbling at dustbins snarled and ran ahead. In a lighted window, above the broken glass which grew from the alley wall, someone played a violin.
Beyond the houses at the end of the alley ran the Severn. The boat had gone; tranquil lights floated against the current. Gas-lamps left the windows of the houses dark and gaping, shifted shadows behind the broken leaning doors. 'Over here,' Cook said, clearing his throat.
'Here?' Cook had headed for a disused pub, its dim window autographed in dust. Charles wavered: was Cook perhaps alone ? Why had he lured him here ? Then Charles looked up; behind the sign—THE RIVERSIDE—nailed across the second storey, he glimpsed the bright edge of a window and heard a hint of voices, mixed with some sound he couldn't place. Cook was swallowed by the lightless doorway; the two dogs ran out whimpering. Charles followed his guide.
Beer-bottles were piled in pyramids on the bar, held together by Sellotape; in the topmost candles flared, their flames flattened and leapt, briefly revealing broken pump-handles on the bar-top like ancient truncheons, black mirrors from which Charles' face sprang surprised, two crates behind the bar cloaked in sacking. POLICE ARE PEOPLE TOO was painted on a glass partition; for a moment it appeared like the answer of an oracle. 'Oh, the police know about this,' Cook said, catching Charles' eye. 'They're used to it by now, they don't interfere. Upstairs.'.
Beyond the bar a dark staircase climbed; as they mounted past a large unseen room, through whose empty window glimmered the Severn, the voices hushed, giving way to the sound which worried Charles. Cook knocked twice on a panelled door. A secret society, thought Charles, wondering. The door opened.
Sound rushed out. Charles' first thought was of the Be-In: a united shriek of violins, terrifying. Inside the long room faces turned to him. 'Take off your shoes,' Cook said, leaving his own in the row at the door, padding onto the fur which carpeted the flat.
Charles complied uneasily, postponing the moment when he must look up. When he did they were still watching: but not curious, clearly eager to know him. He felt accepted; for the first time he was wanted for himself, not a desperately mimicked image. The young man in black who had opened the door circled him, shoulder-length ringlets swaying, and took his hand. 'I'm Smith,' he said. 'You're in my flat.'
Cook hurried forward. 'This is Charles,' he stuttered.
'Yes, yes, Cook, he'll tell us his name when he's ready.'
Cook retreated, almost tripping over someone prone on the fur. Charles surveyed; boys with hair they shook back from their faces, girls already sketched on by experience, in a corner an old couple whose eyes glittered as if galvanized—writers, perhaps. They weren't like the people at the office; he felt they could give him something he sought. Against the walls two speakers shrieked; several of the listeners lay close, crawling closer. 'What's that?' Charles asked.