He is up front alone like a chauffeur and would be content to leave it at that. But a face under a gold-braided cap, cut off by the lower limits of the rear view mirror where thin pink wattles are caught into an even more elaborately-braided stand-up collar, determinedly catches his eye, although it must be impossible to tell, from the back of his head, whether this sociable move has been successful or not. The old chap must be sitting forward on the edge of the seat. — No, I was just saying, as a matter of interest, weren’t you at the late show, Trinity Is Still My Name, on Friday? —
— You’re talking about a cinema? —
— That’s right. The Elite 300, Starland City. —
— No, no, I wasn’t at any cinema. —
— Now that’s funny, you know I’ve got an eye for faces, and when I come up just now I said to myself — I’ve seen that one recently. Not Saturday night, then? There was a gentleman with a party of four, nice-looking people, a blonde lady one of them — I could have sworn it was you. Well, I’m not so young as I used to be, old soldiers never die, they say, but I reckon I see three to four thousand people a week going past me, and often I’ll say to one of them, Good evening, sir, and did you enjoy the show last week — giving the name of the picture, whatever it might happen to’ve been, you see, and who was starring — and by George you should see their faces then! What a memory, they’ll say to me! See a face once, in all those thousands, and pick it out again just like that! Not that every face’s a face you’ll remember, you know. There’s some you don’t want to lay eyes on again, I can tell you that. —
— I’m sure. —
— It takes all kinds. You’ll get them that push the tickets under your nose like it was a bone for a dog and you’d think you’re expected to have four hands at once, they can’t stand a moment. A person must take their turn, one man’s as good as the next, and what’s the rush, you’re going in for an evening’s pleasure aren’t you? You want to relax, take it easy, isn’t it so? —
The old face in the mirror is smiling in the bounty of its philosophy. He nods vociferously enough for this to appear, from the back of his head, adequately appreciative.
— But most of the time you meet a nice class of people coming to the shows at Elite 300. Lots of them know me by sight. They’ve got a smile and a good evening for you. You don’t get these young hippies you get in the big cinemas, putting their feet up on the seats and burning the carpets. Some people’ve got no respect for anything. It’s the parents I blame. I’m not prejudiced, I don’t say that every kid with long hair’s a loafer, mind. I’ve had youngsters of my own, and I’ve got grandsons. But what would I do with myself sitting around at home? Dad, my daughter tells me, you’ve done your bit. All through Delville Wood in ’14 — ’18, yes. But I’d go out of my mind sitting doing nothing. I was five years at the old Metro before they pulled it down. But you can’t compare the comfort with a small exclusive cinema like the Elite, no question about it. You’ve been there, of course. Once you get down into one of those seats you’re like in a beautiful armchair in your own home. Just as good. —
There is an anxious silence for the last few minutes of the journey; the old fellow seems to feel guilty that he has run through his conversational repertoire. Anyway, at the first robot towards the centre of town both passengers alight, with sounds of heaving and pushing as the veteran slides along the seat and gets himself out (perhaps he has some disablement). The girl has never uttered a word during the ride; the old man, after profuse thanks, suddenly signals as the car is about to pull away. Of course they’ve left something.
— It’s still on. Trinity, I mean. It’s a good Western, I think you’d enjoy it, you know — The light’s green, everyone is nosing and blaring at the stationary car, the old man is carried in a momentum of people let loose from where they were damned up at the crossing, and some impatient bastard even shouts abuse whose sarcastic twang catches at the car window as he whips by.
All right. All right. The Mercedes sinks into the entrance of the underground garage where the attendant Zulu with disc ear-rings stoppering his lobes, and a cap less grand than a commissionaire’s, has recognized it instantly, and drawn aside, ceremonially as a curtain, the loop of chain that bars unauthorized entry.
He felt that he really must have a strong cup of coffee. Doing without breakfast when he slept at the farm was a good thing, almost a virtue he liked to enjoy, but there was an arch of emptiness under his diaphragm that only decent coffee and a first cigar could support. One of the little girls at the office would bring him a cup of instant if he waited a few minutes for them to come in, but he was earlier than the lowliest messenger on days when he came from the farm, and he didn’t want to wait even ten minutes. Not that that muck was coffee. He went up to the foyer and out into the street. There must be a place near by. Business lunches simply meant driving from one underground parking bay to another; the only time he walked through the streets was when he went to get his hair cut.
The coffee bar was packed. Apparently young people crowded in to meet their friends before work in the mornings, clustered along the counter like birds on a telephone wire. It was an Italian place, smelt deliciously of what he’d come for, and was noisy as the street. He got a double espresso and stood where he could find room for himself, at a ledge that formed a table of sorts for the cup, at elbow height, round a pillar. How they talked, little typists and students — whatever they were — predominantly girls, although a few young men fooled here and there, a few moony couples were holding hands between the stools and absently caressing. How they could talk! Confidential, animated, fresh from the toothbrush, their eyes circled with colour, butterflies on their trousers, hieroglyphs on their satchels, almost skirtless bottoms almost bare on stools — they could have been his daughters. Any of them. The coffee seized upon his tongue. He concentrated on sipping it round the edges of the cup, it went down slow, thick and fiery as dark molten metal poured into the ingot and as soon as it was comfortable to drink he was already at the dregs, and ordered another. To get the fresh cup off the conveyor band that moved along the main counter, carrying orders to customers one way and dirty cups the other, he had to lean his long arm in the pale grey sleeve with the half-inch of striped shirt cuff and the Roman coin cuff-link, between blonde and dark heads: a strange intrusion. The two whose conversation it parted slowed talk momentarily and looked at it as something disembodied, out of their world. He caught a whiff of scent — not perfume, something they washed their hair with or sprayed under their arms. This cup he could take more temperately; he could wait until it was possible to hold a mouthful, hot and strong. He had lit a cheroot. But one was smiling at him — one of the dozens of girls — twiddling the fingers of a hand in a childish wave. He looked away as when, in a crowded room, a glance intercepts the greeting intended for another. When he looked up again the girl was laughing, shaking her head a little as if to say: it’s me.