The Furnished Room (2 page)

A girl in a short, tight skirt sat at the table opposite. She swung her slim, nyloned leg, regarding her shoe, tapping her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray.

‘
I only live a stone's throw away from my mother-in-law
.' ‘
You only live a stone's throw away from your mother-in-law?
' ‘
Yes; so help me to pick up some more stones.
' The vase of cutlery on top of the radio rattled.

His gaze travelled up the girl's leg to the edge of her slip and the darkness beyond it. He felt half-desire mixed with the fragments of remembered past desires. He had images of a girl with inelegantly opened legs against a wall, or on the back seat of a car. Then there had been another girl, the first. One autumn day in a glade she had lain on her back, waiting for him, with her skirt drawn up showing her suspenders, her knickers round one ankle, and her plastic handbag among the fallen leaves.

The girl opposite stroked her hair. For a second her gaze met Beckett's. Her eyes were untrustworthy, and as cool as fishes, and he felt that she was one woman promising all women.

Then a man sat down beside her, and she remarked: ‘Mustn't be long, eh? or we'll miss the big picture.'

Beckett turned away. He was not disappointed because she had an escort, but because he knew there was no universal woman; only individuals. He did not want individuals. He wanted everything and nothing.

He knew that although the woman had excited him across the café, if she had come and sat on his knee he would not have wanted her. Many of his desires were like that: threads stretched to strangers across cafés or Tube compartments or night streets. They were the mark of the lonely; not unpleasant.

On the way home he noticed a small boy squatting on the pavement outside the house where Gash lived.

As Beckett got nearer, he saw that the boy was writing with chalk on the pavement.

The boy stood up defensively, and Beckett read the words:

MISTER GASH IS A SILLY FOOL. TRUE.

‘Why did you write that?'

The boy said nothing. He took used bus tickets from his pockets and counted them.

‘Why did you write that?'

The boy still did not answer, so Beckett started to rub out the words with his shoe.

The boy watched in silence for a while, then asked: ‘You a friend of his, then?'

‘Yes.'

‘He cuts children up inter pieces, and makes them inter pies.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘My mum.' The boy continued to watch for a few seconds, then dropped his collection of bus tickets, yelled: ‘You're daft…' and ran away.

The writing could not be entirely obliterated. Beckett looked at the blurred chalk-marks and scattered tickets, then walked home. He did not know why he had bothered to remove the insulting words. They would not have worried Gash.

The party was in Fulham, in somebody's flat. People were sitting on the divan or on the floor; a few were dancing. On the mantelpiece were a stolen “Gents” sign, a child's dish of soggy cornflakes, and a photograph of an ex-wife fondling an Alsatian in a back garden. The top of the radiogram served as a bar, and the babble of voices rose above the LP of the latest American musical.

‘... he always does it in telephone kiosks...'

‘… I go to Private Views for the free drink...'

‘... darling, your shoulder-strap's showing...'

‘… why are Bob and George such ages at the off licence? ...'

Beckett was jammed on the edge of the divan. A woman, aged about thirty-five, was sitting heavily on his knee. He did not know who she was, except that someone had introduced her as Georgia. She was drinking gin-and-orange. When she held out her cup for a refill he noticed the coin-shaped vaccination mark on her plump upper arm, and wanted to bite her arm.

He and Georgia talked nonsense and kissed. She had a tilted nose; her sexy suggestive eyes were experienced in double beds and saloon bars and in being combined mistress and mother to many men.

‘Have a cigarette, love,' she said, groping in her handbag among makeup, letters, and Kleenex tissues. He saw down her dress.

When there was more room on the divan they sat side by side, their arms uncomfortably round each other. He was kissing her again when somebody said: ‘Oh look, there's Ilsa Barnes...' Ilsa, just arrived, stood in the doorway. He noticed that she had given up her arty garb of shirt-tails and paint-smeared jeans, and was dressed in a smart, sophisticated manner in a scarlet dress that matched her lipstick. Otherwise she was unchanged, with her brittle body and dissatisfied, avaricious eyes. The habitual cigarette smouldered between her fingers.

He wondered what he felt, then realized that he felt nothing.

‘That girl Ilsa is a friend of mine,' Georgia said. ‘Do you know her?'

‘I used to, yes.'

‘She was at St Martin's Art School, wasn't she? I thought it was such a pity when she left.'

He said: ‘She decided she couldn't paint, and anyway didn't want to, and that it would be better to break off completely and start something new.'

‘What a pity.' Georgia regarded the tip of her cigarette. ‘She was very keen; she was going to take her Teacher's Diploma and get a job teaching art in a school. Well, I must say I wish I had the talent to do drawing or something. What a crime to throw it away!'

‘Oh, well.'

‘Did you know her well, then?'

‘Fairly. I spent a weekend at her parents' farm once. They have a farm in Sussex. Pleasant people.'

‘I think she drinks too much. It's wrong in a young girl. Different for me…' She raised her glass. ‘Mother's ruin.'

As usual, Ilsa seemed to know everyone. Her loud, bad-mannered voice rose above the general clamour as she rushed about greeting people. As she talked, she pushed her hair back from her forehead with abrupt, nervous movements.

There was something strained about her gaiety and pale, taut face. She was like a woman in wartime, living it up in order to forget that she might die tomorrow.

She saw him at last and energetically waved her arm, shouting across the room: ‘Hell
o
! I
must
come and talk to you later!' Then she dashed off to greet somebody else. She was very popular.

‘Oh dear,' Georgia said, ‘she's too busy to talk to us. Nobody loves us. Still, never mind, we love each other.'

‘That's right, we love each other.'

She pushed against him. ‘Do you know, all this drink has gone to my head rather.'

‘Mine too.'

‘Drink takes away all my powers of resistance, which aren't very strong at the best of times.' Suggestive giggle. ‘You could do anything with me now, Joe. Anything at all, if you wanted to.'

He stared at her. Then kissed her mouth hard and unlovingly and forced her down on to the divan.

The room was not there. There was only Georgia's body, lying half across him, as heavy and inevitable as a sandbag. Her mouth was glued to his; the curtain of her hair was rung down against escape.

Then, inevitably, he was saying that the room was too noisy, too crowded, that the party was a bore anyway, and that it would be a good idea if they left and went back to his place.

She sat up. Her lipstick was smudged; her face was sensual with surrender. ‘All right, Joe.'

‘Now?'

‘Yes, now if you like.'

They were both embarrassed by the mechanics of seduction. He said: ‘Well, let's go, then.'

‘I must just get my jacket. I left it in the other room. Will you wait?'

‘Yes, of course. Don't be long.'

As she got up, her dress brushed his knees. He felt quick surprise that she was now a stranger, and tonight he was going to sleep with her. Already the element of disappointment was there.

He knew he must be drunk, because when he put his glass down on the table the table was not there and the glass fell to the floor. He watched the wetness darkening the carpet; and then he was not there but in another corner of the room, talking to strangers. He did not know how he came to be talking to them.

Discomfort made him lurch off in search of the lavatory. Going down the stairs, he thought: Tonight I shall sleep with an auburn-haired tart... Soon he and Georgia would be on the Tube, sitting with their thighs touching, and he would be thinking to the rattle of the train: I'm going to sleep with an auburn-haired tart; I'm going to sleep with an auburn-haired tart...

His mouth was thick with the metallic taste of wine. He could hear the noise of the party. The flat was full of drunken extroverts. He had only to let go to be as drunk as they were. But he could not let go. He remained unbending, thinking of Georgia with adult loveless lust. He felt immeasurably older than the others.

When he returned to the room Ilsa and a young man were giving an exhibition of jiving. It was the sort of situation Ilsa adored; she loved being the centre of attention. Her skirt flame-swirled as she danced.

Suddenly she stopped, and shouted in her rude voice to one of the watching men: ‘Go on, stare! I've got nice legs, haven't I?'

Everybody was silent. Ilsa's partner stood with his arm extended, like a statue.

The man whom she had insulted backed, embarrassed. ‘I wasn't staring at you... I wasn't doing any harm... I was only watching.'

‘Oh yes, I know the way you watch. Would you like me to take my dress off, so that you can watch better?'

‘No, no, really…'

Ilsa had worked herself up into a pitch of insolence. ‘Go on, tell me to and I will. That's what you want, isn't it?' Beckett felt jealousy because of her showing-off, and because none of the people here knew that Ilsa had belonged to him.

Then the incident was over. More couples took the floor, and the dancing began again.

Beckett went and stood by the window. He drew back the curtain and looked down at the garden. The noise of the party seemed distant, as if he was shut off from it. That was a relief. He didn't want anything to do with the party or with that bloody little bitch Ilsa Barnes.

After a while she came and stood beside him. ‘I say, give me a fag, will you?'

He offered her the packet and then took one himself.

She bent her head for the match, her blonde hair falling in separate strands to her shoulders. She smiled at him. Then she looked out of the window. ‘Joe-Joe.'

‘Ilse-Ilse.'

‘I'm glad to see you.'

‘I'm glad to see
you
.'

She said: ‘You keeping all right?'

‘Not bad. And you?'

‘Oh, marvellous. On the whole.' She switched to her hard bright voice. ‘Have you been to Tony's Club? They've got a new guitarist.'

‘No, I haven't.'

‘To the Jazz Cellar?'

‘No.'

‘To the Saturday-night parties at Cliff and Una's, then?'

‘No.'

‘Christ,' she said, ‘you don't go anywhere, do you? No wonder I've looked out for you in vain.'

‘Have you?'

‘Well of course I have, hon. You don't think I'm so unfriendly, do you?'

He said: ‘I've always tended to spend most of my time in my room, reading. As if it was a monastic cell. By the way, I've moved from the Paddington room. I'm in Notting Hill now.'

‘Nice room?'

‘No, hideous. You know, the typical bedsitter.'

They were silent for a while. He watched her as she smoked. Her bare arms were thin, like the broken stalks of flowers. Suddenly she exclaimed: ‘I say, wasn't it funny when I went for that chap! He was staring at me with his eyes popping out of his head, the fool. He was scared stiff I'd really take my dress off.'

‘I wouldn't have let you do that.'

‘Oh, really? And what would you have done to stop me?'

‘Hit you or something, probably.'

She said rudely: ‘How caveman.'

‘Oh, shut up.' Then he asked: ‘Who was the man, anyway?'

‘Just somebody I went out with once or twice. He's in love with me, I think. But I got sick of him.' She crushed out her unfinished cigarette. ‘You know how it is.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘I enjoy making a man fall in love with me. Especially if he doesn't want to; if he doesn't like me or if he belongs to somebody else. I make him fall in love with me but when he does I lose interest. And the more of a devoted spaniel he becomes the more he irritates me. And finally I ditch him, and the girl I took him off can have him back. Only generally he doesn't want her. He still wants me.'

‘I see.'

She regarded him with her anxious, untrustworthy eyes. ‘I suppose I was an awful bitch to you, wasn't I?'

‘No, not really, love.'

‘I bet I was. I always am. But you were just as unpleasant in your way as I was in mine. You always despised me, didn't you, Joe? You didn't really love me; you only gave an imitation of it. You wanted my body, and tolerated my company for the sake of that. The other men I've had were spaniels, and I always ended by kicking them, but you and I parted just about quits. And I am honest with you, Joe, aren't I?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘Even if it's only to tell you that it's no good.' She strummed her fingers on the window-ledge. ‘I say, give me another cigarette, will you?'

He gave her one.

‘Thanks. Do you think they've got any Bugs Bugloss records here?'

‘I don't know. Who is he?'

‘Haven't you heard of him? He's my latest craze. Vocal and clarinet. He was guest artiste at the Cellar Club last week, and I spent the last of my wages on entrance money. Here, I've got the photographs...'

The first three showed a band playing, and people jiving in a dimly lit club. Ilsa was in the foreground in all of them; a thin girl with a hard, young face, showing off for the cameras. The other photographs were an assortment of snaps, nearly all signed with some sentimental message.
To Ilsa, with tons of love
;
Ilsa, always a pal
;
To Ilsa, with fond remembrance
.