Room at the Top

12

The Bar Parlour of the Western Hotel, just opposite the Town Hall, is a remarkable one in its way. It's the best furnished in the place, with cushioned benches and thick grey carpet and glass-topped tables and basket chairs and photos of local cricket and football teams and wallpaper in a soft, subdued orange and grey which is, if you care for that sort of thing, a pleasure to look at. It's for men only; the other rooms, even the Lounge, are rather scruffy, with iron-legged tables and hard benches and Windsor chairs. Consequently the pub is much used by solid businessmen and Town Hall officials, who like to drink without women but who have no taste for the sawdust and spittoons of the taproom. The Western has always been the venue for the Warley NALGO Men's Evening, the Town Hall's annual stag party. The routine is to meet in the Bar Parlour for a couple of pints, have dinner upstairs and a couple more pints, then return to the Bar Parlour for some serious drinking. One unwritten rule of the Men's Evening is to mix with other departments; that evening, I remember, I talked mostly with Reggie from the Library.

I'd taken Charles's advice and hadn't tried to see Susan since Christmas. I hadn't much hope of his plan working; in fact, I'd almost decided to write her off. But that evening - probably as a result of the four pints inside me and the odd feelings I'd had about Alice in Elspeth's flat the day before - I started to daydream. I did the job thoroughly too. There was a letter from Susan inviting me to a party and asking plaintively if she'd done anything to offend me. Or, better still, the doorbell would ring one wild wet evening and she'd be standing there, her face rosy with the wind; perhaps she'd come ostensibly to see the Thompsons on Thespians business or perhaps she might simply say "I had to come, Joe. You'll think I'm shameless but - " And I'd kiss her and there'd be no need to speak; we'd stand there listening to the rain walling us up into happiness together and then we'd go out to Sparrow Hill - "I love walking in the rain with you," she'd say - and we'd walk on and on, the good clean air fresh in our lungs, walking on forever, the fairy story come true ...

But it wasn't quite like that. I was sitting in the Bar Parlour with Reggie after dinner, feeling agreeably full of food and beer but not so full that there wasn't room for a few more pints. I'd just finished telling Reggie a dirty story, the sort that one can only tell at stag parties.

"That's the muckiest I've ever heard," he said admiringly. "Where the devil do you get 'em from, Joe? That reminds me. Ran across Susan the other day."

"Susan Brown?" I kept my voice flat deliberately.

"We had quite a cosy little chat. I bought her a coffee at Riley's. After all, if you won't look after the girl, someone's got to. We talked about you most of the time."

"You couldn't choose a better subject."

"I don't think so, old man. I kept trying to point out my own merits in a discreet sort of way but it was all Joe Lampton. Isn't Joe handsome, isn't Joe clever, wasn't Joe wonderful in The Farm - I got sick of it."

"You're joking."

"Wish I were. You haven't seen her for a bit, have you?"

I drained off my pint. "Another?" I tried to keep the triumphant smile off my face.

"I haven't your monumental capacity," he said. "Just a half, please."

I beckoned the waiter over. Hoylake came in at that moment, twinkling and dapper. He saw the empty seat beside us and came over. "I'm not intruding, boys?"

"Not at all," I said. "Won't you have a drink, Mr. Hoylake?"

"You have one with me, Joe. And you too, Reggie. I only dropped in for five minutes. Must encourage NALGO activities. Though I like mixed events best. All-male social functions have rarely appealed to me. I hope you weren't talking shop. I hate talking shop."

A little hush had come over the room; but it didn't last long. He wasn't the sort of chief who paralysed conversation; not that I was entirely taken in by his chumminess. It was all very nice of him to call us Joe and Reggie but, I reflected, he wouldn't have been pleased if we'd called him Fred.

"We were talking about a young lady," Reggie said.

"Good, good," Hoylake said. He looked over the top of his glasses with mock severity. "You weren't taking her name lightly, I hope?"

"We were taking her very seriously," Reggie said. "We're deadly rivals for her affections. We contemplate a duel in Snow Park."

"What crowded lives my colleagues lead," said Hoylake. He lifted his whisky. "All the best, boys."

"I shall lose both ways," Reggie said. "If I win, she won't have me; I shall have hurt her precious Joe. If I were her I wouldn't look at him. What do you think of a young man who takes a sweet young girl out for months, then drops her flat, Mr. Hoylake?"

I found myself blushing. "Don't believe a word he says. She couldn't care less."

"Couldn't care less indeed!" Reggie laughed. There was a look of faint malice on his face. "She lights up when she hears his name. And he just doesn't bother. The best-looking girl in Warley too."

"They all fall for Joe," Hoylake said. "When he collects the taxes at Gilden all the women come in droves. They pay twice over to have five minutes longer with him." He sighed. "Mind you, when I was younger I'd have given him a run for his money."

I was thinking about what Reggie had said with increasing jubilation. I shut my mind against entire acceptance of his words; it was possible that her only feeling was one of hurt - at least slightly damaged - pride. If I asked her to go out with me again, that would retrieve her pride; if she used some transparently contrived excuse to put me off, she'd be completely revenged. But I knew, almost as soon as these thoughts passed through my head, that they were all nonsense; Susan simply wasn't the vendetta type.

"The prettiest girl in Warley," Hoylake said ruminatively. "Now, who could that be? Unmarried, I trust. Joe would meet her at the Thespians, I should imagine. Let me see - her name would begin with an S? Surname with a B? Dark hair and not entirely unconnected with the Chairman of the Finance Committee?"

"You're a first-rate detective," Reggie said.

"I'm an old busybody," Hoylake said. "We all are in Warley. Mind you, there's a lot to be said for it even when, though don't quote me - " he snickered as if deprecating his slight touch of self-importance - "it takes the form of scandalmongering. It indicates interest in one's fellow humans, which surely is an admirable thing. I'm glad that Joe here is beginning to take some part in the community life of Warley and isn't living outside the town. I thoroughly dislike commuting - people should live and work in the same place. But here I am, on the verge of talking shop ... I see your chief, Reggie. I must have a word with him. See you later." He went over to the Librarian; I noticed that he took his drink with him, barely touched. He was paid twice as much as the Librarian, and didn't wish to force him into buying expensive drinks.

"He's a clever little devil," Reggie said. "Not much he misses. Every move taped out."

"As long as I get on with him he can be as clever as he likes," I said. "Look, Reggie, are you really serious about Susan? I mean, did she really say all those things?"

"Why on earth should I joke about it?" He seemed a little indignant. "It's absolutely true. I mentioned The Farm - and then I talked about your performance. Among others, of course. I wasn't terribly impressed with you - she absolutely leapt to your defence. From then on, the conversation never left you. She lit up from inside when she talked about you. It's quite unmistakable, that look - a sort of dopey joyfulness. You're wearing it at present, incidentally."

"You want another drink," I said hastily.

"It's my turn. Don't try to sidetrack me."

"I drink two to your one, so it's fair enough."

"That's ridiculous," he said weakly, but I could tell that he was relieved. He looked round the room. "Small-town officials. My God, what a crew! You know something, Joe? I'd give a year's salary to get out of this town."

"I don't agree with you. I'm all for small towns. If they're the right kind."

"It's all very well for you, chum. You're a bright, efficient type. You stand out in a crowd. You're bound to get ahead in a place like Warley. And, of course, it's a novelty to you. If you'd lived here all your life you'd feel differently."

"I hate my own hometown," I said. "But that's different. Look, Dufton's awful. It stinks. Literally. It's dead as mutton. Warley's alive. I felt that from the first moment I set foot in the place. And there's so much of it, too; in five minutes you can be right away from everything. It's even got a history; you can find out something fresh about it every day ..." My voice trailed off; I was giving too much of myself away.

Reggie smiled. "Anyone'd think you were talking about a woman and not a perfectly ordinary market town with a few mills. You're a funny chap, Joe."

Teddy Soames came over to our table at that moment. "We're all funny here," he said. He belched loudly. "Excuse me, I'm a trifle intoxicated. Not that I should be. When I was in the RAF, the amount that I've forced down me tonight wouldn't have made me turn one of my Brylcreemed hairs." He sat down heavily. "Roll on the next war."

"Speak for yourself," Reggie said. "I never was so miserable in my whole life."

"It was monotonous at times, I grant you that," Teddy said. "But you had no worries and plenty of money. Plenty of beer and plenty of cigarettes and plenty of women. Shall we give them an old RAF song, Joe?" He started to sing softly. "Cats on the rooftops, cats on the tiles - "

"Whoa," I said. "It's too early for filthy ballads."

"I'd forgotten I was respectable," Teddy said. "I've sung that at all the best hotels in Lincolnshire. With Wingcos and Group Captains joining in. Happy happy days!"

"It may have been like that for you," Reggie said. "As far as I was concerned, war was hell. All I did at first was drill under a blazing sun in itchy woollen underwear. Then I peeled potatoes. Later on I became the British Army's most inefficient clerk. For a while I was quite happy. At least I didn't have to handle loaded weapons and such-like dangerous objects. Then some inhuman planner at the War Office started cutting down administrative staff. So I became the British Army's most frightened infantryman. The day I put on my demob suit was the happiest day of my life. Granted, I came home to discover that the bloody Library Association had made their exams ten times as difficult, thus giving a flying start to the women and the conchies - "

"No shop," Teddy said. "The Library Association's shop. Definitely." He looked at me then put out his hand to feel the texture of my suit. "High-grade worsted," he said. "And look at that shirt and tie! My goodness, Mr. Lampton, however do you manage on your coupons?"

"He has connections," Reggie said.

Reggie gave the clenched-fist salute. "Joe for King! Vote Labour!"

"You idiot," I said. "You know what Hoylake's like about politics."

"That's not politics," Teddy said. "Just a saying. Reggie used to chalk it on his tank before he went into battle."

"I never saw the inside of a tank," Reggie said. "I once saw a Jerry open the turret of a Sherman and throw in a hand grenade. The feeling of security they gave you at first sight was entirely ill-ill-illusory. Frankly, I've always believed in the old-fashioned war of attrition, when you stayed in a cosy concrete dugout and let the artillery do the fighting. I never could get HQ to agree with me, though. I always seemed to be advancing regardless. All over Africa, all over Italy."

"I thought I recognised you in Desert Victory," Teddy said. "A gallant figure with a bloodstained scarf round your head waving your men onward."

"I wish it had been me you saw," Reggie said. "I was one of the poor devils who got waved onward."

I heard the Librarian laughing. He had a high-pitched, rather effeminate laugh.

"That's his dirty-joke laugh," Reggie said. "He has a special one for every occasion. A respectful laugh, a refined laugh, a derisive laugh when I say something he doesn't agree with ... If he'd been my sergeant I could always have found a chance to shoot the bastard. I should have stayed in the Army."

"You intellectual types," Teddy said. "Never content."

The Librarian joined us. He was a small man with eyes so deep-set that they gave the effect of being mounted horizontally. He was about thirty-five, and didn't look as if he'd ever been any younger.

"Enjoying yourselves?" he asked.

"We're just fighting the war over again, sir," Reggie said. He winked at us. "We decided that we should have let the Russians polish off the Germans and then gone in and polished off the Russians with the atom bomb." He winked again at us.

"Just what I've always said." The Librarian fizzed with enthusiasm. "The Allies have paid dearly for their mistake. When I was in Germany I saw what the Russians were really like. I don't mind admitting that I was a bit of a Communist before the war, but I soon changed my tune ... What are you lads drinking?"

"We've ordered, thanks," I said. "Won't you have one with me?"

"Do you know, I think I will. They're all plutocrats at the Treasurer's, Reggie. That's always how it is: we torch bearers of culture are paid starvation wages, and the hard materialists, the men of facts and figures, are the lords of creation. I'll have a half of bitter, Joe."

"Pints here," I said. "Nothing but pints."

"We are making a night of it, aren't we?" He laughed, but I couldn't classify the laugh this time. "Mr. Hoylake has just imparted a rather clever story. Two old colonels were sitting in their club one day - "

I didn't listen; I was remembering the way I'd checked Teddy and Reggie, I was remembering the way Hoylake had, in effect, refused a drink from me and then from the Librarian. He'd bought the drinks, not out of kindness but because of a protocol that wasn't, when one weighed it up, very much less rigid than diplomatic protocol. But the prizes were so small; Hoylake was the richest man in the room, with a salary of a thousand. George Aisgill, I was certain, would spend that amount on food and drink and petrol alone. Even Bob Storr wouldn't get much less than a thousand. In business, I ruminated, I'd have to soft-soap people whom I despised, I'd have to steer the conversation towards their favourite subjects, I'd have to stand them meals and drinks. But the game was worth the candle; if I sold my independence, at least I'd get a decent price for it.

" - And the second old colonel said: ' Female camel, of course. There's nothing queer about old Carruthers.'" The Librarian threw back his head and laughed shrilly.

The beer was beginning to take hold of me; I realised that I'd had seven pints without noticing it. I worked out a little sum in my head: five one-and-fours plus one one-and-four minus one one-and-four from Hoylake - "

"I meant to tell you. Joe," the Librarian said, "how much I enjoyed your performance in The Farm ."

"Hell," Teddy said, "so did he. I bet he rehearsed those love scenes! Admit it, you young ram."

"Tut tut," I said. "My relations with Mrs. Aisgill are pure as the driven snow."

"Funny old driven snow," Reggie said.

The Librarian giggled. "You really shouldn't cast aspersions. Though to tell you the truth I shouldn't personally object to a pure friendship with the lady to whom you refer." He wiped the sweat from his brow and took a long pull from his pint pot. Like most inexperienced drinkers, he felt obliged to keep up with the rest of the party; with a heroic effort, he drained off the rest of the pint, then hiccuped painfully. "Excuse me, gentlemen, I must go to change the goldfish's water, as the French say." He went out hastily, looking pale.

When he'd left, we burst out laughing. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging," Reggie said. "The poor devil's not used to it, is he?"

"It's the thought of Alice," Teddy said, "unchaste thoughts are running riot."

"Tell the truth, Joe," Reggie said. "Aren't you doing a bit for her?"

"You mustn't ask me such questions. If I say yes, I'm a cad, and if I say no, I'm a liar." I grinned maliciously. "Would you like her yourself, Reggie?"

"My God, would I not! She's terrific. A trifle long in the tooth, mark you, but she has style, real style."

"What about June?" Teddy said. "Say a kind word for June. She has the merit of being a virgin too."

"She's only a child," Reggie said. "I'd feel the hot breath of the Sunday press of my neck if I made a pass at her. There's no comparison."

I felt a deep exultation. Whatever desires they had been tormented by, I'd fulfilled, and in six days would fulfill again. I was given for the asking what they'd never get in a thousand years; and I'd be given Susan too; and, if I wanted her, there was no reason why I shouldn't be given June.

Then I thought of Sparrow Hill and Warley Moor again. I knew that there was a cold wind outside and a light covering of snow. It would be quiet there and untouched and clean. The beer went dead inside me; I felt choked with my own selfishness as nasty as catarrh; there was nothing in my heart to match the lovely sweep of the moor and the sense of infinite space behind it and a million extra stars above. Then I shook the depression off me.

"Let's have a song," I said. "Clean but not too clean. Music, Teddy, please. 'The Foggy Foggy Dew.'"

Teddy struck the first keys on the cottage piano in the corner and I started to sing. Soon everyone was singing.

I loved her in the winter and in the summer too and the only thing I ever did wrong was to shield her from the foggy foggy dew ...

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hoylake humming the tune to himself, an expression of benign approval on his face.