Room at the Top

6

It was the first reading of Meadowes Farm that evening. When I arrived at the Thespians the producer, Ronnie Smith, was already there. He worked in a bank, though you wouldn't have believed it at first sight. He was wearing green suede shoes, a very old pair of flannels, a yellow crew-neck sweater, and a golf jacket; with his seamed face and brilliantined hair thinning at the temples he looked like a middle-aged actor, which I suppose was exactly what he wanted.

"Hello there, Joshua," he said or rather shouted, that being part of the theatrical pose. "God, you've got a lovely part. Out of this world." He repeated the phrase with relish. "Yes, out of this world. You'll have to work though, God, you'll have to work!"

"You're scaring him," said Eva, who'd just entered with Alice. "T'lad's cum to enjoy hisen, 'aven't you, luv?"

"Hello, Eva," I said, "Hello, Alice. You look most seductive, I must say."

"That's very kind of you," she said. "Actually I feel terrible." Her voice wasn't very friendly; she certainly wasn't succumbing instantly to my charm.

At the side of Eva, who had a rosy complexion and a bouncing vitality, she did in fact look pale and haggard. She had honey-coloured hair which at that time she wore in a bun, and thin features. She had an angular fashion-plate figure, to which her big breasts didn't seem to belong; in the white sweater she was wearing, they seemed to sag with their own weight. In a way this appealed to me more than firmness; it was a guarantee of reality. I could imagine myself touching them.

I repressed the thought. It wasn't any use. I remembered Eva rubbing herself against me: You're wonderful, we must do something about this, we'll go away - a lot of good it had done me. I remembered Susan at the last Social Evening: Jack had never let her out of his sight and had whisked her straight home in a shiny new M.G. Alice wasn't for me; I might as well abandon that idea before it took too firm a hold.

I looked at the rest of the cast. Herbert Downs owned a small weaving mill, Johnny Rogers's father owned a coal business, Anne Barlby's father owned three groceries; Jimmie Matthews, the youngest, was attending classes at the Leddersford Technical College; Jimmie was going to help his daddy in the family firm, as no doubt Johnny was. Anne's big brother was learning the grocery business, of course, right from the bottom just like anyone else: Anne was going to the Leddersford School of Art which would keep her out of mischief till she got married, possibly to Johnny, whose father's business was expanding rapidly under the wicked Labour government. They all had more money than I, but it wasn't big money. It was all too easy to reach their grade, so consequently I didn't respect them very much. I looked at them gesturing freely but jaggedly as they talked in their best accents about The Lady's Not for Burning , and jeered at them mentally, one of the landed gentry watching the tradespeople ape their betters. But my feeling of superiority was short-lived; the first reading went very badly. Perhaps because I was still irritated about Eva and Susan, I made a thorough hash of my lines, mispronouncing the simplest words and emphasising almost every sentence incorrectly. We had to stop for a moment when I referred to a roadman's brassiere; I joined in the laughter but it was a considerable effort.

"D'Eon Rides Again," said Alice. "What a thought - erotic voices among the working classes." She spoke directly to me. "I am working class," I said sulkily. "And you needn't explain your little quip. I know all about the Chevalier. I read a book once."

She flushed. "You shouldn't - " she began, then stopped. "I'll tell you afterwards." She smiled at me and then turned back to her script.

I kept glancing at her throughout the rest of the play. Sometimes when she wasn't reading her part she looked plain, in fact downright ugly: her chin had a heavy shapelessness and the lines on her forehead and neck were as if scored with a knife. When she was acting, her face came to life: it wasn't so much that you forgot its blemishes as that they became endearing and exciting. She made the other women look dowdy and careless; Eva, too, I realised with astonishment.

When we'd finished, Ronnie sat staring at us for a moment, puffing his pipe noisily and fiddling with a sheaf of notes and a gold Eversharp pencil. "We'll have to work very hard, people. The play's a great deal more subtle than it appears." He took his pipe out of his mouth and then pointed the stem at me. "Joe, remember that you're an honest simple farmer. And for heaven's sake be careful about - er - articles of ladies' underwear." Everyone except me giggled. "In fact, you'd better cut that bit."

"Watch out, Joe," Eva said. "Ronnie loves cutting. You'll have no part left if you're not careful."

Ronnie beamed at her. "All plays should be cut by half," he said.

"Me and Orson Welles," Alice murmured into my ear.

"All right, people," Ronnie said. "That's it for tonight. Herbert and I will now try to make sense of the author's lighting plot."

"Would you like some coffee?" I asked Alice as she rose.

"No thank you."

To hell with you, I thought, and turned on my heel.

"You can buy me a beer though."

"The Clarence?"

"Too many Thespians there. Too clean and well lighted. They'll be installing neons soon. The St. Clair's much nicer. Dark and smells of beef and tapers."

Her car, a green Fiat 500, was parked outside. She unlocked the righthand door then hesitated. "Can you drive?"

"Oddly enough, yes," I said.

"Don't be so bloody thin-skinned."

"I wasn't - "

"You damn well were. I just thought you might like to drive. Most men hate being a woman's passenger. I'm an awful driver anyway."

I didn't say anything but sat in the driver's seat and opened the other door for her.

It was pleasant to be driving a car again; not that I'd ever had one of my own. I'd learned to drive in the RAF: I'd shared an Austin Chummy with three of the aircrew. As I engaged first gear I was again riding through the flat desolation of Lincolnshire with a crate of beer in the back and Tommy Jenks leading the chorus of "Cats on the Rooftops" or "In Mobile" or "Three Old Ladies"; I felt a nostalgia for those days, when I could afford to spend four pounds a week on beer and cigarettes and the silver half-wing was a passport to free drinks and high-grade women. The Austin wasn't up to much - and no wonder, after seventeen years' misuse - but a quarter of it belonged to me. Tommy smashed it up on the North Finchley Road, together with himself, a WAAF corporal, and the GI who drove the jeep he crashed into.

"You're scowling," Alice said. "You look like a gangster in that hat, did you know? Turn to the right here, will you?"

"Where are we?"

"Nearly in St. Clair Road. It's on my way home actually."

"You live right at T'Top, of course?" There must have been a sneer in my voice; I saw her wince, and wondered what devil had got inside me.

"I live in Linnet Road," she said. "I didn't choose the house. Though I think it's a very pleasant one. You live in Eagle Road, don't you?"

"I lodge there," I said.

We were driving down Poplar Avenue. From a big house to our left came a blaze of light and music. There was a gate half open in the high wall; I caught a glimpse of water and a white platform. "My God," I said, "a swimming pool."

"That's where Sue Brown lives," Alice said. "It's her birthday party tonight."

"How nice for them," I said. "I expect Jack's a guest. If I may refer to him with such familiarity."

Alice didn't seem to have heard me. "Turn down to the left here," she said. We went down a narrow road and into a little square. The houses were smaller in this quarter: the big house at the top of the road was the last outpost of the world of private swimming pools and poplars and the new M.G.'s. The working-class area by the station extended farther than I'd thought, coming between Poplar Avenue and the smoke of the valley like a shield. A narrow flight of stone steps led up from the square into a ruler-straight street of millstone grit. The St. Clair was down an alley at the end nearest to the square.

As Alice had said, it was dark and smelled of beef and tapers. The little room behind the bar was empty except for two old men huddled round the fire. There were two old prints of Warley hanging on the walls, and a photograph of a house with its roof blown off by the whirlwind of 1888. The space left uncovered was occupied by glittering horse brasses and warming pans. The seats which ran round the walls were leather upholstered and well padded.

Alice looked round her with satisfaction. "This is what I call a snug," she said. "So damned cosy it's almost sinister."

The landlord, a thin grey-haired man, shuffled in, "Good evening, Mrs. Aisgill. Good evening, sir. What can I get you?"

"Try the Old," Alice said. "It's real beer, isn't it, Bert?"

"A lovely drink, Mrs. Aisgill," he said in his deep lugubrious voice. "A beautiful beer."

It was in fact very good beer, dark and sweet and smooth. It was warm and restful in the Snug and I liked being with Alice; I didn't feel any necessity to make love to her, and consequently had no fear of rejection. I gave her a cigarette. When I'm on edge I somehow forget to smoke; it was my first cigarette that evening and the tobacco tasted pleasantly strong, a hair's-breadth from being acrid, which is how I like it best.

"Look, Joe," Alice said. "We're going to be working together, so we ought to get everything straight between us. For God's sake take that chip off your shoulder. I didn't like telling you when the others were around - but you were bloody offensive to me. Have you got an inferiority complex, or what?"

"No," I muttered.

"What is it?"

"I thought you were coming the Lady of the Mansion over me, that's all. My father didn't own an engineering works or a mill but that doesn't mean that I've never read anything or that I can't drive a car." I was aware that this wasn't an adequate explanation; for I wasn't really angry with Alice at all.

"But Joe dear," she said, "who cares about these things? I don't. The Thompsons don't. Eva doesn't - " She frowned. "It's Eva, isn't it? She leads young men on and then she turns prim and proper on them. She's a born teaser, she'll never change. You know, it wouldn't at all surprise me if - no, I'd better not say it."

I ordered more beer. "Now you've begun, you'd better finish."

"It wouldn't surprise me if she told Bob about her young men's antics. They're cold fishes, both of them. You didn't take her seriously, did you?"

"It depends on what you mean by seriously."

"The same thing as you mean, honey."

"My God, no. Not for one moment." I laughed. "What a big fool I must have seemed." Then I remembered my main grievance. "Jack Wales," I said. "Patronising me, talking about the Officers' Mess, forgetting my name when I speak to him ..."

"He'll be back at the University soon," she said. "Besides that's not why you're angry with him. He's staked out a claim to Susan. That's why, isn't it?"

I didn't answer. I was wondering just how we'd reached this stage. I was talking with her as freely as I would with Charles; the realisation was rather disconcerting.

"Isn't that why?" she repeated.

"All right. That's why. Plain jealousy. It's as if people like him take everything worth having by a sort of divine right. I've seen it too often."

"I could hit you," she said. "She's not engaged to him, is she? You're not married yourself, are you? Or are you frightened of him? Why don't you phone the girl and ask her to go out with you?"

"I never thought of that," I said weakly.

"You'd rather feel sorry for yourself," she said. "Instead of doing something about it, you're just lying down. Perhaps you feel Jack's superior to you?"

"No," I said. "It wouldn't matter anyway - whether or not he were superior, I mean - if she wanted him. I have a feeling that she doesn't. She's got used to having him around, that's all ... I know she could be interested in me. That's what's so damned annoying. I suppose you think I'm conceited."

"No," she said. "Young and terribly inexperienced. If that's what you truly feel about her, straightaway and instinctively, then you must be right."

The belief in intuition isn't exclusively my property but to hear her expressing it made me feel that I could hide nothing from her.

I looked at my empty glass. "I can't drink in halves," I said, and fished in my pocket for money.

"Let me get it, will you?" Alice said.

"I can afford it - "

She held up her hand to silence me. "No. I won't argue. I always pay for my own. I learned that in Rep a long time ago."

"But I'm not in Rep."

"Oh shut up. I don't care if you're the Borough Treasurer, I don't care if you own the bloody pub. I'm independent, I can afford to pay for my own. See?"

I took the money and ordered the drinks. I was glad of it, to tell the truth, because the Old cost two shillings a pint and at the rate we were drinking it would have meant at least nine bob's worth before the evening was out. I had eight hundred in the bank, this mostly being my parent's insurance and my accumulated pay from Stalag 1000. But I never touched it; I wasn't likely to acquire so much money so quickly again. I lived on my salary; and it didn't allow for casual expenditures of nearly ten bob.

I looked at Alice with affection. "Would you like some potato crisps, love?"

"Yes, please. They've Smith's on Mondays. Ask him for some salt, will you? I can never find those beastly little blue packets."

"I like salty things with beer," I said. "Pickled onions and fat pork are best, though."

She grinned at me. It was a companionable grin with no sex behind it. "Me too. I've low tastes. What's more, I can drink as much beer as you."

"I'll take you up on that."

"I'll hold you to it. I was brought up on beer but all the men I seem to meet drink whisky and gin. They think I'm joking when I say I like beer and I get gassy bottled stuff and lager."

The Old was stronger than I'd thought; halfway through my third pint a warm rush of affection came over me.

"I'll tell you something, Alice. I like you. I don't mean sex, I mean I like you . I can talk with you like a man. I can tell you things - Oh Lord, what a lot of I's ..." I took another swig of beer and then crunched a mouthful of the crisps.

"I like you too," she said. "You look about eighteen at times, do you know that?"

We stayed till closing time and then she drove me home. It wasn't until I was in bed that I realised that I'd never told any woman as much about myself - not only that, but I hadn't any fears of having said too much, of having made a fool of myself. The pillow smelled faintly of lavender; it reminded me of something. It was her scent, cool as clean linen, friendly as beer; I went off to sleep without knowing it, into a dream in which I was riding in the Fiat with her, the car skidding wildly round fantastic bends in a country a mixture of Lincolnshire and Prussia; then she was Susan, her eyes shining, her face distorted with pleasure, and suddenly I was lost in the wild open country, sand and pines and heather, calling out not Susan's name but Alice's, and then I was awake in my room at Oak Crescent looking at the Medici reproduction of Olympe, smooth and white and lovely, and well aware of it: the picture grew in size until it covered the whole wall and I put my hands over my eyes and tried to scream and found myself awake in Warley to the alarm clock ringing and the sound of bacon frying in the kitchen.