‘What you wanted to do out there in the kitchen just now,’ she said, ‘I don’t mind. Only not now. I feel funny, it was a shock.’

He said, ‘Joyce,’ and started to come towards her.

‘No. I said not now. Not when he might come back.’

‘I’ll get rid of him for the whole evening tomorrow.’

‘Not tomorrow,’ said Joyce, putting off the evil day. ‘Monday.’

14

At the theatre Alan had chosen was a much-praised production of one of Shaw’s comedies. He had picked it because there wouldn’t be any bedroom scenes or sexy dialogue or four-letter words which would have embarrassed him in Rose’s company. But when he was at the box office he found that they only had upper circle seats left, and he couldn’t take a girl like Rose in the upper circle. All the other theatres round about seemed to be showing the kind of plays he had avoided in choosing You Never Can Tell, or Shakespeare which was too heavy or musicals which she might not like.

And then, suddenly, he knew he couldn’t face it at all. His cold feet were turning to ice. He couldn’t be alone with her in a restaurant, not knowing what to order or how to order or what wine to choose. He couldn’t bring her home in the dark, be alone with her in the back of a taxi, after they had seen a play in which people were naked or talked about, or even acted, sex. In the midst of his doubts, a happy thought came to him. When he had gone upstairs to ask Una Engstrand about the water-heater, he had considered inviting her and Caesar Locksley in for drinks on Saturday night. Why not do that? Why not ask her and Caesar and this Annie of his for drinks in his room and ask Rose too? It was a much better idea. Rose would see the home her kindness had secured for him, he wouldn’t have to be alone with her until he took her home – perhaps she had a car – and he would have the pleasure of creating an evening so different from those encounters with the Kitsons and the Heyshams, what a party should be with real conversation between people who liked each other and wanted to be together. And it would break the ice between him and Rose, it would make their next meeting easier for him.

Would drinks be enough or ought he to get food? He couldn’t cook. He thought of lettuce and sardines and madeira cake, of liver and bacon and sausages. It was hopeless. Drinks alone it would have to be, with some peanuts. Next to the wineshop where he bought Bristol Cream and some vermouth was a newsagent’s. The evening paper told him – it preceded Nigel’s by twenty-four hours – that the Sabena jet had come down in Cairo, the pay claim negotiations had reached deadlock, and Joyce Culver’s mother had been rushed to hospital in a coma. A cloud seemed to pass across him, dulling his happiness and the pale wintry sun. If Mrs Culver died, could anyone say it was his fault? No. If he had given the alarm and the police had chased Joyce’s kidnappers, who could tell what would have happened to her? They would have crashed the car or shot her. Everything went to prove that it was better to take no violent action with people like that. You had only to read what was being done in this aircraft hi-jack business. No threats or armed onslaughts like in that Entebbe affair where a woman had died, but submission to the hi-jackers to be followed by peaceful negotiation.

He met Una in the hall. He and Caesar had to use the front door because, long ago, Ambrose had had the basement door blocked up for fear of burglars. Even he, apparently, had some reservations when it came to reality. Una, an indefatigable housewife, was polishing a brass lamp. She had blackened her fingers with metal polish.

‘I’d love to come,’ she said when he told her of his party. ‘How sweet of you to ask me. Caesar’s gone to Annie’s for the weekend. He mostly does. But I’m sure he’ll bring her.’

‘Does she live in London then?’ He had only once been away for the weekend, and that had been to a cousin of Pam’s in Skegness, a visit involving days of feverish preparation.

‘Harrow or somewhere like that,’ said Una. ‘Not very far. I’ll ask him when he phones tonight, shall I?’ She added in her strange vague complex way, ‘He’s going to phone to find out if he’s had a call from someone who knows his number and he wants to talk to but he doesn’t know theirs. I’ll ask him but I know he’d love to.’

She was one of those people whose faces are transformed when they smile. She smiled now, and he thought with a little twinge of real pain for her that she was full of gaiety really, of life and fun and zest, only those qualities had been suppressed and nullified by the loathsome Stewart and the death of her child and perhaps too by the Neo-Empiricist.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘it will be very nice to drink some alcohol again. Ambrose doesn’t believe in it, you know, because it distorts the consciousness. Oh dear, I don’t suppose there’s a wineglass in the house.’

‘I’ll buy some glasses,’ said Alan. He went down to his room and put on his radio. There was nothing on the news about Mrs Culver. Some Sabena spokesman and some government minister had said they would do nothing to endanger the lives of the hi-jacked hostages.

That night he dreamed about Joyce. Caesar Locksley asked him if he found her attractive, and the implications of that question frightened him, so he hid from her in a cupboard where there was an immersion heater and lots of bottles of sherry and piles of books by Ambrose Engstrand. It was warm in there and safe, and even when he heard Joyce screaming he didn’t come out. Then he saw that the cupboard was really, or had grown into, a large room with many flights of stairs leading up and down and to the left and the right. He climbed one of these staircases and at the top found himself in a great chamber as in a medieval castle, and there fourteen armed knights awaited him with drawn swords.

The dream woke him up and kept him awake for a long time, so that in the morning he overslept. What awakened him then was a woman’s voice calling to someone named Paul. ‘Paul, Paul!’ It was a few minutes before he remembered that Paul was his own name, and understood that it must have been Una Engstrand calling him from outside his room. He thought a tapping had preceded the uttering of that unfamiliar name, but when he opened the door she was no longer there.

It was after half-past nine. While he was dressing he heard from above him the sound of the front door closing. She had gone out. Would she mind if he used her phone? Apparently, Caesar used it. He made himself tea and ate a piece of bread and butter and went upstairs to phone Rose at the Pembroke Market.

It was she who answered. ‘Why, hallo!’ The last syllable lingered seductively, a parabola of sound sinking to a sigh. He told her of his alternative plan.

‘I thought you were taking me out to dinner.’

He found himself stammering because the voice was no longer enticing. ‘I’ve asked these – these people. You’ll like them. There’s the man in the next room to me and my – my landlady. You’ll be able to see what a nice place this is.’

Very slowly, almost disbelievingly, she said, ‘You must be crazy. Or mean. I’m expected to come round and have drinks with your landlady? Thank you, but I’ve better things to do with my Saturday nights.’

The phone cut and the dialling tone began. He looked at the receiver and, bewildered, was putting it back when the front door opened and Una Engstrand came in.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have made a call without asking you. I’ll pay for it.’

‘Was it to Australia?’

‘No, why should it be? It was a local call.’

‘Then please don’t bother about paying. I said Australia because you couldn’t be phoning America, they’d all be asleep.’ He looked at her despairingly, understanding her no more than he had understood Rose, yet wishing Rose could have had this warmth, this zany openness. ‘Caesar didn’t phone till this morning,’ she said. ‘I knocked on your door and called you but you were asleep. He can’t come to your party, he’s going to another one with Annie. But I expect you’ve got lots of other people coming, haven’t you?’