Keep the Aspidistra Flying

The musical clock that was concealed somewhere in Modigliani’s interior struck ten.

‘Shall we shove off?’ said Gordon.

Ravelston’s eyes looked pleadingly, guiltily across the table. Let me share the bill! his eyes said. Gordon ignored him.

‘I vote we go to the Café Imperial,’ he said.

The bill failed to sober him. A little over two quid for the dinner, thirty bob for the wine. He did not let the others see the bill, of course, but they saw him paying. He threw four pound notes onto the waiter’s salver and said casually, ‘Keep the change.’ That left him with about ten bob besides the fiver. Ravelston was helping Rosemary on with her coat; as she saw Gordon throw the notes to the waiter her lips parted in dismay. She had had no idea that the dinner was going to cost anything like four pounds. It horrified her to see him throwing money about like that. Ravelston looked gloomy and disapproving. Gordon damned their eyes again. Why did they have to keep on worrying? He could afford it, couldn’t he? He still had that fiver. But by God, it wouldn’t be his fault if he got home with a penny left!

But outwardly he was quite sober, and much more subdued than he had been half an hour ago. ‘We’d better have a taxi to the Café Imperial,’ he said.

‘Oh, let’s walk!’ said Rosemary. ‘It’s only a step.’

‘No, we’ll have a taxi.’

They got into the taxi and were driven away, Gordon sitting next to Rosemary. He had half a mind to put his arm round her, in spite of Ravelston’s presence. But at that moment a swirl of cold night air came in at the window and blew against Gordon’s forehead. It gave him a shock. It was like one of those moments in the night when suddenly from deep sleep you are broad awake and full of some dreadful realisation—as that you are doomed to die, for instance, or that your life is a failure. For perhaps a minute he was cold sober. He knew all about himself and the awful folly he was committing—knew that he had squandered five pounds on utter foolishness and was now going to squander the other five that belonged to Julia. He had a fleeting but terribly vivid vision of Julia, with her thin face and her greying hair, in the cold of her dismal bed-sitting room. Poor, good Julia! Julia who had been sacrificed to him all her life, from whom he had borrowed pound after pound after pound; and now he hadn’t even the decency to keep her fiver intact! He recoiled from the thought; he fled back into his drunkenness as into a refuge. Quick, quick, we’re getting sober! Booze, more booze! Recapture that first fine careless rapture! Outside, the multi-coloured window of an Italian grocery, still open, swam towards them. He tapped sharply on the glass. The taxi drew up. Gordon began to climb out across Rosemary’s knees.

‘Where are you going, Gordon?’

‘To recapture that first fine careless rapture,’ said Gordon, on the pavement.

‘What?’

‘It’s time we laid in some more booze. The pubs’ll be shutting in half an hour.’

‘No, Gordon, no! You’re not to get anything more to drink. You’ve had quite enough already.’

‘Wait!’

He came out of the shop nursing a litre bottle of Chianti. The grocer had taken the cork out for him and put it in loosely again. The others had grasped now that he was drunk—that he must have been drinking before he met them. It made them both embarrassed. They went into the Café Imperial, but the chief thought in both their minds was to get Gordon away and to bed as quickly as possible. Rosemary whispered behind Gordon’s back, ‘Please don’t let him drink any more!’ Ravelston nodded gloomily. Gordon was marching ahead of them to a vacant table, not in the least troubled by the stares everyone was casting at the wine-bottle which he carried on his arm. They sat down and ordered coffee, and with some difficulty Ravelston restrained Gordon from ordering brandy as well. All of them were ill at ease. It was horrible in the great garish café, stuffily hot and deafeningly noisy with the jabber of several hundred voices, the clatter of plates and glasses and the intermittent squalling of the band. All three of them wanted to get away. Ravelston was still worrying about the expense, Rosemary was worried because Gordon was drunk, Gordon was restless and thirsty. He had wanted to come here, but he was no sooner here than he wanted to escape. Drunken half was clamouring for a bit of fun. And drunken half wasn’t going to be kept in check much longer. Beer, beer! cried drunken half. Gordon hated this stuffy place. He had visions of a pub taproom with great oozy barrels and quart pots topped with foam. He kept an eye on the clock. It was nearly half past ten and the pubs even in Westminster would shut at eleven. Mustn’t miss his beer! The bottle of wine was for afterwards, when the pubs were shut. Rosemary was sitting opposite him, talking to Ravelston, uncomfortably but with a sufficient pretence that she was enjoying herself and there was nothing the matter. They were still talking in a rather futile way about Shakespeare. Gordon hated Shakespeare. As he watched Rosemary talking there came over him a violent, perverse desire for her. She was leaning forward, her elbows on the table; he could see her small breasts clearly through her dress. It came to him with a kind of shock, a catch of the breath, which once again almost sobered him, that he had seen her naked. She was his girl! He could have her whenever he wanted her! And by God, he was going to have her tonight! Why not? It was a fitting end to the evening. They would find a place easily enough; there are plenty of hotels round Shaftesbury Avenue where they don’t ask questions if you can pay the bill. He still had his fiver. He felt for her foot under the table, meaning to imprint a delicate caress upon it, and only succeeded in treading on her toe. She drew her foot away from him.

‘Let’s get out of this,’ he said abruptly, and at once stood up.

‘Oh, let’s!’ said Rosemary with relief.

They were in Regent Street again. Down on the left Piccadilly Circus blazed, a horrible pool of light. Rosemary’s eyes turned towards the bus stop opposite.

‘It’s half past ten,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I’ve got to be back by eleven.’

‘Oh, rot! Let’s look for a decent pub. I mustn’t miss my beer.’

‘Oh, no, Gordon! No more pubs tonight. I couldn’t drink any more. Nor ought you.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Come this way.’

He took her by the arm and began to lead her down towards the bottom of Regent Street, holding her rather tight as though afraid she would escape. For the moment he had forgotten about Ravelston. Ravelston followed, wondering whether he ought to leave them to themselves or whether he ought to stay and keep an eye on Gordon. Rosemary hung back, not liking the way Gordon was pulling at her arm.

‘Where are you taking me, Gordon?’

‘Round the corner where it’s dark. I want to kiss you.’

‘I don’t think I want to be kissed.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘No!’

‘Yes!’

She let him take her. Ravelston waited on the corner by the Regent Palace, uncertain what to do. Gordon and Rosemary disappeared round the corner and were almost immediately in darker, narrower streets. The appalling faces of tarts, like skulls coated with pink powder, peered meaningly from several doorways. Rosemary shrank from them. Gordon was rather amused.

‘They think you’re one of them,’ he explained to her.

He stood his bottle on the pavement, carefully, against the wall, then suddenly seized her and twisted her backwards. He wanted her badly, and he did not want to waste time over preliminaries. He began to kiss her face all over, clumsily but very hard. She let him do it for a moment, but it frightened her; his face, so close to hers, looked pale, strange and distracted. He smelt very strongly of wine. She struggled, turning her face away so that he was only kissing her hair and neck.

‘Gordon, you mustn’t!’

‘Why mustn’t I?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you suppose I’m doing?’

He shoved her back against the wall, and with the careful, preoccupied movements of a drunken man, tried to undo the front of her dress. It was of a kind that did not undo, as it happened. This time she was angry. She struggled violently, fending his hand aside.

‘Gordon, stop that at once!’

‘Why?’

‘If you do it again I’ll smack your face.’

‘Smack my face! Don’t you come the Girl Guide with me.’

‘Let me go, will you!’

‘Think of last Sunday,’ he said lewdly.

‘Gordon, if you go on I’ll hit you, honestly I will.’

‘Not you.’

He thrust his hand right into the front of her dress. The movement was curiously brutal, as though she had been a stranger to him. She grasped that from the expression of his face. She was not Rosemary to him any longer, she was just a girl, a girl’s body. That was the thing that upset her. She struggled and managed to free herself from him. He came after her again and clutched her arm. She smacked his face as hard as she could and dodged neatly out of his reach.

‘What did you do that for?’ he said, feeling his cheek but not hurt by the blow.

‘I’m not going to stand that sort of thing. I’m going home. You’ll be different tomorrow.’

‘Rot! You come along with me. You’re going to bed with me.’

‘Good night!’ she said, and fled up the dark side-street.

For a moment he thought of following her, but found his legs too heavy. It did not seem worth while, anyway. He wandered back to where Ravelston was still waiting, looking moody and alone, partly because he was worried about Gordon and partly because he was trying not to notice two hopeful tarts who were on patrol just behind him. Gordon looked properly drunk, Ravelston thought. His hair was tumbling over his forehead, one side of his face was very pale and on the other there was a red smudge where Rosemary had slapped him. Ravelston thought this must be the flush of drunkenness.

‘What have you done with Rosemary?’ he said.

‘She’s gone,’ said Gordon, with a wave of his hand which was meant to explain everything. ‘But the night’s still young.’

‘Look here, Gordon, it’s time you were in bed.’

‘In bed, yes. But not alone.’

He stood on the kerb gazing out into the hideous midnight-noon. For a moment he felt quite deathly. His face was burning. His whole body had a dreadful, swollen, fiery feeling. His head in particular seemed on the point of bursting. Somehow the baleful light was bound up with his sensations. He watched the sky-signs flicking on and off, glaring red and blue, arrowing up and down—the awful, sinister glitter of a doomed civilisation, like the still blazing lights of a sinking ship. He caught Ravelston’s arm and made a gesture that comprehended the whole of Piccadilly Circus.

‘The lights down in hell will look just like that.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

Ravelston was looking out for a disengaged taxi. He must get Gordon home and to bed without further delay. Gordon wondered whether he was in joy or in agony. That burning, bursting feeling was dreadful. The sober half of him was not dead yet. Sober half still knew with ice-cold clarity what he had done and what he was doing. He had committed follies for which tomorrow he would feel like killing himself. He had squandered five pounds in senseless extravagance, he had robbed Julia, he had insulted Rosemary. And tomorrow—oh, tomorrow, we’ll be sober! Go home, go home! cried sober half. —— to you! said drunken half contemptuously. Drunken half was still clamouring for a bit of fun. And drunken half was the stronger. A fiery clock somewhere opposite caught his eye. Twenty to eleven. Quick, before the pubs are shut! Haro! la gorge m’ard! Once again his thoughts moved lyrically. He felt a hard round shape under his arm, discovered that it was the Chianti bottle, and tweaked out the cork. Ravelston was waving to a taxi-driver without managing to catch his eye. He heard a shocked squeal from the tarts behind. Turning, he saw with horror that Gordon had upended the bottle and was drinking from it.