The Slaves of Solitude (14 page)

On such unfortunate days, standing alone at the bar sipping his self-bought beer, furtively watching all that was taking place, silent, embarrassed, self-conscious, compelled in the last resort
to read a newspaper, or even take a letter out of his pocket and pretend to be reconsidering its contents, Mr. Prest would suffer a far keener sense of disappointment than on the days when the
members of his circle failed to put in an appearance at all. Nor did he have the character to remedy this state of affairs. Too proud to ‘butt in’ anywhere, because obsessed, in secret,
by an ever-present fear of being ‘out of it’ and ‘not wanted’ nowadays, he stood there miserably, unable fully to believe that his solitude in the crowd was an entirely
fortuitous matter, though in fact for the most part it was. Sometimes, after hanging on for an hour or more in this way, he would drink up his beer and go out into the street without a word to
anyone, lunch by himself, and, after a visit to the pictures, take a train home early in the evening, occasionally catching the same train and sitting in the same compartment as Miss Roach, who
would observe him curiously, as he sat opposite reading his newspaper or looking out of the window, and sense something of his sadness and disappointment, in his smart lounge suit and overcoat.

But on such evenings he would never dine at the Rosamund Tea Rooms: that, crowning his failure during the day to enjoy himself as he had hoped, would have been asking him to bear too much.
Instead he went the round of his favourite locals, had a sandwich at a bar, and went to bed early.

3

The next day the ex-comedian would be in his tweed suit at breakfast, and his normal life would be resumed.

This varied hardly at all. After a short walk round the town to buy a newspaper, or to see the times of showing at the local cinema, he would go to a garage in Church Street, where he kept a
bicycle, and cycle to the local golf-course about three-quarters of a mile away. Here he played golf for two hours by himself, carefully avoiding all other players, of whom there were practically
none at this time of year, going to the loneliest part of the course, playing with several balls and giving the impression, to the club secretary, the club professional, and the greenkeeper, of
being slightly off his head. In fact, his sanity on this matter would not be too demonstrably easy to defend. Having, in the past, played games of golf on non-matinee days with his associates on
provincial golf-courses all over the country, and having acquired then the naive and dangerous belief that he required only continuous practice to become a good player, he had resolved to devote
the leisure of his retirement to the pursuit of this end, and later to astonish his opponents. Now, after seven years of intense mental labour and daily concentration, his opponents would have
remained unastonished.

Though obscurely aware of this, his naivety and freshness of belief remained unabated. Also, having the treacherous faculty, at certain intervals, of being able to hit the ball squarely off the
middle of the club-head four or five times in succession, Mr. Prest would exhibit the curious caution (the caution of a madman) of packing up his clubs and going home only when such an interval had
just occurred and remained unmarred by disaster, and thus enable himself during the rest of the day to embrace the pleasant belief that he had at last alighted upon the simple explanation of golf
which had by the merest chance eluded him for so many years.

Alone in the distance, lost in the wind, this obsessed figure, requiring, really, the pen of a Wordsworth to suggest the quality of its mystery and solitude, could be seen on the course each
morning, hitting ball after ball, keeping its head down, examining its own methods, observing its own swing half-way through, and watching results with misery or triumph, until about a quarter past
twelve.

Then Mr. Prest, having again at the last moment snatched light and faith from chaos and gloom by a process of mental self-deception which a child would scorn to use, would return with his clubs
to the professional’s shop and cycle home.

Having washed and changed his shoes at the Rosamund Tea Rooms, Mr. Prest would now go out and drink beer, come in as much as ten minutes late for lunch, after which, still avoiding the Lounge
and the company of others, he would go to his bedroom, fail to appear for tea, and not be seen again until dinner-time.

The guests, haunted and faintly depressed, in spite of themselves, by this odd and independent personality, often wondered what he did in his bedroom during the long afternoon. Actually, having
locked the door, he promptly removed his coat and trousers, lit the gas-fire, got into bed, read a Western story (a form of literature in which he was erudite), and went to sleep.

Sometimes, when he heard the gong for tea being hit below, he would get up and go out and have tea at a neighbouring confectioner’s: but usually he would miss tea altogether, preferring to
lie on in bed, dozing, or (as darkness gathered outside, and the gas-fire, slowly making its presence and individuality felt, lit with a red and dramatic light the walls and ceiling) with open eyes
thinking gloomy thoughts.

At one minute to six, six being the hour at which the public-houses opened in Thames Lockdon, the guests would hear the click of the front door being shut and the sound of Mr. Prest’s
footsteps receding down the street.

This noise, just heard, signalised to them the beginning of the evening proper, the hope of in the not-too-distant future preparing themselves for dinner, of having dinner itself, and of Miss
Roach returning.

Without knowing it, the guests looked forward to Miss Roach’s safe return each night – perhaps because she was their only wayfarer and adventurer; perhaps because, in this capacity,
she might conceivably bring late and exciting news from the world of war and affairs; perhaps because, in their extreme of
ennui
, and regardless of her feelings, they even hoped to witness
and share in the excitement of a battle between herself and Mr. Thwaites. They liked Miss Roach, and admired the way she stood up to him.

CHAPTER SIX

1

S
OMETIMES
, during her week-ends down at Thames Lockdon, if there was a moon to light her, Miss Roach would take a walk
by herself between tea and dinner.

Walking along the tow-path the other side of the river for about half a mile, she would climb up into the fields and hills which lay to the north of the town, and stopping, perhaps at a stile or
gate, would look at the moon and listen carefully – would put her ear, as it were, to the keyhole of agricultural tranquillity, and eavesdrop.

At such moments the countryside, stealthily informing her of its immense size, would seem, of course, in grandeur, wildness and stillness, completely to dominate and submerge all things
appertaining to men and towns, and to reduce, in particular, to microscopic, thread-like smallness the railway-tracks by which these communicated with each other – the noise of the trains
thereon distantly falling on her straining ear like something less than minute rumblings in the enormous belly of the enormous supine organism enveloping her and everything. By this adjustment of
her sense of dimensions, Miss Roach’s spirit, bathed in moonlight, would be composed, consoled, and refreshed.

The train, on the other hand, which Miss Roach normally took down from London to Thames Lockdon, had opposite ideas. So far from being aware of its doll-like magnitude in the night, of being
diminished practically to the point of extinction by the surrounding void of fields, woods, and hills, it came crashing on, like a huge staggering bully, from station to station, lashing out right
and left at the night, on which the tables were turned, which was itself relegated to nothingness, and whose very stars had less importance in the eyes of the train than one of the sparks from the
funnel of its engine. In the same way Miss Roach’s attitude was completely reversed, and when at last she alighted at Thames Lockdon station, instead of feeling composed, consoled, and
refreshed, she was invariably filled with anxiety, apprehensiveness, and dejection.

2

The night was Wednesday, and Miss Roach walked down the platform. This was the ‘famous’ Wednesday, as she and Vicki Kugelmann had called it when they had met
in the town over the week-end – the Wednesday upon which Vicki was to enter the Rosamund Tea Rooms as her abode.

‘I shall be very shy,’ Vicki had said, and Miss Roach had promised her that they should embark upon the adventure together. Vicki was to meet her at the station, or, if the night was
too cold or the train was late, at the River Sun. Then, having had a drink, they were to get a taxi from the station, go to Vicki’s place to collect her luggage, and proceed to Church Street.

As Miss Roach walked down the platform she realised that she was not looking forward to all this, and would be glad when it was over.

Though the cold was not unduly severe, and the train scarcely unpunctual, there was no sign of Vicki at the barrier. A little surprised at this, and with a faint premonition of something faintly
unexpected having occurred, she followed the light of her torch round to the River Sun.

Here she was again surprised, in the first place because the saloon lounge, instead of being practically empty as it nearly always was at this time of night, was, owing to some obscure cause,
filled with people; and in the second place because a single rapid glance informed her that Vicki was not present, but that the Lieutenant was, and this in a corner in the company of one of the
shop-girls she had met previously.

She went to the bar with the attempted air of one who had neither seen nor been seen, but with the actual air of one who was fully aware that both these things had happened, and with two pink
gins in her hand managed to procure a table at the opposite end of the room from the one at which the Lieutenant sat.

She was next surprised by the length of time she had to wait for Vicki, who did not actually appear until ten minutes later. This was, apparently, to be an evening of surprises. While waiting
she indulged in  speculations, speculations of considerable depth, cynicism, and audacity, in regard to the Lieutenant and the shop-girl – even going so far as to wonder whether the
shop-girl, instead of herself, might not ultimately be destined to achieve the crown of Laundry queen, or, along with other candidates unknown to Miss Roach in the town, be secretly aspiring to
such an office. At the moment she felt curiously indifferent as to whether this was so or not.

When Vicki at last appeared she made no apology for being late, but by this Miss Roach, aware of personally carrying notions of punctuality to excess, did not permit herself to be in any way
annoyed.

They greeted each other with cordiality, but after this their conversation was a little forced and embarrassed in its gaiety. This, Miss Roach felt, was to a certain extent due to their both
knowing that this was the ‘famous’ evening, and that, although they would not admit it, something of a sharp ordeal lay ahead of them at the Rosamund Tea Rooms. It was also due,
however, to the fact that Vicki (unlike Miss Roach, who had her back to them) was so seated that she could see the Lieutenant and the shop-girl the other side of the room, and was continually
glancing over in that direction while answering Miss Roach in a slightly distracted way.

At last Miss Roach determined to break the ice by mentioning what she knew was on both their minds.

‘Well – are you all packed and ready round at your place?’ she said. ‘We must have another drink before we go.’

‘Ah no!’ said Vicki, with sudden vivacity, and almost as if surprised that Miss Roach did not know. ‘That is all right, my dear! I changed my mind. I went round there this
afternoon!’

‘What? Are you in there already?’

‘Yes indeed. I went round there this afternoon. I had a most interesting tea.’

‘Tea?’ said Miss Roach.

‘Yes,’ said Vicki. ‘Most interesting. I am now quite one of the circle, my dear!’

3

‘Oh well – that’s fine,’ said Miss Roach. ‘I’m glad you’ve got in.’ But this was not what she wanted to say, and, in the
pause that followed, if Vicki had looked carefully enough, which she made no attempt to do, she would have observed a thoughtful look in Miss Roach’s eye.

Miss Roach had had a premonition that this was to be an evening of surprises, but for this surprise, at this moment, she had not bargained. She was aware of being hurt. She was not sure that she
was not more than hurt. She was not sure, for a moment, that she was not angry, decidedly angry. It was not so much that Vicki Kugelmann had gone into the Rosamund Tea Rooms of her own accord:
that, taken by itself, she had presumably every right to do if it suited her convenience – though, in view of her pretended timidity and their friendly engagement to brave the perils of the
boarding-house together, it seemed a curiously inconsequent, independent, and perhaps insensitive thing to have done. It was, rather, the fact of her having done this taken in conjunction with
other facts which awakened Miss Roach’s annoyance – the fact that she had not turned up at the station to meet Miss Roach as she had promised, that she had arrived more than ten minutes
late at the River Sun, that she had made no apology for either of these things, and had finally sprung this news in the coolest manner possible after having spoken about other things, and after
having most irritatingly kept on casting surreptitious glances over at Miss Roach’s personal friend, the Lieutenant . . . It was the
coolness
of it all which surprised and irritated
Miss Roach most of all. So she had had tea with them all, had she? And now she was quite one of the circle, was she? What an extraordinary woman she was, and what an extraordinary capacity for
crushing Miss Roach’s aspirations as a fairy-godmother!

‘So you had tea – did you?’ said Miss Roach, if only in order to interrupt another surreptitious glance at the Lieutenant, and as amiably as she could. ‘Were they all
there?’

‘Yes. All there. Mrs. Barratt, Miss Steele, Mr. Thwaites . . .’