The Slaves of Solitude (7 page)

‘Her’ American, then . . . But to what extent hers? And in what exact meaning of the word? That remained an enigma. Lieutenant Dayton Pike remained an enigma. He had begun as such,
and he remained so.

She had soon learned that he was not as shy as he had appeared that night in the dining-room with his friend.

The next night she had caught an early train from London and had entered the Rosamund Tea Rooms at about six o’clock. He was coming down the stairs. ‘Good evening,’ he said,
and grinned at her in the dim light of the hall. She smiled back, and said ‘Good evening,’ and went on up the stairs. But he called her back.

‘Say,’ he said, speaking in a low voice (the dimness of the light somehow caused one to speak in a low voice). ‘Are you coming round the corner?’

She did not get his meaning. ‘Corner?’ she said. ‘What corner?’

‘The Sun?’ he said. ‘Or whatever it’s called? They open up at six, don’t they?’

She now saw that he was inviting her to go with him to the public-house – the River Sun. She was taken aback, and said ‘Well, I don’t know . . . I was going upstairs to tidy
up.’

‘Aw,’ he said. ‘Come on. You can tidy up round there – can’t you?’

‘Well . . .’ she said, and ‘Aw,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ And a moment later she was out in the blackness with him.

He guessed it was ‘kind of a dark night’, and he took her arm in the most natural way as they crossed the road. With equal naturalness he failed to relinquish her arm as they walked
along on the other side. He asked her if she worked in London and she said that she did. She was completely bewildered and taken aback. She was too stunned to react to the situation or the man in
any way, favourably or unfavourably. She was conscious, however, of a slight feeling of pleasure, pleasure at having the monotony of her evening blown to smithereens in this way, and at the thought
of the minor tumult which this would cause in the boarding-house when it got to hear of it – the tumult, in particular, in the breast of Mr. Thwaites, who was no doubt at this moment
complacently awaiting her return and booming away in the Lounge. She was also pleasantly conscious of the bigness of the man who held her arm in the dark. Finally she was conscious that the man,
without being drunk, had been drinking during the afternoon.

They went into the bright Saloon Lounge of the River Sun and took a seat at a table in a corner near the fire. She asked for a small gin and french, and he went to the bar. He returned with a
large gin and french and a large whisky and soda for himself. She now had a chance to look at him. He was big and broad in his uniform, and wore large spectacles. He had a fresh brown complexion,
and at moments she thought that he was under forty and at moments she thought that he was over this age. His complexion, like her own, was at the moment glowing, with the cold weather. His eyes
were slightly bloodshot, and at moments she thought that this was due to the cold, and at moments she thought that this was due to his drinking alcohol regularly and heavily. He had gorgeous
American teeth in a warm, broad American grin. He talked nineteen to the dozen.

Soon enough her heart, in occult collusion with the gin and french inside her, began to warm towards him, and she was aware of relaxing and enjoying herself whole-heartedly. The Rosamund Tea
Rooms were mentioned, and he asked what the hell sort of a joint that was anyway? He just couldn’t get the hang of it. This attitude delighted her. She said that if it came to that, she
couldn’t get the hang of it either, though she had been there more than a year. She explained that she had been bombed out of London, and that that was why she was living down here. He said
he guessed that must have been pretty tough, and he looked at her with considerable awe and naivety. She felt a sudden, delightful, modest, gin and french pride in her experience as a 1940
Londoner. He said that he and his friend were billeted next door to the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and that they had come to an arrangement with Mrs. Payne to use the Lounge and have their evening meal
there. They had thought it would be convenient, being next door, but they weren’t so sold on the idea now. He asked who was this Thwaites guy? He talked enough for five or six, didn’t
he? She said he did, indeed.

He asked her if she was going to have the same again, and she said she really didn’t think she ought to have any more – that had been a big one. He told her not to start that sort of
thing, and she said well then, she would, but a small one this time. As he went to the bar she found herself glowing through and through. Very little alcoholic spirit was required to cause Miss
Roach to glow through and through.

He returned with a large gin and french and a large whisky and soda for himself. They continued to discuss the Rosamund Tea Rooms. She enlarged upon its many obscure evils, glooms, oddities, and
inconveniences, and glowed more and more. He asked her questions and listened sympathetically and agreed. It was as though they had then and there resolved to found an anti-Rosamund Tea Rooms
society, and were exhilaratedly rushing through its first rebellious motions.

She was now hardly capable of glowing more brightly within, but something he said made her do so. He said that, in spite of his dislike of the place, he had ‘spotted her first thing’
and that he had ‘made up his mind to meet up with her’. She was to think about this for many days to come. Indeed she was, really, to think about little else.

Then, all at once, everything went bad. His friend, Lieutenant Lummis, entered with two girls, and the tête-à-tête was transformed into an awkward yet noisy party of five.
Miss Roach knew the two girls well by sight in the town: they worked in shops, and were not, as one’s mother would have said, ‘in her class’, and the meeting was therefore, from
this point of view, ‘embarrassing’. Moreover, Lieutenant Lummis was drunk, and insisted upon buying her another large gin and french. This she hated, for she was already feeling giddy,
hungry, and unhappy, but courtesy enforced her to drink it – courtesy, along with a deep-seated hatred of waste of money which Miss Roach’s simple upbringing and lack of experience
completely disabled her from overcoming. Also the two girls, conscious of the conventions which would have existed for Miss Roach’s mother, were on the defensive, and would not talk to her,
or even look at her, properly. They were voluble enough with the two Americans, however, and if Lieutenant Pike talked nineteen, Lieutenant Lummis talked ninety-nine to the dozen.

She was, in fact, almost completely left out of it, and her sole desire was to go home. Like a child anguishing to get down from table, she remained silent amidst the noise, and watched their
faces, seeking an excuse to depart, and a moment to make her excuse. ‘Well, I must be off,’ she tried, but no one heard her, and three or four minutes passed before she had an
opportunity of trying again . . . ‘Well, I really must be off,’ she said, and touched Lieutenant Pike’s arm. ‘Aw – don’t be silly,’ he said, without
looking at her. ‘What’re you all having?’ ‘No – this is me,’ said Lieutenant Lummis, rising insecurely. ‘What’s it to be, folks?’

But the idea of being made to drink any more now put her into a kind of panic, and this brought her to her feet. ‘No – I really must go,’ she said. ‘I’m awfully
sorry – I must go.’ The two men jeered at her, and Lieutenant Pike tried physically to force her down into her seat. But, while hiding her hideous embarrassment and feigning to be
amused, she managed to remain standing, saying ‘No . . . no! . . . I really must go. I’m awfully sorry. I must go. Really! . . .’

Then there was an awkward, one might almost say a nasty, silence – the panic in her breast having been made manifest to the company. She saw the two girls staring at her, crudely and with
a sour expressionlessness. Lieutenant Pike had the grace to rise and say ‘Well – if you must . . .’ ‘Yes, I really must,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much. Good
night! And thanks so much!’

The two men said ‘Good night’ cordially enough. The two girls said nothing. She was out in the street, stumbling along in the blackness back to the Rosamund Tea Rooms. She was aware
of an involuntary swaying in her walk, and in front of her eyes was a vision of Lieutenant Pike’s face as he had said ‘Good night’ – his look of disappointment, of
embarrassment, and, almost certainly, of contempt. All the sudden delight and triumph had gone out of the evening, and she was more alone than ever. She had thought to score off the Rosamund Tea
Rooms, but the Rosamund Tea Rooms had scored off her. She had to go back to the boarding-house now with her tail between her legs. She knew that those four back there were at this moment talking
about her adversely or scornfully. She had no place in either environment, and she was alone in the world. She was, in fact, completely upset, and she fervently wished the thing had never happened.
She was resentful towards the man for having upset her like this, and for having made her drink too much.

By the way she
had
drunk too much, too, and she had better look out. She was late for dinner as well – ten minutes late. Did she dare go in, ten minutes late and having drunk too
much?

She washed hurriedly in her dim pink bedroom, and decided she was able to brazen it out. No sooner had she entered the dining-room, and taken her seat at the table, than she decided that she had
made a mistake. She said ‘Good evening’ to a floating Mrs. Barratt and Mr. Thwaites, and she heard them say ‘Good evening’ back. She saw that they were well into the middle
of the main dish, which was fish, and Sheila at once put some tepid soup in front of her. She stared at her soup as she ate it, and no one spoke. She waited for someone to speak, but still no one
did so. Why? What was the matter? Was it because they knew she was drunk, because they were too appalled by her behaviour to speak? When Sheila replaced her soup with the fish, she looked up to see
if they were looking at her. They were not. They were looking at nothing and not speaking.

Not a word was uttered throughout the meal. If Mr. Thwaites was not in a talking mood, such a thing was by no means unknown at the Rosamund Tea Rooms at dinner, but nothing could convince her
that there was not some graver meaning behind the silence of the dining-room tonight. At last Miss Steele stole from the room with her
Life of Katherine Parr.
The others followed her one by
one. Sheila put some jam tart in front of her and she was left alone, and as it were in disgrace, to eat it.

She went straight up to her room. Then she went to the bathroom and turned on a bath. She began to feel better, and stayed a long while in the hot water.

2

She slept well, but awoke at six, and could not go to sleep again. She reviewed the evening before dispassionately. She saw it in hues less black than those in which it
had been steeped last night, but she still thought ill of it, and still had a feeling of having been, in a rather unfair way, upset.

She surprised herself saying to herself, with an air of resignation, that ‘that was the end of that, anyway’, and she asked herself what she meant by this. What was the end of what?
Had anything begun, which had now ended?

She sought carefully for a solution to this problem, and found it in his remark that he had ‘spotted her first thing and made up his mind to meet up with her’. Most odd. Well, he
would certainly have no further ambition to meet up with her now. Because of her general maladroitness, of her inability to drink, and of the arrival on the scene of those two girls, the whole
thing had been bungled and was at an end.

The day was Saturday, and she did not have to go to London. In the morning she did some shopping in the town and succeeded, for the most part, in putting yesterday evening from her mind. She
did, however, occasionally wonder what kind of night Lieutenant Pike had had after she had left him, and at what hour and in what place it had ended.

In the afternoon, coming in late to tea in the Lounge, she found Lieutenant Pike seated on the settee and in conversation with Mr. Thwaites. Mrs. Barratt and Miss Steele were also present. He
rose as she entered, cup in hand, and smiled at her. Then he sat down and went on talking to Mr. Thwaites.

American and British institutions and customs were being compared and contrasted, and Lieutenant Pike, in the matter of words per minute, was more than holding his own with the tyrant. This
pleased her a good deal. She realised that they were both, in their different ways, insurmountable talkers, but the Lieutenant, in a combat of this sort, had the power of youth, together with the
gift and tradition in loquacity peculiar to his nation, on his side.

They talked until a quarter to six, and then Mr. Thwaites left the room in a sardonic temper and disliking the United States of America more than usual. By this time Mrs. Barratt and Miss Steele
had also gone, and she was left alone in the Lounge with Lieutenant Pike. ‘Well,’ he said, rising and smiling at her again, ‘it’s just about time you and I went for a walk,
isn’t it?’

She had no difficulty in seeing that by this he meant that it was just about time that the public-houses were opening their doors, and although she was not certain that she was going to accept
his invitation, she felt a lift of pleasure and relief. So it was not ‘all over’, after all!

‘Is it?’ she said, and a few minutes later he was holding her arm as they steered a course along the black street in the direction of the River Sun.

3

She begged him to make her gin and french a small one, and this time he did as she wished. This improved her opinion of him. She noticed that he was faithful to a large
whisky and soda for himself. She asked him how they had all got on last night, and he groaned deeply and raised his eyes to heaven – thus indicating that he had drunk to excess and now
bitterly repented it. She asked him about the two girls, and he said, casually, oh, they had faded out soon after her. At once her heart, in the same occult collusion with the gin and french as had
come into being the night before, began to glow. He was now definitely on her side against yesterday evening, as yesterday evening he had been on her side against the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and the
same warm, exhilarating atmosphere began to prevail.