Night Over Water - Ken Follett [26]
Rebecca was sullen tonight. She was discontented about something. Perhaps after seeing Harry regularly for three weeks, she was wondering why he still had not attempted to “go too far,” by which she would mean touching her breasts. The truth was he could not pretend to lust after her. He could charm her, romance her, make her laugh, and make her love him; but he could not desire her. On one excruciating occasion, he had found himself in a hayloft with a skinny, depressed girl set on losing her virginity, and he had tried to force himself; but his body had refused to cooperate, and he still squirmed with embarrassment every time he thought of it.
His sexual experience, such as it was, was mostly with girls of his own class, and none of those relationships had lasted. He had had just one deeply satisfying love affair. At the age of eighteen he had been shamelessly picked up in Bond Street by an older woman, the bored wife of a busy solicitor, and they had been lovers for two years. He had learned a lot from her—about making love, which she taught him enthusiastically; about upper-class manners, which he picked up surreptitiously; and about poetry, which they read and discussed in bed together. Harry had been deeply fond of her. She ended the affair instantly and brutally when her husband found out that she had a lover (he never knew who). Since then, Harry had seen them both several times: the woman always looked at him as if he were not there. Harry found this cruel. She had meant a lot to him, and she had seemed to care for him. Was she strong-willed, or just heartless? He would probably never know.
The champagne and the good food were not lifting Harry’s spirits or Rebecca’s. He began to feel restless. He had been planning to drop her gently after tonight, but suddenly he could not bear the thought of spending even the rest of this evening with her. He wished he had not wasted money on dinner for her. He looked at her grumpy face, bare of makeup and squashed beneath a silly little hat with a feather, and he began to hate her.
When they had finished dessert, he ordered coffee and went to the bathroom. The cloakroom was right next to the men’s room, near the exit door, and not visible from their table. Harry was seized by an irresistible impulse. He got his hat, tipped the cloakroom attendant, and slipped out of the restaurant.
It was a mild night. The blackout made it very dark, but Harry knew the West End well, and there were traffic lights to navigate by, plus the sparing glow of car side lights. He felt as if he had been let out of school. He had got rid of Rebecca, saved himself seven or eight pounds and given himself a night off, all in one inspired stroke.
The theaters, cinemas and dance halls had been closed by the government, “until the scale of the German attack upon Britain has been judged,” they said. But nightclubs always operated on the fringe of the law and there were still plenty open if you knew where to look. Soon Harry was making himself comfortable at a table in a cellar in Soho, sipping whiskey and listening to a first-rate American jazz band and toying with the idea of making a play for the cigarette girl.
He was still thinking about it when Rebecca’s brother came in.
The following morning he sat in a cell in the basement underneath the courthouse, depressed and remorseful, waiting to be taken before the magistrates. He was in deep trouble.
Walking out of the restaurant like that had been bloody silly. Rebecca was not the type to swallow her pride and pay the bill quietly. She had made a fuss, the manager had called the police, her family had been dragged in.... It was just the kind of furor Harry was normally very careful to avoid. Even so, he would have got away with it, had it not been for the incredible bad luck of running into Rebecca’s brother a couple of hours later.
He was in a large cell with fifteen or twenty other prisoners, who would be brought before the Bench this morning. There were no windows, and the room was full of cigarette smoke. Harry would not be tried today: this