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By Root 1181 0

and the second gin-and-tonic, as wildly drinkable as the first, had brought him to a state of grinning elation just touched by notes of worry and confusion. He’d been talking and telling himself not to talk, things he normally avoided saying, about his father’s plane being shot down, and his mother’s illness, and even his exploits at school, things that must have made him sound childish and simple. But no one had seemed to mind. Now he wondered if Mr. Keeping, who said very little, hadn’t thought him a fool—it was actually rather creepy of him to get Paul drunk and just sit there watching, with his unnerving smile. He imagined some sarcasm about it, in the office tomorrow. On the other hand, he felt he’d been quite a success with old Daphne Jacobs, who seemed grateful for a new listener, and he’d laughed and winced sympathetically at her stories without necessarily following them. He often found, when he concentrated really hard on what someone was saying, that nothing much went in. The intoxication was partly that of being in the home of people who knew writers, in this case quite famous ones. He was barely aware of Dudley Valance, but he quoted whole verses of Cecil Valance’s to the old lady, who smiled indulgently and then began to look slightly impatient. She had a soft uncanny light about her, somehow, from having been his lover—it turned out “Two Acres” had been written specifically for her. She told Paul about it quite frankly, over the second Gin and It (whatever It was), and Jenny had said, “I think Uncle Cecil’s poems are awfully imperialist, Granny,” which she pretended not to hear. In Vale Street he looked through the windows of the International Stores, closed and shadowy. Something shockingly sad caught at him—he was free, buoyant and squiffy, twenty-three years old, and he was entirely alone, with hours still before sunset and no one to share them with.

The way to his digs took him out of the town, past the closed and overgrown yards of the old goods station, past the new secondary modern school, hard and transparent in the evening sun. Then he crossed into Marlborough Gardens, which was a loop, or noose, with one exit on to the main road. From the pavement he saw people eating in kitchens, or finished already and out in the garden, mowing and watering. The houses were a strange economy that there wasn’t a word for, built in threes, two semis with the central house in common, like segments of a terrace. Mrs. Marsh at least had an end house, with a view behind on to a field of barley. Her husband was a coach-driver, with odd hours, taking a party up to London, or sometimes away overnight on a run to Bournemouth or the Isle of Wight. Now she was in the front room with the curtains pulled against the sun and the box blaring—it was the start of Z-Cars. She had a pleasant way of not bothering her lodger—she turned her head and nodded; in the kitchen there was a ham salad for him under a cloth, and a redirected letter with a note saying “This came for you, Mrs. Marsh.” Paul went upstairs two at a time, used the bathroom, which was where he felt most a stranger, among the couple’s shaving-soap and flannels, Mrs. Marsh’s other things in the cabinet. The bathroom had a frosted glass panel in the door, which showed if it was occupied at night, and made going to the lavatory especially seem audible and almost visible and even vaguely culpable. Paul’s designated bath nights were Tuesday and Thursday: so tonight! Saturdays the bank worked through till one, then he would be off on the bus to Wantage, and his first week of work here would be over.

After his supper he went back upstairs and got down his diary from the top of the wardrobe. He had hardly made his mark on the room—his slippers and dressing-gown, a few books he’d stuffed into his bag. He had the new Angus Wilson out of the library, and was getting through it in his own way, with a restless eye running ahead for the appearances of Marcus, the queer son, whose antics he pondered as if for portents or advice. He didn’t want to read this at home and risk his mother