The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [120]
“End of the month,” he said, “we’re paid today.”
“How would you like it?”
“Oh, god … four pound notes and a pound in silver. Yes,” said Peter Rowe, as he watched, nodding his head, “time to go really wild this weekend.”
Paul tittered without looking at him, and then said, “Where can you go wild round here, I wonder?” very quietly, as he really didn’t want Susie to hear him.
“Hmm, yes, I take your point,” said Peter Rowe. Paul felt oddly conscious of at last having a personal conversation, as the other cashiers did with the customers they knew, and though he didn’t know Peter Rowe at all, he was very interested in the answer. “I always think there must be something going on, don’t you?” He received the money and slid the coins into a D-shaped leather purse he had. “Though in a little place like this, it may take some finding.” He smiled, with a flicker of eyebrows.
Paul heard himself saying, “Well, let me know!” Whatever this going wild entailed had only the vaguest form in his head, and his excitement was mixed with a feeling he was out of his depth.
“Okay, I will,” said Peter Rowe. As he crossed the Public Space he glanced in at Geoff again with another little flicker of comic surmise, which Paul felt in a horrified rush of understanding was meant as a sign to him too, and then looked back with a flash of a grin as he went out through the door.
On the way home Paul thought about Peter Rowe and wondered if he’d see him again straight away in the town. But most of the shops were shut and the pubs not yet open and a mood of premature vacancy had settled on the sun-raked length of Vale Street. He felt weary but restless, shut out from the normal play of a Friday night. All down the street, house-doors were protected by striped awnings, or stood open behind bead curtains to let in the air. He caught radio talk, music, a man raising his voice as he went into another room. The drapers and outfitters had covered their shop-windows with cellophane to keep the goods from bleaching in the sun. It was the sugary gold of the cellophane on a bottle of Lucozade, and changed all the clothes inside into unappealing greens and greys. On the tiny stage of Mews’ window a woman stepped forward, through the amber light, in a cotton frock, her blank face and pointed fingers raised in genteel animation; while a man stood dependably, in flannels and a cravat, with an endlessly patient smile. They had been like that all week, flies buzzing and dying at their feet, and would surely remain there till the season changed, when one day the peg-board screen behind would shift, and a living arm come groping through. Paul went on, glancing unhappily at his strolling reflection. In the chemists’ window there were those enormous tear-shaped bottles of murky liquid, blue, green or yellow, which must have some ancient symbolic function. Dim sediment gathered in them. He wondered what happened at a wild weekend—he saw Peter dancing to “Twist and Shout” with a roomful of friends from Oxford. Perhaps he was going to Oxford for the party; a preparatory school was hardly the place for a rave-up. He didn’t fancy Peter, he felt slightly threatened by him, and saw their friendship stirring suspicions in the bank. Already he seemed to be a week or two ahead.
After supper he went up to write his diary, but felt oddly reluctant to describe his own mood. He lay on the bed, staring. He wrote, “Mrs. Keeping came into the bank before lunch, but she totally ignored me, it was quite emb. Mr. K v cool too, and only said he hoped my hand was all right. Also Mrs. Jacobs took ages to realize who I was, though then she was reasonably friendly. She drew out £25. I don’t think she could remember my name, she referred to me as ‘our young man.’ ” Something about the clashing curtains and