The Furnished Room (7 page)

He had continued to frequent the cafés because the oddly assorted clientele had one thing in common: they were all misfits of one sort or another. Because of this fact, Baroness Tania, who drank methylated spirit, could share a table with Tom, who was a porter and wore British Railways uniform, with Dutchie, whose face bore the scar of a razor slash, and with an ageing young man named Flora who wore make-up and had tinted hair. And because they were all misfits they had not questioned Beckett.

He had first met Ilsa in one of the cafés. She had gone the rounds of cafés, coffee bars, pubs, and clubs in her student days, and presumably still did. This place, Mick's, was one of her regular haunts. The thought brought disgust like a bad taste in his mouth. He looked at his watch and saw that she was late.

An old man pushed past carrying a cup of tea. The pockets of his tattered raincoat were stuffed with bits of paper: newspaper-cuttings, cigarette-cartons, and paper bags. He sat down and started to count them into piles on the table.

Beckett shifted in his chair. The basement was claustrophobic. The crammed ashtray had overflowed on to the table, which depressed him.

The old man was joined by a younger man in seedy pinstripe. The younger man leaned forward to talk, emphasizing his points by jabbing the table with his forefinger. ‘… so I told him all he had to do was to be outside Cinerama at seven-thirty…..'

The old man nodded, not listening, slowly sorting his papers.

Beckett thought with a sudden sense of freedom that Ilsa was not coming. Then he went through the loose change in his pockets to see whether he had coins to phone her.

‘Who's the three Viennas?' The Greek assistant banged plates on to the counter and wiped his hands down his sides.

A student carried a tea with a bun balanced on the saucer. Trying to shove through the crowd, he knocked the old man's papers off the table.

The old man stooped, patiently retrieving them one by one.

The Baroness Tania entered. She was a shrivelled old crone, wearing a black satin dress hung with fringes and crystal beads. Her feet shuffled in unlaced plimsolls. She clutched a wool-embroidered bag filled with scavengings from dustbins.

Someone shouted: ‘A tea for Tania … Come and have a tea, ducks.'

Beckett caught a scrap of conversation from the next table. The girl: ‘Tell me what you are looking for.'

The boy, in beard and duffel coat: ‘I don't know. Perhaps I am looking for something to look for.'

‘... outside Cinerama, I told him. Just be there, I told him, that's all.…'

‘… Tania wants a tea….'

The man in the pin-stripe gave up talking of his appointment outside Cinerama. He swivelled his chair round, and tried to sell a camera to Silent.

Silent had a skull-shaped face. His eyes were unmatching, one being set higher than the other. His manner was generally rude and offensive. The other man accepted this because Silent was a cripple. They accepted his rudeness as a peculiarity of speech, like a foreign accent. He was now examining the camera closely, without speaking.

The pin-stripe man said: ‘It's a good one...'

Silent took the camera to pieces, putting the component parts on the table with the precision of a surgeon or a jeweller laying out instruments.

‘... made in Germany....'

Silent reassembled the camera with the same unhurried precision. He handed it back, and shook his head.

Beckett wondered whether it was true that Silent was a police informer. Everybody said he was. Not that this worried the customers of Mick's café, for they were too small to be worth shopping, and Silent was useful to them as a buyer of pilfered goods.

Silent beckoned him over, and asked in his hoarse voice: ‘You got your portable chess?'

‘Yes, but I haven't got time for a game now. I'm waiting for someone.'

‘Lend me the set, I want to work something out.'

Beckett's chess was in a cardboard box, much battered, and mended with Sellotape. The lid was held on by an elastic band. He lent it to Silent, who gave an ungracious grunt of thanks.

At nearly seven Ilsa arrived. She was wearing dark glasses, and a smart dress that contrasted sharply with the shabby clothes of the other customers. She posed for a moment in front of the Woodbine mirror, then immediately started to greet people. ‘Jimmy! How marvellous! It's been simply ages!' Then she went on to three girls in trousers and long, witch hair. ‘Hello, you three. Turning Les?'

‘Oh, Ilsa!' they chorused in shocked admiration, ‘you know we're not! You are awful!'

She passed on to beautiful Michael, who was viciously stabbing the air in the stomach with his flickknife.

‘Hello, Michael, how are you?'

‘Fab, dear, but dying for a cigarette. Oh, thanks. I suppose you can't introduce me to a rich Daddy who's a TV producer, can you? I've decided to become a teenage idol.'

‘I'll do my best to find one for you,' Ilsa said.

‘Or of course I might decide to be a ponce, and get some girl to work for me. Think, dear, I read in the paper about a ponce who made six hundred pounds a week, and lived in a Mayfair luxury flat. I mean, it's a well-known fact they make that amount of money. Would you like to work for me? You could have the flat, and I'd have one room in it. I'd have one wall painted black and the others white. Do you think that would look dramatic?'

‘Terribly. But why should I work to support you, you lazy little bastard?'

‘Well,
some
one's got to support me, dear. I mean, I don't want to work, or anything depressing like that, do I?'

A man called out: ‘Don't listen to him, Ilsa. Come and talk to me instead.'

Jealous, Beckett watched her extravagant gestures, her orange mouth laughing, and the admiration she caused. She had no interests, he thought. Only stimulants. Without excitement and attention she would be lifeless.

When she joined him, she said: ‘Sorry I'm late.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘I looked in at the Cellar Club on the way here, and honestly, you've no idea! Bob and George were dancing together, pretending to be queers. God, they were funny. Then we all raved off to the Prince of Wales for a drink.'

He said: ‘I don't know your friends.'

‘Well, I'll take you to the Cellar Club one evening and introduce you. You'll love them. They're the craziest people.'

‘Why are you wearing dark glasses?'

‘Because I've got a simply bloody hangover from last night.' She removed the glasses, dangling them by one stem. Without them she was unmasked, pale and ill.

He went to the counter to order. When he returned, she said: ‘The other evening a man took me out, and every café we entered I said I didn't like it and demanded to leave. After about the fifth café he was getting terribly embarrassed, and hungry of course. And finally I dragged him all round town to find the one café where I said I'd consider eating, and when we got to the door I said: “What are we doing here?” He said: “Well, we're going to have dinner.” “You may be going to have dinner,” I said, “but I'm going home. Goodbye.” And off I marched.'

‘Why do you do things like that?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I can't help being nasty to people if they're stupid and take it.' There was an empty American cigarette packet on the table. She pointed to it and said: ‘Yanks.'

‘Yes.'

‘I like Yank cigarettes.'

‘So do I.'

Beckett became aware that Silent was croaking angrily to him. He called to Silent: ‘What's the matter?'

The unmatching eyes glared. ‘The white bishop's broken.'

‘I know.'

‘Why don't you get a new set? How can you play with a broken piece?'

Beckett said goodhumouredly: ‘Yes, I must get a new set.'

Ilsa asked him without interest: ‘What was Silent talking about?'

‘He borrowed my peg-chess.'

‘Oh, I see.'

He asked her: ‘What have you been doing since we last met?'

‘When was that? Oh, at that mad party. Nothing much. At work, they're going to promote me from the typing pool to a secretarial job.'

He thought: Some man will have her sitting beside his desk, taking down his words on her shorthand pad.

Ilsa flicked ash across the table. ‘It'll be more money, which suits me.'

‘Yes.'

The food arrived, and they ate in silence. Ilsa, who was bored, demanded: ‘What are we going to do tonight?'

‘Do you feel like going to the cinema? There's a Western on at my local Odeon.'

‘Sounds all right.'

Silent was struggling to his feet between a friend and his crutch. The friend returned Beckett's chess before assisting Silent up the stairs.

Ilsa, watching, said: ‘Ugh, he isn't a man, he's only a ruined shell. I hope I commit suicide if ever I get into that state.'

‘He was a pilot and his plane crashed. A fate which is not likely to befall you.'

‘No, thanks.'

When they had eaten they climbed the stairs and emerged into the dusty heat of Charlotte Street. Ilsa stood on the pavement; a taut, nervous figure in her smart dress. She turned her head to ensure that her nylon seams were straight. ‘Well, what did you say we were going to do this evening?'

“The cinema. That's all right, isn't it?'

‘Oh yes, I'd forgotten. At least it might be cool there. This heat's exhausting.' In the open air she looked even more pale and drawn than she had done in the café. As they started to walk, she said: ‘It's a pity you don't know Bob and George. They're terrific people. Absolutely terrific. They kept us all in fits.'

‘Don't you get bored, always being with other people and never having any time by yourself?'

‘Heavens, no. I can't stand being alone. It's when I'm alone that I'm bored. I share a flat with Katey because I get the jitters if I'm on my own for more than five minutes.' She took his hand, and demanded: ‘What washed Polar white?'

It was their ITV game. He said: ‘One of the detergents?

Bliz or Swiz or something.'

‘Snow.'

‘Oh yes, Snow.'

‘What makes you lyrical, lovable you?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Sweet Song Shampoo. They have that ad about her being a social outcast; then she uses Sweet Song and a millionaire marries her because she is lyrical and lovable.'

Beckett thought, then asked: ‘What do the family jump for?'

‘Joy! The scrumpy, scrunchy, mm-m-mm breakfast food.'

‘Oh, you're too clever for me. You know them all.'

‘Sure. Friends wouldn't come to Mary's house until she switched to...?'

‘No?'

‘Fairy Godmother fabrics for curtains and loose covers.'

Beckett said: ‘I thought it was going to be that one where visitors shun her house because the lavatory smells.'

‘No, no. You mean the one where the tin of Kleenlav appears to her in a dream.'

Later, he told her about his conversation with Gash.

She said: ‘He sounds insane to me.'

‘So everybody says. But insanity isn't an absolute state. You are only insane in relation to the majority of people. For instance, we all hallucinate in our sleep; we call it dreaming. Everybody does it, it's normal, so we can dream and still be considered sane. But if we hallucinate when we're awake, we're in a minority and considered mad.'

Bored, Ilsa said: ‘Yes, I suppose you're right.'

‘It infuriates me when a sane man is defined as one who is perfectly adjusted to society. Suppose the society stinks? Is he supposed to adjust to it then?'

She said smartly: ‘Better disinfect it with Kleenlav.'

Then she caught his arm. ‘A tobacconist! Wait for me, will you? I must get some cigarettes.'

Waiting for her, he continued to think of Gash. Living as a hermit must produce some extreme mental state, even if it's only extreme boredom. Extremes. The human mind under stress, driven to its limits. Like testing an aeroplane under extreme climatic conditions. Normality is uninteresting. I am obsessed by the possibility of extremes.

He walked up and down past the shop window. I do nothing. I am not happy. I am not even particularly unhappy. I am empty. I do nothing. I merely kill time. Killing time is humanity's greatest sin. Boredom means not being in a state of grace.

They took the Tube at Tottenham Court Road. On the next seat was a mother and small child. The child tottered down the gangway on fat, unsteady legs, clutching at his cotton trousers.

The mother said: ‘Barry... now don't you be a nuisance.'

The child staggered towards them, his plump starfish hand outstretched.

Ilsa said without interest: ‘Cute kid.'

Beckett suddenly knew how she would be in ten years' time. She would no longer be a flame burning itself out. The sharp bone structure of her face would be blurred by softening flesh, and her slim body would have thickened. This hard-drinking, hard-living, desperately young product of the modern age would become a middle-class housewife. She would distract herself with bridge evenings, television evenings, coffee and chat in the High Street Tea Shoppe with women friends, and dances held by her husband's firm. She would cook Italian food because it was smart. From time to time, one of the neighbours would fall in love with her. She would use Family Planning because of buying a car and keeping her figure; but because of her female desire for maternity she would eventually have a child. The child would be as dull and ordinary as she was. This was the girl whom he loved.

When they left the cinema she said: ‘By the way, you couldn't do me a great favour, could you?'