He drove on down the pavement, the afternoon waning on his face.
She said: 'There was nothing... nothing I could marry you in, only this. I asked them for a little money. They wouldn't give it me. They'd a right. It was theirs.'
They walked a foot apart along the pavement. Her words scratched tentatively at the barrier like a bird's claws on the window pane: he could feel her all the time trying to get at him; even her humility seemed to him a trap. The crude quick ceremony was a claim on him. She didn't know the reason--she thought God save the mark he wanted her. He said roughly: 'You needn't think there's going to be a honeymoon.
That nonsense. I'm busy. I've got things to do. I've got...' He stopped and turned to her with a kind of scared appeal let this make no difference. 'I got to be away a lot.'
'I'll wait,' she said. He could already see the patience of the poor and the long-married working up under her skin like a second personality, a modest and shameless figure behind a transparency.
They came out onto the front, and evening stood back a pace; the sea dazzled the eyes--she watched it with pleasure as if it was a different sea. He said: 'What did your Dad say today?'
'He didn't say a thing. He'd got a mood.'
'And the old woman?'
'She had a mood too.'
'They took the money all right.'
They came to a halt on the front opposite the Cosmopolitan and under its enormous bulk moved a few inches closer. He remembered the page boy calling a name and Colleoni's gold cigarette case.... He said slowly and carefully, shutting uneasiness out: 'Well, we oughta be comfortable there.' He put a hand up to his withered tie, straightened his jacket, and set unconvincingly his narrow shoulders. 'Come on.'
She followed a pace behind, across the road, up the wide steps. Twa old ladies sat on the terrace in wicker chairs in the sun, wrapped round and round with veils--they had an absolute air of security j when they spoke they didn't look at each other, just quietly dropped their remarks into the understanding air.
'Now Willie...'
'I always liked Willie.' The Boy made an unnecessary noise coming up the steps.
He walked across the deep pile to the reception desk, Rose just behind him. There was nobody there.
He waited furiously it was a personal insult. A page called: 'Mr. Pinecoffin, Mr. Pinecoffin,' across the lounge. The Boy waited. A telephone rang. When the entrance door swung again they could hear one of the old ladies say: 'It was a great blow to Basil.' Then a man in a black coat appeared and said: 'Can I do anything for you?'
The Boy said furiously: 'I've been waiting Her [ 253 ] PAUT sir 'You could have touched the bell,' the clerk said coldly and opened a large register.
'I want a room,' the Boy said. 'A double room.'
The clerk stared past him at Rose, then turned a page. 'We haven't a room free,' he said.
'I don't mind what I pay,' the Boy said. 'I'll take a suite.'
'There's nothing vacant,' the clerk said without looking up.
The page boy returning with a salver paused and watched. The Boy said in a low furious voice: 'You can't keep me out of here. My money's as good as anybody else's....'
'No doubt,' the clerk said, 'but there happens to be no room free.' He turned his back and picked up a jar of Stickphast.
'Come on,' the Boy said to Rose, 'this gaff stinks.'
He strode back down the steps, past the old ladies, tears of humiliation pricked behind his eyes. He had an insane impulse to shout out to them all that they couldn't treat him like that, that he was a killer, he could kill men and not be caught. He wanted to boast.
He could afford that place as well as anyone: he had a car, a lawyer, two hundred pounds in the bank....
Rose said: 'If I'd had a ring...'
He said furiously: 'A ring... what sort of a ring?
We aren't married. Don't forget that. We aren't married.' But outside on the pavement he restrained himself with immense difficulty and remembered bitterly that he still had a part to play they couldn't make a wife give evidence, but nothing could prevent a wife except love, lust, he thought with sour horror, and turning back to her he unconvincingly apologised.
'They get me angry,' he said. 'You see I'd promised you '
'I don't care,' she said. Suddenly with wide astonished eyes she made the foolhardy claim: 'Nothing can spoil today.'
'We got to find somewhere,' he said.
'I don't mind where Billy's?'
'Not tonight,' he said. 'I don't want any of the boys around tonight.'
'We'll think of a place,' she said. 'It's not dark yet.'
These were the hours when the races were not on, when there was no one to see on business that he spent stretched on the bed at Billy's. He'd eat a packet of chocolate or a sausage roll, watch the sun shift from the chimney pots, fall asleep and wake and eat again and sleep with the dark coming in through the window. Then the boys would return with the evening papers and life would start again. Now he was at a loss: he didn't know how to spend so much time when he wasn't alone.
'One day,' she said, 'let's go into the country like we did that time....' Staring out to sea she planned ahead... he could see the years advancing before her eyes like the line of the tide.
'Anything you say,' he said.
'Let's go on the pier,' she said. 'I haven't been since we went that day you remember?'
'NorVe I,' he lied quickly and smoothly, thinking of the first time, Spicer, and the lightning on the sea the beginning of something of which he couldn't see the end. They went through the turnstile; there were a lot of people about; a row of anglers watched their floats in the thick green swell; the water moved under their feet.
'Do you know that girl?' Rose said. The Boy turned his head apathetically. 'Where?' he said. 'I don't know any girls in this place.'
'There,' Rose said. 'I bet she's talking about you.'
The fat stupid spotty face swam back into his memory, nuzzled the glass like some monstrous fish in the Aquarium dangerous a stingray from another ocean. Fred had spoken to her and he had come up to them upon the front; she'd given evidence he couldn't remember what she had said nothing important. Now she watched him, nudged her pasty girl friend, spoke of him, told he didn't know what lies.
Christ! he thought. Had he got to massacre a world?
'She knows you,' Rose said.
'I've never seen her,' he lied, walking on.
Rose said: 'It's wonderful being with you. Everyone knows you. I never thought I'd marry someone famous.'
Who next, he thought, who next? An angler drew back across their path to make his cast, whirling his line, dropped it far out; the float was caught in the cream of a wave and drove a line's length towards the shore. It was cold on the sunless side of the pier; on one side of the glass division it was day, on the other evening advanced. 'Let's cross over,' he said. He began to think again of Spicer's girl: why had he left her in the car? God damn it, after all, she knew the game.
Rose stopped him. 'Look,' she said, 'won't you give me one of those? As a souvenir. They don't cost much,' she said, 'only sixpence.' It was a small glass box like a telephone cabinet. 'Make a record of your own voice,' the legend ran.
'Come on,' he said. 'Don't be soft. What's the good of that?'
For the second time he came up against her sudden irresponsible resentment. She was soft, she was dumb, she was sentimental and then suddenly she was dangerous. About a hat, about a gramophone record. 'All right,' she said, 'go away. You've never given me a thing. Not even today you haven't. If you don't want me why don't you go away? Why don't you leave me alone?' People turned and looked at them at his acid and angry face, at her hopeless resentment. 'What do you want me for?' she cried at him.
'For Christ's sake...' he said.
'I'd rather drown,' she began, but he interrupted her: 'You can have your record.' He smiled nervously. 'I just thought you were crazy,' he said.
