‘Oh, Joanna — you must meet her.’
‘Tell me about the borrowing and lending of clothes.’
Jane pondered as to what she could barter for this information which he seemed to want. The party downstairs was going on without them. The bare boards under her feet and the patchy walls seemed to hold out no promise of becoming memorable by tomorrow. She said, ‘We’ve got to discuss your book some time. George and I’ve got a list of queries.’
Nicholas lolled on the unmade bed and casually thought he would probably have to plan some defence measures with George. His jam-jar was empty. He said, ‘Tell me more about Selina. What does she do apart from being secretary to a pansy?’
Jane was not sure how drunk she was, and could not bring herself to stand up, this being the test. She said, ‘Come to lunch on Sunday.’ Sunday lunch for a guest was two-and-sixpence extra; she felt she might be taken to more of these parties by Nicholas, among the inner circle of the poets of today; but she supposed he wanted to take Selina out, and that was that; she thought he would probably want to sleep with Selina, and as Selina had slept with two men already, Jane did not envisage any obstacle. It made her sad to think, as she did, that the whole rigmarole of his interest in the May of Teck Club, and the point of their sitting in this bleak room, was his desire to sleep with Selina. She said, ‘What bits would you say were the most important?’
‘What bits?’
‘Your book,’ she said.
‘It’s all important.’ He formed the plan immediately of forging a letter from someone crudely famous to say it was a work of genius. Not that he believed it to be so one way or the other, the idea of such an unspecific attribute as genius not being one on which his mind was accustomed to waste its time. However, he knew a useful word when he saw it, and, perceiving the trend of Jane’s question, made his plan. He said, ‘Tell me again that delightful thing Selina repeats about poise.’
‘Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate … Oh, Christ,’ she said, ‘I’m tired of picking crumbs of meat out of the shepherd’s pie, picking with a fork to get the little bits of meat separated from the little bits of potato. You don’t know what it’s like trying to eat enough to live on and at the same time avoid fats and carbohydrates.’
Nicholas kissed her tenderly. He felt there might be a sweetness in Jane, after all, for nothing reveals a secret sweetness so much as a personal point of misery bursting out of a phlegmatic creature.
Jane said, ‘I’ve got to feed my brain.’
He said he would try to get her a pair of nylon stockings from the American with whom he worked. Her legs were bare and dark-haired. There and then he gave her six clothing coupons out of his coupon book. He said she could have his next week’s egg. She said, ‘You need your egg for your brain.’
‘I have breakfast at the American canteen,’ he said. ‘We have eggs there, and orange juice:’
She said she would take his egg. The egg-ration was one a week at this time, it was the beginning of the hardest period of food-rationing, since the liberated countries had now to be supplied. Nicholas had a gas-ring in his bed-sitting room on which he cooked his supper when he was at home and remembered about supper. He said, ‘You can have all my tea, I drink coffee. I get it from the Americans.’
She said she would be glad of his tea. The tea-ration was two ounces one week and three ounces the next, alternately. Tea was useful for bartering purposes. She felt she would really have to take the author’s side, where Nicholas was concerned, and somehow hoodwink George. Nicholas was a true artist and had some feelings. George was only a publisher. She would have to put Nicholas wise to George’s fault-finding technique of business.
‘Let’s go down,’ Nicholas said.
The door opened and Rudi Bittesch stood watching them for a moment. Rudi was always sober.
‘Rudi!‘ said Jane with unusual enthusiasm. She was glad to be seen to know somebody in this milieu who had not been introduced by Nicholas. It was a way of showing that she belonged to it.
‘Well, well,’ Rudi said. ‘How are you doing these days, Nick, by the way?’
Nicholas said he was on loan to the Americans. Rudi laughed like a cynical uncle and said, himself he too could have worked for the Americans if he had wanted to sell out.
‘Sell out what?’ Nicholas said.
‘My integrity to work only for peace,’ said Rudi. ‘By the way, come and join the party and forget it.’
On the way down he said to Nicholas, ‘You’re publishing a book with Throvis-Mew? I hear this news by Jane.’
Jane said quickly, in case Rudi should reveal that he had already seen the book, ‘It’s a sort of anarchist book.’
Rudi said to Nicholas, ‘You still like anarchism, by the way?’
‘But not anarchists by and large, by the way,’ Nicholas said.
*
‘How has he died, by the way?’ said Rudi.
‘He was martyred, they say,’ said Jane.
‘In Haiti? How is this?’
‘I don’t know much, except what I get from the news sources. Reuters says a local rising. Associated News has a bit that’s just come in … I was thinking of that manuscript
‘I have it still. If he is famous by his death, I find it. How has he died…?‘
‘I can’t hear you, it’s a rotten line …
‘I say I can’t hear, Rudi…’
