Craig seemed more relaxed as he chatted. He was careful not to embarrass her by addressing his remarks directly to her, but making sure she wasn’t left out of the conversation.
After the meal, Alice went upstairs to write letters and Miss Pearson went to listen to a quiz programme on television. Calvin and Major Hardy wandered into the lounge and sat down.
Calvin allowed the major to question him about his war record, his golf, his career as a banker until the old man had satisfied his curiosity. Then Calvin felt it was his turn to satisfy his own curiosity.
‘I’ve only just arrived here,’ he said, stretching out his long, powerful legs. ‘Miss Craig was good enough to recommend this place.’ He smiled his charming smile. ‘Who is Mrs. Loring? What’s happened to her husband?’
By now the major, a lean, burnt-up old man, was ready to gossip.
‘Mrs. Loring is a remarkable woman,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a better cook in the district. I’ve known her off and on for ten years. Her husband was Jack Loring, a successful insurance agent who worked this district. In some ways, it was a pity they married. They didn’t hit it off. Loring was always after the women.’ The major shook his head and paused to polish his beaky nose with a silk handkerchief. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. There was a child: a girl. Loring was killed in a car crash. Mrs. Loring was left a little money. She bought this house and set it up as a rooming-house and educated her daughter. She has had a very hard struggle and she’s still having a struggle.’
‘Does her daughter live with her?’ Calvin asked.
‘Certainly. She’s a nice girl and she works hard too. She’s in the box office of a movie house at Downside. She works the late shift.’ The major smiled slyly. ‘She and young Travers, the deputy Sheriff, are courting. He does the night shift at the sheriff’s office more often than not so Iris prefers to have her days free. You probably won’t see much of her. She doesn’t get to bed before two o’clock and is seldom up before ten.’
They continued to chat until half past ten, then Calvin said he was ready for bed. He went up to his room and lay in bed, smoking and staring up at the ceiling. He never read books. Occasionally, he would flick through a magazine, but reading didn’t interest him.
He had a habit of talking to himself, and he began a silent monologue as he lay in the double bed, a cigarette burning between his thick fingers.
‘This looks as if it is going to be yet another wasted year,’ he said to himself. ‘I’m thirty-eight. I have less than five hundred dollars saved. I owe money. If I don’t do something pretty soon, I’ll never do anything. I’ll never be any good as a banker, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be good at something else… but what? If only I could lay my hands on a big sum of money! Without capital, I can’t hope to get anywhere. For seventeen years now I have been waiting for the right opportunity. Now, I’ve just got to do something. I can’t go on hesitating. Is there something I can do here in this one-eyed hole? I don’t think there can be. If I’m going to take a risk, it’s got to be for something worthwhile. It’s got to be for big money, and I can’t believe there is big money in Pittsville.’
A sound coming through the wall from the next room jerked him out of this silent monologue. He lifted his head from the pillow to listen.
He could hear Kit Loring moving around in the other room. He heard the closet door being opened and he imagined her getting ready for bed. A few minutes later, he heard the bath water running.
He reached for another cigarette. As he lit it, he heard her walk from her room with a slip-slap sound of slippers into the bathroom. He slid out of bed and silently opened his door and peered into the passage. He was in time to see the bathroom door close. Moving silently, he walked down the passage and looked into the next room.
It was a pleasant room. There was a double bed: on it lay her dress, a pair of flesh-coloured panties, stockings and a girdle. There were two comfortable armchairs, a writing-desk, a television set and a range of closets. On the wall was a good reproduction of an early Picasso.
He returned to his room and closed the door. For some moments he remained motionless, his blue eyes fixed in a blank stare at the opposite wall. Then he sat on the bed and waited.
After twenty minutes or so, he heard Kit Loring come from the bathroom, enter her room and close the door. He imagined her getting into bed. The click of the light switch told him she had turned out the light.
She was interesting, he thought. She had that something that could compensate him for the dreariness of this job and the town. He had an idea she might be easy, but he wasn’t entirely sure. That amused expression he had seen in her eyes warned him it would be unwise to rush anything.
He stubbed out his cigarette, then settled himself once again in bed. He turned off the light.
It was when he was enclosed by darkness that his stifling fear of failure, his pressing need for money, his realisation that unless he broke out of this rut, he would never get anywhere, crowded in on him as it did every night when he turned off the light.
He lay still, struggling to throw off this depression, saying to himself, ‘You’re no good. You never will be any good. You might be able to kid yourself sometimes, but you’re still no good.’
It was only when he turned on the bedside light that he finally fell into a restless, uneasy sleep.
2
