half past eleven. But if it starts to rain we come back here. I don’t see why not, I pay for the room. But there’s the difficulty of getting her up, then down again in the morning while the old woman’s at early church. Then she has to pay her brother Leslie five shillings a time to let her in quietly. And she worries about that, does Dixie. She’s a great saver, is Dixie.’
‘It’s a tiring occupation, is saving,’ Dougal said. ‘Dixie’s looking tired.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact she does lie awake worrying. And there’s no need to worry. Terrible at seventeen. I said, “What you think you’ll be like in ten years’ time?”‘
‘When are you getting married?’ Dougal said.
‘September. Could do before. But Dixie wants a certain sum. She has her mind set to a certain sum. It keeps her awake at night.’
‘I advised her to take Monday morning off,’ Dougal said. ‘Everyone should take Mondays off.’
‘Now I don’t agree to that,’ Humphrey said. ‘It’s immoral. Once you start absenting yourself you lose your self- respect.
‘No?’ said Dougal.
‘No,’ Humphrey said, ‘but it’s a question of principle.’
Dougal bent his knees apart as before and leapt into the air. ‘Creak-oop, creak-oop,’ he said.
Humphrey laughed deeply with his head thrown back. He stopped when a series of knocks started up from the floor.
‘Chap downstairs,’ Dougal said, ‘knocks on his ceiling – with a broom handle. He doesn’t like my wee dances.’ He performed his antic three times more, shouting, ‘Creak-oop.
Humphrey cast his head back and laughed, so that Dougal could see the whole inside of his mouth.
‘I have a dream at nights,’ Dougal said, pouring the wine, ‘of girls in factories doing a dance with only the movements of their breasts, bottoms, and arms as they sort, stack, pack, check, cone-wind, gum, uptwist, assemble, seam, and set. I see the Devil in the guise of a chap from Cambridge who does motion-study, and he’s the choreographer. He sings a song that goes, “We study in detail the movements requisite for any given task and we work out the simplest pattern of movement involving the least loss of energy and time.” While he sings this song, the girls are waggling and winding, like this -‘ and Dougal waggled his body and wove his arms intricately. ‘Like Indian dancing, you know,’ he said.
‘And,’ said Dougal, ‘of course this choreographer is a projection of me. I was at the University of Edinburgh myself, but in the dream I’m the Devil and Cambridge.’
Humphrey smiled, looked wise, and said, ‘Inhuman’; which three things he sometimes did when slightly at a loss.
Chapter 4
MISS MERLE COVERDALE opened the door of her flat on Denmark Hill, and admitted Mr Druce in the early evening of midsummer’s day. He took off his hat and hung it on a peg in her entrance-hall which was the shape and size of a small kitchen table, and from the ceiling of which hung a crystal chandelier. Mr Druce followed Merle into the sitting-room. So far he had not spoken, and still without a word, while Merle took up her knitting by the two-bar electric heater, he opened the door of a small sideboard and extracted a bottle of whisky which he lifted up to the light. Opening another compartment of the sideboard he took out a glass. He poured some whisky into it and from a syphon which stood on a tray on the sideboard splashed soda-water into his drink. Then, ‘Want some?’ he said.
‘No, thanks.’
He sighed and brought his drink to a large chair opposite Merle’s smaller one.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I think I feel like a whisky and ginger.’
He sighed and went to the sideboard, where, opening a drawer he extracted a bottle-opener. He stooped to the cupboard and found a bottle of ginger ale.
‘No, I’ll have gin and tonic. I think I feel like a gin and tonic-‘
He turned, with the bottle-opener in his hand, and looked at her.
‘Yes, I feel like a gin and tonic-’
And so he prepared the mixture and brought it to her.
Then, sitting down, he took off his shoes and put on a pair of slippers which lay beside the chair.
Presently he looked at his watch. At which Merle put down her knitting and switched on the television. A documentary travel film was in progress, and in accompaniment to this they talked.
‘Drover Willis’s,’ he said, ‘have started on their new extension.’
‘Yes, you told me the other day.’
‘I see,’ he said, ‘they are advertising for automatic weaver instructors and hands. They are going to do made- up goods as well. They are advertising for ten twin-needle flat-bed machinists, also flat-lock machinists and instructors. They must be expanding.’
‘Four, five, six,’ she said, ‘purl two, seven, eight.’
‘I see,’ he said, ‘they are advertising for an Arts man.’
‘Well, what do you expect? It was recommended at the Conference, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but remember, Merle, we were the first in the area to adopt that recommendation. Did he come into the office today?’
‘No.’
‘Tell him I want to see him, it’s time we had a report. I’ve only seen him three times since we had a report. I’ve only seen him three times since he started. Weedin wants a report.’
‘Remind me in the morning on the business premises, Vincent,’ she said. ‘I don’t bring the office into my home, as you know.’
‘Weedin hasn’t seen him for a week. Neither Welfare nor Personnel can get word of him.’
She went to clatter dishes in the scullery. Mr Druce got up and began to lay the table with mats, knives, and forks which he took out of the sideboard. Then he went out into the hall and from his coat pocket took a bottle of stomach tablets which he placed on the table together with the pepper and salt.
Merle brought in some bread. Mr Druce took a bread-knife from the drawer and looked at her. Then he placed the knife beside the bread on the board.
‘The brussels are not quite ready,’ she said, and she sat in her chair and took up her knitting. He perched on the arm. She pushed him with her elbow in the same movement as she was using for her knitting. He tickled the back of her neck, which she put up with for a while. But suddenly he pinched the skin of her neck. She screamed.
‘Sh-sh,’ he said.
‘You hurt me,’ she said.
‘No, I was only doing this.’ And he pinched her neck again.
She screamed and jumped from the chair.
‘The brussels are ready,’ she said.
He turned off the television when she brought in the meal. ‘Bad for the digestion while you’re eating,’ he said.
They did not speak throughout the meal.
Afterwards he stood with her in the red-and-white scullery, and looked on while she washed up. She placed the dishes in a red drying-rack while he dried the knives and forks. These he carried into the living-room and put away in their separate compartments in the drawer of the sideboard. As he put away the last fork he watched Merle bring in a tray with coffee cups.
Merle switched on the television and found a play far advanced. They watched the fragment of the play as they drank their coffee. Then they went into the bedroom and took off their clothes in a steady rhythm. Merle took off her cardigan and Mr Druce took off his coat. Merle went to the wardrobe and brought out a green quilted silk dressing- gown. Mr Druce went to the wardrobe and found his blue dressing-gown with white spots. Merle took off her blouse
