He said, “Some people begin early in the morning.”
I said, “It’s the early worm that catches the bird.”
I walked away, round the pavilion, and down the length of the pier. I passed up the temptation of Your Photograph While You Wait. I knew exactly what I looked like and what I felt like. And I went firmly by the café, and the post-card stall with its beery-faced men and balloon-buttocked women, and all the way, casually, he kept about fifty yards behind me – the young man who, from the far side of the anglers, had watched every movement of my meeting with Katerina Saxmann.
He had light-coloured brown hair, duck-tailed over his ears, long and pad-like right down the back of his neck, a black leather jacket, worn open, hands stuck into the pockets with just the thumbs showing over the edges, tight black jeans, and very pointed shoes. His mouth moved most of the time, as though he were silently saying unpleasant things to himself, and his eyes were very close above the bridge of his nose, spoiling an otherwise quite pleasant face.
At the Albion I stood in the main entrance and waited. He went by the hotel still saying unpleasant things silently to himself.
She turned up at a quarter to seven.
I took the Lewes road and we sat, not saying much. The silence did not bother me. Some people would say “hello, beautiful” and keep on talking, never letting it flag until every piece of ice was broken. But it never did any good. Sometime or other, after the opening gambit, the silence has to come so that each of you can take a good, quiet look and decide for or against. I didn’t know what her decision was, but mine was for. I liked everything about her, starting at the top and going right down. I took the Jaguar along without any panache, forty-five at the most, and half of me was really on its best behaviour.
As Lewes Gaol came into sight on the skyline, a grey hulk stranded on a high reef, she said, “Where are you taking me?”
“I thought we’d have a couple of drinks at the White Hart and then some dinner.”
“That sounds very nice.”
I parked outside the Assize Courts. I’d given evidence there once, in a watch-smuggling case, for the Customs and Excise. The gentleman involved was still down the road a few hundred yards, getting regular exercise in the sweet downland air.
She drank two large martinis, and then we had smoked salmon and sole Normande; then she had a large Neapolitan ice, while I waited for coffee and drank the last of the bottle of Le Montrachet 1958, which was one of the dearest Burgundies they had on their list. It was Stebelson’s money, anyway.
We eased up over the meal, became natural, and she laughed when I told a couple of mild jokes. She told me that she worked in a dress shop – La Boutique Barbara – and I told her that I worked in a bank – British Linen.
After her ice she decided to go off and powder her nose. I stood up, and handed her her bag from the table. It was heavier than any evening bag ought to be and, as she walked away and I stood watching her, I could sense the bulk of it still in my fingers.
She came back, smiling, and watching her come I was reminded of a picture I’d seen once in the Tate when I went in there to shelter from the rain, a picture of Diana the Huntress or something. She was absolutely splendid. There are not many girls to say that about. Pretty, tarty, attractive, intelligent, compelling, fatal and nice ... there was an adjective for them all. But this one was splendid.
When we got into the car she leaned back against the seat, spread her arms, and said, “Now take me where there is lots of air. And where you can see for miles ... the whole world.”
It was just what I had in mind. We went down through Lewes and then swung right-handed out along the Polegate road. A few miles along, I took a track up to the downs. Five hundred and fifty feet up and the night breeze from the Channel was in our faces and we had the whole of the South Coast at our feet ... Brighton, Newhaven, Seaford and Eastbourne, spilling an overflow of tumbling jewelled lights into the sea. There was a smell of marjoram and warm grass, and a few sheep moved like lumpy ghosts in the navel-high ground mist. We got out, walked a few yards and leaned against a track gate and looked up at the stars. They were putting on a show that took the breath away. I heard her sigh and breathe deeply and her shoulder was against mine, just touching me lightly. I gave the stars a few more seconds, heard a sheep cough like an old man in the mist, and a June bug go smacking by overhead.
I turned to her and put my hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes.
I thought I was going to have to speak first, but she beat me to it.
She said, “You like me?”
I said, “Yes.”
She said, “I like you. I like you very much.”
I put my lips on hers, and as my arms went round her, she put her arms around my neck. We stood there like that for a long time, and then slowly she eased away from me but held one of my hands, and we began to walk back to the car.
I opened the rear door of the car and she slid in and dropped back in the far corner and her hands came out and took both of mine. I moved to her and took her in my arms and she came alive then, not like when we had first
