‘He has that reputation.’
‘He screwed her in a store-room. I walked in on top of them.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh in-bloody-deed.’ She laughed. ‘You like gin and t, d’you? Your drink, Miss Machaen?’
‘Please call me Sarah. Yes, I like it.’
‘Whisky mac this is. I love booze. You like it, Sarah?’
‘Yes, I do rather.’
‘Birds of a feather.’ She laughed, and paused. ‘I seen you last year. Dancing with Everend and that. I noticed you.’
‘I’ve been coming for a long time.’
‘How long you been at P-B, then?’
‘Since 1960.’
‘Jesus!’
‘I know.’
‘I was only a nipper in 1960. What age’d you say I was, Sarah?’
‘Twenty-five?’
‘Thirty. Don’t look it, do I?’
‘No, indeed.’
‘You live alone, do you, Sarah?’
‘Yes, I do. In Tufnell Park.’
‘Nice?’
‘It is quite nice.’
Sandra Pond nodded repeatedly. Tufnell Park was very nice indeed, she said, extremely nice.
‘You sit there, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get you another drink.’
‘Oh, no. Let me. Please.’ She began to get to her feet, but Sandra Pond shot out a hand, a movement like a whip’s, instantly restraining her. Her small fingers pressed into the flesh of Sarah’s arm. ‘Stay right where you are,’ she said.
An extraordinary thought occurred to Sarah as she watched the girl moving rapidly away with their two empty glasses: Sandra Pond wanted to share her flat.
‘Now, now, now,’ Mr Priddy from Accounts admonished, large and perspiring, staring down at her through thick spectacles. He reached for her, seemingly unaware of her protestations. His knees pressed into hers, forcing them into waltztime.
‘They do an awful lot of good, these things,’ Mr Priddy confidently remarked. ‘People really get a chance.’ He added something else, something about people getting a chance to chew the rag. Sarah nodded. ‘We’ve had a miracle of a year,’ Mr Priddy said. ‘In spite of everything.’
She could see Sandra Pond standing with two full glasses, looking furious. She tried to smile at her through the dancing couples, to make some indication with her eyes that she’d had no option about dancing with Mr Priddy. But Sandra Pond, glaring into the dancers, hadn’t even noticed her yet.
‘Mrs Priddy couldn’t come,’ Mr Priddy told her. ‘Tummy trouble.’
She said she was sorry, trying to remember what Mrs Priddy looked like and failing in that.
‘She gets it,’ Mr Priddy said.
Sandra Pond had seen them and was looking aggrieved now, her head on one side. She sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. She crossed her thin legs.
‘Thank you very much,’ Sarah said, and Mr Priddy smiled graciously and went away to do his duty by some other lone woman.
‘Can’t stand him,’ Sandra Pond said. ‘Clammy blooming hands.’
Sarah drank some gin and tonic. ‘I say, you know,’ a man called out, ‘it’s a hell of a party, eh?’
He wasn’t sober. He swayed, with a glass in one hand, peering down at them. He was in charge of some department or other, Sarah couldn’t remember which. He spent a great deal of time in a pub near the Kingsway building, not going home until the last minute. He lived with a sister, someone had once told her.
‘Hey, who’s she?’ he demanded, wagging his glass at Sandra. ‘Who’s this one, Sarah?’
‘Sandra Pond,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘In the polishing department.’
‘Polishing, eh? Nice party, Sandra?’
‘If you like the type of thing.’
‘The drink’s good.’
‘It’s free, you mean.’
