Prelude To A Certain Midnight

She was dressed in brocade. Her strong, meaty shoulders were bare. Her square nails were painted light red; she seemed to be a little ashamed of them. From time to time she put her hands behind her and picked off a flake of varnish. Her sister, Tot, on the other hand, looked cool, sweet, calm, and comfortable.

She had placed herself advantageously near the fireplace, with the light behind her, and was dressed in lavender-grey. About her throat she had tied a velvet band, to the front of which was pinned an amethyst — no other jewellery; only an antique watch in a double case with a fern-leaf pattern in amethysts and tiny diamonds. Thea Olivia’s hands were small and exquisite, and she knew exactly what to do with them. Whenever Asta saw her, she shook her head in an involuntary gesture of admiration. That sister of hers was perfect — whatever she did was right — her hands, her feet, her knees, her chin, every hair and everything was in its proper place. Asta was convinced that beside her sister she looked as she felt — a clumsy idiot. Her admiration was not unmixed with resentment. She had spent three hours and three guineas on her appearance that day.

She puffed away uneasy speculation in one great snort and, as the bell rang again, said to The Tiger Fitzpatrick in a whisper which might have been heard three doors away: ‘Keep on your toes, you punch-drunk idiot, or, as God is my judge, I’ll knock your head off.’

Shocket the Bloodsucker arrived with Titch Whitbread, a boy of twenty with a complexion of blood and cream, and thick blond hair. Titch Whitbread would have been conventionally handsome if the bridge of his nose had not been beaten in and his left ear knocked out of shape. But he had a full set of strong, white teeth which he displayed in a tireless grin of spontaneous delight. Everyone took to him immediately. He was engagingly boyish; there was something about him that made women want to look into his round blue eyes and talk baby-talk. Titch Whitbread was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the house and by the accents of the people making conversation. Here was Class.

He grinned over a glass of ginger ale, answered if he was spoken to, and looked so happy that hardened victims of boredom, seeing his radiant face, felt a tenderness for him — a small, sad glow of nostalgia for youth and innocence.

But Shocket the Bloodsucker talked for the two of them. When Shocket opened his mouth, which he did continuously, you were reminded of a piece of steak in which a butcher has made a preliminary cut. Out of this red, glutinous gash came a monotonous, husky voice with the penetrative quality of a cowbell in a mist.

‘… and this is Titch Whitbread. He’s a killer. He’s a murderer. Do you see that left hand? There’s a dose of chloroform in it. And do you see that right hand? I’ll tell you something. One poke with that right hand, and your face is nothing but the place where your teeth used to be. No, no! Don’t give Titch anything to drink. He won’t drink it. He’s a good, clean boy. I don’t mind if I do! I’m a father to ‘em — isn’t that right, Titch? I never let ‘em out of my sight. You ask Scotty Landauer. Who got Scotty into the running for the middle-weight championship? Me — old Shocket. And, by God, Scotty would have taken the championship off of Joey Hands; only Scotty wasn’t a clean boy. Broke training — late nights, beer, women (if you’ll excuse the expression) — that was the ruination of Scotty. Nothing like that about Titch, I swear it on my mother’s grave! No, may I be struck down dead this minute — no, may I never see my daughters alive again! I should be paralysed and may my children be paralysed, and my wife should choke on the next piece of bread she eats, Titch Whitbread is the next champion! I should be knocked down by a taxi and it should squash my guts out the next time I cross the road — may I go blind and beg in the streets — Titch is the next champion! He can hit like Sam Langford, he can take punishment like George Cook, he’s a lion — he’s a tiger — he’s a clean-living boy — he’s got more science than Einstein! And if I tell you that left hand is a dose of chloroform, that left hand is a dose of chloroform! All I want is for somebody, so they should guarantee Titch thirty thousand pounds in the next ten years, and — may I die a lingering death of cancer if what I say isn’t as true as fifty Bibles — they’d make sixty thousand pounds! On my dying oath!’

Cigarette, who was watching Titch Whitbread with hot-eyed, dreamy abstraction, said: ‘Why, I think that’s wonderful!’

Shocket stopped talking, blew his nose into a handkerchief which he afterwards unfolded and scrutinized with the air of a man who is reading a threatening letter from a creditor, and watched her closely. She had already emptied two glasses. It had brought out a smoulder on her cheeks. She was beginning, in her avid way, to look from face to face among the gathering guests. She wanted to recognize somebody, to make new contacts. Tobit Osbert and Catchy were engaged in polite conversation with Thea Olivia, behind whom hovered Sir Storrington Thirst, leaning familiarly upon the shoulder of Graham Strindberg. Cigarette sauntered over with her glass.

Thea Olivia was saying: ‘I know I’m a silly old woman and you’ll laugh at me, but I simply don’t understand. I admit that I simply don’t understand why these people do such things. Why do they? What benefit do they get out of it? It all seems so useless.’

Graham Strindberg said: ‘They re made that way:

Sir Storrington Thirst said: ‘They get a kick out of it. I knew a man in Kenya —’

‘It’s so horrible, vile!’ said Catchy, ‘hanging is much too good for anyone who doe’s a thing like that. Much too good. He deserves — why, I don’t know what he deserves. He deserves to be cut into little bits.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Sir Storrington, ‘little bits, quite right.’

Tobit Osbert shrugged a non-committal shoulder and said: ‘No, I can’t say I agree with you altogether there, Sir Storrington. One simply doesn’t do that sort of thing. Find him out, try him properly, and hang him quickly if he’s guilty. That’s the only thing to do. But no little bits. Certain people have no right to live among their fellow men. It seems to me that the thing to do is to stop them. I mean, to put an end to them.’

‘How do they get to be like that?’ asked Thea Olivia.

‘Environment, upbringing,’ said Catchy, ‘that’s the root of it all.’

Sir Storrington said: ‘I don’t quite get what you mean.’

‘Well,’ said Catchy, ‘what I mean to say is, the way you’re brought up. I don’t quite know how to put it. I know what I want to say but I don’t know how to say it.

In an ingratiating growl Sir Storrington said: ‘Can’t say I see eye to eye with you there, my dear. Look at me. Why, for the slightest word, I got hell. Why, if I failed to cell my father “sir”, he knocked me down. Remember once, I was accused of stealing pears. Didn’t steal pears. Naturally denied stealing pears, was horse-whipped twice, once for stealing pears and the second time for lying. Couldn’t sit, stand or lie down for a fortnight. Went into a high fever. Then my young brother owned up — he’d stolen the pears. I may say that I’d known it all along, but had said nothing; brothers stick together, what? I went to my father and said: “Hope and trust you’re convinced that I’m not a liar now, sir?” Father said: “Yes, my son, I’m convinced. But take this for your temerity — for daring to address me in that tone of voice.” And gave me about three dozen with a malacca walking-stick that had a silver knob carved to look like an elephant’s head. Upbringing? Environment? Never had any worth mentioning. Can’t say I believe in it. Father used to grab me by the ankle and hold me down out of a four-