LESLIE WHITE COULD NOT THINK WHY HE HAD ABANDONED A PERfectly good billet at the girl's flat after less than a week and holed up instead by himself in the room in Percy Place. What had he been thinking of? First of all there were so many things in the Percy Place room to remind him of Deirdre-starting with the bed-poor bloody dead Deirdre, and he could certainly have done without that. He missed her, he definitely missed her. She had been a good girl, and a hot little number, God knows. In the end of course she had to go, and go she did. He could not pretend to be heartbroken. After all, if you wanted to talk about billets, she was the cause of his being kicked out of the best one he had ever had, when Kate found the photos and, worse, the dirty letters. Funny, though, how after those bastards had beaten him up he had gone instinctively to the girl's place, never doubting she would give him shelter and look after him. And as it happened he could not have done better, for although she looked and acted like the ice maiden, she had melted pretty quick. In fact, she had turned out to be a hot little number herself, though obviously not much experienced, a condition that by the end of the few days they spent together he had gone a good way to curing, despite his bruises and his aching ribs. So why had he left?
But he knew he could not have stayed with her for long. She was that type, sex-starved and nervy and too bright for her own or anybody else's good, who, given encouragement, would cling, and before he knew it would be moaning about love and all the rest of it. He had been with a few such in his time; they were the devil to get rid of if you hung about for more than a few days. So he had made a run for it, and now here he was in Percy Place-what a name, it still made him laugh-hiding behind the dusty net curtains and nursing himself back to health and vigor as best he could. It was not easy.
The first thing he had to do was to get his hands on a supply of medicine, and he lost no time in setting off on his rounds, keeping an eye out in case those fellows with their bats- some sort of wooden axes, they had seemed-might be lying in wait to give him another going over. It did not take him long to locate what he was after. Maisie Haddon was always good for a fix, and sure enough when he went that night to her snip shop in Hatch Street she did not let him down. However, when she saw what a bad way he was in and how needy for the stuff he was, she tried to charge him for it, and he had to threaten to give her a tap if she did not hand it over sharpish. Not that Maisie had not taken a good many hard taps in her time, but she knew the things Leslie had on her, and what he would do with them if she held out, and that was more persuasive even than the prospect of a black eye and a few broken teeth.
Mrs. T. was more accommodating. Her husband was a doctor who had kicked her out and now refused to see or speak to her, but kept her well supplied so she would not come and stand screaming for the stuff outside his fancy consulting rooms in Fitzwilliam Square. Leslie arranged to meet her at the bookshop as usual. Though she was obviously shocked by the state of his face, the bruising and the black eyes, he was afraid for the first minute or so that she would throw herself on him right there and then, in the middle of the shop, she had missed him that much, so she said. She wanted him to take her somewhere immediately, and he had to think fast and say that there was nowhere they could go, since the salon was closed and he had made it up with Kate and was living with her again, which was a lie, of course-Kate, he was fairly certain, would never have him back. He could see Mrs. T. did not believe him-he had made the mistake of taking her to Percy Place a couple of times when Deirdre's back was turned, so she knew about the room, which he also had to swear now that he had given up-but he had more important things to worry about than Mrs. T.'s disappointment at not being able to get him between the sheets. He escaped from her finally, after she had handed over the stuff, by promising to meet her that night in the Shelbourne-'I'll take a room,' she purred, gazing up at him slit-eyed like a cat and clawing softly at the lapels of his linen jacket, 'we can give a false name'-a promise he had no intention of keeping.
As he drove off along Baggot Street she stood on the bridge in the sunlight looking after him, in her white-rimmed sunglasses and her flowered frock that was too young for her, and when he glanced back over his shoulder she lifted a white-gloved hand and waved weakly, sadly, and he knew he would not see her again-unless, of course, Maisie Haddon and his other contacts should suddenly dry up. Mrs. T. was another one he would miss, he really would. She was forty-five if she was a day, and as thin as a whippet, but there was something about her, something about those bony wrists and spindly ankles of hers, so frail, so breakable, that had got a little way under even his tough hide. He remembered how easy it had been to make her cry. Yes, he would miss her. But Christ, all these bloody women, hanging out of him and telling him they loved him, and then turning awkward-what was a fellow to do?
It was funny, but when he walked out of the front door in Percy Place into the hot, muggy gray morning, he was stopped in his tracks by a feeling that at first he could not identify, a sort of heaviness in the chest, as if a weight had dropped on his heart. He climbed gingerly into the Riley, careful of his strapped-up ribs. He did not start the engine at once, but sat behind the wheel trying to discover what was the matter with him. He had been thinking of Kreutz, and Deirdre, and the dirty photo Kreutz had taken of her, the photo that he had posted on, for a lark. Now he closed his eyes for a moment. Christ. What had he done? And then he realized that what he was feeling was guilt. Yes, guilt. That was what had stopped him in midstride, that was the weight pressing on his heart. He opened his eyes again and looked about the empty street in a kind of amazement. Leslie White, feeling guilty-now, there was a thing. Then he started the engine and gave the accelerator a few hard punches. What was done was done. Things had turned serious, but was that his fault? The trouble was, he thought as he drove out into Haddington Road, people did not understand him, women especially. They wanted things from him that it simply was not in him to give. Yes, that was the trouble, people expecting things that he did not have.
He ran a yellow light at Baggot Street and shot onto Mespil Road in a whoosh of exhaust smoke. The trees by the canal gleamed gray-green in the overcast air. The water had the look of polished tin. He pushed a hand through his hair, feeling with pleasure its silky texture. The breeze was pleasantly cool against his bruised face. What had it been but a jape, after all, posting the picture on? He had not meant to make so much mischief. That was another thing people did not understand about him: his essential innocence, his blamelessness. Nothing he did was ever meant, not really.
He was beginning to feel jumpy, and thought of stopping the car and nipping into a pub and locking himself in a cubicle in the gents' and giving himself a shot of joy juice, but decided instead to wait. He had things to do, and he needed to stay sharp until they were done. There was old Kreutzer, for a start. He was certain it was Kreutz who had sent those johnnies to beat him up, so that would have to be sorted out and retribution administered. Old Kreutz had not been nice to the girl when he had sent her to him that night of the beating to fetch his medicine. She was his angel of mercy and Kreutz had spurned her, had turned her from his door. Mind you, that was better than giving her a cup of his special brew and taking an artistic study of her, too, as he had done with poor Deirdre. How had the bloody wog found the nerve, first to try blackmailing him and then hiring a squad of thugs to give him a goingover? Yes, the Doctor was in need of a serious seeing-to.
Adelaide Road was deserted as usual this afternoon. Strange, how little movement there was about here always, only the occasional car, and hardly ever a pedestrian. Why was that? he wondered. Surely there should be hospital traffic, and there were plenty of houses and flats, so where were the occupants? He would not mind having a place here, a bolt-hole, amidst all this peace and leafy quiet. The question of where to live was much on his mind these days, since the bust-up with Kate and then Deirdre's going. The room in Percy Place had been all right for the purpose he had borrowed it for, but it would not do for a roost in the long term. There was the problem of funds, of course, which were in decidedly short supply since the salon had sung its swan song and gone under. Kreutz would have to be made to resume payments, or certain respectable husbands would shortly be receiving in the post some very interesting snaps of their lady wives. The difficulty there, of course, was that Kate, damn her, had burned the bloody photos. Nothing for it but to obtain a replacement set from Kreutz, which he imagined would entail a certain amount of arm-twisting. He was smiling to himself as he drew up to the curb and parked. What a wheeze it would be, to make Kreutz hand over the very material which Leslie would then use to squeeze money out of him.
Once again Kreutz was not answering the door, and he got out his clever
