Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

She nodded. Then, with a quick change, asked: “Did you ever play a better game than you did that last set?”

“No, I think that was about the best I ever turned in,” he told her, adding, “I’m apt to be a bit lazy, and I don’t care enough as a rule about winning.”

“Why did you this time?”

Well, she’d asked for it, and she should have it. He looked her in the eye. “Perhaps because I thought you were so keen on our winning.”

She stepped into the car, but then leaned forward and looked at him gravely. “That’s what I thought. Eight o’clock then.” And she had gone.

He limped happily into the hotel, and after a long luxurious bath, he stretched himself out and enjoyed his first smoke of the day. He had that sense of accomplishment and fulfilment which follows hard exercise and a bath, and which accounts for the spurious moral value attached to the playing of games in England. Malcolm, as the girl had said, was very English; but at this moment it was neither conscious virtue nor a feeling of physical well-being that was keeping his mind aglow. It was his success at preventing the girl from disappearing again that made him happy. True, she was leaving for Paris, probably soon afterwards for Cherbourg to embark for America, early in the morning; but then he himself was returning to London within the next two days, his little holiday over; and meanwhile there was to-night, and a table for two, and a good chance that he might know all about her before they parted. Now he was wondering-though he was still happy about it-what there was to know. There might be nothing; he had met people like that before, mysterious tantalising facades covering a blank; a girl might easily achieve such an appearance, especially a girl having nothing else to achieve. Yet even as he told himself this, he did not believe it.

Clearly he was doing a very silly thing; he was falling in love with the girl. He had not the least desire to fall in love with her or with anyone else; he was not looking for romance, but for further commissions to design schools, large or small, churches of any size, villas, bungalows, mansions, castles, and for a few good games of tennis between jobs. To prove that he was really heart-free, instead of dressing he read several chapters of a detective story, one of those bright new tales in which the characters made funny remarks across each fresh mangled corpse; then, in a panic, hurled on his clothes like a quick-change performer, and arrived breathless fully fifteen minutes too early. This gave him plenty of time to ask himself what he was doing, for of course Miss Andrea Baker arrived fifteen minutes late. He had decided to be cool, off-hand, a trifle contemptuous, but the moment she sailed in, looking like a Western princess, he became the young man she had left three hours before.

The head waiter, an artful fat Gascon, treated them as if they were not only a superbly handsome young couple, which indeed they were, but also as if they were fabulously rich and fastidious gourmets , to Malcolm’s secret dismay. He confided to them, rather than merely handed to them, an immense menu bewilderingly covered with a spidery writing in pale-blue ink. They were led to order the special cocktail of the restaurant, which cost more than any other cocktail in the world simply because it contained a little tangerine orange-juice. It was, Malcolm realised fearfully, that kind of restaurant. Gazing across at the exquisite being who now shared his table, he could not help hoping that she was not the sort of rich American girl who demands a large helping of the very best grey caviare and then drops cigarette ash into it and decides that she prefers cantaloup. He was far from rich himself, and he knew that his bill at the hotel would be stiff, inevitably much stiffer than he could possibly anticipate, and that there would be added to it fantastic, inexplicable taxes de sejour and luxe , which represented nothing but the disapproval of the frugal French, who saw no sense in the spendthrift antics of visiting foreigners. He noticed there were no French citizens entertaining their families or business associates in this restaurant. They would be all tucking in economically at some sensible place in the town. The bill here would be monstrous. He looked anxiously across at Andrea, and was much relieved when she ignored the vast menu and firmly ordered consomme, chicken and a salad.

Throughout the first part of the dinner they chatted about the tournament, comparing notes as partners; all of which was pleasant enough, but was only a slight extension of the impersonal relationship they had had already. He discovered-though he had guessed most of it before-that she had been coached for some years by one or two good professionals, at first in or near New York and later in California; had played a great deal in private; but for some reason not mentioned had not had much tournament play. She had seen a good many first-class matches, however, and they compared their impressions and opinions of the outstanding players. In the end, Malcolm confessed that though he still enjoyed the game, and hoped to go on playing it until he could no longer totter up to the net, he was now rather bored with tennis society and talk, and had indeed deliberately withdrawn himself from it. This, she said, she could understand, and asked him to tell her about himself.

This was better, much better, and took him happily to the coffee and cigarettes. He told her all about it, his professional ambitions, admitting he was no genius nor even superlatively clever, but assuring her earnestly that he was keen and had no nonsense about him. He told her a little about his home, his parents and sister, his three years at Oxford, and hinted at such plans as he had, which included designing and building a little house for himself, somewhere on the North Downs.

“I ought to be able to manage it during the next three years, unless we have a war or something equally damnable,” he babbled on, happily. “I’ve some ideas for the place now-jolly good ideas, too-saving expense and making it more convenient. Look, what do you think of this?” He began sketching on the table-cloth. “Just imagine that perched up, about five hundred feet, on top of a great green hill, miles from anywhere.”

“Miles from anywhere,” she repeated, with a not too unpleasant touch of scorn. “In England! You ought to see-no, go on. Sorry!”

It took him a moment or two to recapture his enthusiastic stride. “I know you Americans have all the space in the world. Still, it’s relative, you know. Once you’re out of London, really in the country, you feel you’re miles from anywhere. And anyhow, I can’t live there all the time. I have to go to the office, and I’ll only get down for week-ends at first, though I hope afterwards they’ll let me do some of my work down there. You see, right at the top, I’ll have my own work-room-drawing-table, books, everything. A bedroom underneath for myself. Then two guest-rooms there-you see. I’ll put a hard court in-you can make one quite cheaply if you know the tricks-and a squash court, if I can run to it. One big sitting- and dining-room combined, of course. You see the idea? Look, here’s a rough plan.”

“It might be a cunning little place,” she admitted, with, he thought, quite unnecessary reluctance.

“You wait!” he cried triumphantly, almost as if he had an invitation to his house-warming party in his pocket for her. “It’ll be a grand little job. Something to work for, too. And when they see it, other people will want one-”

“Have you lots of friends?” she asked sharply.

“Well, I don’t go in for lots of friends, y’know, but I have some good friends-fellows I was at Oxford with-and-oh!-some of my sister’s pals-you know? I suppose you’ve plenty of friends, haven’t you? Must have.”