John Braine - Room at the Top

"That's where Sue Brown lives," Alice said. "It's her birthday party tonight."

"How nice for them," I said. "I expect Jack's a guest. If I may refer to him with such familiarity."

Alice didn't seem to have heard me. "Turn down to the left here," she said. We went down a narrow road and into a little square. The houses were smaller in this quarter: the big house at the top of the road was the last outpost of the world of private swimming pools and poplars and the new M.G.'s. The working-class area by the station extended farther than I'd thought, coming between Poplar Avenue and the smoke of the valley like a shield. A narrow flight of stone steps led up from the square into a ruler-straight street of millstone grit. The St. Clair was down an alley at the end nearest to the square.

As Alice had said, it was dark and smelled of beef and tapers. The little room behind the bar was empty except for two old men huddled round the fire. There were two old prints of Warley hanging on the walls, and a photograph of a house with its roof blown off by the whirlwind of 1888. The space left uncovered was occupied by glittering horse brasses and warming pans. The seats which ran round the walls were leather upholstered and well padded.

Alice looked round her with satisfaction. "This is what I call a snug," she said. "So damned cosy it's almost sinister."

The landlord, a thin grey-haired man, shuffled in, "Good evening, Mrs. Aisgill. Good evening, sir. What can I get you?"

"Try the Old," Alice said. "It's real beer, isn't it, Bert?"

"A lovely drink, Mrs. Aisgill," he said in his deep lugubrious voice. "A beautiful beer."

It was in fact very good beer, dark and sweet and smooth. It was warm and restful in the Snug and I liked being with Alice; I didn't feel any necessity to make love to her, and consequently had no fear of rejection. I gave her a cigarette. When I'm on edge I somehow forget to smoke; it was my first cigarette that evening and the tobacco tasted pleasantly strong, a hair's-breadth from being acrid, which is how I like it best.

"Look, Joe," Alice said. "We're going to be working together, so we ought to get everything straight between us. For God's sake take that chip off your shoulder. I didn't like telling you when the others were around - but you were bloody offensive to me. Have you got an inferiority complex, or what?"

"No," I muttered.

"What is it?"

"I thought you were coming the Lady of the Mansion over me, that's all. My father didn't own an engineering works or a mill but that doesn't mean that I've never read anything or that I can't drive a car." I was aware that this wasn't an adequate explanation; for I wasn't really angry with Alice at all.

"But Joe dear," she said, "who cares about these things? I don't. The Thompsons don't. Eva doesn't - " She frowned. "It's Eva, isn't it? She leads young men on and then she turns prim and proper on them. She's a born teaser, she'll never change. You know, it wouldn't at all surprise me if - no, I'd better not say it."

I ordered more beer. "Now you've begun, you'd better finish."

"It wouldn't surprise me if she told Bob about her young men's antics. They're cold fishes, both of them. You didn't take her seriously, did you?"

"It depends on what you mean by seriously."

"The same thing as you mean, honey."

"My God, no. Not for one moment." I laughed. "What a big fool I must have seemed." Then I remembered my main grievance. "Jack Wales," I said. "Patronising me, talking about the Officers' Mess, forgetting my name when I speak to him ..."

"He'll be back at the University soon," she said. "Besides that's not why you're angry with him. He's staked out a claim to Susan. That's why, isn't it?"

I didn't answer. I was wondering just how we'd reached this stage. I was talking with her as freely as I would with Charles; the realisation was rather disconcerting.

"Isn't that why?" she repeated.

"All right. That's why. Plain jealousy. It's as if people like him take everything worth having by a sort of divine right. I've seen it too often."

"I could hit you," she said. "She's not engaged to him, is she? You're not married yourself, are you? Or are you frightened of him? Why don't you phone the girl and ask her to go out with you?"

"I never thought of that," I said weakly.

"You'd rather feel sorry for yourself," she said. "Instead of doing something about it, you're just lying down. Perhaps you feel Jack's superior to you?"

"No," I said. "It wouldn't matter anyway - whether or not he were superior, I mean - if she wanted him. I have a feeling that she doesn't. She's got used to having him around, that's all ... I know she could be interested in me. That's what's so damned annoying. I suppose you think I'm conceited."

"No," she said. "Young and terribly inexperienced. If that's what you truly feel about her, straightaway and instinctively, then you must be right."

The belief in intuition isn't exclusively my property but to hear her expressing it made me feel that I could hide nothing from her.

I looked at my empty glass. "I can't drink in halves," I said, and fished in my pocket for money.

"Let me get it, will you?" Alice said.

"I can afford it - "

She held up her hand to silence me. "No. I won't argue. I always pay for my own. I learned that in Rep a long time ago."

"But I'm not in Rep."

"Oh shut up. I don't care if you're the Borough Treasurer, I don't care if you own the bloody pub. I'm independent, I can afford to pay for my own. See?"

I took the money and ordered the drinks. I was glad of it, to tell the truth, because the Old cost two shillings a pint and at the rate we were drinking it would have meant at least nine bob's worth before the evening was out. I had eight hundred in the bank, this mostly being my parent's insurance and my accumulated pay from Stalag 1000. But I never touched it; I wasn't likely to acquire so much money so quickly again. I lived on my salary; and it didn't allow for casual expenditures of nearly ten bob.

I looked at Alice with affection. "Would you like some potato crisps, love?"

"Yes, please. They've Smith's on Mondays. Ask him for some salt, will you? I can never find those beastly little blue packets."

"I like salty things with beer," I said. "Pickled onions and fat pork are best, though."

She grinned at me. It was a companionable grin with no sex behind it. "Me too. I've low tastes. What's more, I can drink as much beer as you."

"I'll take you up on that."

"I'll hold you to it. I was brought up on beer but all the men I seem to meet drink whisky and gin. They think I'm joking when I say I like beer and I get gassy bottled stuff and lager."

The Old was stronger than I'd thought; halfway through my third pint a warm rush of affection came over me.

"I'll tell you something, Alice. I like you. I don't mean sex, I mean I like you . I can talk with you like a man. I can tell you things - Oh Lord, what a lot of I's ..." I took another swig of beer and then crunched a mouthful of the crisps.

"I like you too," she said. "You look about eighteen at times, do you know that?"

We stayed till closing time and then she drove me home. It wasn't until I was in bed that I realised that I'd never told any woman as much about myself - not only that, but I hadn't any fears of having said too much, of having made a fool of myself. The pillow smelled faintly of lavender; it reminded me of something. It was her scent, cool as clean linen, friendly as beer; I went off to sleep without knowing it, into a dream in which I was riding in the Fiat with her, the car skidding wildly round fantastic bends in a country a mixture of Lincolnshire and Prussia; then she was Susan, her eyes shining, her face distorted with pleasure, and suddenly I was lost in the wild open country, sand and pines and heather, calling out not Susan's name but Alice's, and then I was awake in my room at Oak Crescent looking at the Medici reproduction of Olympe, smooth and white and lovely, and well aware of it: the picture grew in size until it covered the whole wall and I put my hands over my eyes and tried to scream and found myself awake in Warley to the alarm clock ringing and the sound of bacon frying in the kitchen.