John Braine - Room at the Top

"Loving friends," I said.

When I was starting the car going back she didn't speak at all. But she was smiling to herself all the way; perhaps it was only a trick of the light but her hair seemed as if it were glowing from within. I drove fast along the narrow switchback of Sparrow Hill Road, taking the corners as if on rails. I couldn't go wrong; the car felt as if it had two litres under its hood instead of just over a half. I was the devil of a fellow, I was the lover of a married woman, I was taking out the daughter of one of the richest men in Warley, there wasn't a damn thing I couldn't do. Say what you like of me when I was younger; but I certainly wasn't blasé.

I spent Christmas at my Aunt Emily's. It snowed in Warley the night I left, just a light powdering, a present from Raphael's and Tuck's and Sharpe's to make the girls' eyes sparkle and the waits sing in tune and to turn the houses taller and crookeder and all's-well-in-the-end adventurous; the town was crammed with people, all of them none the less absolute tenants of happiness because they'd been shepherded into it by the shopkeepers and the newspapers and the BBC: you could sense that happiness, innocent and formal as children's story, with each snowflake and each note of the Town Hall carillon.

It was hard to leave Warley then; I felt as if I were being sent home from a party before the presents had been taken off the tree. In fact, I'd felt out of things all December: I'd gone to the Thespians' Christmas party, and been the back end of a horse in the children's play, and kissed all the girls at the Town Hall after the traditional lunchtime booze-up, but I knew that I wasn't part of Warley's festival, because I was leaving before the preparations began to make sense, before that short turkey and spice cake and wine and whisky period when every door in the town would be wide open and the grades wouldn't matter. Not that I really believed such a thing could happen; but in Warley it at least was possible to dream about it.

No dreams were possible in Dufton, where the snow seemed to turn back almost before it hit the ground; Christmas there always seemed a bit ashamed of itself, as if it knew that it was a wicked waste of good money; Dufton and gaiety just weren't on speaking terms. And the house at Oak Cresent was small and dark and smelly and cluttered up; it wasn't that I didn't care for Aunt Emily and her family, but I was too much of T'Top now and, half hating myself for it, I found myself seeing them as foreigners. They were kind and good and generous; but they weren't my sort of person any longer.

I told Charles something of this on Boxing Day at the Siege Gun just outside the town. The Siege Gun was our local; it stood on the top of a little hill overlooking a wilderness of allotments and hen runs. It was about half an hour's walk from Oak Crescent; for some reason it was the only respectable pub in Dufton. The others weren't exactly low, but even in their Best Rooms you were likely to see the overalled and sweaty. The landlord at the Siege Gun, a sour old ex-Regular, discouraged anyone entering the Best Room without a collar and tie. Consequently his pub was the only place in Dufton where you'd find any of the town's upper crust, such as it was. I'd had some good nights at the Siege Gun but, looking around me that lunchtime, I knew that there wouldn't be any more. It was too small, too dingy, too working-class; four months in Warley had given me a fixed taste for either the roadhouse or the authentic country pub.

"I couldn't bear Dufton sober," I said to Charles.

"Too true," he said. "I'll be damned glad when I get to London.

I'd known for a month that he'd landed a job there, but when he spoke so lightly about going away I felt lonely and lost; I wanted him to stay permanently in Dufton, I suppose, so that I'd at least be able to depend upon my hometown providing me with company. Dufton's only virtue was that it never changed; Charles to me was part of Dufton. Now that he was leaving the town, the lever had been pulled that would complete its journey into death.

"You slant-eyed Mongolian pig," I said. "What do you want to go away for? Who'll I have to talk to now when I come home at weekends?"

Charles took out a grubby handkerchief and pretended to wipe his eyes. "Your beautifully phrased appeal to my friendship moves me inexpressibly. But I can't stay in Dufton even to please you. Do you know, when I come into this pub, I don't even have to order? They automatically issue a pint of wallop. And if I come in with someone else I point at them and nod twice if it's bitter. I'm growing too fond of the stuff anyway ... it's the only quick way out of this stinking town." He looked at his pint with an expression of comic gluttony on his plump, strangely cherubic face. "Lovely lovely ale," he said. "The mainstay of the industrial North, the bulwark of the British Constitution. If the Dufton pubs closed for just one day, there wouldn't be a virgin or an unbroken window left by ten o'clock."

"There's not many left of either as it is," I said.

"I do my best," he said. "How's your sex life, by the way?"

"Satisfactory. I see Alice every week."

"Weather's a bit cold for it," he said.

"She borrows a friend's flat in Leddersford."

"You be careful chum."

"She's not possessive. It's not that sort of affair - " What sort exactly was it, though? I remembered once, through half-closed eyes, watching her take up my shirt from beside the bed and kiss it. When she saw me looking at her she blushed and turned away. I felt myself blushing too.

"It's perfect," I said firmly. "She's wonderful in bed, and she wants nothing else from me."

"She will."

"Not Alice."

"Keep right on believing that, and it won't be long before I see your name in the Sunday papers."

"Phooey," I said. "It's a simple straightforward transaction. Just for the sake of our health, that's all. Besides, it helps me keep myself pure for Susan."

"You've not said much about her lately. The Lampton charm not working?"

"I've been out with her about half a dozen times now. The theatre and the cinema and a five-bob hop. All most genteel. Costs me the hell of a lot of money - flowers, chocolates, and all the rest of it - and I get nothing in return."

"You mean old swine."

"Mind you, she thinks I'm wonderful. Like an elder brother. I keep paying her compliments and I treat her with great respect et cetera et cetera. It's not entirely without effect - I suppose that Wales takes her for granted, the big slob."

"Their daddies will have arranged it all," Charles said. "I don't see why he should put himself out. Damned if I would. You haven't a cat in hell's chance, frankly. Unless you thoroughly misbehave, if you see what I mean."

"I see what you mean. But it's easier said than done. She doesn't want me to make love to her - I can always tell."

"Perhaps you're trying too hard. Why not leave her alone for two months or so? Don't quarrel with her, don't attempt to discover how you stand. Simply stop seeing her. If she's at all interested in you, she'll be a bit huffed. Or she'll wonder what's wrong with her. Remember, she's got into the habit of seeing you, poor bitch. But don't" - he wagged his finger at me - "say a word to anyone else. If you do run across her, behave as if nothing had happened." His face looked very red above his stiff white collar; there was a chess player's intentness in his pale blue eyes. "It should be very interesting. Report back with full details, Sergeant, if you survive."

"She mayn't give a curse whether I see her or not," I said. "She probably won't even notice that I've gone."

"In that case, you'll have lost nothing. And you'll have saved your pride."

"I'd be scared of losing her," I said. "I'm in love with her."