John Braine - Room at the Top

"You know she's in the hospital. She's very ill too."

Susan's face was set very hard; she didn't look like a schoolgirl now, but more like one of those female magistrates who are always sending someone to jail without the option so that no one will be able to accuse them of womanly softheartedness.

"You must tell her now." She looked like her mother: the soft curves of her face seemed to change to straight lines and her mouth became tight and disciplined - not exactly cruel, but set in an expression of judgement.

Alice had come home the day before me and had been taken to the hospital in the middle of the night. I never did find out what the illness was; it wasn't cancer but it was some kind of internal swelling that was quite serious - serious enough for an operation - but not serious enough for the doctors to give her the dope necessary to keep away the pain. She was waiting for the operation now, and wasn't allowed any visitors except for family. I hadn't written her because she'd sent me a note saying that it was wisest not to; but my conscience troubled me about it because I knew that she didn't really expect me to take her at her word.

"Do you hear me, Joe?" Susan's voice had a shrill note. "Tell her now. She's not going to die. If you don't write to her straightaway I really have finished with you this time. I mean it."

"Shut up. I'll do what I promised - I'll finish the affair once and for all. When she comes out of hospital. And face to face. Not by letter. That's cowardly."

Susan stood up. "You're absolutely hateful and despicable. You won't do anything I ask you to, and now you're going back to this - this old woman just because she's supposed to be ill. I wish I'd never met you. You've spoilt France for me and now that I'm happy again you're doing this . I hate you, I hate you, I hate you - " She burst into tears. "I'm going. I don't want to see you again. You never loved me - "

I took hold of her roughly, then slapped her hard on the face. She gave a little cry of surprise, then flew at me with her nails. I held her off easily.

"You're not going," I said. "And I'm not going to do what you asked me either. I love you, you silly bitch, and I'm the one who says what's to be done. Now and in the future."

"Let me go," she said. "I'll scream for help. You can't make me stay against my will." She started to struggle. Her black hair was dishevelled and her brown eyes were gleaming with anger, changed into a tigerish topaz. I shook her as hard as I could. I'd done it in play before, when she'd asked me to hurt her, please hurt her; but this time I was in brutal earnest, and when I'd finished she was breathless and half fainting. Then I kissed her, biting her lips till I tasted blood. Her arms tightened round my neck and she let herself fall to the ground. This time she did not play the frightened virgin; this time I had no scruples, no horizon but the hot lunacy of my own instincts.

"You hurt me," she said when I came to my senses afterwards, my whole body empty and exhausted. "You hurt me and you took all my clothes - look, I'm bleeding here - and here - and here. Oh Joe I love you with all of me now, every little bit of me is yours. You won't need her any more, will you?"

She laughed. It was a low gurgling laugh. It was full of physical contentment. "Tell her when she comes out of hospital if you like, darling. You won't need her any more, I know that." She smiled at me; the smile radiated an almost savage well-being.

"I won't need her any more," I repeated dully. There was a taste of blood in my mouth and my hand was bleeding where she'd scratched it. The sun was hurting my eyes now, and the bracken round the clearing seemed actually to be growing taller and closing in on me.

It was almost two months before Alice came out of the hospital. The day before, I had a phone call from Brown at the Town Hall. He rang me direct, with none of the usual secretary nonsense. "Mr. Lampton? Lunch at t'Con Club. Leddersford. One."

"Are you sure it's I you want?" I asked.

"Of course I'm sure. It's important, too. See you're there on the dot."

His tone annoyed me. It was a grey drizzling September morning, muggy and cold by turns; my in-basket was full, and after I'd cleared it I had to see our junior, Raymond, about the shortages in the petty cash. Now that Raymond is a solid citizen occupying my old job, it seems hard to believe what he was like then: a skinny little boy with a white pimply face, and a shiny blue serge suit with frayed turn-ups and shirts that were never quite clean and never quite dirty. He was cleaning the inkwells when Brown rang and singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" in a quavering voice, trying to keep his spirits up, I suppose.

"Are you having a prayer meeting?" Brown asked. "I can hardly hear myself speak." I noticed that he'd dropped his Yorkshire accent.

I covered the mouthpiece. "Shut up, Ray, I'm busy. What was it you wanted to see me about, Mr. Brown?"

"I can't tell you over the phone, and even if I could, I haven't the time." He hung up.

I lit a cigarette; it didn't taste very good. I hadn't really enjoyed tobacco since my return from Dorset. I've been lucky to avoid this till now, I thought; Hoylake, having failed to scare me off Susan, has handed the job over to Brown who, in some unpleasantly direct way, is going to kick me in the guts. A man with only a few hundred in the bank - and lucky to have that - is powerless against a man with a hundred thousand. I would be forced to leave Warley. Already I had a premonition of my future status at the Town Hall whenever I saw Teddy swelling visibly with his promotion (he'd been given APT Four, too). I'd been with Susan last night; she'd been silent and tearful and distrait, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong with her. I knew now. Daddy had put his foot down, she was sprinting towards the already rising drawbridge and the slowly closing portcullis. And Jack Wales would be home for Christmas - what chance had the swineherd against the Prince? Now it had come, it was actually a relief: there was nowhere I could retreat to, no need to be pleasant to anyone, I could afford the luxury of speaking my mind.

I looked at Ray, his hands red and blue with ink, his lower lip trembling. He'd noticed me spending much more time than usual over the petty cash books, and he knew what was coming. I had it in my power to alter his whole life: he came from a poor family, and I knew just what happened to people who were sacked from local government. The Efficient Zombie had a junior sacked once for exactly the same offence as Ray's and he'd ended up as a labourer. The reference system, unless you're very lucky or very rich or very talented, can be your implacable enemy for the rest of your life if you do one thing out of line. Ray was in the dock, all five foot four of him: I was the judge and the jury. One word from me to Hoylake, and out he went.

"Bring me the cashbox and the stamp book and the petty cash book," I said. He took them out of the safe and came over to my desk with them, dragging his feet in their down-at-heels shoes.

"I went over these this morning, Ray," I said. "There seem to be some discrepancies."

He looked at me dumbly.

"Errors," I said. "Errors that should have been revealed by a surplus but weren't. Fifteen shillings over the last fortnight. Have you got that fifteen shillings?"

He shook his head. The tears were coming to his eyes. "All right, then. Maybe I've made a mistake. We'll go over the books together."

He stood over me while my finger traced down the rows of figures, his red-and-blue hand with the bitten fingernails following mine. It was that, and those down-at-heel shoes, that sickened me: I saw myself through his eyes, old and sleek and all-powerful. I shut the books with a bang.