Chelsea Bird

Virginia Ironside

First published in Great Britain in 1964 by Secker & Warburg

This ebook edition published in 2013 by

Quercus Editions Ltd

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Copyright © 1964 by Virginia Ironside

The moral right of Virginia Ironside to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Ebook ISBN 978 1 78206 862 4

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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THE SLASHERS is an awful place – I subscribed to this attitude rather than ‘The Slashers is a terrific place’, (both opinions being equally smart) purely because I had never spent a really enjoyable evening there. Nothing to do with the place itself.

It was a cold evening in January that I went there with Tom – one of the Slashers fans.

We had supper before in a rather expensive Italian restaurant in Soho, where Tom had ordered my meal without asking me what I wanted in an exaggerated Italian accent.

‘The Popliagatori is excellent. I guarantee you’ll love it,’ he had assured me, glancing at the wine list and making odd ‘Tch Tch’ noises of annoyance, presumably to show me that he had a wine in mind but it wasn’t there. Eventually he shrugged his shoulders.

‘Chateau ’29? That do you?’

‘Surely,’ I replied knowingly, but in fact feeling embarrassed at the idea of wine at all. Wine for two always means a bottle between us and that means surreptitious fillings up when I’m not looking and finally a muzzy me and a smug partner, who for some reason thinks he’s got somewhere by making me drunk.

In fact drink makes me super-sensitive – to touch as well as to people – so as far as passes are concerned (assuming getting me drunk is aimed at this) it is a very bad thing for not only do I jump away if our shoulders brush accidentally in the street, but any fault the escort may possess is multiplied by ten in my drunken mind and horror descends. It is rather pathetic seeing people fill me with drink to ensure their failure.

It was in this grouchy state, therefore, that I was led off to the Slashers.

Tom was one of the usual run … striped shirt, beautifully cut suit with those nice trousers that have no pleats at the waist. He said ‘HULLO!’ to several rather dull characters, who were also saying ‘HULLO!’ to several other people. The furthest they got in conversation was either ‘SUPER night … lots of LOVELY people’ or ‘God I hate the Slashers. All the OLD faces.’ I didn’t know anyone there, and sucked at my straws in the Coca Cola Tom had got for me, trying to look sexy so that maybe one of the beautiful young men there might ask me to dance.

‘Have a twist?’ Tom smiled smoothly. We were downstairs and I was being battered by dancing couples. I kept thinking it was people patting my bottom and turned round feeling rather furiously flattered, only to find that it was a Bazaar-dressed beauty dancing rather energetically with a cool number I fancied. Angry at my hurt pride and feeling very silly among so many model girls and consciously ‘In’ people, I said yes.

I felt like twisting well – because I can – and started showing off. The modern jazz went on – how pretentious. One should listen to modern jazz and dance to rock or something. My heels kept getting caught in the red tiled floor. ‘DANCING LIKE A FUCKING DEB YOU DO,’ yelled an ‘In’ queen.

I was furious. I just like dancing energetically. Unable even to dance as I lipked!

We stopped at last. It was one of those numbers which go on for ever and just as one thinks ‘hurray it’s going to end’, on comes the bass solo. My muzziness was clearing and I felt exhilarated and sweating.

Seeing myself in a mirror, a ghastly bespectacled flushed character with a wet fringe that had started to curl and cling revoltingly to my forehead, I saw that I could no longer be silent and let my beauty see me through. The uglier I become, the gayer I get to compensate for it. In fact, in pessimistic moods, I have sometimes caught myself wishing that I weren’t so pretty.

After this revealing glance, and not caring because I had danced so much, I heard myself start the inane jolly girl act.

I dug Tom in the ribs and flashed a smile at him.

‘Pretty good for someone of your age.’

I knew he’d think I meant it facetiously.

‘So speaks Auntie Harriet. You ARE rather aunt-like actually. It’s very attractive.’

I winced. Like HELL I was aunt-like. He’d soon find that out.

‘Oh, how kind! Gosh I’m hot.’

‘You’ve got funny little beads of sweat pouring down you,’ he said, flicking a drop off my nose.

I found this unnecessarily revolting.

‘How disgusting! If there are two things I hate, its sweat and smells.’

‘You hate an awful lot of things. Do you march?’ he asked me.

‘No. I hate marchers.’ I do, too. Determined not to be classed as a rebel I said, ‘But I like so many things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Like um …’ I racked my brains. ‘I like dancing. I like going out. I like nice people. I like … no I ADORE my father and mother.’

‘Ah, the old parent fixation.’

I giggled feebly. People always mention parent fixations when I say I like my parents. They disregard the fact that they might be exceptionally Nice People.

The music roared on and I wondered what to say. The conversation was too stupid. ‘Oh dear, you know we’ve just been talking small talk,’ I said, feeling that that was an exceptionally small thing to say.

‘Ah, come …’ said Tom. ‘There’s a time and a place for everything, and I’m drunk. Talk about what you like.’

I couldn’t bear it. I felt it would be better to repair my looks and remain silent than to continue this kind of conversation, where every remark seemed finite.

‘I MUST go to the Ladies. I look terrible!’ I squealed, pretending I had only just noticed myself in the mirror.

‘Don’t go chasing after all those men,’ cautioned Tom.

I pushed my way through all the ‘In’ people and rushed up the stairs, past a drunk black guy who yelled, ‘Kiss me, kiss me,’ after me and heard the murmurs of appreciation of this remark between his friends (‘Great GREAT guy! Fabulous man!’) as they picked him up and rushed him downstairs to buy him another drink.

Who was patronising who? I wondered, as I entered the Ladies.

I coolly tried to open the door to the lavatory, not looking at the Vacant-Engaged sign and gambling my superiority on the chance it would be vacant.

‘My friend’s in there,’ squeaked a frizzy-haired creature, patting her hair in front of a mirror.

‘Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,’ I said, realising I was lost and backing away from the door.

‘That’s all right. I say, you must have been twisting a lot, you look awfully hot.’

God, she was so friendly. I always dread this Us-We’re-All-Girls-Let’s-Stick-Together routine in the Ladies, because I’m so bad at replying.

‘Yes, I have rather. Heavens, what a pretty dress that is!’ I said, keeping up the alliance, nervously.

I knew she would say C&A proudly – they always do when one says what a pretty dress. Me too actually. In fact I even smile at other girls at parties lest I should show my distaste for smiling at them. Maybe we all do it.

‘C&A,’ she shouted, turning round to display it better.

‘No, REALLY? It’s fantastic what nice things they have.’

I wished her friend would hurry up. I heard her pull the plug, but it didn’t work. It was like trying to start a car.

‘Only thirty bob,’ she said smugly.

‘NO!! ’ I forced my eyes to pop and bulge in amazement. ‘Fantastic!’

Her friend came out triumphantly, heralded by a loud plug-pulling noise.

‘I thought it would never work,’ she said desperately, drawing attention to a fact we had both obviously realised.

I smiled warmly at her. Not the sort of girl I wanted to have sat on the seat before me, but this was a bad day, and I could have expected it.

Luckily it worked first go for me, and both the girls had disappeared. I smiled at myself in the mirror as I combed my fringe, and winked.

It gave me a wonderful feeling of security to look at myself in the mirror. There, I felt, is someone who looks like me, dresses like me, thinks like me, and laughs at the things I laugh at. I gave myself a thumbs up sign.

‘Don’t worry, girl,’ I said. ‘You’re OK. You’ll make out. Now, you’re going to go downstairs, looking pretty and being nice.’

I ran downstairs feeling good, and pinched the black man on the cheek. He was being hauled up, this time, by his friends.

Tom was shouting above the music to a friend – a rather drunk author. One presumed he was an author because he told everyone he was, but as far as appearance went he looked very dull – a dirty fawn raincoat which frilled out at the hem, a baggy, shiny suit and a spade tie. Also he was always drunk, so that in spite of the fact that hundreds of people hung around him open-mouthed waiting for a gem to drop from his lips, as far as I knew he had never been known to say anything but, ‘You sod, you bugger you, you want a goddam fight, do you?’ while I clutched on to my partner, petrified. Tom was trying to be intellectual as usual. I was often surprised at how much I liked Tom. I even found his pomposity endearing – maybe because it was so typical of him. I had met him at a cocktail party in Belgrave Square given by friends of my mother and he had asked me out. Curiously we got on, although most evenings were a long battle with each of us trying to be one up on the other. In fact I was invariably one up on him, but he got so hurt if proved wrong that I left most arguments at a draw. He was the sort of person who would sulk for days if one beat him at ping-pong.

Going out with Tom made me understand why apparently ill-suited married couples who spent their time bickering and complaining stuck together. There was, certainly, something about Tom, and although we fought like brother and sister and even had an occasional row (very surprising because I am not a rower), we were attached like brother and sister as well. We had been going out for about six months and everyone thought we were having an affair, which amused Tom. He found it particularly entertaining when he heard me directing conversations between his friends ridiculously obviously to the subject of Tom and me, and then making loud and bad remarks like: ‘You’ll think that Tom and I are having an affair next!’ They would stare blankly at the irrelevance of the remark, while Tom smiled amusedly at my discomfort.

He was a terrible name dropper, and would go to great lengths to be ‘In’. If being ‘In’ meant going up to the Portobello Road every Saturday morning and missing lunch to get drunk with moronic but beautiful models and photographers in O’Hara’s, Tom would be the first one charging up the Market at twelve to secure his place.

I really believe he would have done anything to be ‘In’; though, to be ‘In’ at that time was only to appear once a week at the Slashers, have a few drinks at the Chelsea Weaver in the King’s Road, spend a little time talking to very drunk authors at a drinking club in Soho (it was the only time they would talk to him, when drunk) read Town and Queen, have coffee at the Brazil, which was also in the King’s Road, and refer to girls as birds.

Tom at that time was in the throes of the ‘It’s In to be cockney’ rage. This fascinated me. Not only was it smart to be young, but a cockney or regional accent, particularly a northern one, could get one a lot of places. Frank Norman was a leader of the cult, the admen were after it hot foot, and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, Albert Finney and Terence Stamp all contributed to the movement. It maddened me to hear directors discussing the reasons for making films about sordid life in Manchester suburbs, and saying that realism, stark and unaffected, was what people wanted because they were sick of false glamour and smarty ways. ‘They now want to see real life, unvarnished, basic, and true.’

Maybe, but it was all part of the smartness racket. And as soon as people had seen the latest Tony Richardson movie, and read the latest Colin McInnes, their one idea was to get more lower class than anyone else. (In an upper-class way of course, in a smarty way.) Black men became people to know, teddy boys were good people to be able to nod to in the street status-wise, and transport caffs were the only places to go for food, even if it meant cold greasy fried eggs and chips, which was called, however revolting, ‘Super nosh’.

It was all in the Pop tradition, and luckily Tom didn’t take it too far, but some friends of his devoted themselves to the phase, and, although quite rich, lived in Battersea, went to wrestling matches, raved about Romance magazines, watched the boxing on TV and played old rock records. They bought cheaper and nastier clothes than anyone else, and tried to be uglier and more squalid and basic than anyone else. It was all rather sad. In an effort to become less affected than other people, they themselves were putting on a hopeless and predictable act.

Tom went quite far, but always went to the transport caffs in his car and was never on more than nodding terms with the teddy boys and tun up kids who hung around the coffee stall on the other side of Battersea Bridge, where he listened intently for new rhyming slang.

As we left the Slashers, he yelled in a terrible voice that revealed an upper-class accent, ‘ ’Ows the business t’night, luv?’ to a prostitute hanging around in a Soho doorway. She gave him a very cold-boiled look. (I wouldn’t have minded him putting on this act had he been good at it, but he constantly received cold-boiled looks, or just rude giggles. I once said: ‘God, you suffer so much just to be “In”,’ and he’d said, ‘Nonsense, it isn’t a case of being “In”, and what is being “In” anyway, how naïve you are Harriet to actually think that anyone can be “In”.’ I gathered later from reading an article about ‘In’-ness somewhere that to be really ‘In’ you mustn’t mention it, and to admit to be striving to be ‘In’ is definitely OUT. Like it’s non-U to mention the word.)

That evening, I dragged him on, thinking that maybe the prostitute would start throwing rotten apples at us if Tom stayed asking about the business, only to be rebuffed by him saying, ‘You mustn’t be so shy, Harriet. Tarts are just as much human beings as you or I.’

One leant out of a doorway, and he winked at her, and she winked back. (Now I was afraid that they might start a long conversation, both trying to find out how the other half lived, and I would be left to catch a taxi home. Why was Tom driven to be so chummy with those people? A nice, frightened person would be scurrying along the streets, squeaking with fear and embarrassment.)

‘What a super swinging birdie,’ announced Tom. He was one of the only people I have ever met who really announced things. I always thought that it was just a word that writers use when they find they have written ‘Said’, ‘Exclaimed’, etc. too much and want a change.

‘Hmm.’ I didn’t know what to say, feeling in a quibbling mood and wanting to prove to him that she had been neither super nor swinging.

Sleazy, moronic birdie! I thought stuffily.

Still, it would be too unkind to disillusion him, and also impossible because his illusions were very real to him although he made himself out to be a cynic. In fact, his greatest illusion was that he was Mature, and able to cope with life. This was fine until he started thrusting this conception of himself down your throat, thinking he was right because he believed implicitly in the illusion.

We drove down Constitution Hill, the statue at the end silhouetted against the sky, with the wireless on.

‘I wish all the roads were pink like outside Buckingham Palace,’ I remarked. Each time I said this, it occurred to me as an entirely new observation, and it was only after I had said it that I realised how many times I had said it before. I feel that there must be some machine outside Buckingham Palace that transmits this thought into everyone’s head as they pass.

‘Buck House.’ Tom said this as an unconscious correction of my remark. ‘Hear that Rosemary Wessex’s on the blacklist there. The latest is she’s fallen out at last with her maharajah. She always was one for a dark skin. Johnnie Wessex had to cover himself with burnt cork before she’d go to bed with him. She tried to get him to wear gold rings in his ears, but Johnnie always was a coward about pain, and by the time he’d nerved himself to having his ears pierced she’d gone off with the maharajah. Of course poor Johnnie was the laughing stock of Belgravia for weeks, wore a crash helmet even with a DJ just so no one would see the earrings.’

‘Really, you musn’t invent such stories. Johnnie’s a nice, sensitive man. You’re being unkind,’ I said. I was in a bad mood, and I always get moral when I’m angry.

‘It makes a good story, anyway,’ he said.

‘Makes a good story!’ I became fed up. ‘You’re libelling people!’

‘Never knew you were so pi.’

‘I’m not.’ I started squeaking, with boredom, rather than anger. ‘It’s just morally wrong … and legally,’ I added feebly. Christ I was being dreary.

‘Well, no one will ever libel you, so don’t worry your pretty little head.’

I simpered. It was all I could do. Damn God for making me a girl, expected to simper when a man makes fatuous remarks.

We roared down Knightsbridge.

‘Want a coffee?’ asked Tom.

‘Mmm, I’d love some,’ I said, leaning forward to switch the programme on the wireless to something else. It was a terrible programme of modern classical music on the Third. Tom pushed my hand away.

‘No. It’s good. Very good,’ he added, as if he knew all about it.

‘Please let me change it, just for five minutes, I really can’t stand it,’ I begged.

‘All right, five minutes. But I forbid pops.’

‘Why the hell?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you see how good they are, can’t you see what charm they have? The next record I buy is going to be Eddie Cochran.’

Tom groaned. ‘You would.’

It was impossible to argue. There are teenagers who drool over Eddie Cochran, Toms who think he’s nothing but idle entertainment, and people like me who see how fantastically good he is.

I twiddled the knob and passed some modern jazz hurriedly, hoping he hadn’t heard it, because you only have to mention modern jazz to Tom and he’s off Be doop a di di bidupooding to it and saying how good it is, but he’d heard, and seized the knob to get it back. Half closing his eyes as he drove, and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he said: ‘Can’t think why you don’t like it. Marvellous stuff …’

I tried to interrupt, ‘I have NEVER said I don’t like it, I’m just discriminating that’s all …’

‘… with Joe Morello on clarinet, listen to this drum solo … ssh …’ (I hadn’t said a word.) ‘… Oh, marvellous! Can’t you hear the recurring theme, doo doo bi bi dadada boooweeoom?’

It would have been too cruel to correct him about Joe Morello.

‘Ba ba di ba di boop a doopa bo bo di ba ba ba ba baa baa baaa BAAA CHUNG! You’re not listening.’

I wasn’t. I was wondering why he went bi doop a be da rather than tra la la tiddle tumpty as people are always meant to sing.

Maybe it was because Tom wasn’t really singing. He’d caught on to the fact that it was in the swing to have arty, musical and literary tendencies, and as a result tried to take photographs of trees with a very expensive camera he had bought, listened endlessly to all the jazz programmes on the wireless as long as they were modern (he’d got as far as disliking Acker Bilk), had a large collection of very clean unplayed modern jazz records, and wrote articles occasionally for unknown magazines on the strength of which he sometimes shyly called himself a writer.

He drove up outside the Brazil in the King’s Road, and insisted on us waiting there until the programme was finished, which was embarrassing because to the people passing by we must have looked like rowing lovers, I frowning and bored and Tom twitching away to the jazz with his head in his hands.

‘Right.’ Another announcement.

He got out of the car and we went in. He was at his best here, as he pointed out everyone and told me endless rumours and stories about each one. We sat down, and he stared distantly over my shoulder to see if there were any super swinging birdies to talk to, or any conman he ought to be seen talking to.

His face suddenly brightened. ‘Good heavens,’ he said.

I refused to bite.

‘My God.’

I remained icy calm.

‘That’s fantastic … I thought he was in jail … it can’t be … it is.’

He looked down and then pretended to pull himself together.

‘Sorry … saw someone I knew. Do you want coffee or what?’

‘Coffee would be fine.’ I was itching to know who he had seen, but restrained myself from asking by saying to myself, ‘If he’s a friend of Tom’s he can’t be much,’ and then catching myself out somewhere.

I gave in. ‘Who’s been to jail?’ I asked.

‘Just one of my friends,’ said Tom nonchalantly, as if his friends went to prison every day. He approved of having friends who went to prison, but not of going to prison himself.

‘Do you want to meet him?’ he asked me.

He must not be bad or Tom wouldn’t dare introduce him to critical me, I thought, so I said, ‘Yes.’

The character who Tom went and fetched was someone, I remembered, whom I had seen several times in the King’s Road and had fallen in love with on sight when I was fifteen.

‘You must know this super swinging birdie,’ said Tom to the character in question. As I seemed to remember the last girl Tom had described in those terms was a tart, I was hardly flattered … and who knew, maybe super swinging birdie was code talk in ‘In’ circles for a tart and I should get up and leave at once.

But this thought vanished as I looked up at the person who was staring down at me rather sexily. Tom does know some attractive people, I thought.

‘Hullo.’ His voice was deep and slightly Welsh, and he was dressed beautifully in tapered trousers with a slight flare that just covered his black Chelsea boots, and he wore a dark blue polo-necked jersey.

‘This is Damon,’ said Tom proudly, ‘the King of the King’s Road. Tell me, Damon, what are you doing now?’

Damon sat down beside me, and his voice was so deep that it made the table buzz.

‘This and that,’ he said mysteriously. ‘And how about old Tom? Still showing lousy programmes to the public?’

This was said nastily and condescendingly with a very cool half smile.

‘I’m showing programmes to the lousy public if that’s what you mean.’

‘Good man.’ He turned to me. ‘And how did you come to meet this fun-bundle of television?’

I was at once made shy by his speaking to me so all I could squeak, blushing horribly, was, ‘At a party.’

‘God, at what sort of a party does a fruitie like you end up with a man like this?’

It was said in joke, but he meant it, and Tom knew it.

Also it was a question that I had often asked myself.

‘Oh, I don’t know, a party.’

I could have kicked myself for being so feeble.

‘She’s a super birdie, isn’t she?’ said Tom kindly.

‘Sure.’ Damon looked at me, and hugged me. As usual, I simpered, and started to light a cigarette as if we had spent the whole evening making love.

He got up … I didn’t blame him, quite honestly. Had I been him, I don’t think I would have spent long talking to Tom and his shy, silly little girlfriend.

‘If you get sick of him, you can come to a party I’m giving on Saturday. It’s at 87 Blueberry Walk,’ Damon said to me. Then turning to Tom he said, ‘Goodbye, Robertson.’

Tom was particularly annoyed with him. ‘That was very naughty of him. He knows I hate being called by my surname. Still, he gives quite good parties. We might go.’

I had a vague feeling that I was the one who had been invited but, still, let it pass, let it pass.

Tom started telling me about Damon.

‘Fantastic man. No one knows what he does or where he comes from, though he always seems to have enough cash – personally I find him a shady character. He’s living off this girl in Blueberry Walk at the moment.’

No doubt a REALLY super swinging birdie, I thought miserably, not just a fake one like me.

He went on about Damon all the way home, and I decided I rather liked conmen. I looked forward to the party.

*

The next morning I woke up late, which didn’t really matter because I was at that time an art student (no doubt half the reason why Tom took me out). I lived with my parents in a house in Kensington, and as my father taught at an art scool he was always gone long before I got up. Teachers get to art schools half an hour late and students an hour late.

I got up sleepily, made some breakfast in the kitchen, read the Gambols in the Express … an awful duty … and Lord Luck. Ever since Lord Luck had been right once, I always read him avidly, and my persistence wasn’t marred by his usual predictions: ‘Good day for finance, but trouble with in-laws may arise after tea.’

I had no post except a postcard with a brown photograph of a country house on it from my god-mother, which said, ‘I know how nice it is to get a card and know that someone’s thought of you, so here you are!’

Hmm. I staggered upstairs to my room again feeling unwashed and ill, and put on all the clothes I had worn the night before as a gesture of defiance, put my paints into a basket and stumbled off to Pimlico Art School.

It was a nice day, crisp and sunny, and little children were playing with their nannies in Pimlico Square. Young married mothers tripped along in expensive slacks with their shopping baskets to the King’s Road and I thought how nice it would be to be one of them, rich and silly and happy with another baby every year, nannies, gossips with other wives over lunch, and drinks in the Anglesea on Sunday mornings.

Or rather, not how nice to be one, but nice to like being one.

I turned into Telston Walk, marred only, ironically, by the monstrous red art school that was always in shade however sunny it was.

I made dutiful facetious faces and remarks to the other art students who were also late, and, having dumped our coats in our lockers, we sheepishly made our way to the canteen to have coffee.

Pimlico Art School was not entirely an art school … in fact the art school was the smallest part of it. It was mainly devoted to science and technology, therefore mixing, most unsuitably, two completely different kinds of students: one, the art students dressed prettily and casually and dripping with Aldermaston badges, and the other, the science students, fumbling around in baggy suits and short-sleeved rayon blouses, learning, no doubt, about germ warfare and how to blow us all up. I think the art students did in fact have the upper hand in the permanent war that went on between us, as they had the monopoly of most of the lavatories, and were first to think of putting up large notices on the doors saying ‘No Science Students’. Also the art school had the best parties and were the best at queue-jumping, and had the only upper-class students in the building.

I bought my coffee and cheese roll and sat down at one of the Formica-topped tables. A few students were drearily drumming their fingers on it while one drew morosely on it with a biro.

‘Have a fag.’ Someone offered me a tipped Woodbine.

‘A GREAT little cigarette.’ Art students, like any group of people, are inclined to talk in clichés.

‘Thanks.’

‘Late again, Harriet. I don’t know how you manage to sleep so long.’

This was said by a dedicated little graphic designer from Birmingham, who disapproved of students who weren’t in by five to ten every morning.

‘Was Mr. Greenlow cross?’ I asked.

‘Oh, he’s not in yet. He went off with that model yesterday. I should think they’re still in bed.’

Roars of laughter.

‘Bed’ and ‘Sex’ were the two words that went down best at Pimlico, like ‘Knickers’ in the dormitory at school.

‘Have you seen the fabric design that Lucy did? It’s beautiful. She does some lovely things. Mr. Barnes said he thought she could get into the RCA.’ She stirred her tea daintily.

‘Fabric design! PTCHAH!’ muttered an enthusiastic painter from the other end of the table.

‘How can people do fucking fabric design? They call themselves art students but fabric design, that’s not ART.’

I’d had this argument too many times, and should have known better than to start it up again, but I blundered ahead.

‘What do you mean, it’s not art? If it’s a good design, and it’s pretty, and the colours are good, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a painting or a wallpaper design. A Utrillo painting is just as good art-wise as a Lautrec poster. In fact if it’s a wallpaper pattern then at least it can be put to some use.’

‘PRETTY!’ I thought he was going to be sick. ‘PRETTY!’

I’d got the point before.

He spat it out in disgust, and waved his plastic spoon at me.

‘You don’t know anything about art. If you think something’s art just because it’s pretty … Oh CHRIST!’

He put down his spoon and leant across the table. He twitched slightly.

‘You know what art is? It’s the meaning of life. It’s an idea, created inside the artist which is expressed on canvas.’

Oh God, we were in for it now. Everyone turned to listen to him. He was one of the many misfits at Pimlico who thought he was a genius and somehow managed to convince everyone else he was as well, purely because no one could understand his pictures and therefore no one knew whether he was or not.

‘The whole conception of art, to us (that is to the amorphous … I or we), is an idealistic realisation of the basis in factual presentation. In the radical … or rather shall I say … anti-intellectual remoteness that lies between the artist and his art, there is deeper truth – for art is truth – in corresponding tendencies. In the formal sense, this is lost, but then taken up again, and therefore presents itself to us in basic comprehension.’

There was silence, as he searched for the next sentence. I offered the prim girl a Players.

‘Players,’ she said, in a high-pitched voice. ‘I say, you must be in the money.’

I resolved to buy Woodies in future.

‘You see,’ he continued, ‘that if the contingency of the proliferation exceeds its idea-content, the intellectual, or anti-intellectualism of the original conception will academically conceive the basis-methodic.’

He jerked and stopped and drummed his fingers on the table.

A silent character beside me heaved uncomfortably, and stroked his beard. A bit of cheese was about to drop from his mouth onto the table.

‘I don’t agree,’ he said.

It dropped. And I was off.

I decided to skip art school that morning and go sketching. ‘Go sketching’ could mean ‘do nothing’, ‘go shopping’ or anything. The teachers who sent one sketching were the most popular.

I pottered off to look at the river. It looked pretty and sparkling that morning. The sun was out and I wandered down towards the barges. It was about eleven-thirty … what could I do till four o’clock? There was nothing really. I could go and visit the male models (or actors, as they called themselves) who lived on a barge in Chelsea Reach, I could sketch, I could go to see a lousy film … I felt like bursting into tears at the prospect. The art school was terrible, but this utter boredom was worse. Had I been an energetic type … but I wasn’t. And even had I been, what would I have done?

How did all those beautiful young layabouts (I have to use the word) pass the time of day? Wandering desolately up and down the King’s Road spending other people’s money, having lunch with jolly friends, sleeping in the afternoon and then living it up in the evenings at parties or round at a girl-friend’s flat … it seemed a nice sort of life, but how did they do it? Or rather, why wasn’t I doing it?

I had enough jolly friends … most of them working though … and the jolly friends I had who weren’t working were really not terribly jolly, nor real friends of mine.

I went to see if one of the male models were in. They were five boys who were super attractive, usually broke, but somehow always wearing the nicest clothes I had ever seen, and always covered in man-tan. They had loads of very dim and very beautiful girlfriends, and they didn’t have an idea in their heads.

I made my way precariously down the plank to the barges, and knocked on the door of the barge. A loud ‘Coming’ was called, and Martin opened the door.

‘Harriet! Nice to see you,’ he said, and paused as if he were waiting to see what I wanted.

‘Hullo, I’ve come to visit you.’

‘Great! Come in.’ He always had a forced air of hospitality, which involved a lot of outstretched arms and waving.

I stumbled down the steps, into the barge.

‘Well, I haven’t seen you for a long time! How are you? Great to see you!’

‘I’m fine! Great to see you, too,’ I paused. This was about as far as we ever got. He’d offer me some Maxwell House, tell me about the parts he’d almost got, and that would be that. He never understood my jokes, or anything I said in fact, but having coffee with someone is better than nothing, so I occasionally went round to see him when I was feeling low, just for the company and the GREAT to see you bit, which was pleasant even if not meant.

‘Have some Maxwell House,’ he said.

‘I’d love some … I’m awfully sorry to come so unexpectedly but I was just passing …’

‘No, no … great to see you. Drop in any time. With milk and sugar?’

‘Yes please. How pretty you’ve made this room!’

‘Glad you like it.’ He craned his neck as he lurched out of the kitchen.

I took the coffee and he sat down opposite me.

‘Well, and what have you been doing with yourself?’ he asked.

‘Oh, you know, the usual … this and that.’

‘Lots of parties? ‘He had a loud voice and he said everything with a big modelish smile that you almost felt was purposely meant to look false.

‘I’m a flop and pathetic, but I smile, I smile,’ you felt he was saying the whole time.

‘A few … you know. How about you? Are you working?’

‘I got a few ads done over Christmas, but nothing now. January is slump period you know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘Oh dear.’

There was another pause. He put his head in his hands.

‘Oh, God. I just don’t know at all.’

‘Poor Martin. Poor Martin.’

He looked up with a sickeningly gay smile.

‘No use feeling sorry for yourself is there? Anyway, what have you been up to?’

I thought we’d gone over this ground.

‘Nothing much really.’

We sat in silence.

I stirred my coffee vaguely, wondering what to say.

‘Isn’t it awfully damp in here sometimes?’

‘No, surprisingly, it’s not.’

‘Don’t you feel rather seasick when it’s rough?’

‘No, you don’t surprisingly.’

‘Odd.’

We stared into space.

‘Seen any good movies lately, as they say?’

‘Oh yes … Wind over the Horizon, it was fabulous.’

‘Really? I haven’t seen that. I heard it was good though. Did you see L’Interra?’

‘No … what was it like? I want to see it … it had such wonderful reviews.’

‘It’s great. You must see it. And Hate, have you seen that?’

‘Oh God, that was wonderful.’

‘Wasn’t it. Fabulous.’

‘The girl … what was her name? … she was marvellous.’

‘Terrific … you mean Anna Gespaci.’

‘That’s it.’

He looked at his watch.

‘I must go … heavens. Got to see my agent this morning.’

I got up.

‘Well, thank you for the coffee, and cheer up.’

‘Not much chance of that.’

He put the cups away and put on his jacket. He seized some Old Spice and gave himself a spray. It had a lovely smell.

I opened the door. It was all rather tricky.

‘Goodbye … thank you.’

‘Come again … come whenever you like and we’ll have a longer chat.’

Heaven forbid.

‘’Bye. GREAT to see you … and … look after yourself.’

Because no one else will, I thought gloomily, as I walked up the gangplank, avoiding the creepy man who always seems to be standing around there.

It was one of those awful days that I could see would stretch out for ages in utter boredom. ‘Pimlico Art School?’ people would cry, ‘LUCKY, LUCKY you … long holidays and hardly any work.’

But, God, it was so dull.

I meandered back up the steps to the Embankment and leant over the edge to look at the river. Some little boys were scuffing around in the mud, and the sea gulls squawked and cried.

It was all very lovely, I thought romantically, Youth, Nature, and Big Old Father Thames chugging down from Oxford and green valleys (or was it to Oxford and green valleys), Good Old London and all that crap. And anyway, why Father Thames? Why not daughter … or, for that matter … no, I realised I shouldn’t have started on that track. It was quite obvious why it was father, especially as it was so big and terrifying, and grey and massive, expansive, powerful, throbbing (that’s a good one), vast, impressive …

‘HI!’

A voice behind me made me jump. I looked round to see a sort of friend of mine peering over the top of a vast drawing board with ANN HOPKINS DO NOT TAKE ANN HOPKINS ANN HOPKINS DO NOT BORROW ANN HOPKINS written all over it in Flomaster.

‘ANN!’ I cried. She was rather awful, but I wanted someone to talk to then so I latched on to her at once.

‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

She paused and hesitated. ‘I ought to do some work.’

‘Yeah, yeah, sure, sure,’ I muttered, remembering how Damon had talked and hoping I was impressing her with my New Slick Outlook.

She staggered after me with her drawing board.

She was also a student at Pimlico, and we had lunch together almost every day. We regarded each other as dustbins for each other’s girlish confidences, but it was a little one sided as I was quite prepared to listen to hers and dish out extremely good advice, if I may say so, while she was inclined to pare her nails whenever I started on some disaster of my own, putting in an Umm now and again.

Which was a pity as she missed a few quite funny remarks. Needless to say I was always at my best with her, and wasted several of my best jokes on her. I was always at my wittiest with morons, relations and old people. Whereas with the young and beautiful characters all I could manage to say were trite remarks like ‘What a pretty tie!’ or disastrous attempts to be funny that started ‘The funniest thing happened to me the other day … well, actually its not as funny as all that …’

Ann and I wandered up the Embankment together. She was telling me all about the latest scene she had had with her boyfriend, some crumb she’d picked up at a Hurlingham dance (she was one of the sub debs who thought it was smart to be at Pimlico Art School). Her hair was looking extraordinary, with some sort of lacquer sprayed on it that bleached as it sprayed as it set as it etc. So the top layer of hair was great deal paler than the rest. She was wearing a very dark pair of stockings and white high heels, and her lipstick clashed with her pink jersey. She looked terrible. The thing about Ann was that she brought out the worst in me, and I was really ashamed to be seen out with her. If ever I saw a friend of mine across the street when I was with her, if I couldn’t avoid him, I would spend the next time I saw him apologising for her profusely.

‘She’s really rather ghastly, but you know, in fact she’s not bad, and terribly sweet and dim, you see I’ve known her for so long it’s terrible, she’s not as bad as she looks … quite.’ I could hear myself doing it, kicking myself for being so hypocritical.

‘… and I said, “Of course I won’t go to bed with you,” but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer …’

Ann was droning on.

She followed me around with dog-like devotion, and agreed with everything I said. She would ask me embarrassing questions about sex, and I would have to reply, skirting desperately round the tricky bits.

‘… so I pushed him away and he got all huffy and just went. Do you think he’ll ring up again?’

I jerked myself from looking at the paper factory across the river and wondering if I could make a living by selling them old Woodbine packets.

‘Did he say he would? That was a silly question I suppose … like people who say, “Where did you put it last?” when you’re looking for something.’

‘Yes he did, but that was before all this, and he didn’t say anything about it when he left. Do you think he will?’

‘I really don’t know.’

She looked up at me … it was too sad. I’m sure had I said ‘He will’ she would have believed me.

‘No, what do you think? I mean do you think he will or not?’

‘Well he might I suppose.’

‘Do you really think so? But he left in such a huff and I was rather nasty to him.’

‘Well, maybe he won’t.’

‘Don’t you think so? I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t … I mean I’m absolutely crazy about him. I couldn’t bear it.’

I turned away and raised my eyebrows at nothing. ‘Why don’t you sleep with him?’ I muttered. But then she was all scared and young … I couldn’t suggest it out loud.

‘When did he say he’d ring?’

‘Well you see he was going to take me down to Epsom on Saturday, and then we were going to have supper at that sweet little pub by the river, but then he said he couldn’t fix that so he said that he’d ring on Sunday and we’d do something else.’

‘Well, if he hasn’t rung by Monday he won’t ring, will he?’ I said crossly. Why couldn’t she work these things out for herself?

‘Oh dear, but I can’t wait all that time. Do you think I should ring him and apologise?’

I stopped, and leant over the Embankment wall.

‘Apologise? What for?’

‘Well, I was rather nasty to him, you see.’

‘Of course not, then. No don’t ring him, it would be fatal.’

‘Do you think so? Why?’

OH, SHUT UP, I wanted to shout … I don’t know and I don’t care.

Ann sighed loudly and leant her head back.

‘I wish I could meet some more people,’ she moaned, but the hint was clear enough.

‘Oh well, I suppose you could meet Tom.’

It suddenly struck me what a good idea that would be. They would be sure to get on.

‘Yes, you’d adore Tom … yes … look I’ll fix up a supper or drinks or something.’

She looked at me suspiciously.

‘I thought you always said that Tom was awful?’

‘No, he’s not really, he’s terribly sweet. You see he’s just not my type really. You’d love him.’

‘What does he do? What does he look like? How sweet of you, could you really do that? I feel in such a rut at the moment.’

She spoke desperately, and I felt sorry for her, but at the same time I was furious that she was trying to cut in on MY friends. She once tried an ‘I’ve got a good idea … you introduce me to all your friends and I’ll introduce you to all mine’, but it was quite clear who would have got the better of that bargain, so I got out of it. And yet here I was, introducing her to my most steady man friend and what would I get in return? She might, but it was unlikely, introduce me to one of her crumby acquaintances.

‘HE’S SUPER.’ I had to build the poor boy up. ‘He’s blond … awfully attractive … I mean if you like those sort of looks, I don’t actually, and he’s got vast private means and in television and has a car …’

‘Oh, what sort?’ Ann looked enthusiastic. I think she judged people’s characters by the sort of car they owned. ‘Did I tell you that John’s cousin is getting an E-Type Jag … an E-TYPE!’ she screamed. ‘I adore them!’

‘Sure, sure. Sure. Aaah, honey, those E-Types give me the pip.’ That wasn’t right. ‘This Tom guy’s got an Austin.’ I wanted to put ‘Like’ on at the end but it wasn’t very Damonish, I thought.

‘What?’ said Ann. ‘I couldn’t hear what you said.’

Good, I thought. You could hear very little of what Damon said, due to his cool slurred speech. I would have to try it out on Saturday.

‘I said that Tom had an Austin,’ I said. ‘He’s nice and you’ll love him. Now what shall we do?’

We spent the whole afternoon talking … Ann spent the whole afternoon talking, rather, and I listened, interjecting, ‘Poor Ann’ and ‘How ghastly!’ as I stared at all the super men who passed us in the street, trying to telegraph apologies for Ann with my eyes.

We had coffee in the Brazil, and lunch at the Wimpy, squeezing tomato sauce on to the buns out of plastic tomatoes with nozzles covered with old and dried-up ketchup.

We went to a bad film at the Classic, and although we appeared to the the only people there, still muttered in whispers to each other as if Cary Grant and Shirley McLaine (it was that sort of film) could hear.

We got out after sitting through the whole programme at Ann’s request. (‘We’ve paid for it, we might as well sit through it.’) This seems to me to be the height of meanness … suffering agonies of boredom just to get your money’s worth. The big film was bad enough without having to sit through a lousy B film about teenagers, the News, and Look at Life … Look at Life! Christ.

We reeled out, drugged with too much viewing and blinded by the light we stumbled up the King’s Road back home.

We looked, as usual, in Sportique and Kiki Byrne and said how pretty the clothes were, and was Kiki Byrne better than Bazaar. ‘I’m not so sure … did you see that pretty blue one with a flared skirt?’ … ‘… yes, but on the other hand there was that brown lace one with long sleeves …’ … ‘Oh, I didn’t like that – it’s not my colour …’ etc. I rather enjoy routine conversations as they require very little effort.

We giggled at an odd pair of shoes, and said we wondered how on earth anyone could wear them and Ann said how difficult it was for her to find a pair of shoes to fit her because she had such narrow feet, and I said I found it was difficult because my feet were so wide, and she said, ‘Oh, not too wide at all’, and I said, ‘But not as nice as yours’. And then she said didn’t men stink, and I said how right she was and they were all bastards, and she said, ‘They only want one thing …’ ‘You’re so right,’ I replied. The conversation followed a pleasant formula. It was convenient having Ann around because I could release all these trite observations and moans without boring real friends with them. I was so glad that no one overheard our conversations, as they would have classed us both as being feminine nit-wits. Ann was, admittedly, but I wasn’t, except with her.

We got back to her house, and her sister asked me in to tea, which I refused, and Ann asked her if anyone had rung up, which they hadn’t. So I said goodbye to Ann, and she said goodbye to me, followed by ‘MEN!!’ said in an exhausted voice, with a great deal of painted eyebrow-raising concealing her disappointment.

I got home and asked if anyone had rung, and my father said ‘No’ so I kicked the carpet and shook the telephone in a pretended rage (but really to see if it was still working or someone hadn’t put the receiver back crooked), sighed sadly to myself and wandered upstairs to my room.

It was a pretty room, covered with my father’s pictures, and in an orderly sort of mess. I turned on the the gramophone as I went in and Ray Charles came blaring on.

What a corny set-up, I felt. Jazz on the gramophone (and Ray Charles … a sort of safe jazz at that), photos of Beat friends doing funny things on the walls, various jokes by Gardner that I liked stuck up with Sellotape, the old oil lamp that my father had rejected because it wasn’t quite pretty enough, typewritten sheets of bad poems I had written in fits of gloom on the floor … God it was awful. It was so typical of a certain sort of girl that I loathed.

And then there was me, in the mirror, wearing high-heeled boots, a home made Bazaar-type dress with a low waist in brown and black, and this horrid little elfin-like cutie face on top, with brown hair up the back and short in front, a fringe and two curious wisps that flopped around when I bent down.

‘Art student! Art student!’ the mirror jeered at me. I made a couple of faces at myself and was horrified to find that the expression that I used to ward off staring men in tube trains … an expression that I thought summed up my feelings of ‘You stop staring at me you creep. You disgusting little runt’, was in fact a tremendously slitty-eyed come-hither look. Aghast, I found that what I always thought was the come-hither look was an idiotic sort of smile, and the honest ‘You’re a really good friend’ smile was a wolf-like leer.

What a horrid little face! I had a very retroussée nose, big brown eyes behind square glasses, and quite a reasonable mouth until I smiled, when it stretched wide open and dimples appeared on either side. A few freckles and a boiler suit and I could have starred in ’Lil Abner.

Although my face was mine, it was the sort of face that I would distrust on anyone else. In fact if I had seen myself walking down the street towards me, I would almost certainly have thought ‘One of THOSE, EH!’ and muttered ‘Huh’ as I passed. How could one dress to show how one thought? Bank clerks looked like bank clerks, advertising men looked like advertising men … but I – I looked like a sort of rebel character, who had grubby affairs with middle-aged poets, and studied Zen Buddhism in the lunch hour.

Had I been rich enough, I would have been able to dress in proper Bazaar dresses and Fenwick’s coats and have my hair set every week and therefore look sufficiently like too many other people of varying characters and personalities for people to class me as any particular type before talking to me.

How many stunning people have I put off by my appearance? I wondered.

Not many, I thought consolingly, thinking of the moans from friends about how terrible they looked when in fact they looked tremendous.

I sat down in a chair, and lit a Woodbine. I always seemed to be lighting Woodbines. Art school was awful. All my friends were awful. My room was awful. My dimples were awful. I had a vague feeling that I should be doing something, like writing a book or going to visit old ladies and doing their shopping for them.

Writing a book would be all right. How many words made a book? 40,000? Then if I wrote two thousand words a day for twenty days, I would have written a book. It seemed too easy. I thought of the reviews dreamily …

‘Her beautifully constructed plot, and subtle wit all add to make this book one which might put many a classical master to shame …’

‘… Humour and wit and knife-like perception are just a few of the ingredients of the first novel of this splendid yloung authoress who, I predict, will have a startling effect on literature today.’

What fun it would be! I could already see myself wandering through Harrods past glistening piles of my book, all new and shiny and smelling sweet, piling the counters high. And the book jacket … that would be so pretty, too.

My mind raced with ideas for the most eyecatching bookcover of the year with HARRIET BENNETT in large black letters at the bottom.

But a shout from my father put an end to the daydream, and luckily the telephone rang so I wasn’t able to tick myself off, as I usually did, for daydreaming and not doing anything about it.

I let the phone ring for a few times before I picked it up, so that whoever was ringing would think that I was out, and then picked it up very boredly, saying ‘Hullo’ angrily, in an ‘Oh God, this telephone, will it never stop ringing?’ voice.

‘HI!’

DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, I thought. It was Ann. Why couldn’t she say ‘Hullo’ like everyone else?

‘Hullo?’

Her voice was squeaky with excitement.

‘Guess what? John’s BROTHER has rung up! Isn’t it super?’

‘Who?’ I felt rather beastly … I should have known all about John’s brother, I suppose.

‘John’s BROTHER!’

‘GREAT!’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘I just thought you’d like to know … you know … that everything’s all right now.’

‘I’m so glad … are you going out with him?’

‘Yes – what do you think I ought to wear?’

Oh, Christ.

‘Hmm, what have you got?’

It went on and on. I found myself drumming my fingers angrily on the table. She ended up apologetically.

‘I’m sorry I rang … I just HAD to though.’

We had made it a rule that we should never ring each other up in the evenings because it was such a disappointment to find that it was a dull old girlfriend.

‘And you will remember about introducing me to Tom, won’t you?’

‘Oh, yes, of course. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow … will you sign in for me?’

Ann coughed.

‘Oh, look I’m awfully sorry I forgot to tell you. I’ve been late for two weeks so I haven’t signed in at all.’

‘TWO WEEKS!’

‘Yes … actually there’s a note on the board, I forgot to tell you, for you from the Head. I think he wants to see you or something.’

‘HELL … Why didn’t you tell me? And why isn’t there a note for you too if you’ve been late for two weeks?’

‘Oh, well, you see, Clare said she’d sign in for me.’

I was furious. Why the bloody hell hadn’t she asked Clare to sign in for me too? I asked her, and I could hear her blushing the other end.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot … I’m so sorry.’

‘Oh, well it can’t be helped … but you can tell me what to say to Crudge when I next go in.’ Crudge was the Head of the art school.

‘Umm … I can’t really think … by the way, should I wear the black high heels or the red this evening?’

SWINE, SWINE, SWINE, I whispered to the telephone. You silly little bitch.

‘I’d say the black … they’ll look best … look I must go, but thanks for ringing and I’m so glad about John …’s brother, rather.’

‘I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow … ’Bye.’

I stumped down to supper gloomily, my glasses falling off the bridge of my nose. I hated interviews and tickings off, and I could foresee one with Crudge. I was terrified of all principals, and even though I didn’t think anything of the art school, a little talk in someone’s office about why I hadn’t turned up for two weeks wouldn’t be nice.

I DIDN’T GO to Pimlico the next day, being too frightened to face the interview with Crudge, and I got up late and messed around in Oxford Street looking in the shops and having lunch with a friend who worked at Vogue, who went green with envy when I said I had nothing to do all day.

‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ she said, knowingly. I’m always frightened by people knowing things that I don’t, or worse still, ‘knowing me better than I know myself’. I said feebly, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, a nice job, earning …’ but she just looked mysterious and said: ‘You’ll know well enough when you get a job, how lucky you were as you are now.’

In fact Saturday came, and I still hadn’t been to Pimlico … a row’s a row, whether it’s over two weeks absence or three and all that, and I wasn’t looking forward to it whatever it was going to be.

I got up at twelve that morning, woken by a telephone call from Tom. My father roared into my room, whizzing up the blinds, saying, ‘Your ha ha favourite man’s on the telephone.’ I turned over and squeaked faintly. The light hurt so much and I’d been woken in the middle of a nice dream where everything was getting cosier and cosier. I hunched myself up and got out of bed and pottered to the telephone.

‘Hullo?’ I said grouchily.

‘Hullo, luv,’ said Tom.

‘Who is that speaking?’ I had a fit of early morning anger, and my voice sounded odd. I always wonder why my voice sounds so different in the morning. It has a squeaky, croaky sound … in fact so does everyone else’s. Has one’s voice got to get going before it starts to work?

‘It’s your favourite TV man,’ he said. He sounded better on the telephone. One couldn’t see him make his arch faces.

‘Watcha doin’, luv? Just got up?’

‘Yes, actually.’ Actually … yes that made it a bit nastier.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you. Just wanted to have a gossip. What’ve you been up to? I’ve just been for a walk in the park … SUPER.’

‘Oh yes? All those nannies and things.’

‘Well, cutting out the nannies.’

Fool, fool. The nannies made the park.

‘How about coming for a walk in the park this afternoon? Nick’s got his camera and we want to take some pics.’ I suspect he said ‘pix’ actually.

I suddenly remembered Ann.

‘Yes, I’d love to … can I bring an absolutely sweet friend of mine, too, though? Do you know her? Ann Hopkins. She’s a friend of mine at Pimlico.’

‘Ann Hopkins? But isn’t she that gir … birdie you keep saying is so beastly?’

‘NONSENSE! She’s simply terrific … pretty, stupid, jolly … just your type.’

He thought it was smart to like stupid girls.

‘Sounds just me type … bring her along. Bet she’s not as super as you though.’

You’re right there, brother. I only think in these awful American gangster phrases. I’d hate to think that people thought I actually said them.

We said goodbye and I mooched back to bed. Super indeed! He should see me now, ho ho. I looked like Mrs. Rochester in a dirty nightdress.

Tom came to pick me up at three. He stood on the doorstep in his Sunday, weekend clothes. He wore a dark blue fisherman’s jersey, and his fair hair fell over his face in a consciously casual way.

‘’lo, luv.’ He didn’t move.

‘HULLO, TOM!’ I said loudly and marched down the steps of the house to his car. He didn’t move, he just stood and looked at me, smiling. I could see him thinking, ‘You funny little skittish eighteen year old, what it is to be young!’

‘Won’t you kiss me?’

This was an awful routine that had grown up since I had once embraced him lavishly in a fit of ‘Good Old Tom’ ism when I had been away for three weeks, and ever since then he considered it was his due that I should give him a social peck whenever I saw him. I used to dread it when he came to pick me up because I knew that he would put on his pathetic little boy face if I didn’t kiss him and say, ‘Won’t you give me a peck, luv?’, and yet if I did he would say, ‘That’s more like it, young lady’ as if he were training me.

‘Uhuh.’ I gave what I hoped was a cynical smile.

He opened the door of the car for me … it had a horrible smell. I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t that nice smell of fresh plastic that new cars have, nor was it a smell of petrol and fumes that old cars have. Tom’s car just smelt stale.

We roared off to pick up Ann. I hoped she wouldn’t be looking too terrible.

When I had rung her up she had seemed singularly ungrateful for my trouble, and had groaned, saying, ‘But I’ve got nothing to wear, and it’s so cold for a walk in the park.’ Too true. It was freezing, but Tom, like all men, never felt the cold. Or maybe he thought it was unmanly to be cold. He often looked cold, with red hands and pink cheeks, but when I started chattering my teeth, he would say, ‘You cold? There must be something the matter with you.’ There was always something the matter with me … I mean it wouldn’t have sounded right had I said to him, ‘Aren’t you cold? There must be something the matter with you.’

Ann came to the door absolutely ready the minute we arrived, as badly dressed as ever. She had a pair of yellow ski-pants with loops at the bottom to go under her feet, and flimsy flat gold shoes. Tom said at once, ‘You won’t be able to walk in the park in those, you know,’ as if we were going on a hiking expedition rather than a potter round Kensington Gardens taking, ah, pics.

‘Oh, shut up, Tom. You are a disapproves,’ I said, lest Ann should either be rude to him or weakly blush and rush in and change them.

She clambered into the back, her back-brushed hair pressing on the roof of the car, and her plastic bag held tightly in her knees.

‘This is Tom … this is Ann,’ I said (to get the whole thing going), whereupon Tom said: ‘Harriet’s been telling me lots of nice things about you …’ and Ann said, ‘Oh, I ah hu hu well how sweet um.’

Then she turned to me and said in a stage whisper, ‘I must tell you all about Saturday … it’s a terribly long story, but I think, fingers crossed, etc., that it’s all OK.’

‘What?’ said Tom. ‘Good party?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Ann, and gave me a very knowing look.

We were going up Queen’s Gate and it looked horribly cold outside.

‘That’s where I went to school,’ I pointed out, a matter of great interest to me, but not, apparently, to anyone else. Nobody turned their heads, and I was rather hurt.

‘We had to walk up to play rounders here every day,’ I went on. They weren’t interested. It was rather odd to look at the empty street and think that it was where I had walked every day when I was seven and eight – extraordinary to think of a tiny figure in bumptoed shoes and a sailor hat which had been me, walking up Queen’s Gate, holding some other little girl’s hand and getting worked up about the prep. And here I am now, driving up it with a young man of twenty-two and a dolled-up girlfriend. It just shows, yes. It does indeed, yes mam.

‘Where’s Nick?’ I asked.

‘He should be there now. He went on ahead when I picked you up.’

‘Nick’s a photographer friend of Tom’s,’ I explained to Ann, but obviously my schools talk had reached Ann, because she suddenly leant forward to Tom, and said with great urgency, ‘Where did you go to school?’

Tom gave me a ‘What a question!’ look, with raised eyebrows.

As I knew them both very well, I felt I had to be the intermediator, and if Tom wanted to be rude to Ann, I would have to be rude to her for him, and if Ann wanted to sneer at Tom, I would have to sneer at him for her.

So … ‘What a question!’ I said. ‘Good heavens … Tom’s old enough to be someone’s father. You must have forgotten where you even went to school.’

Aha … not too rude.

Ann didn’t take the hint.

‘No, but where?’

Tom groaned. ‘Windlesham, if you really want to know.’

They both gave me raised-eyebrow looks then. Tom because he didn’t like questions about where he went to school (especially as it was only Windlesham), and Ann because some boyfriend of hers had been there.

After this sparkling repartee, Tom stopped the car and we got out. It was cold, and Tom took hours with his camera, fitting in lenses and losing bits of coloured cellulose. Nick wandered up from behind a car.

He was quite smashing in a way, but very offhand. I still wasn’t sure whether he was silent because he was so intelligent that he despised everything one said, or whether he was so stupid that he couldn’t open his mouth.

‘Have you got a filter for this?’ he asked Tom, holding up a bit of black shiny plastic.

‘Let’s see … Rolloflex 800, Kodachrome 620 … using that, mate? Wouldn’t do that if I were you. You’ll get an awful reflection if you want to get intense close-ups. And with the light like this you should use a faster film.’

Ann and I hopped from foot to foot on the gravel, while they fiddled around with cameras. It was almost worse than old cars. Ann beckoned to me from where she had wandered and seized my arm.

‘I NEVER expected him to be like THAT!’ she said. Like what? I wondered.

‘But I must tell you about Saturday, because it was so wonderful and John’s brother was so sweet … that’s Peter Blake, he says he met you by the way but you wouldn’t remember him. I think he thought you were a bit weird. Anyway, we all went off … no to start with he rang up, it was awful because I thought it was Tim because he said he’d ring … he never did actually, I can’t think why. Anyway, I was so surprised I almost had hysterics, I couldn’t think of anything to say … you know … and he said would I like to go out with him on Saturday, and of course I was meant to be seeing Graham then but I said OK and he was simply furious when I put him off. I didn’t know what to say really. I said we had people in and my mother wanted me to stay and meet them on Saturday, of course it wasn’t true and so I went out with Peter. He’s got this fantastic car, did I tell you?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s an E-Type Jaguar with a fabulous wireless that comes out of the back sort of and he had a super suit on. Oh, I forgot, you see Mummy heard me putting Graham off and she was simply furious and said I was terribly rude, you see she likes Graham. He’s so polite and sort of polite and she said that I really ought to keep in with him. I think she’s right really because he’s got an awful lot of friends and is very rich and also he’s in advertising and a good connection to all that sort of thing. Anyway Peter was absolutely sweet and took me to this fabulous place where you get a flower with your meal and the waiters rush up with lights whenever you have a cigarette in your hand, you know he actually bought me a packet of twenty Rothman’s … honestly he’s so rich it’s so unfair. I mean to go around buying one cigarettes just like that and ROTHMAN’S too … what are they? Sort of five shillings for twenty or something … THINK of it …’

At this point Nick eased up and gave Ann a brief glance. He signalled vaguely for us to come along.

‘This is Ann … I don’t think you know Nick,’ I said, trying to get variety into the Ann–Nick introduction.

He nodded at her boredly and we started walking up towards the statue of Physical Energy.

Ann nudged me and burst into fits of giggles when we reached it, as if it was a dirty postcard.

Tom raised his eyebrows at me at this outburst and Ann, seeing this, although not meant to, then raised hers more surreptitiously at me. I gave them both absentminded smiles. It was rather tricky.

‘Very good silhouette,’ said Tom, gazing up at it. ‘And those clouds … they’re very exciting. Look, Harriet, do you see … that wonderful floating shape contrasted by those fluffy ones, like down out of a pillow … and look how the sky changes to green to the left …’

I stared dully at the sky. It looked much the same as usual to me and the clouds weren’t particularly good. Tom was obviously in his observing mood, and would rave over anything he saw.

‘Hmm,’ I said, non-committally.

‘What do you mean – ‘Hmm’? How can you just stand there saying ‘Hmm’ when you’re looking at a most beautiful piece of natural phenomena? Doesn’t it excite you?’

Like hell. And I was getting cold too.

Tom walked away, his lips pursed, and eventually crouched down in an extraordinary position in the grass and squinted through the lens of his camera. Ann sat down on the base of the statue.

‘Get out of the way, can’t you?’ shouted Tom. ‘Can’t you see I’m taking a photograph?’

Ann hopped off. ‘I say, we are cross today, aren’t we?’ she said to me.

Nick was far away taking a great deal of photographs at great speed very casually. Tom disentangled himself from his position and we walked on.

Ann tripped along beside me. ‘I’m going to ask him if he knew Peter … he was at Windlesham,’ she whispered to me.

‘Did you know someone called Peter Blake at Windlesham?’ she asked.

Tom dragged on his cigarette.

‘Peter Blake. Can’t say I did.’

Thank God, I thought. But too soon, because suddenly a sneer passed over his face. He turned to Ann.

‘Wait a minute, now … was he a spotty little rich squirt about fourteen? Well, he must be about, what, nineteen, now. Yes I do remember him. Ghastly little boy. He had a crush on me for a year and somehow I got him for a fag. He’d always turn up last on purpose so that he could run my errand. That’s right. I remember beating him once, one of the happiest memories of my life. He used to dribble and leave a terrible smell in the lavatory … God he was unpleasant. Do you remember Peter Blake at school?’ He turned to Nick, who had caught us up.

Nick nodded and said with a dry laugh, ‘You couldn’t forget a face like that in a hurry.’

Tom turned to Ann. ‘Why do you ask? Hope he’s not a friend of yours!’

Ann was confused. I could see she didn’t know what to say and she blushed.

‘Oh well, yes actually in a sort of way. He’s quite nice now, in fact he’s really terribly nice, I think, at least.’

At this Nick burst out laughing and went off to take some photographs of trees.

Another eyebrow-raising session went on between Tom and me and Ann and me, and I said desperately, ‘People can change an awful lot … I’m sure I was an awful little girl.’

‘Oh, yes, yes. You’re so right.’ They both heartily agreed with me.

I got out a packet of cigarettes and offered them to Tom and Ann. They were tipped Woodbines. Tom started to take one and then, seeing what they were, refused.

‘Tipped Woodbines? Yer joking!’ he exclaimed. OK. Next time it would have to be something like Bachelors to please both Tom and Pimlico students.

We got to the Serpentine and Tom started to take more photos. Nick was sitting alone on a park bench. We sat down beside him.

‘What does your friend do?’ he asked me, eventually.

Ann started to reply.

‘I’m at Pimlico with Harriet … you know, painting.’

He nodded at her, and then turned back to me.

‘Harriet … of course. I completely forgot what your name was. I couldn’t think of it. I knew I’d seen you before somewhere.’

This was really beastly, as I had been out with Nick and Tom at least three times before, and here he was, being all snooty and one up.

‘What do you think about photography?’ he asked. ‘I mean I would imagine that you being art students would disapprove of its being too quick and easy.’

I started to disagree, but Ann butted in saying, as if it were a moral issue, and obviously remembering some of the conversations in the canteen at Pimlico, ‘Well, of course … it’s not Art, is it?’

I wished she wouldn’t try her hand at arguments about art. She couldn’t argue at all anyway, but to argue about art was dangerous ground even for the most intelligent person. Nick didn’t reply. He just smiled.

Fearing that my silence would be taken as agreement with Ann’s remark, and yet not wanting to make Ann feel an utter fool, I said: ‘I don’t think you can associate the two. I’m more in favour of photography than art, but they’re so different. What a subject, anyway!’

Nick smiled again, as if he were recording our remarks in his mind, to produce later on at a satirical cocktail party as typical examples of feeble minds. It made me feel uncomfortable, and I was relieved when Tom came up, clutching a piece of bark which he handed to Nick.

‘Look at these colours … better than any Leonardo … fabulous. I’ve just got some super shots of the water. You should see the reflections. The leaves of the chestnut look most eerie, like long black fingers groping for a hidden secret in the depths.’

‘Lovely,’ said Ann.

Nick crushed the bark to pulp and let it dribble out between his fingers. He got up and sauntered off.

We seemed to walk for miles that afternoon, Ann complaining about the high heels getting ruined, and shivering with cold.

‘You cold, luv?’ asked Tom, as we wandered round the Round Pond for the second time for him to get some shots of little boys playing with boats.

‘Frozen.’

I hoped he would take the hint that I wanted to go home, but he just took off his coat gallantly and handed it to me.

‘Wear this,’ he said. How could I refuse? The last thing I wanted to do was to roam the park in Tom’s jacket. I looked so silly. But politeness forced me to suppress the ‘But it’s not that sort of cold. It’s my toes and fingers and my nose.’

He disappeared among some trees muttering, ‘Look at those super black shapes … what wonderful forms those trees have! Like a great army of soldiers ready for battle.’ This was said in his poetic I-can-do-it-like Christopher Logue voice.

Ann and I were left once again by ourselves.

At once she started talking about Tom, before, I thought, he was out of hearing.

‘Harriet, how CAN you like him? He’s so pompous. Not my type at all.’

‘SSSH.’

‘Yes, I know, but honestly. The things he said about Peter. I can’t understand it. I like his friend though. He’s super.’

Unperceptive as ever. Nick had displayed his dislike of Ann quite obviously, I thought. And although I quite agreed with her about Tom, I was furious that she should actually say so when I had been to all the trouble of inviting her on this terrible expedition. I liked Nick too. There was something very attractive about his beastliness and cool.

I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I half turned and could see that he was taking photographs of Ann and me. I felt really embarrassed, especially as I was looking so silly in Tom’s coat. I took off my glasses casually to look a bit better. I was furious that he was taking them surreptitiously … it was like tape recording someone saying something silly. And if I turned round and accused him of taking photographs of us, I knew he would look at me astonished and say indignantly, ‘What? ME taking photographs of YOU?’

And why was he taking photographs of us? Were they to produce at the satirical cocktail party (‘Look, these are the girls who made those fatuous remarks about photography and art’) or was he going to cut our heads off the photographs, stick them on to nude bodies and sell them to his friends?

*

It had been, on the whole, an unsuccessful afternoon, and by the time I got home, I was cold and tired and in no mood for Damon’s party that night. Still, I staggered into my room and wondered what to wear.

Would it be better to look rich, pretty or scruffy? I ended up by putting on my only respectable dress, the Young Jaeger number in dirty red with a dropped waist and dirtier red stripes round the skirt. The only thing about it was that I hadn’t altered the arm-holes, and, being tight, they rubbed against me, making the most revolting wet dark red rings under my arms.

Oh well, pile on the Mum Rollette, I thought drearily.

Tom picked me up at 8.30 and we drove off to the Chelsea Weaver in the King’s Road.

‘Yer looking super, luv,’ he said.

‘Yer looking pretty super yerself,’ I said, glad that there was no one there to overhear it. He was, though, really looking very good indeed.

‘Got some super pics this afternoon. Lovely ones of the Round Pond. Might do for a feature,’ he said casually.

‘Oh yes … good.’ I paused. ‘What did you think of Ann?’

‘Not really my cup of tea. But quite bright.’

I couldn’t understand it. The last thing I would have said was that Ann was bright. Or maybe Tom was just being nice about her because she was one of my friends.

‘Want a Greek meal this evening?’ he said.

‘I thought it was Damon’s party tonight.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Tom, offhandedly. ‘So it is. Well, we might drop in and see what it’s like. You fancied him, didn’t you?’

‘No, no, no,’ I said hurriedly, and searched for reasons to back up the lie.

‘He was … I don’t know … too smooth, and I can’t bear people who go to prison the whole time just because they think it’s glamorous. I remember Thompson refusing to pay his parking fine just so he could get put into prison because he thought it was cool. But then if Damon was in prison for something big it makes it a bit different I suppose. But I didn’t fancy him a bit. Just another creep you know. Maybe a bit more charming than most, but not my type at all.’

‘That sounds to me like over-justification, young lady. Anyway, every bird I’ve ever met has fallen for Damon, so I can’t believe you’re any exception … all the same you birdies. But couldn’t do without you mind. Super things, birdies.’

Oh dear. To be seen through by Tom. I must be losing my, what I laughingly call, grip. Anyway, I could see through him equally well. He wouldn’t miss Damon’s party for all the world. And all this drop in stuff was sheer one-upmanship. I’d seen him writing down the address hurriedly under the table as Damon had left us. And, anyway, he was dressed exactly to go to a Damon party, in a grey denim shirt and a fly front and a button down collar, narrow grey trousers and his blond hair brushed carefully forward. Drop in my foot.

When we approached the Weaver, he stared at the cars parked outside and took a note of their numbers.

‘Good. Some nice people here tonight. Nick as well. D’you like Nick?’

I had to tread steadily this time. If I said that I did, Tom would say ‘I SEE, aha …’ and if I said I didn’t he would say something about over-justification again.

‘Oh, Nick … yes, I meant to ask you. What does he do?’ I mentally patted myself on the back, and started across the road. Although it was empty, Tom pulled me back gasping, ‘Hey, watch it. You might have been run over.’

Tom hated me doing anything on my own. About two minutes later a car crawled past and then Tom grabbed my arm and we scooted across, just avoiding a passing lorry. The lorry driver slowed down and yelled, ‘Watch it next time!’

I muttered ‘Sorry’ to myself and started to hurry away, but Tom stopped in his tracks and yelled back, ‘Watcha mean, mate? You watch it next time, you don’t want to go round at that speed in London, y’know.’

‘An’ you don’t want to go over roads wivout looking, cock,’ called the lorry driver.

‘You want trouble?’ shouted Tom. I got more and more embarrassed.

‘Oh, come on, Tom,’ I whispered, pulling at his sleeve in an idiotically feminine way. ‘It was our fault really.’

‘It was NOT, I tell you.’

I gave up and went into the Weaver alone. Nick was sitting sleepily in a chair. I could just see him through the smell of drink and cigarettes that rose up like mist from the bar. The bar was sticky, like a pole on the horses on the roundabout at the funfair, and there was a terrible bar-noise of semi-drunk people. I pushed over to Nick through people all laughing and talking. I couldn’t think what they were talking about really. They just seemed to be laughing at nothing, and saying, ‘What’ll you have? and, ‘Do you mind?’ as I pushed past. Some said: ‘I say … have you come to join us?’ to me … the sort of people who would have been most horrified had I said ‘Yes, I have’ and sat on a bar stool revealing my thighs.

I got to Nick at last, and he seemed pleased to see me for once.

‘Where’s Tom?’ he said.

‘Oh, outside, having a row with a lorry driver who he thinks tried to run us over … yes, I’d love some tomato juice.’

Nick wandered over to the bar, saying ‘Hi’ to people he knew and putting his arm on their shoulders. I am crazy about men who are demonstrative with other men in that sort of way. I was always falling for homosexuals, rather hopelessly. But Nick wasn’t homosexual, which was unfortunate in a way because it meant that he was not completely unattainable. He looked very nice that night. I couldn’t understand why he knew Tom. He had on a pair of flared Levis, and a grey polo-necked jersey under a dark blue jacket with a vent up the back and narrow lapels. The coat was just worn over his shoulders like Spaniards wear them. He sloped back with my tomato juice.

I caught myself staring at him, a bit too long.

‘I hate pubs, I must say,’ I said, really to see what his reply would be. If he agreed, he would be an OK person.

‘So do I,’ he said, and pinched a girl’s bottom as she passed. ‘But I like drink, so it seems the sensible place to meet people. Do you prefer coffee bars or something?’

‘Of course not. Terrible places.’ I felt this was the right thing to say, but in fact I rather liked coffee bars, with juke boxes and shop girls and teds, and lots of froth and brown sugar and plastic spoons.

Nick turned casually. ‘You don’t mean that. Why, do you think it’s smart not to like coffee bars or something? Don’t you like that froth and brown sugar and pop music atmosphere?’

Oh God. I didn’t realise that he thought right as well as dressed right.

‘Of course I like that sort of thing. I thought you meant those sort of South Ken places like Hades and Barino Barini or whatever it is.’

‘No.’ He gave a dry laugh, which implied ‘As if I would mean those sort of places’.

Tom came in rather flushed, and sat down angrily.

‘You needn’t have rushed off like that, Harriet. He was in the wrong. We might have been killed.’

Nick smiled. ‘What have you been doing? Harriet came rushing in all flushed and worried saying you were being beaten up by a lorry driver.’

‘I didn’t say anything of the sort, what are you talking about?’

‘BEING BEATEN UP BY A LORRY DRIVER? Really, Harriet, why did you say that?’

‘I don’t know what Nick’s talking …’

‘Anyway, who won?’ asked Nick.

‘Who do you think?’ Tom flexed his muscles facetiously.

I was about to say ‘the lorry driver’ but it sounded a bit obvious in front of Nick.

Tom got himself a glass of wine and we sat in silence. I can never think of anything to say in pubs. The noise of other people talking makes me feel it isn’t necessary, while had we been sitting in silence, I would have felt forced to say something out of nerves.

‘Damon’s party tonight.’

‘Oh, that’s why you’re all dressed up in your layabout gear,’ said Nick. Actually, I thought that Nick must be going as well, as he too looked far better dressed than usual.

‘Are you taking Harriet?’ he said.

‘Of course. I could never do without her.’

‘Good. Will it be good? The last one he gave was OK. All the old Chelsea faces.’

‘It should be. In spite of it being given by Damon. Come with us.’ Tom put down his wine.

‘What’ll the bird scene be like, though?’

‘How should I know?’ said Tom. ‘The old one-track mind at work again?’

‘How can I help it with such a pretty girl sitting next to me?’ said Nick, looking at me and putting his hand on my knee. I felt embarrassed. Better that he should be rude than phonily affectionate.

‘Uhuh,’ I said. ‘Ha. Ha.’ His hand got a little further up my leg. I wondered how far he would go and how long I could stick it without blushing. I sipped my tomato juice again and moved away nonchalantly. They were both looking at me interestedly. Nick’s hand was up to the elastic of my pants.

‘You’re nervous, aren’t you?’ said Nick.

‘No. You’re just tickling me.’

‘You’re nervous.’

‘I’m not.’ I got hot. I didn’t know how to carry it off. Should I shriek with girlish laughter and say ‘Oh you ARE a one!’ That didn’t sound very me. Nothing sounded very me in this situation. I was very bad at carrying these things off.

‘Then if you’re not nervous you’re enjoying it.’ Nick looked very slitty-eyed and creepy.

‘Sure, I’m crazy about hands up my skirt, do you mind.’ I looked as hard as I could and only hoped that I didn’t sound as neurotic as I felt.

Nick removed his hand and laughed. ‘You’ve got nice thighs anyway, and I bet that’s more than Tom’s ever found out.’

I dropped all my Woodbines onto the floor into a pool of old beer in my eagerness to have a smoke. Tom smiled and said: ‘You got sex on the brain, Nicholas.’

‘Which is more than you’ve got on yours.’

I’d never seen Nick in this mood before.

‘How was Ann when you rang her up?’ asked Tom. ‘Did she say she fancied us?’

‘Oh, Heavens, I never rang her. I think she was rather upset at your description of her boyfriend, but she said something about Nick being nice or something odd.’

‘Little digs will get you nowhere,’ said Nick, stretching out his long legs, and looking at his watch. ‘Do you want another drink, Tom?’

‘Another encre rouge, please.’

‘And another health drink for our Miss Bennett, I suppose.’

He wandered back with another tomato juice and a glass of wine for Tom. I hated the way Tom called it encre rouge. He was the first one to pounce on those who called it ‘redders’, but was in fact committing just the same crime himself.

‘So Ann fancied me, did she? I must say, she was quite a sexy little virgin.’

As Nick had scarcely spoken to her, I was amazed that he had even noticed her, let alone been right in thinking that she was a virgin.

We stayed at the Weaver until Nick left, saying he’d meet us at the party.

Tom frowned as he left.

‘Oh, dear. Nick’s in one of his randy moods. He’s always so boring when he gets like that. He’s nice, though … he adores you.’

‘What?’ My eyes popped. ‘He hasn’t got a civil thing to say to me.’

‘That’s just this evening, though. He was saying this afternoon when I’d left you how bright and super you were. Didn’t he have some talk with you about art or something?’

I perked up. Oh, not so bad.

Tom turned the key, pressed the starter and revved up the car.

‘Well, we’d better get something to eat if we want to be at this party before twelve. Where d’you want to go? Chinese, French, Italian, Greek … what sort of food do you want?’

*

After supper, Tom looked drearily at his watch.

‘’Spose you want to go to this party … you are a bore … you know what it’ll be like.’

Yes! Yes! I thought squeakily. I knew he wanted to go as much as me. But was it worth saying that I didn’t want to go just to see how he got out of not going?

I tried.

‘Yes. I’m not sure you’re not right after all. After all, Damon was rather typical of his sort. I mean it’ll just be another of those DRAG Chelsea parties, GOD, I’m bored with them.’

I felt this was safe as I’d heard so many people say that about them. The fact that they were comparatively new to me would not show through, I hoped.

Tom paused a moment. He was confused. He gave me a long low look as if he had something to say but was waiting to give it full impact. In fact it was quite obvious that he was trying to think of something.

‘Harriet,’ he said. It was like a lecture from a school mistress. He was playing for time.

‘Now listen to me.’ He paused again. Poor boy. I had thought up about three ways that he could have extricated himself from the situation, but each of them would have entailed him laughing at himself for pretending not to want to go.

I waited.

‘Harriet.’ It was coming at last. ‘I am sick and tired of you changing your mind. Either you want to go or you don’t. Now, we decided that you wanted to go at the beginning of this evening, and go we shall, whether you want to or not.’

‘You can’t say you’re a fool can you BOYO,’ I muttered.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing. I was just muttering.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Just this and that.’

This annoyed Tom intensely. He felt that he was being left out of something. If I said something to myself, he would be jealous of me for taking my attention away from him.

He paid the bill, and we left the restaurant. It was nice to get into the open air, away from the restaurant smells and the restaurant conversation. I had a crick in my neck from talking to Tom, who always insisted on sitting beside me at a table instead of opposite. More intimate, ha ha.

We buzzed off. Tom spent a good half hour staring at his A to Z, putting on his glasses and taking them off, and eventually got out of the car crossly, as if it was my fault that he was an idiot as far as maps were concerned. He went round to the back of the car to get the light of his rear lights.

I stayed in my seat muttering to myself, and drawing pictures of beautiful men on the misted window. Tom returned with pursed lips.

‘OK.’

*

The house was overflowing with beauties, and the noise could be heard all down the street. Tom parked the car and we wandered in.

Damon came out of one of the rooms. He winked at me very slowly.

‘Glad you could come, Harriet.’

Gosh, he’d remembered my name.

‘Didn’t know I asked you, Roberston. Rather too many people here already, actually.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ I said. Eager to please, that’s me. The apology for being me didn’t go down very well.

Damon laughed. ‘I didn’t mean you, fruitie.’

Fruitie, women … how much better than birdies.

I extricated myself from Tom and wandered into what is called the ‘coats’. It was strewn with couples and fringe hipsters going through girls handbags and laughing at what was inside. Being only of the fringe type they didn’t dare steal anything. A girl extricated herself from a heap of scruffy men on a bed, and pulled down her skirts.

‘If it isn’t Harriet Bennett!’ she squeaked.

Watch it, I thought. Anyone who says the surname after my name spells trouble.

Luckily I didn’t recognise her.

‘Huh?’ I said.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ She prodded her partner, who was zipping up his flies rather obviously. ‘Oh, Jim. You must get a new pair of pants.’

‘No. I’m afraid I don’t.’ I sauntered over to the mirror.

She screamed with laughter. ‘I was at school with you!’

Oh Christ almighty. Who was she? I powdered my face tentatively.

‘What are you doing at a party like this?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the type. But then you’ve changed,’ (significant wink) ‘haven’t you? You’re all arty now. Have you seen anyone from school recently?’

‘I saw Ann the other day.’

She screamed with delight, ‘ANN! Is she still a virgin? I must look her up one day.’

Suddenly she burst into tears.

A character emerged from the shadows of the curtains.

‘Your friend’s really high. Can you get rid of her? I mean she’s just making a fool of herself.’

He looked disgustedly at the figure on the bed, now well away with her boyfriend.

‘I mean, really. Christ. This was going to be a real cool scene, and look what happens. Damon knows too many people, that’s what the matter. And when they all arrive with their bottles of beer and he can’t afford to pay back the fivers he owes them, in they come, and ruin a really good scene. I suppose you’re a friend of one of those.’

This was so nasty that I retreated to the comparative security of Tom.

‘You’ve been away long enough. Found anyone you fancy yet?’

I put my hands to my face.

‘No it was awful. There was this girl, you see, who suddenly …’

No good. Tom had seen someone he knew again.

I was left at the side of the room, squashed to the wall by twisting couples. The music blared out ‘HEY HEYHEY BABY … I WANNA KNOW …’

I searched desperately for my friends, the Woodbines, in my bag. It would be so nice to have tiny friends in one’s bag for times like these. Or perhaps inflatable friends who would swell up and put their arms round you until some stunner asked you to dance, when you’d pull out the stopper and the friend would vanish into a little piece of shrivelled rubber to be popped back into the handbag.

But of course one does have these sort of friends. And this was the time that I longed for them to come up to me shouting ‘WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?’, whatever they looked like.

As it was, I left the jumping couples and roved into the kitchen, feeling wallflowery, and helped myself to a glass of water, muttering ‘God I’m hot’ as if I had been dancing all night long. A few talking men, the sort who always end up in the kitchen, raised their eyebrows loudly as they saw the water. ‘Onto the heavy stuff now,’ they joked ponderously, as they slopped around in the pools of Guinness on the floor. ‘But as I was saying … I find that relationships with girls are impossible, at least any apart from entirely physical.’

I really did want a drink in fact, but there didn’t seem to be any.

Suddenly a hand gripped my shoulder and someone in a dark blue polo-necked jersey and Levis (I was getting sick of this gear, he was only distinguishable from the rest because he also wore a red tartan scarf round his neck) said, ‘Harriet … GREAT TO SEE YOU … WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?’

‘This an …’

‘GREAT TO SEE YOU …’

It was Martin, from the boat. He dragged me away to dance. The relief of someone, even if only Martin, was so great that I was quite carried away with happiness.

‘Lose your inhibitions, wanna go a fishin’, lose your inhibitions, TWIST’ was on. Martin made up for his lack of brains by dancing superbly. It was only after two numbers that I realised it, as I was so intent on watching my own feet, and feeling proud of my expert footwork. When I raised my head I found him very coolly moving his elbows, doing a very good shoulders only twist.

‘GREAT,’ he said, putting his arm round me when the record ended. ‘Do you want some Scotch?’

‘Is it nice?’ I asked, playing the little girl act.

‘Try some.’ He produced a small bottle from his pocket, with difficulty. I took a lot and felt better.

And better. Nick appeared surrounded by two model girls and, on seeing me, clutched me crying, ‘Oooh, you are sexy!’ and rushed off, and eventually Martin got lost in a crowd of bejeaned people. I looked round for Nick again, shoving through rooms of hot, shouting, bouncing bodies, but I couldn’t find him. Tom had vanished too, though I thought I heard a familiar ‘Super’ shouted from the middle of one room. I retired to a corner and hoped I wouldn’t be noticed. Eventually I went to the bathroom just for something to do, but someone had been sick and there was no lavatory paper. Then I tried to make a phone call to a friend, but the telephone was dead. I felt quite neurotic. As I put down the receiver in despair a fat man with a Yul Brynner haircut who had been watching me with half-closed eyes and picking his nails with a diamond-studded flick knife approached me, produced a bottle of whisky, and we sat down on the stairs.

I remember very little about that evening, except that I found myself on the same bed as the school friend with the character who had sneered at her from the darkness, a few remarks like ‘God, what a body!’, ‘Yes, she’s a super birdie’ and ‘I want you’, and endless dancing and people looking at me. Success of the evening, I thought.

Then there was a period when I was walking down a wet mews with someone who was clutching a piece of paper with an address on it, coffee with some crumbs in a dirty flat, a ride in a car with my head bent against the roof, on everybody’s knees, and seeing the outside flashing past looking so strange and cold through the muzzy misted-up car windows.

At last, back at the party, I found myself staring at the sink in the kitchen, dabbing myself with water. Watching the water swirl round as it went down the plug and thinking that it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I must have stayed there for ages, contemplating its beauties, until a little voice inside me piped up, like a headmistress, ‘You’re drunk.’

I staggered to get my coat and couldn’t face looking for Tom. In the mirror I saw an odd face, covered with wine stains … it hadn’t been water after all, and feeling the back of my hair very slowly, I discovered a few faithful hairpins hanging on for dear life. Lovely little metallic hands, clutching on to my hair, I thought. I giggled.

Voices reverberated all round me, so, pushing the headmistress in me to the fore and trying unsuccessfully to focus … all I could see was the ceiling and the carpet, and they seemed to be one … I walked very slowly to the door.

After a goodish time I reached it, and Tom appeared.

‘Enjoying yerself?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve bin chattin’ up some super birdies!’

Enjoying myself! I lifted my heavy head, muttered something and made my way out into the cool street.

I walked home feeling like someone else. They weren’t my feet that were carrying me along, they were someone else’s. It was quite a comfortable feeling. My steps seemed large and fast, as if I had seven-league boots on. I felt every breath of wind on me, and tried walking with my eyes shut, but I got scared after a few yards, only to find that I had been walking perfectly straight all the time.

The last thing I remember before getting home was muttering, ‘I am a fool’, ‘Nick is a fool’, ‘Fool is a Nick’ and ‘I love Nick’ in time to my footsteps.

When I got back I spent an hour sitting in the darkness in the drawing-room, thinking deeply about life, and then drank as much milk as I could find because I’d heard it was good for hangovers.

*

The next day I was woken again by a telephone call. This time I was really angry, because I had a very bad hangover in spite of the milk and could just remember giving my telephone number to a very fat American who told me he was a journalist and could get me a job. Oh, God yes. And I’d even reminded him to ring me up before I’d left. I knew it wouldn’t be anyone exciting. No one exciting rings at 11.30 on a Sunday morning. It couldn’t be the American? I wondered.

‘Hey, who is it?’ I asked my father, who was eating breakfast dismally in an Indian dressing gown.

‘Uh?’ he said, his mouth full of toast.

‘It isn’t an American, is it?’

My father looked surprised. ‘American? No … Why? What American? Who?’

I picked up the receiver. And, blast it, it was Ann again. She couldn’t seem to leave me alone these days.

‘Hey, why didn’t you tell me there was a party on yesterday?’ she bawled, as I breathed ‘Hullo’ faintly into the receiver.

‘Huh?’

‘I SAID … WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THERE WAS THIS PARTY ON YESTERDAY?’

‘What party?’ How did Ann know, anyway?

‘Oh, you know perfectly well. This Damon do. You might have told me.’ She sounded peevish. ‘What was it like, any way?’

‘Damon,’ I muttered. I started writing ‘Ann is a bore’ in the dust on the table.

‘Look, sorry. I can’t think properly. I’m half asleep anyway. What do you want to ring me up at this time anyway?’

‘THIS TIME! GOOD HEAVENS, HARRIET! IT’S HALF PAST ELEVEN!’

I yawned.

‘How did you know? And why are you so interested?’

‘I’ve just been to Gardners to get some chocolate, and who should I see but Tom, and he said it was terrific and I should have gone along. I wish I had. It sounds so exciting … all those police and things.’

‘You mean the fuzz arrived?’

‘What?’

I’d only recently caught on to what fuzz meant, so I felt compelled to make other people who didn’t understand it feel as embarrassed as I did when I didn’t understand it.

‘Police,’ I explained. ‘What happened? Did a half-baked swinger light up some grass seed?’

I was still living in the world of the night before.

‘Uh? Oh, well, anyway, no, whatever you said. I wouldn’t know. The neighbours complained and the police broke it up.’

And she rings me at this God-almighty time in the morning to tell me that some Chelsea crumbs were making too much noise last night, at a party that she didn’t even go to, I thought to myself in my pseudo American accent.

‘Oh, yes … and guess who I saw by Gardners today. You remember that super man opposite us in the Wimpy? Well, he was buying some cigarettes and he gave me a very “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” look.’

GREAT. My lip curled boredly. I put an arrow through ‘Ann is a bore’ and added ‘bloody fucking’.

‘Gosh, really, Ann, heavens. Look, thanks for ringing, someone’s yelling at me to get off the phone so I’ll ring you later or something.’

I slammed down the receiver.

Poor girl.

I dreaded seeing her again the next day, but sure enough, as I staggered into the art school, there she was, in her shop-bought artist’s smock, covered with green and red prints of brushes and pallettes, clutching my elbow and saying, ‘Why didn’t you ring me yesterday?’

She was acting very jumpily.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said offhandedly. The more hysterical she got, the cooler I became.

‘Meet you at coffee,’ she whispered confidentially.

I sniffed the art school smell. I hadn’t been there for a week, and it was depressing to smell once again the oil paint and turps that clung round the studios. I bought some paper from Alf, the white-coated art school ‘help’. There was always one of these in every art school. Usually they had been there for longer than anyone could remember, and spent their time busying around finding lost pen-knives, carrying pictures and generally being relied upon to know all inside information about both staff and students.

He winked at me in a deadpan way.

‘And where you have you been this last three weeks?’ he asked. ‘Crudge is going to sack you.’

I grinned feebly. Cockney humour, at it again.

I signed in and removed the notice that was flapping on the board for me from Crudge. Pinned up originally with four drawing pins, there were now none left, and it hung from another rather pathetic little italic written note:

Would the person who borrowed eleven twist records from my party last Saturday please return them because they are not mine.

I stared at my note from Crudge. It looked ominous. What should I say to him? It wasn’t as if I had just been away for a week, I hadn’t been in early enough to sign in for the past three weeks. Play it as I find it, I thought.

I shoved my way into where the registrar’s secretary worked, feeling very rebellious and art-studentish.

‘Ah, Harriet,’ she said, wagging a typewriter-free finger at me. She always knew my name, which upset me. I could no longer retain that air of mystery around me.

‘The elusive Harriet … aha.’

She gave me a knowing look and smiled mischievously.

‘Yes. Mr. Crudge wants to see you.’

I know, I know. Did she think I was coming into her office for the conversation?

‘Yes, I saw the note, actually,’ I replied politely, standing, in a pretence of shyness, on one leg. ‘Do you think I could possibly see him now?’

‘Oh, no. He’s not in yet. I’ll let you know when he arrives. What room will you be in?’

Ah. Don’t you phone me, I’ll phone you. Crafty line. That meant that I had to stay in the same room all day.

‘You’re meant to be in 415,’ she said, getting up and trotting to the timetable in her long straight skirt. If only she’d shaved her legs.

‘Right.’ I swung out of the door, got some more paper and headed for 415.

It was ten o’clock now. A few enthusiastic students were already there, sitting on the long tables and kicking their legs, talking about the canteen food. It was quite a big room, but bare except for the long tables and high stools. Examples of good layout from arty magazines were pinned up on the walls. I picked the only stool in the room which wasn’t broken and lit a fag. Two more students rushed into the room, sketch books to the fore, and in a flurry of pencil sharpening, they muttered ‘Gotta draw’ hysterically and started screwing up their eyes, and holding out their thumbs.

There were two ways of drawing at Pimlico. These were Jotting and Scrawling. Jotting was done by the nervous mathematical ones, with long sensitive fingers and intellectual ideas. Scrawling was done by those who believed in Freedom, usually the real dead phonies who couldn’t draw at all. I peered over the shoulders of the two students who were so engrossed. One was jotting the ceiling, while the other had placed her rubber on the end of her drawing board and was scrawling it at top speed with an air of what she must have thought was casual professionalism.

Suddenly I realised what class I was in. It struck me as I looked at a pool of dirty water on the floor near the sink. Instant Design! I had to get out quick, but as my sweating hands seized my drawing board, our teacher jerked in.

He spotted me at once.

‘Oh, Harriet … how nice to see you back! What happened to you last week? I hope you’re better now, anyway.’

I was almost angry that they were all so bloody nice. If only he had said ‘Hey, WHAT WERE YOU DOING LAST WEEK? … WHY WEREN’T YOU HERE?’ I could have walked out saying ‘Oh, I’m doing sculpture now’ or something. But as all the classes at Pimlico were so badly attended, the teachers not only had to instruct, but be PROs for their subjects as well.

He fumbled to take off his dirty raincoat. He was a tubby dark man, with three-days growth of beard and a Scottish accent. He had on a long orange jersey, and paint-stained jeans. He really was rather sweet and seedy. The way his dirty hair was brushed forward and his tummy stuck out through his jersey like a great orange sun was rather touching. It was a pity that his classes were such a waste of time.

‘Right … are you all ready?’ he began, trying to sound confident. The enthusiasts gathered round while the few cynics made faces from the back.

‘Well, you remember last week that we all dropped pieces of string soaked in tar on to our paper. And that was in order to get the relationships of circles and spirals to a two-dimensional surface clear. Well, now I want to develop that idea, and try to relate HEIGHT to a flat surface. I’ve brought a lot of buttons with me, so we should all have enough. I want you to drop buttons on to the paper from different heights. Now this may sound ridiculous, but I want you to discover the rhythms that are set up, and see if you can discover anything, um, that you might might find helpful or interesting. Now there are plenty of ways of doing this, I shall tell you of just some of them, but I would rather you worked them out for yourselves.

‘For example, take a button like this.’ He picked out a button. ‘We drop it just six inches above a piece of paper and it lands here.’ He marked the place with a dot. ‘I’d advise you all to use a Venus HB, but if you haven’t got one don’t worry too much. I’d try to get hold of one though if I were you, because it is really the best, I’ve found, for this kind of work.’

I groaned. All day, dropping buttons on to cartridge paper. Great. Broken only by coffee with Ann and a talk with Crudge. The art school Romeo eased past, half closing his eyes and gripping my arm on his way.

‘Good to see you,’ he said, staring down the front of my jersey. ‘Got a cigarette?’

I pushed a Woodbine in his direction. He was so attractive he really deserved it.

‘Thanks, baby. I’d like to sleep with you one day.’

He wandered off, his thin hips vanishing behind a group of easels.

The Instant Design teacher was well away. Gesticulating desperately and almost hidden by a shower of falling buttons, he was saying, ‘Or you can just pick out these black ones and then try them again from three feet up and see what happens, or how about throwing them UP in the air three feet, and … well, anyway I’ve given you enough ideas to be getting on with. My, look at the time. It’s break already. Well, you can get started afterwards. Any of you have any problems or questions?’

I made my way to the canteen, where Ann was sitting with a cheese roll stuffed into her mouth while the art school Romeo knocked back her coffee. She giggled when I arrived.

‘Guess what Romeo just said to me!’ she whispered.

‘He said he’d like to sleep with you.’

‘Hey, oh God. I know. He just said it to you. Sorry.’

Ann had forgotten what she was going to tell me that morning, because she was too full of the fact that Nick had given her coffee that morning when he had bumped into her buying some paint at Winsor and Newton’s. I felt furiously jealous, and returned as quickly as possible to the button dropping. One thing about this class was that with a little speed and intelligence, one could get as much work done in an hour as most of the other students got done in a day. I applied myself to the problem.

When I had covered ten pieces of paper with dots, the secretary came in and told me that Crudge would like to see me.

I nipped into the Ladies before I went into his office, feeling rather scared and sick. Much as I despised Pimlico, I didn’t particularly want to be chucked out. In fact the lousier the institution one is thrown out of, the greater is one’s loss of face. Still, I looked very pretty in the mirror and just hoped I could string him along.

‘Come in,’ he said, when I knocked.

As he saw it was me, he hastily took off his coat, and sat down to look as if he had been there since nine-thirty and had just put on his coat to see what it looked like for fun. It annoyed me to see him rolling in at twelve o’clock just to tick off students who had come in at ten-thirty instead of ten for a couple of weeks.

‘Do sit down, Harriet,’ he said, collecting himself.

I sat down, picking a couple of plaster objects from an uncomfortable modern chair.

‘Ah yes. Now I understand that you haven’t been coming in very regularly recently,’ he said, stretching out and lighting an arty pipe.

‘No.’ I wasn’t sure of what to say.

‘Well, I mean, you know, we just can’t run a school where no one turns up on time.’

Practise what you preach, art crumb.

‘Were you ill, or what?’

‘Not ill, exactly. No I’ve just found that, I don’t know … but there’s something about the atmosphere here. I found that I couldn’t work properly.’

I was surprised at myself. Out it came, pat. Just the line for Crudge, too.

‘Tell me what you mean. Is it your painting?’

At the time, I wasn’t doing painting as I was taking Intermediate, and painting wasn’t my stuff at all anyway, but as Crudge was a painter, I said: ‘Yes. My painting. I somehow found a certain staleness was growing on me. Perhaps I had been going on too long at a picture, or perhaps I hadn’t concentrated enough. I can’t discover what it is, it’s been worrying me, rather.’

‘My dear child, you should have come and seen me at once. Would you like to show me your work, and perhaps we could go over it and discuss some of your problems together?’

This horrified me. I hadn’t any paintings to show. I leant back in my metal tubes and yellow plastic-seated chair and racked my brains.

‘Actually, I feel that I would like to make a fresh start. It’s not so much that I don’t understand my problems. I do, only too well, and am gradually learning how to solve them. It is really, I think, a case of following the same line of thought for too long. In fact, today I have started by painting out a lot of what I had before, and starting on a fresh path of vision.’

‘Excellent. Excellent. Well, be sure to let me try to shed light on any difficulties you may have in the future. I know I went through a similar phase of uncertainty at your age. And I am not sure that you are not right in feeling that you are the only one who really knows what the solution should be. And don’t feel worried or inhibited by the rules here. We want you to feel free, within limits that is, but certainly free in your painting. So if you feel that a few days working at home would help, don’t worry about the art school. We are here to encourage and help you in your art.’

In your art! Poor man. Another blundering sweetie.

I got up, rubbing myself to relieve the discomfort of the modern chair.

‘That’s wonderful to know, Mr. Crudge,’ I said, warmly shaking him by the hand. ‘It’s nice to know people understand.’

‘Not at all, not at all, any time.’

Crudge got up and opened the door for me, and I left with a hypocritical smile on my face.

I felt really mean. So much so that, I suppose in order to justify my lies, I found myself wondering if in fact perhaps I hadn’t gone through rather a tricky phase art-wise recently. Anyway. Free. That was nice, in a way. What freedom meant at Pimlico was, unfortunately, that the teachers didn’t feel obliged to turn up or teach at all, they were so eager to let you get on with it yourself. Although stricter rules would have created, in the long run, a much better atmosphere of hard work and continued interest in the work, as this was obviously impossible at Pimlico, to be free was better than being half free. Which was having to turn up on time and then find there were no teachers there.

There was no point in feeling guilty about my chat. Go out and use the freedom, I thought. I marched into 415 trying to feel free as a bird, but as soon as I caught sight of poor Mr. Sugden, the Instant Design teacher, poring over a row of dots, I knew that my conscience wouldn’t let me leave till the very end of the day. How could one leave such a defenceless idiot to a class consisting of only three students? It was too sad. I wandered over resignedly to my stool … blast it, substituted by some sneaky first year for a broken one. I cursed as I wobbled neurotically over my dot-covered page.

Suddenly I became aware of someone breathing over my shoulder and there was the sound of a cough, coughed in a Scottish accent. It was Sugden, squinting at my work.

‘That’s nice. Very rhythmical, and full of impact.’

I smiled up at him, pushing a strand of hair from my face. He really was sad. ‘Do you think so? Good.’

He leafed through the piles of paper.

‘And this one.’ He held up a dreadful ink-splashed piece of paper. ‘This shows great promise but is it related to buttons?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I lied. ‘I stood three feet away from the paper, and threw them at the same height at it, then I marked where the buttons had fallen to the left with black ink, with a small brush, and where they had fallen to the right with a large brush dipped in poster paint.’

‘Fascinating.’ Sugden stared at it. ‘This really is good, you know. May I pin it on the wall?’

‘Sure,’ I said, liberally. I then saw a rather designy pattern of dots I had doodled when trying to think of ideas. ‘What about this?’

Sudgen looked at it nervously. He was confused. Was it good or bad? It would depend on the explanation.

He examined it carefully, and put it on a bench and walked away.

‘Ah. Indeed. How was this done?’

It was quite a pretty little doodle, and I said just that. I said I’d worked it out to look nice.

As soon as I’d finished, he shuddered.

‘No, no, you don’t see what I mean. This is far too contrived. We are trying to lay aside preconceived ideas of design, and trying to discover new forms and rhythms through spontaneity, or through ideas and rules that are completely different to anything we have ever thought about.’

‘But I’ve been looking at the way things fall ever since I was three,’ I argued. ‘Anyone with any visual sense which is worth cultivating surely has found out about the way buttons fall, and that pebbles have interesting textures and ink-blots are worth looking at before they come to art school. I mean, otherwise they shouldn’t be here.’

He chewed thoughtfully on my special Chinagraph pencil.

‘Yes. I see what you mean.’ Then he recovered himself. ‘Anyway, the point of these classes is to probe deeper into all these discoveries and to find out WHY and HOW … to try and dissociate oneself from anything that anyone has told one about design. Get down to the basic truths.’

Who could argue with basic truths? It was a pity they were so very basic though.

He saw my tight-lipped disapproval of what he had said.

‘I assure you, anyway, that you will find these classes a great deal of help in not only your life drawing classes, but sculpture, three dimensional construction and painting. What else do you do?’

‘Lithography and fabric design.’

‘There you are! It’ll help you in lithography and fabric design!’ he proclaimed, like a triumphant salesman. Instant Design classes are not only stimulating, but can help you in all ways too. Is your litho faded? Is your sculpture lacking vigour? What YOU need is Instant Design. Gets rid of that inhibited feeling in two easy lessons. Feel contemporary! Get with it! Go dotty with Instant Design TODAY!

He wandered away clutching the original favourite set of dots under his arm. It wasn’t that I was particularly good at this class. It just happened that my mistakes were, by chance, better, in his eyes, than anyone else’s. And that was just because I could explain them in incomprehensible Art News and Reviewish terms.

Was this school a waste of time! I looked around me, everyone else looking like morons, measuring distances with rulers, tossing buttons into the air, hysterically drawing dots or just staring at two for half an hour contemplating the exciting relationships.

Exciting relationship. That’s what I could do with, I thought gloomily. I leaned heavily on my drawing board and wondered who my next exciting relationship would be with, or whether indeed there would ever be another.

‘Relationships’ like ‘boyfriend’ is to me a dirty, unmentionable word, but one could not deny that they existed so, wincing even as I thought about them, I pondered who the next man would be. I had been around with Tom for too long, I decided. During my friendship with Tom, I had just, but barely, got over some long-haired blond intellectual who was at Oxford and had afforded me many miserable trips there, and many laddered stockings climbing out of Magdalen in the snow. I had to use a dictionary to translate his love letters. It frightened me to think of how I had thought he was the Only One, Mister Right, and all that, and yet when I saw him now, he just seemed another romantic undergraduate with a penchant for foreign films.

Since then I had had various crushes on people and various one-night stands, but I could do with someone to worry about whether he would be really ring up like he said, or did he say? I almost envied Ann. That was what was the matter with being so choosy. Ann could go out with anyone, but I was so ridiculously critical. Everyone had some fault.

Nick came back to me suddenly, NICK IS ALL RIGHT, I wrote in dots on my drawing board, and wondered what Sudgen would make of that. I could do with Nick for a bit.

I got up from my stool and a shower of pencil sharpenings fell to the floor. I decided that if I wanted to succeed with Nick or any of the Damon set, I would have to make one hell of an effort with my appearance.

It was nearly lunch time and I decided to sacrifice being nice to Sugden for shopping in the afternoon and go and buy some clothes with my birthday cheques. I might even have my hair set at Vidal Sassoon.

*

I stared at myself in the mirror. Hmm. I started up some casual gestures for some reason because it is what one does in front of mirrors. My hair was shining and high at the top, coming forward ‘looks even better on a man’ style at the sides, and the new polo-necked grey jersey looked good with the new black and white skirt, not to mention the dark stockings ending in tiny round-toed patent sling-backs. I couldn’t have looked more model-girlish. It was a pity I was too intelligent to keep up model-girl conversation, I though archly and then felt very stupid. They may say ‘Look at that tart from the Brazil’ when they see me in the street, I thought, but I would at least haul in the Nicks.

I decided to potter down the King’s Road, feeling rather silly in my flared skirt, and having an all dressed up and nowhere to go feeling. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the King’s Road was full of people pretending to shop but in fact keeping a good eye on all sides of the road in case they missed someone they ought to say hullo to. I hoped I didn’t look so like all the rest that the true light of ‘me’ didn’t show through. I pushed my way into the Brazil, looking among the gloomy leather-jacketed crowd for Nick, who I was sure must be there.

He was indeed. He was sitting next to Damon with a cigar in his mouth and surrounded by several empty coffee cups. I stumbled over pathetically, tripping over a mysterious black bag that fell open to reveal thousands of identical transistor radios, much to the annoyance of the owner who hastily stuffed them back and glared at me.

I had to tap Nick on the shoulder before he recognised me.

‘Seen Tom?’ I muttered, as casually as possible, trying to hitch back the slipped straps from my sling backs on to my ankles surreptitiously.

‘No, I haven’t. He should be here soon though. Stay and have some coffee,’ Nick replied, pulling a stool for me to sit on and whipping out a Rothman’s Tipped and giving it to me.

‘Do you know Da …’

‘Sure, we’ve met, baby.’ Damon switched on his smile. ‘Huh. I can understand Robertson trying to chase girls, but when they clamour into the Brazil chasing him … God, I thought I’d never live to see the day. What do you see in him?’

‘Oh, it’s all very ‘brother-sister’,’ I replied hastily, and tearing a napkin to shreds in my embarrassment. A waitress flashed up, rare thing for them to do in the Brazil, and cocked an eyebrow at me.

‘Coffee,’ I said.

‘And a ham sandwich and some tomato soup,’ added Damon, looking at me. He leant over and stroked my cheek. ‘I’ll help you eat it. “Brother-sister”!’ He nudged Nick in the ribs, and gave him a knowing wink. ‘There’s one brother I should think I could do without if I were a sister.’

Nick narrowed his eyes and smiled.

‘He’s all right. He’s quite intelligent. He’s got a car too, and he knows of parties and he lets me borrow his camera.’

‘Uh. Camera?’ Damon leant forward and looked interested. ‘I want to take some shots actually and I can’t get hold of a good one. Do you think he’d lend it to me? He’s a good guy really. Intelligent. And he’s got a great face.’

The waitress brought my coffee and Damon handed me a page of the Evening Standard to read. I started to do the crossword puzzle, trying to look absorbed in something and not just inanely silent.

‘Hey, man.’ Damon’s whisper resounded round the Brazil, and everyone’s conversation got lower as they tried desperately to hear what the king pin was saying. A man had come in, about twenty years old, who could have been attractive apart from the fact that he had no hair at all. He was followed by a huge blond and they both sat down near us.

‘Man!’ Damon whispered urgently.

‘Great!’ said the man. ‘And Harriet … good to see you, how are you keeping?’ I muttered something, and then remembered with horror that this was the character I had met at Damon’s party. Damon got up and went over to their table and a great whispering session started with a lot of giggles. Nick moved closer to me.

‘I didn’t know you knew Galahad.’

‘Nor did I actually. I suppose I do.’

‘He’s a very dodgy character. I really can’t stand these petty crooks and stupid pilferers that sit around here. All they do is nick things at parties – a couple of leather coats here and there – and generally make a thorough nuisance of themselves. They’re like Sunday painters. They don’t even do it professionally.’

He flicked a long bit of ash into the ash tray.

‘I mean I can admire the big-timers and I like Damon because he’s good to talk to, but some of his friends … Christ! Not like the old Chelsea days, when everyone had private means and we spent our days in the Markham. Now it’s coffee and petty pilfering. Take Galahad for example. Though actually he’s really big compared to some of them. I had a flat off the King’s Road once and do you know, every day for a fortnight, there was Galahad outside some house with a bucket of acid pretending to scrub the steps just waiting till some poor guy who’d once bugged him came out. Of course Galahad and his gang did it in shifts so eventually the guy was caught. His face is a terrible mess, I can tell you.’

I was secretly horrified. And this was the sweet little man I had rushed off with at a party not so long ago.

‘Yes, you’re shocked,’ said Nick, seeing my expression. ‘But, honestly, though I’d never call Galahad a friend of mine, he’s good to talk to in a funny way. They’re all so on the ball. It’s terrible. Either you go around with dull moral people, and I mean the emphasis on dull. I approve of morals. Or you have fun with the creeps.’

‘… in hospital for six months!’ chuckled Galahad enthusiastically, sipping some tomato soup.

‘You see what I mean?’ Nick raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Actually it’s so childish really. Take Galahad. Well, he’s very sensitive about his lack of hair – some dreadful disease or something – and he beats up anyone who crosses him. A sort of inferiority complex. I say beats up. In fact he has a gang of forty Greeks in Soho just waiting for him to say the word.’

My eyebrows were checked in their usual passage upwards as Tom came in, with an air of what he thought was casual nonchalance, nodding hullo to no one in particular, and eventually sat down with us.

‘Yer pinchin’ me birdies!’ he shouted playfully at Nick. ‘Randy bastard!’

He leant forward and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Good to see you, luv.’

The waitress appeared with the ham sandwich and tomato soup, and as if he had been waiting for it, Damon sprang over and grabbed them both. Sitting down beside Tom, he clapped him on the back and smiled.

‘Tom! Great to see you, man! You know, he really HAS got a great face, hasn’t he?’

Tom looked dazed but flattered. ‘Great face?’

‘Yes. I was saying only a minute ago, just before you came in what a great face you had … wasn’t I, fruitie? How’s the job?’

‘All right.’ Tom was obviously baffled and suspicious. Damon finished the soup in one gulp and pushed the empty plates in front of me.

‘Thanks a lot, baby.’ He pinched my cheek. ‘Look at the girls he gets too! Tom, you’re a lucky man.’

Damon’s personality had changed completely.

‘Have a cigarette.’ He offered one to Tom. For a moment I thought he was going to say ‘Take two’ in a fit of generosity, but instead, as Tom was lighting up, he said: ‘I say ! How marvellous you arrived just now. Look, Nick says you have a camera. I suppose I couldn’t borrow it just for a week? I’ve got to get these shots done. Fifteen mil.’

Tom perked up. ‘Fifteen mil? Ah … let me see now …’

He rambled on for about quarter of an hour and Damon listened keenly, appearing to be picking up tips and hints eagerly and gratefully, and ended up by getting a promise of a loan of it from Tom. I was amazed because Tom rarely lent anything to anyone. It seemed an obvious con. I raised my eyebrows to myself as I thought what suckers people could be.

Damon suddenly grasped my wrist and looked at the time.

‘I’ll split,’ he muttered, back to his old self. ‘And see you.’ He looked at Nick and me.

‘And thanks, Tom. You’re a good man.’ This was said really low and in a specially personal voice, similar to the man who used to end Radio Luxemburg with a kiss … ‘For you’.

After he had eased out, a mass of suede jacket, Nick leant back in his seat and smiled coolly at us.

‘What a pair!’ he said laughing. ‘You’ve promised to lend a camera you’ll never see again to Damon and Harriet here has landed up with a bill for tomato soup and a ham sandwich.’

I pursed my lips angrily. I had forgotten about that. Huh. Good-looking or not, Damon was a CREEP.

‘What are we doing this evening?’ asked Tom.

Nick took my hand and caressed it. I smiled idiotically at him. He took my other one and fondled them both.

‘Tell me something,’ he said.

‘What?’ I asked apprehensively. The next question would be something tricky like ‘Do you fancy me?’ but then he really was too all right to ask that sort of thing.

‘You know that little girl you brought along to the park?’

‘Yes?’ I felt danger approaching.

‘What’s her telephone number?’

Damn you, I thought. That’s all that comes of being unselfish and introducing one’s friends to others. They start pinching them. I pulled my hands away and cursed Ann. I frowned into my handbag. How could he like that dreadful girl?

‘SLO 68901.’

He wrote it down and wandered out saying, ‘What we’re doing is taking Ann and Harriet out to dinner.’

THE NEXT few weeks passed drearily. Tom and I, Ann and Nick all spent several evenings together, Tom and Nick talking Men’s Talk while Ann whispered to me or listened dumbly. When I say Men’s Talk, I don’t mean that they talked about cars and the stock market. They talked, in fact, about quite ordinary things, except for photography, where I got lost. It was just that they talked to each other and not to us. When they did talk to us, and hell, I didn’t like being ‘us’ with Ann, it was a dreadful sort of ‘banter’ conversation, Nick holding Ann’s hand and making dirty suggestions to her, while Tom, in an effort to keep up with Nick, would heave his arm round me and say: ‘Still, me bird’s superer than yours.’

Poor Tom. After a few evenings like this, he said to me as we were driving home, ‘If I see that girl one more time, I shall go mad. Can’t think what Nick sees in her. I’m sorry. I know she’s a friend of yours, but I really can’t see why. I’ve tried, really, but apart from a certain childish sexiness she leaves me cold. She’s not even pretty, let alone remotely intelligent. Why doesn’t Nick take you out? That would have some sense. He’s intelligent. He wants a bright girl like you, someone he can talk to.’

‘Thanks.’ I gave a girlish smile. Bitterly I asked myself the same question.

‘Maybe I haven’t got that childish sexiness,’ I said.

‘You’ll do. Fancy you meself sometimes …’ Tom was obviously in a generous mood.

‘Really,’ he added seriously. I felt embarrassed, and was relieved to find we were nearing home. As I got out of the car, Tom pulled me back. Here goes, I thought, preparing myself for some sort of Good Friends speech, but instead he said: ‘I’ll ring you. But I’m not going to keep up this foursome. I’m sorry, but there it is.’

‘That’s all right. I absolutely agree. I’ve hated this foursome set up all the time and Ann gets on my nerves far more than yours. You can at least talk to Nick.’

From then on it was Tom and I against Ann and Nick. Whenever we met accidentally in a pub, Tom nudged me at every remark that Ann made, Ann whispered to me loudly and Nick raised his eyebrows at both Tom and me saying, ‘Come and have supper with us,’ rather desperately.

We neither of us knew what was going on until Tom told me that he’d seen Nick and he had said that he was only going out with Ann because he wanted to sleep with her and he’d never slept with a virgin in his life.

‘Ah,’ I replied, not really caring one way or the other.

*

It was quite soon after the last time we had seen them together that Ann rang me up. I could hear that she was red in the face, and she asked me to come round at once.

I went round dutifully, because Ann alone was simple. It was Ann when one was trying to impress someone else that was difficult.

She opened the door to me and her eyes looked blotchy. Her hair was crisp with old lacquer and an unhinged false eyelash drooped down pathetically over one eye.

‘Hullo.’

‘Hullo.’

‘Let’s go out. I’m sick of being at home. Nick hasn’t rung for days.’

We went to the Brazil, and Ann looked round hastily to see if Nick was there. We sat down and Ann started on her long story of Nick. I was bored but somehow felt responsible for her. I think I liked her because she depended on me. I almost was a mother to her – she was so stupid and young and looked up to me as the knower of all people and doer of all things. Little did she know.

‘He was so sweet you see, and so clever. And well, I wasn’t in love with him, he’s a bit phoney’ (word picked up from me I thought tenderly) ‘but had this marvellous flat, and of course that wonderful Sprite, one just felt so good when one was out with him, and all my friends kept saying how marvellous he was. But he kept wanting to sleep with me, and I didn’t really know what to do, and he said it would be all right, but I wasn’t sure. Have you ever been to his flat? He has this fantastic Hi-Fi, and a tape recorder, AND one of those portable gramophones. I think he must have private means. I wish I were rich, I think money brings happiness sometimes, he bought me all these drinks, he was so generous …’

I looked round the room while she was talking. Damon was sitting at a table nearby and nodded casually when I smiled. It was a silly situation, everyone one up on everyone else, me one up an Ann, Damon one up on me, and no doubt Ann one up on Damon had she talked to him, because, not being bright enough to see how slick and O.K. he was, and putting his long hair down to ‘queer’, she would have prattled on confidently and stared over his shoulder at the cavalry twills who occasionally popped in to see ‘The Chelsea Set’.

‘… and he promised me he wasn’t doing anything, but you know I don’t know about it really.’ Ann fumbled for a cigarette and blushed. ‘You see he sort of got on top of me and I had almost nothing on and, oh dear, this is so embarrassing … I wish I knew. Do you think I did?’

‘Did what?’ I jerked out of my profound observations and felt guilty at not listening. ‘Sorry. I mean I see what you mean, but actually what?’

‘Well, you know, sleep with him?’

Hell, what a question! Although it was nice playing mum to her in one way, because one was revered and one’s advice was sought, when it came to whether she had actually you know whated with someone my neck went hot and I wanted her to stop, not only because it was embarrassing to talk about, but because I hated to see her so naïve and sad. Still, loyalty got the better of me and I croaked out: ‘What happened?’

Ann looked miserable. ‘He asked me back to his flat, and we had some coffee and watched television, and then we started on this sort of kissing thing, and quite suddenly he changed … JOHN!’

Ann’s eyes were on stalks, and she was waving desperately to someone behind me. I looked in the mirror behind her and saw a rugged character who looked straight from a ski-ing holiday, not that I had ever been on one, but I knew this was how people looked when they got back. There was a thump of feet, and John appeared in the flesh. All eyes were turned on him and I was horrified to see Damon wincing to himself in the corner. Tom and John … what friends he must think I have, I thought neurotically. John was wearing a sports jacket and cavalry twills, and tucked into his shirt was a Paisley scarf. He sat down with us and I noticed that his bottom stuck out, covered by the flap of his coat, which had two vents at the side.

‘Ann,’ he said heavily, sitting at our table. ‘Long time no see.’

He had one of those mouths that was too thick and too red, and his chin was blotchy and well-shaved. A whiff of after shave came wafting over in my direction, and it wasn’t Old Spice, the only one I like. I gave him a summing-up look, and then realised from my revealing mirror session that it must be coming out as the come-hither look, so changed it at once to a sudden growl.

‘Where have you been all my life?’ he said to me, ponderously playing Casanova.

‘Uhuh,’ I muttered feebly.

‘Your friend’s shy,’ he said to Ann.

‘Oh no. Sorry, this is Harriet, this is John,’ said Ann, her eyes big and misty at the sound of his voice.

‘Ah. Harriet. I’ve wanted to meet you. Ann thinks you’re marvellous.’

He was one for putting his big foot in it, obviously. Ann simpered.

‘It’s wonderful to see you, Ann. I was going to ring you up, but I went to Switzerland’ (I gave myself a smile in the mirror) ‘and have only just got back.’

‘Oh, I see. I didn’t know. You should have told me.’

‘Didn’t you get my letter?’

‘What letter? It must have got lost in the post.’

Here, I thought, back to my observations, is someone who thinks he is one up on me, and in fact I am one up on him. I loathed him.

‘What are you doing now … hey, WAITRESS!’ he yelled, waving his arms in the air. ‘Don’t want to let grass grow under their feet! Back to old Chelsea. It has its charms I must say, in spite of its disadvantages.’

It was funny how everyone seemed to want to cash in on this Chelsea scene.

‘Don’t you think?’ He turned to me.

‘Mmm. Disadvantages mainly,’ I said, playing the sneering gets you everywhere line which can be played with stupid people very easily.

‘What charms?’ I curled my lip and pushed away my coffee making a face.

‘“Chelsea hath charms … to soothe the savage breast” … I must stop quoting. Charms? Beautiful women. Look at you and Ann.’

‘Hardly call us women.’

‘Ann maybe not,’ he said, thinking he was being shrewd and perceptive. ‘You, well, I don’t know you well enough, do I? Haha. Haha. I think you’re a woman though.’

The last thing I wanted to be was a Woman. It implied Maturity and Self-Knowledge in the nastiest sense of the word.

‘There’s a wonderful atmosphere about Chelsea,’ he continued. ‘I feel at home here I suppose. All my friends and the old easy life.’

It was funny how he talked without saying anything, I thought. And yet I suppose I talked like that sometimes, justifying it by listening to myself sneering at myself, knowing that underneath I was not thinking like that. But perhaps he was doing the same, and just then he was thinking cleverly to himself, ‘Christ, what a pair of nitwits! This calls for the smallest talk I’ve got.’

And yet he couldn’t really, because I didn’t look like a nitwit … or did I? I puffed confidently on my cigarette and gave a clever look.

He leant forward, the leather patches on his elbows squeaking on the Formica tabletop. ‘Don’t you know what I mean?’

I decided to put across a girl of the world act.

I picked an old Anadin from my bag and swallowed it ostentatiously.

‘That’s better.’ I pulled my hand across my forehead. ‘I find it gets dull, I am bound to admit.’ I sighed. ‘I doubt if you could ever find Chelsea really like home … unless you like getting high in dirty attics and fixing secretly in the lavatory.’

Ann stirred her coffee and looked proud of me. I could feel her thinking, ‘Look what with-it friends I have.’

‘Man,’ I added gratuitously and snapped my fingers dully.

‘Oh? Really? This is a side of Chelsea I know little about, I must say. Except from the gutter press! What do you do, actually? It interests me. Where do you get marijuana from anyway? I can never get hold of any. These days,’ he added hurriedly.

‘What? Get hold of … ?’ I feigned non-comprehension. ‘Oh, sorry. You mean charge. Ah, yes. Charge!’ I laughed contemptuously. ‘You wait till you want something stronger.’ I rubbed the inside of my elbow and winced. ‘You wait till you’re standing with the rest of the devils outside Boots on a Saturday night. Charms! You wait!’

He stared, not knowing whether to believe me or not. I wondered if I had overplayed it. It was unfair of me, and I felt rather mean. Why should I play this game with him, when if he had played it with me, I would have been equally gullible? But it had gone too far. He believed me. He looked worried.

‘What about your parents?’

‘Parents!’ It was so easy to play the sneering game with him. He looked crushed.

‘I’ve got some pills though, if you want one.’ I groped in my bag for another Anadin and messed it around in the bottom of my bag to make it look old and casual. He took it in his thick fingers and put it in his pocket.

‘Hey, take it here …’ I said. ‘I don’t want you to be found with that on you. It would be most unwise.’

‘Oh, it’s safe with me. Don’t worry. I’ve got a way with the police.’

‘Fuzz,’ corrected Ann, unconsciously. John fumbled with it to put it in his pocket and it fell to the floor. Damon looked up at the familiar sound of clattering pills.

I pulled at John’s sleeve. ‘Hey, I mean it. Take it here or I want it back. I don’t like those things wandering round without my knowing where they are. It won’t do you any harm, honestly. Just gives you a bit of a buzz.’

‘Buzz? Oh, sorry. Oh, well all right. I’m always game for something new. Here goes.’ He nervously looked around and swallowed it with his coffee.

Damon beckoned me over.

‘What are you doing, giving that poor little man an Anadin?’

Typical that Damon’s eyes could see what a pill was even five yards away.

‘He’s got a headache.’

Damon laughed and went back to reading the latest copy of Mirabelle.

John looked rather white when I got back, but was going on about Switzerland to Ann. Ann looked dreamy-eyed and didn’t notice Nick when he came in. On seeing Ann, he mouthed ‘HELP’ to me, and pulled his jacket over his face.

I went up to him and sat down beside him.

‘What do you want to bring her in here for?’ he whispered. ‘Oh, God, what a night!’

‘You behaved horribly to her, she’s all cut up. You really are nasty,’ I said coyly, adjusting my slick Jules et Jim hat over my eyes.

‘She feels cut up! What do you think I feel? I plug her with gins and she won’t even be raped! Some people. They don’t know when they’ve got the chance of a lifetime.’

Damon drifted over. ‘Got any bread?’ he muttered to Nick.

‘Have you?’

‘Sure. I just don’t want to spend it, that’s all.’ He drifted out, patting John on the head saying, ‘Watch that pill, little man.’

As Nick was obviously not in a talking mood, flicking the pages of Movie over aimlessly, I joined John and Ann, who were arm in arm ready to leave.

John stared at me in awe.

‘Christ what was that pill? Talk about fuzz! I mean buzz, sorry. My heart’s racing. It’s marvellous. Let me pay for your coffee.’

But suddenly conscience-stricken, I refused and insisted on paying for him and Ann and made my exit as fast as possible.

THE WEEKS passed horribly. I went to the art school when I could bear to and came back more depressed at having been there than I had been before with the boredom of having nothing to do. Tom got more predictable, if that was possible, and Nick was virtually written off my list as, although he was nice to me and Tom kept saying how much he liked me, he took no more interest in me, in spite of my desperate efforts to be slick and become a Chelsea birdie, the type he usually went for.

It was near the end of the summer term that I thought that I really must go away. I decided to go and stay just a couple of days with my great uncle and aunt who lived in Suffolk and who had been nagging at me to go and stay with them because they hadn’t seen me for two years.

I wrote to them and they were delighted. I rather looked forward to the nice peaceful country with birds and cucumber sandwiches in the garden, guest rooms and nice meals.

They were a pleasant couple, as far as I could remember. He was a retired doctor and they lived in a little cottage in a small village. I had a vision of fresh crusty loaves, big kitchens, dogs, lambs, old farmers and coy country maids sucking straws as they peeped through their latticed windows to watch the newcomers go by in their cars.

I caught the train at Liverpool Street and promised to send Tom a postcard. I leant back in my seat with my Woman’s Own on my knee on a Tuesday afternoon (I always read Woman’s Own in trains) and we started off.

The other passengers were a pretty crumby lot, a few businessmen and one of those dreary young women in a tight pale blue jersey with scalloped sleeves and a knobbly straight skirt, pale stockings and flat brown patterned shoes. I never know quite where these people fit in. How do they recognise people of their own type? Not by the clothes, obviously, because there are so many of them. Maybe they were a large type. I wondered if she ever saw someone across the road and thought: ‘There’s someone who is like me. I wish I knew them.’

I leafed through Woman’s Own methodically, starting at the letters and ending with the problem page. Although it took me ages to get through it all, we weren’t halfway there when I had finished it.

I really did have illusions about staying with my great-aunt and -uncle. Relaxing in the hayfields, singsongs in the local pub and going for long walks over the hills.

Alone at last … no one to bother me with marijuana or modern jazz, no worries, no depressions. I’d just be rested enough to enjoy Chelsea when I returned.

I slept most of the journey and when we pulled in at the station I had to rush hastily to the lavatory to brush my hair, etc. I always feel guilty even being in a train lavatory after the train has stopped. When I got out a porter looked at me crossly, and was gone before I could explain that I was only making up my face.

I hauled my luggage out of the carriage onto the platform and looked around. Everyone had somewhere to go except me it seemed. People were embracing all around me or dashing off to Destinations while I stood sadly surrounded by carrier bags and grips all on my own.

Then I saw a heavy, moustached man forging forward in a tweed cap and swirling trousers followed by a prancing collie dog and I had a nasty premonition that this was my great-uncle Geoffrey. That’s always the way on train platforms. The nice people waiting on the platform rush forward and bear off all the bores in your compartment leaving the dreariest man possible who, by process of elimination, is obviously the One Who Is Meeting You.

Anyway, he approached, kissed me heavily on the cheek, asked after the family and we trundled away in a van to their house.

My aunt was waiting on the doorstep in her dressing gown (it was only ten o’clock) and we went through the embracing session again and ‘How you’ve grown’ and ‘How lovely to see you again’ and ‘What a pretty house’.

Geoffrey took my luggage upstairs while my aunt ushered me into the sitting-room.

‘Well, I expect you will want something to drink after your long journey,’ she said cosily, sitting me down in a floral print-covered chair and bustling into the kitchen. It was a poky little sitting-room with a central light and skimpy curtains and an electric fire in a built-up grate. I wriggled uncomfortably in my chair but perked up at the idea of a cup of hot milk and a chunk of homemade cake or whatever they eat in the country.

Not at all though. My aunt flashed back with a tray on which was a hardboiled egg, some orange squash and a banana. It was like a pre-packed lunch, but I took it gratefully. Before I could start she said, ‘Well, I’ll be off to bed now. Geoff will come down in a minute to listen to the wireless. Tell me, just before I go … what would you like for breakfast?’

‘Oh nothing very much,’ I said, amiably.

‘Well, I’ll see. But you just remember that you’re on holiday. Don’t you be polite or do anything you don’t want to do. You just do what you like and when you like. I’ll let you sleep late tomorrow … I know you young things in the morning!’

With these ominous words she pottered out. I say ominous because when people say ‘Do what you like’ it means quite the opposite. What they mean is, ‘Give us the impression that you are doing what you like when in fact you are doing what we want you to do’.

I was smashing my egg on the arm of the chair and starting to peel it open when heavy footsteps heralded Uncle Geoffrey creaking downstairs.

‘Good to see you,’ he said thunderously, sniffing some snuff and sitting down opposite me in what was obviously ‘his’ chair. ‘We haven’t seen you for a long time. How are you?’

‘Oh, fine.’ I took the first bite of the egg.

‘And the boys? I mean your father and his brother.’ He sniffed hard while I looked away.

With difficulty through the heaviness of the hard-boiled egg, I said that they were fine too.

He flicked the bits of snuff off his waistcoat and patted his nose.

‘Well, it’s nice to see you again. You’re looking very peaky. This holiday should do you some good. Fresh air is the best prescription, as I always used to say. Get some roses into your cheeks! Of course how you can bear to live in a grimy town I don’t know, soot everywhere and all that traffic.’

‘Oh no, not really. One gets used to it.’ I said with difficulty, suppressing my rage at his saying how peaky I was. Suddenly I felt a tremendous loyalty to London.

‘Has your aunt shown you your room?’ he asked, switching on the wireless and a side light.

‘No, she went to bed.’

He moved over to turn off the top light and we were left in quite a cosy sort of gloom. The wireless started to crackle and he tuned it in to Grand Hotel.

‘Hope you like this sort of music. I like it. It’s nice and light.’

‘Oh, but I thought you all sung folk songs in the country over your pints of cider,’ I said, making an effort to be bright.

He stared at me and then laughed. ‘Oh no. You town folk! We’re quite … what is it? With-it? Isn’t that the word … in the country. Not just a lot of fusty old country folk!’

I gulped down the last of my hardboiled egg and dropped on to the carpet in front of the fire.

‘Where is my room?’ I asked. I really couldn’t think where it could be in such a small house unless it was through a mysterious curtain that hung across where a door should be.

‘It’s upstairs. You’ll like it. It’s a room with lots of character … very cosy. Remember to mind your head on the beams though. I like the effect in a curious sort of way. If you come with me I’ll show it to you.’

I eagerly agreed and was shown down a tiny corridor upstairs to a small room completely filled by my luggage alone. The fire had only just been turned on and it was cold. There were some fresh flowers on my dressing table and the room smelt of clean sheets and mothballs.

‘Well. I’ll say goodnight,’ said my uncle. ‘The you know … the whatsits … just round the corner here and the bathroom is next to it.’

He wandered embarrassedly downstairs and I was left in my little room.

It was very silent. I could almost hear it … there was a buzzing in my ears and I felt I had to creep around noiselessly. Faraway, through the window a bird screeched, and then the pipes rumbled loudly. I tiptoed over to the washbasin and washed my face, made a visit to the whatsit, undressed and climbed into bed. The sheets felt too clean and the bed dipped in the middle. I felt a very hot hot-water bottle right at the very end and as I leant to turn out the light I felt a wave of homesickness.

I leant back, lonely and miserable. This was not the sort of holiday I wanted. If only Tom were here. Even beside me would be nice. If only there were someone who understood. I was already tired from the strain of quarter of an hour’s talking to my uncle, I would be exhausted after two days.

I was woken the next morning by Mary rushing into my room in a plastic apron and flinging back the curtains.

‘Did you sleep well? Did you have a nice night? Slept late enough? Hungry?’ she chattered on while I took a surreptitious look at the clock. It was nine o’clock. Sleep late! I only got up at ten at home on special occasions.

‘I’ll call you when breakfast’s ready,’ she said, pottering out and leaving me dazed and cold, my eyes hurting with the light.

After what seemed like two seconds a large gong sounded and Geoffrey shouted, ‘BREAKFAST!’

The sound of the gong echoed through my body, stiff from an excruciatingly uncomfortable night, and I blearily pulled on some clothes picked at random from my suitcase.

Following a smell of frying bacon, I found the kitchen, where Geoff and Mary were tucking in at top speed.

‘G’morning,’ I said.

Geoff handed me a bit of his Daily Telegraph.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked, not waiting for a reply.

I stuck my fork into a sausage and forced it down my throat. I’m not a great breakfast eater. Nor, for that matter, am I a great Daily Telegraph reader so I was relieved when Mary started talking.

‘Well, we must start by getting all this tidied away, and then we must go shopping, we must remember the library books by the way, and then after lunch we thought we’d go for a drive before the Lucases come round. Oh, I never told you. The Lucases have their niece staying with them and she’s an art student or something so we’ve arranged for you to meet. You might like her. Anyway, it’ll be nice to have a young person to know if you ever come up here again.’

I nodded sadly. Here I was, trying to get away from things and all that happened was that they tried to arrange things for me, young people for me to meet, shopping expeditions. Christ.

‘Can I help?’ I asked, as we finished breakfast.

‘No. You mustn’t do a thing,’ said Mary firmly. ‘Just help me clear away and wash up, and then if you could make your bed and tidy up your room that’s absolutely all.’

She thrust a drying-up cloth into my hand and for the next hour and a half I was a whirling figure, rushing from the Hoover to the washing machine to the iron.

At about eleven, I collapsed in the drawing-room and opened my Perry Mason, hoping for a good read, but Geoff came in, knocking his boots on the step.

‘Hey, Harriet! You’re a healthy young girl! How about some fresh air? Wouldn’t you like to help your uncle in the garden?’

‘Actually, I’m feeling awfully tired,’ I pleaded, but he dragged me up.

‘You old woman!’ he cried. ‘A bit of exercise will do you good! Get all those fumes out of your lungs.’

My lungs aren’t full of diesel fumes, I thought feverishly to myself. I looked sullen.

‘Oh, well. Do as you please. But I do think you might help your old uncle.’

Pressurised in this way I couldn’t refuse. I followed Geoffrey dog-like through the door into the garden, and was at once set to work picking up stones before he went over the lawn with the lawnmower. I felt like a servant picking up the bits from the pavement before his master walked on it. Picking up bits on a lawn is exhausting work as it involves bending double and also concentrating very hard. One false move (as Geoffrey told me), one minute of daydreaming, and a stone might be missed, and then the lawnmower would be out of action for days. As I didn’t look forward to helping Geoff cut the lawn with a pair of scissors I worked hard and in about an hour had cleared the whole lawn.

I stood up sweating, and made for the house, but Geoff called me on my way. ‘Hey! Aren’t you going to help me mulch the beds? I can’t do this job on my own you know.’

‘What?’ I called, beetling indoors and making for the bathroom, one place where I would be safe from Geoff.

As I stood heaving with relief by the basin I could hear his cries from the garden for me.

‘Harriet! Harriet!’

I slunk out of the bathroom, hoping to make my room and catch up on the morning’s lost sleep, but my aunt was passing and she caught me.

‘Geoff wants you I think,’ she said, cocking her head as she heard his yells from the garden. ‘But I expect you’re tired now. What about a peaceful trip into town with me and we’ll leave Geoff to his gardening?’

She said this in a confidential way and led me to the kitchen.

‘I’ve just got to wrap up this cake and then we’ll be off. You go and have some rest. If you see any library books, by the way, you might collect them into a pile for us to take back.’

By the time I had found five library books she was with me, with an old pair of gumboots.

‘I forgot about these. There are guest’s gumboots. I should have told you before you helped Geoff in the garden and you could have saved your pretty shoes. Anyway, here they are. I’d put them on now, we’ve a muddy part to go through before we get to the car.’

Dutifully I put them on. I knew these arguments and it wasn’t worth having one. Also she’d be hurt if I didn’t put them on.

Driving down to the town was about the only rest I had that whole morning. I leant back and watched the countryside flash by.

Not that you could call it countryside really. It consisted mainly of tiny modern bungalows and a few housing estates and barns and packing houses and things.

‘Just help me with …’ said Mary. ‘Just help me with this or that’ are about the only words I remember from the whole time I was staying with them.

I helped Mary round the town, carried all the shopping for her, took back all her beastly library books (Daphne du Maurier, Beverley Nichols) and surreptitiously found out about trains back to London.

When we got back I flopped into a chair and opened my Perry Mason again. No dice.

‘You’re certainly looking better already!’ cried Geoff, as he came in. ‘Isn’t she, Mary?’

‘She certainly is! Nothing like the country air to put a rose in your cheeks. Fresh air and exercise, plenty of green vegetables – if my patients had followed that advice regularly they would have put an old sawbones like me out of business.’

I felt the back of my neck to see if I had a temperature. Like hell I had bloody roses in my cheeks. Fever if you ask me.

I could do with a drink, I thought desperately. But on looking round the drawing-room I could see nowhere where it might be hidden.

‘Feel like some refreshment?’ asked Geoff, thundering over to a cupboard.

‘Crazy.’ I had given up being polite.

‘What?’

‘Yes. Thank you so much.’

He opened the door of the cupboard with a key and pulled out a bottle of beer and a couple of glasses.

‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Oh, ordinary,’ I said hoping that ordinary in my language equalled ordinary in his. But it didn’t. Anyway it was flat. And beer isn’t drink. I listed my complaints on my fingers as Geoff turned on the news.

I couldn’t wait to get out of this house. How long would it be? There was this afternoon, this evening, tomorrow morning, a quick lunch and my train home. It seemed altogether too long.

Mary came in and sounded the gong. She made so much noise with the felt-covered knob on her tiny gong that she could have given a tip or two to the man on the films.

We went into lunch. Even then, I thought that we might have had a little something fresh and real, but no. Frozen chicken vol-au-vents followed by tinned mandarin oranges and top of milk and then Maxwell House coffee.

While we were having coffee I lit a Woodbine. They were my only consolation and immediately started a conversation about lung cancer.

‘Tell me,’ asked Geoff when he had demonstrated statistically to me that I would be dead in three weeks, ‘What do you do?’

He sat forward with an I’m-going-to-be-interested-if-it-bloody-kills-me expression on his face.

‘Well. I’m at an art school.’

‘Art school? You mean the Central?’

‘No. Pimlico, actually.’

‘Oh, yes of course, the Central is only for painters, isn’t it?’

‘No. The Central is the same as Pimlico. Only better.’

‘Better? Why don’t you go there then?’ Geoff looked triumphant. Mary snored quietly to herself on the sofa.

‘Pimlico’s nearer. I don’t have to get up so early in the morning.’

‘You mean you only go to the Central because you can get up earlier in the morning when the Pimlico is better?’

‘No. I go to Pimlico, not the Central. And I didn’t know Pimlico was worse until I got there.’

‘I see. And what do you do there?’

‘Graphics.’

‘Oh. Graphics. That’s because you can’t do painting at the Chelsea.’

My face got flushed with frustration. I didn’t understand him, he didn’t understand me. Let’s call it quits, I thought.

‘No! You can do painting at Pimlico. I just do graphics, that’s all.’

‘What’s graphics? Don’t you do a comprehensive course?’

What’s graphics! You couldn’t blame him, but why did he bother to go on?

‘Graphics are design … or what used to be called commercial art. We do a comprehensive course in our first year.’

‘So you’re in your second year.’

‘No, I’m not, in fact, because I came late at the beginning of the first so …’

We waded on. He ended up by thinking I was at the Royal College of Art in my third year doing ceramics for Intermediate which was an exam set by the LCC which soon would be changed into NDD to be judged internally by a diploma.

Mary woke up as I was starting to re-explain from the beginning and interrupted.

‘Let’s go for a drive. Harriet mustn’t go back to London without having seen the proper country.’

Go back to London! The words were honey to my ears.

‘Good idea, Mary. I know, Harriet can help clean the car and then we can set out.’

I gave in. It would soon be over. If ONLY Tom were here. I felt a wave of desire coming over me for him. Dear old Tom! Tom who knew about Pimlico art school and understood about diplomas and had read the latest Queen, Tom who was so attractive … I rambled on with pleasant daydreams, a hose in one hand and sponge in the other.

By now it was three o’clock and Mary had packed a picnic and we set off. The only thing was that Geoff was driving and he didn’t drive very well. In fact I was very pleased that I had put myself politely in the back of the car.

It did look nice out of the window, and I almost looked forward to the picnic. I spent most of the journey daydreaming about Nick and Tom. In fact, as soon as I had thought of Nick, my daydreams were almost entirely of him.

Suppose suddenly he whizzed past in a Mini-Minor … suppose we saw him, lying wounded by the side of the road … suppose we turned a corner and there he was, hitching a lift … suppose …

We arrived at a field by an abbey and Geoff stopped the car.

‘All right, Mary?’ he asked.

‘Just a little further on, Geoff. I think you’ll find it’s much nicer there.’

He dutifully drove further on.

Suddenly Mary gasped. ‘Oh, you’ve missed it. Oh well.’

‘There’s a nice spot a few miles away … by the stream …’

After rejecting or missing a few places, none of which were so nice as the first, we stopped finally in a layby, Geoff getting cross and Mary saying, ‘Well, let’s make the best of it.’

I was allotted to carry the tea things a little further up the road and into a field.

I was all geared for it to start to rain, and for my great uncle to spill the tea all over the rug, but in fact we got over tea quite satisfactorily, and I managed to get down the sandwiches (Kraft cheese slices, Stork margarine and American sliced bread, Lyons sandwich roll and Kup Kakes). Picnics are really overrated things. If it’s not too hot it’s too cold or there are insects creeping around or cow pats or something. The moment we had stuffed the empty thermos flask back into the basket and carefully buried a few milk bottle tops and fag ends (‘It’s the law of the countryside,’ boomed Geoff) we got back into the car and drove home.

I looked at my watch. It was five-thirty. The time was going very slowly. Thank God I hadn’t committed myself for longer than two days.

As we got into the house, loaded with tea things and a bunch of tired-looking weeds that Mary had collected thinking that they were wild flowers, she said: ‘Well, the Lucases will be over soon so we must get the drawing-room looking nice. We’ve got about half an hour to change in.’

It was ages since I had ever ‘changed’. I mean in the way that Mary meant. I had carefully put myself into casual clothes for parties in London, but since I had stopped going to cocktail parties and given up going to tea with aunts in special going out to tea clothes, I had almost forgotten how to change. What should I wear? And if I was to meet an art student, surely I needn’t change?

Still, I pottered upstairs, relieved that I had an excuse to be alone for half an hour, and picked out a crumpled skirt and took off my gumboots. It was six-fifteen and I had a headache. My hair was curly from being out in the open with the wind through it and my face looked blotchy and rough from lack of sleep. So much for the country. I hung around in my slip for a long as possible, which paid off as Geoff, when he stumbled into my room saying, ‘I wonder if you could help Mary with …’ broke off in embarrassment and, blushing, hastily retreated. I chattered inanely to myself … it was such a relief to be able to talk to someone without being polite and tensed up. I laughed hilariously at my own jokes and twisted wildly on the carpet in my bra and pants. I was making up for lost time in a way.

Feeling much better, I skipped downstairs and was pounced on by Mary.

‘Just put these Twiglets on the little table, darling, would you?’ She was dressed in a straight jersey number that accentuated the fact that she was as thin as a rake and she had a small piece of ‘good’ jewellery at the neck.

She suddenly gave me a second look and then said: ‘Do put on a bit of lipstick, dear … and couldn’t you do something with your hair? I know. I’ve got a piece of very pretty ribbon in my room. I kept it from Christmas. Wouldn’t it look pretty to wear it as an Alice band? I’ll go and get it.’

I was left, boiling with silent rage. All the rebelliousness I ever possessed came shuddering out and I went red with the difficulty of stifling it. I hated feeling like this. It seemed such a sign of weakness to be so enraged by an old aunt. I was not only furious that she had said what she had, but also furious that I was affected in such a childish way.

She came back with the ribbon in her hand and a brush.

‘Just turn round …’ She pushed me round and set to work with her brush. She was really taking advantage of the fact that I was a guest and couldn’t say anything back. Also she was taking advantage of the fact that I was young … ‘Dreary old people,’ I muttered to myself. I felt like a teenage rebel.

It was only when she sent me upstairs to put on some lipstick that I saw what she had done to my hair. It was all scraped back, no sign of wisps over the ears, and the ribbon was pulled round the whole lot and tied in a bow at the back. My ears looked very naked and rude. I pulled out a few bits and looked a bit better. My fringe had vanished and she had left me with a glaring bare forehead, so I did a bit more pulling there and managed a hint of hair.

Then I got out my lipstick . . luckily the only lipstick I possess is brown … and, shutting my eyes, nerved myself to put it on. It was like wringing the neck of a chicken or putting a letter in the post box that you are not sure if you ought to send or not.

I opened my eyes. Hmm. What I suffered just to be kind and not hurt people’s feelings! The bell rang and I scampered downstairs again.

‘My … you DO look pretty!’ exclaimed Mary, obviously hoping to encourage me to put on lipstick more often.

Geoff led the Lucases in and they all stood around heartily breathing deeply and saying how nice it was to get into the warm, and how nice the garden was looking, as usual.

Mary preened herself and put on the hostess act. The maddening thing was that Mary and Geoff were being so kind. They had obviously arranged this whole little drinks party just for me to meet someone, so I obviously had to do my bit. It was like a commercial contract. ‘We give a drinks party for you and you are nice in return.’ And I still had to thank them for this lousy deal.

I put on my summing-up look and summed up. Mrs. Lucas was an elderly woman in a beige suit trimmed with white, with grey curly hair and pop eyes, Mr. Lucas was a retired civil servant type … and the art student! She was wearing a blue jersey C&A suit with a white rayon sleeveless blouse underneath, black stockings and brown flat shoes, her hair was short and dull and her lipstick was too bright. She may have been stuffed into all this gear by her uncle and aunt, like me with my ribbon, but I doubted it. I knew just what sort of art student she was now. She was the sort who dressed as she would always dress, but wore black stockings all the time just to show that she wasn’t as stuffy as she might have looked otherwise.

I felt tremendously sophisticated, ribbon or no ribbon.

‘Have a drink,’ said Geoff and handed round thimble glasses of very sweet sherry.

He and the civil servant started on business, Mary and Mrs. Lucas vanished into the garden, while I stared sheepishly at the art student on the sofa.

‘I hear you come from London,’ she said, beaming.

‘Yes … er, you’re at an art school too, I gather.’

‘Yes. But only a country one, I’m afraid.’ She sounded superior somehow. She obviously didn’t go in for this London business.

‘If you live in London, you must know Roger Brown,’ she said. Why did people think that just because you lived in London you knew everyone in it under thirty?

‘Roger Brown?’ What a name. ‘I don’t think I’ve run into him. London’s a big place.’

‘He’s a chartered accountant.’

‘That explains it.’

She didn’t understand.

‘I don’t know many chartered accountants somehow,’ I said cautiously.

‘No, I do agree. They’re really very dreary people generally. But Roger’s good fun. He hates doing it, too.’

This was the thing all chartered accountants had in common. They all hated doing accountancy; or said they did. I wouldn’t have minded them so much if they were passionately interested in it.

‘Where do you live?’

Oh, Christ, those questions. They came out one after another. She would say one, I would say the next. We even did the ‘Where did you go for your summer holidays last year?’ and she cleverly developed it into the next question, ‘Where are you going for your summer holidays next year?’

The maddening thing was that she was just as bored as I was. We both couldn’t have cared less about where the other had been or was going and yet the rules of society made us go on, battering away idiotically, neither really listening to what the other was saying.

Even boyfriend talk would have been better, because at least she would have felt something about it, all girls do, and she would have thought about it and revealed herself as some sort of person instead of a question-asking robot. But again, one can’t ask people about boyfriends until one knows them well … and how I hate those girls who do wade in spouting confidences and then wait for yours in return.

No. Either way it was a flop.

Mary and Mrs. Lucas came back from the garden.

‘You two been discussing your art?’ asked Mrs. Lucas in a jocular way. ‘I’m so glad you were both down at the same time and have been able to meet. I expect it’s nice to get away from all the hustle and bustle of London for a few days and have a real rest. Of course my niece,’ she patted the art student on the head, ‘lives in the country anyway so down here it’s just like home. Isn’t it, dear?’

‘Yes.’ The art student sniggered politely.

My glass was empty and I wanted another drink. I don’t usually feel like lots to drink but as soon as I know that it is unlikely that I shall get another glass I start feeling desperate. I picked at a Twiglet desolately.

‘Hand them round, dear,’ muttered Mary.

I wandered over to Geoff and the civil servant.

He looked up delightedly. ‘Well, you’re Harriet! Now I’ve got a question to ask you … you’re a Londoner so you should know. Where should we all go for a nice meal when we go up? We’re all going up next Wednesday to see a show and we want to know of a nice restaurant or club where we can eat afterwards.’

‘Whereabouts?’ I asked. ‘What are you going to see?’

‘We’re going to see Salad Days so we’ll be up in the West End. Have you seen it? Is it good?’

‘Is it still going?’ I was amazed. That was about the first thing I’d ever seen on stage and even at the age of twelve I’d had a feeling that it wasn’t quite ‘me’ or whatever you say.

‘I did see it … ages ago. I’m sure you’ll love it.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mr. Lucas, leaning forward like a clever pixie. ‘I’m sure that’s a very bad choice. She doesn’t look too enthusiastic does she, Geoff! I know, you want us to go and see a whatsisname, modern chap, all kitchen sinks and black men … Pinter.’ He pronounced it like a ‘pint’ of milk.

‘No. Good heavens no.’ I winced at the memory of The Caretaker. ‘But I really can’t think of where you could eat. I’m not good at the sort of thing … only the usuals like Overtons or Wheelers.’

‘That’s an idea. We might go there. Or what about this new club … what is it? The Slashers? What’s that like?’

‘Dodgy. Very. I wouldn’t go there.’ I shook my head.

‘The Slashers?’ The art student looked up. ‘But that’s great fun. You’d both love it. You must go there! They have this sort of satirical show after supper, it’s terribly funny. And there are lots of weirdies around and famous people.’

I winced silently. It bucked my ego to do it.

‘But you’ll never get in unless you’re a member. It’s a really crummy joint. Now, at least. Just recently … Christ! … all the best people have gone to America.’

Everyone laughed in a dazed way. There was a silence.

‘And who, Miss Bennett, are in your opinion the Best People? You must forgive our ignorance …’ Mr. Lucas smiled cleverly and everyone shouted, ‘Good for you! Yes, Harriet … who are they? After all, we’re only old squares from the country.’

I groaned inwardly. I couldn’t think why it annoyed me so much. I didn’t really want to impress them … why was I putting on this act? I felt like a Beatnik. All I wanted to do was to go into a corner snapping my fingers, saying, ‘Nobody understands me.’

Grudgingly I laughed too and muttered something about my not knowing the difference between a heifer and a bullock and they all smiled tolerantly.

I went back to question time with the niece until it was time for the Lucases to go, and was forced to wave goodbye to them down the drive, my ribbons flying in the air and my uncovered ears pink at the tips.

‘Well, that was nice,’ said Mary, bustling into the house. ‘How about a bite of supper? What a pity you’re going so soon, there’s so much we haven’t done … so much I’d like you to have seen. Still, I suppose you must. You couldn’t manage just an extra day … we’ve hardly seen you at all and here you are, going back tomorrow. When are you going in fact?’

‘I think there’s a four-fifteen just after tea,’ I said, knowing perfectly well there was because I’d checked and rechecked hundreds of times. ‘No, it’s a pity. I just must go back … there are these people you see.’

‘Ah,’ said Mary, vaguely. ‘That’s too bad.’

After supper, another awkward meal of Heinz soup and stew cooked in a plastic bag, we sat having coffee in the drawing-room. It was comparatively peacteful, my only chore being to hold the India-rubber while Mary did a crossword puzzle. Geoff listened to Twenty Questions on the wireless and I daydreamed about Nick and Tom and resolved that when I got back to London I would be so nice to Tom he wouldn’t know me, and felt guilty about how unkind I had been to and about him in the past. As Tom was so high in my estimation at that time, Nick took a position on an almost god-like level. Dear Nick, good Nick, wise Nick … even super Nick. I had to get him if it killed me.

That night I tossed and turned thinking about him. I suppose I had nothing else to do. In comparison to Geoff and Mary, everyone I knew had gone up about ten points and I found myself being grateful that I had such nice friends. But, then, it’s all relative, I told myself wisely, and went to sleep.

The next day Mary bounced in as usual, but I spent the morning pretending to pack, and therefore got out of going into town, mowing the lawn or whatever. I came down about twelve to find Mary and Geoff wrangling about arrangements to take me to the station.

‘No, Geoff, the traffic might be very bad … it would be much wiser to start at half past three.’

‘I’ve never been held up on a Thursday at that time. I’m sure that we need only allow half an hour.’

‘Well, if she misses the train, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Oh, Mary. You don’t know anything about traffic. Oh, all right. I’ll start at twenty to four.’

As it only took twenty minutes to the station on foot, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. But old people really don’t have much else to fuss about except train times and little things like that.

I sat down. There was still lunch to get through. The telephone rang and Geoff answered it.

‘Hullo? Who? No. You must have got the wrong number. Who did you want? Hang on a minute … did you say Harriet? Oh, yes, all right.’

Rather grudgingly he handed me the receiver. He was obviously one of the people who thought it was rude to be rung up by friends when staying with people. I couldn’t think who it could be … probably my mother finding out what train I was catching home.

‘Hullo?’

The line crackled and there were three pips.

‘… pence and I haven’t got any more.’ Someone’s voice broke through.

‘Hullo?’

‘Hullo. Harriet?’

‘Yes … who is that?’

‘Guess.’

‘Oh, stop it. Who is it?’ It was a man’s voice down the line.

‘Nick.’

I was so surprised I did my old eyebrow-raising trick.

‘NICK! Good heavens. How are you? What … how fantastic … how nice!’

‘How are you?’

I was quite excited. Mary and Geoff were listening hard to every word I said.

‘Great. Where are you?’

‘I’m in London.’ There were three more pips and a silence, then his voice came back again.

‘Sorry about this. It’s STD or something. Are you having a nice peaceful time in the country?’

‘Not really. No. Not at all in fact.’

‘Are there people there? Can you talk?’

‘Yes there are. I can’t really.’

‘Ah. Drag scene, as you would say, in fact.’

‘You’re too right.’

‘Do you want me to come down and pick you up?’

‘When, now?’

‘Sure. I’ve been sitting in the Brazil all morning talking to feather-headed birds. I feel like a drive … and someone to restore my faith in females. You’re not far away, are you?’

I was elated. Nick coming down to drive me back to London. This was too much.

The pips went again.

‘Oh, Christ, that was my last threepence. I’ll start now … be with you in about two hours. I’ve got the address from your parents. It’s good to hear you.’

‘Swinging!’ I cried, in an excess of facetious enthusiasm.

‘Cool it … see you in an …’ The pips went again and the line went dead.

Mary raised her eyebrows coldly.

‘A friend of yours?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Actually he’s offered me a lift up to London. He’s driving down and will be here in about two hours, he said.’

‘That’s splendid!’ cried Geoff.’ I won’t have to drive you to the station!’

‘Geoff!’ said Mary reprovingly. But she seemed quite happy about it. Now I knew that Nick would be down soon, I almost thought they were both rather sweet. I smiled to myself and felt really good.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked enthusiastically. ‘To help I mean.’

They both looked pleased then.

‘Help me paint the shed,’ said Geoff.

‘Help me peel the potatoes,’ said Mary.

‘Anything … anything. Everybody’s friend, that’s me …’

*

They must have been surprised at the change in me. I chattered on to Mary while peeling the potatoes … I was caught suddenly with boundless energy … and she got quite chirpy and sympathetic. Geoff couldn’t understand how I sang so loudly and consistently while preparing the walls of the shed and even showed a vague interest in the Beatles when I told him about them between snatches of ‘If there’s anything that you want … if there’s anything I can do ’. It seemed an appropriate song to sing staying with them.

I twisted violently down the garden path, which amused them both, and generally played the funny little pop-loving girl from the big city act.

Just before lunch I suddenly remembered about how awful I looked. I had put the ribbon and also the gumboots on that morning so as not to offend Mary.

I dashed upstairs and tried to make my hair look a bit better. I was so flushed with girlish excitement that my cheeks were full of roses and I looked pretty nice when I had scraped off the remains of last night’s lipstick. I still didn’t know what to do with the ribbon, but then I thought I might as well leave it on because I could always whip it off in the car and it would look a bit obvious to take it off now.

‘You are looking well,’ said Geoff. ‘You must come down here more often you know.’

Nick arrived after lunch with a screech of brakes on the drive. Geoff looked out nervously to see if the gravel was disturbed. It obviously was.

‘You’re just in time for coffee,’ said Mary, opening the door to Nick and showing him into the drawing-room.

‘Sit down. Make yourself at home,’ said Geoff, with an effort, clearly thinking about his ruined drive.

‘Don’t be shy. Just feel as if you’re one of the family.’ Mary was trying to be nice to Nick for my sake. I should think she thought that this was my boyfriend.

I came out of the kitchen wearing an apron and smiled at him casually as if Nicks always rang me up asking if they could drive me home.

He stared strangely at the ribbon and crossed his legs.

‘Plenty of good rough shooting you must have up here, haven’t you?’

Geoff took him up at once. They started chattering away. Geoff roared with laughter and slapped Nick on the back.

‘Have some whisky in your coffee,’ he said.

I heard this as I was coming into the drawing-room from the kitchen and was amazed. I never knew that Nick knew anything about rough shooting or anything. He was obviously far more of a professional charmer than I had gathered.

Suddenly the whole place had livened up. Mary was leaning forward in her chair while Nick was talking … he’d got on to hospital administration by then and was astounding Geoff with his information. Astounding me, too.

In fact, Nick was holding forth so much, and Mary and Geoff were so busy trying to hear what he was saying and collapsing with laughter at his jokes that I was quite left out.

Finally Nick got up, despite offers of more port, and said: ‘We must go. I can’t tell you how nice it’s been meeting you both.’

‘It’s been a pleasure, it really has,’ beamed Mary. ‘Let me get your coat.’

Nick shrugged himself into it and opened the door for me. I gathered up my suitcases and squeaked out a thank you which sounded more genuine than I thought it would and we drove off, the back seat piled with fresh eggs and flowers that Mary had produced at the last minute. They waved until we were out of sight.

I settled myself in my seat.

‘You did make a hit.’

Nick laughed. ‘Really? They were both very nice people.’

‘I don’t know how you do it. I spent a whole two days with them and until this morning couldn’t get a smile from them. I just felt so angry the whole time.’

‘You’re young.’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘Don’t be so touchy. No, I didn’t mean that actually. I know just what you mean. But as you get older you do learn techniques of how to charm these people and once they like you and find you amusing you have no reason to feel angry.’

‘No. I suppose not.’ I suddenly remembered my ribbon and snatched it off.

‘Yes. I was wondering what that was in aid of.’

I told him about it.

‘Christ. No wonder you were angry. Maybe they like me because I’m a blue-eyed boy. Geoff obviously likes clever young men and so does Mary. That’s partly why I went down well. Geoff feels ill at ease with a young girl and Mary doesn’t feel much sympathy. Slightly jealous in fact. I couldn’t have put up with being messed around looks-wise.’

‘And lipstick. They made me put on lipstick,’ I added.

‘How monstrous! Uncles and aunts are there to say: “Don’t you think you’re a bit too young for make-up” not “Go and plaster yourself’.”

He drove fast but well and we were soon in London.

‘I can’t tell you how nice it was of you to give me a lift,’ I said, as we reached home.

‘I enjoyed it.’ Nick turned and stared at me for too long. ‘I’d take you out this evening but Tom says that you’re going out with him and I think he might get a bit ratty if …’

‘Nonsense!’ I said hotly. All my goodwill towards Tom had vanished.

‘Anyway, I think he’d be hurt if I did. What about tomorrow?’

‘That’d be great.’

‘Nine o’clock. Meet you at the Weaver.’

He sped off and I got back to find that Tom had rung and wanted me to ring him. After a brief summary of how awful my two days had been to my parents, I rang him and he sounded jolly.

‘Missed you, luv,’ he said. ‘Watcha bin doin’? Have a super time?’

‘Crumby. Nick picked me up and brought me home though.’

‘Did he now?’ Tom’s ears flapped audibly. ‘Smell a fancy there. Are you going to have an affair with him? I don’t advise it. On second thoughts perhaps I do. Thought you looked a bit frustrated recently. Think a bit of old Nick might do you good, luv.’

‘Thanks a million!’ I meant it.

‘Yer super!’ He never reacted right. ‘See you this evening? Pick you up at eight then. Good to hear you again.’

*

When I first saw Tom that evening I flung my arms round him in a fit of real spontaneity – very rare with me – but after five minutes of his conversation good sense and memories of the telephone conversation returned and I realised that nothing had changed except that I saw him in better perspective than I’d ever seen him. I suddenly looked at him more objectively and what I saw was a basically nice person completely swamped by a front of apparent conceit. Underneath I knew from experience that he was nice and different from the others but he felt forced to put up a defensive front. That was why he stuck at being an all rounder. While he knew Damon and Galahad, he also knew all the fashion writers and claimed he knew all the ‘Private Eye boys’ not to mention all the ‘Queen crowd’ and the whole cast of Tonight. When Private Eye came out it was quite painful to hear Tom getting with it and shouting, ‘The poet Logue is super!’ He invented satirical nicknames for all famous people and names like David Hockney, Katie Whitehorn, Shrimp and Terry Donavon not to mention super Mary and Alexander of Bazaar and Ed Langley were dropped all over the Brazil. I often wondered if he really knew them, and if so why he felt compelled to drop their names. The day I caught him dropping mine would be the day I thought cynically.

After supper that night, an awkward hour or so, he dragged me back to his flat to hear some records. It was surprising to hear them being played.

His flat was richly furnished with a few ‘good’ (equals pretentious) photographs from obscure magazines on the walls. His records were arranged, in alphabetical order, in one of those plastic record-cum-plate racks.

‘Listen to this,’ he said enigmatically, picking one out of the rack with forefinger and thumb lest the cover should get soiled. He wiped his fingers on a duster nearby before removing the record and carefully placed it on the turntable.

It was Chinese classical. I groaned to myself, and cuddled near the fire to daydream, since there seemed little else to do. Tom was lying stretched out on the floor on his back with his eyes closed, and I made a couple of rude faces at him. I looked drearily at a New Yorker I had got from the pile (in order of sequence) by the bed. The music droned on incomprehensibly.

I laughed loudly at a bad joke in the magazine to try to get Tom out of his stupor and he frowned.

‘You bored, luv?’ he asked, hoisting himself up.

‘No. No,’ I said, unconvincingly. How could one reply to question like that? I longed for Radio Luxemburg but as I knew that this suggestion would only get a sneer from Tom, I suppressed it.

‘OK luv. You win. We’ll have something simpler.’ He put on some Sonny Stitt and I tried not to feel as neurotic as I usually feel when modern jazz is played.

Tom sat down again and looked at me. I knew he was looking at me, and I burrowed further and further into my New Yorker. After five minutes I got too irritated to go on. I felt itchy with his stares and tried to defend myself from them by turning right round, but of course I felt them even then. I tried to break the self-conscious atmosphere by suddenly swinging round and saying: ‘This record is FABULOUS.’ But it had no effect on Tom. He was still staring at me … trying to break me down or something, I suppose.

He closed his eyes and put his feet up on a table.

‘What do you think about sex?’

I squirmed. This was one of Tom’s most typical Controversial Topics.

‘What do you mean?’ I said angrily.

‘What do I mean? Ah, what do we all mean? What do you mean? What do I mean? Here we sit, letting life drift over us, thousands of pounds have been spent on our education, time has been spent in nurturing us, bringing us up, forming our ideas … and yet we still don’t know the answer. What do we mean? Sometimes I think life’s one big question which we spend all our time trying to avoid answering.’

Speak for yourself, I muttered inwardly. Whenever Tom said anything of this nature, instead of biting replies rushing to my lips, a fog descended and I felt confused and bored. He wouldn’t have listened to the biting remark anyway.

‘Mmmm,’ I said, feebly.

‘As good an answer as any. Mmm. That’s what we’re all saying, even if we don’t know it, letting the tides of life wash us over, carry us, and eventually drown us.’

Life was a good word for metaphors of this sort. Watching a television programme where the remark ‘Life is like a tape recording; it plays and then at last it is rubbed out’ had been made, my father had come up with a good one. ‘Life is like Pears Soap; you can see through it and eventually it slips down the plug hole.’

I didn’t think Tom would appreciate this.

‘We spend our days drinking, making love and making unheard conversations. Sex the great healer … ah, sex, marvellous.’ Tom smiled to himself.

‘What do you think about sex?’

‘It’s disgusting and you can’t do without it,’ I said rebelliously, in fact quoting from a rather sincere person who happened to feel that way.

‘Do you really feel like that? That’s a pity. What a dreadful word! Disgusting. What you must have missed. Couldn’t do without it meself.’

As far as I could calculate, Tom could do without it as easily as anybody else.

‘How curious! I have never felt that about it. Not even when I was gauche and young, happy and carefree. How I’ve changed since those days!’

‘What were you like then?’ I asked.

‘Then? Then I was a shy, red-faced young man living in my parents’ stately home outside Bath. I thought the world ended with a couple of directorships and a pretty wife. But I became dissatisfied with myself. I taught myself to think, and taught myself to read good books and see good plays. I changed my whole personality. I’m still changing. The day one is satisfied with oneself is the day one dies.’

As I still thought the world ended with a house and a husband, and was quite satisfied with myself as far as I knew, not having done much looking at myself lately or conscious character changing, it was difficult to answer.

‘It’s dangerous to change one’s character,’ I said.

‘No. NEVER. One should be able to be the ideal person. One should constantly look for faults and try to correct them. Never be satisfied. Self-satisfaction is death.’

Yeah, he’d said that before. As for faults, if this is what he thought, why didn’t he start on a few I could name?

I argued. ‘But if one tries to change, one becomes affected. It’s far better not to try to change what one is, because it’s impossible. The only thing to do is to try to be happy, and to make other people happy.’

I felt sick at my little speech. It sounded like a Simple Truth.

‘Try to become happy?’ Tom sat up in horror. ‘How mixed up you are, Harriet! Happiness means contentment and self-satisfaction. Happiness is destructive. Once one is contented there is no drive, no desire to improve. Happy people stagnate, having no ambition.’

Yeah. Great, I thought privately. Happiness was all I ever wanted to achieve, if I really ever wanted actively to ACHIEVE anything. This sort of speech was very revealing of Tom. One understood why he thought so messily and was so unaware of other people’s feelings. He was too busy sorting himself out ever to listen to anyone else.

‘There’s so much I want to do … so much to be done and so little time. So very little time.’

‘Well. Do something.’ Oh God, out were trotting the old basic facts and simple truths of life. I must have sounded pretty wet.

‘Too true. Too true. I admire people who do things, people who go to Africa and become missionaries, people who leave their mark on the world, even those who don’t but who spend their time trying, trying, trying to attain something. Better to try and not succeed than never to try at all.’

‘Well, go to Africa and be a missionary. There’s no point in feeling guilty about not going to Africa unless you go.’

‘Ah. But I’m not one of those, sadly. I am one who will never achieve anything. I will never move from here. Age I do abhor thee; youth I do adore thee … I shall go on looking for something, the right girl, the right job, and shall I ever achieve this? I might. I might.’

‘But if you’re not the sort of person who goes to Africa, why go on about it? Why feel guilty about something that you know you will never do? And really, what do you think missionaries are? People who break away from life like you? Of course not. They’re people who want to be missionaries and go and do it. I expect they’ve wanted to be missionaries from when they were at school. They don’t think twice about it. Missionaries are missionaries and you’re you.’

This sounded very dull. After all, if Tom wanted to spend his life feeling guilty I couldn’t get him out of it.

‘Ah. You’re young. You’ll know what I’m trying to get at some time soon.’

Blast. I cursed. Either I was a girl or I was young. Poor Tom. I suppose if you’re a twenty-two year old man who is given good advice by an eighteen year old girl, the only way of ending up the argument and winning is by saying: ‘You’re a girl and you’re young.’’

However, I accepted to go to O’Hara’s on Saturday and looked forward to going out with Nick the next day.

*

At nine o’clock I set out for the Weaver to meet Nick … I didn’t want to look enthusiastically early … but it took longer than I had anticipated, so I had to run down the King’s Road. I hung about a bit before going in to get my breath back and calm down, pulled my Jules et Jim hat a bit further down over my eyes and then made a very cool entry into the Saloon Bar.

Of course he wasn’t there. I felt angry and got myself a drink. I am very bad at carrying off being in pubs alone, especially looking like a slick chick. I started going through my handbag in order to look as if I had something to do and waited.

In about five minutes he arrived. He was looking quite stunning, wearing an off-white silk suit which made him look even thinner and darker than usual.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, giving me one of his long slow looks which made me lurch inside. He sat down lazily and handed me a bunch of photographs.

I looked at them. They were the ones he had taken in the park … very grainy and arty. In fact they were quite appallingly bad and dull. Trees, trees and more trees and then a couple of dull shots of clouds with a few branches criss-crossed over them.

‘They’re terribly good,’ I said. ‘No, I really mean it. Honestly. They’re really frightfully nice.’

He looked pleased.

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say. I think they’re incredibly dull actually, but it’s nice to hear someone being admiring. What about these?’

He took the photographs from my hand … ‘No, they’re not here … oh yes they are. What do you think of those?’ He smiled amusedly and handed me three.

They were pictures of Ann and me. I looked really creepy in Tom’s coat and Ann just looked a shambles.

‘How simply terrible!’ I said. ‘We both look like a couple of …’ (should one say dykes or lesbians?) ‘dykes,’ I decided.

‘You were looking very odd that afternoon I must say. What will you have to drink? No. I’ll get you some gin, you can’t go on drinking tomato juice or your teeth will rot, or is that Coca Cola, I dunno.’

Tom came in while Nick was getting a drink.

‘Just wanted to see how you were getting on, luv,’ he said, grinning.

‘OK,’ I said warily.

‘Got an awful hangover. Me doting female rang me last night after you’d gone. Think I’ll give up charvering birds I don’t fancy. It’s so boring.’

‘Oh yes?’ So Tom had a doting female around. That surprised me.

Nick returned.

‘Yer randy bastard! Yer pinchin’ me birdies!’ he said, imitating Tom’s voice.

Tom roared with laughter.

‘Yer super, Nick! One of me favourite friends!’

‘What are you doing in here anyway?’ Nick sat down. ‘I thought we’d got rid of you for once. Go away.’

Tom went on chuckling.

‘Go on,’ laughed Nick. ‘Go away. We don’t want you.’

Tom got quite hysterical with laughter and got up.

‘I adore you both!’ he said. ‘Have a nice charver tonight.’

I stepped on his toe hard. This was frankness carried too far.

Tom chuckled some more and left, muttering, ‘Yer both super people.’

‘Christ. Christ,’ said Nick lighting a cigarette. ‘Tom is so boring sometimes. He doesn’t know when to stop. Oh well.’

He turned away and there was a silence.

‘Go on. Drink up your gin.’

I sipped dutifully.

‘About this party.’ Nick fondled my hand and made a face at the bitten finger nails. ‘I’m afraid I feel like going to one.’

‘That’s all right by me.’

‘Not when you hear where it is.’

‘Where?’

‘The only one I could find is in Barnet. I suppose you don’t know anyone who might know one do you?’

‘Not really.’ I would rather go to Barnet than have to ring up a friend and say, ‘Do you know of any parties tonight?’

‘Barnet it is then. We won’t stay long. I just want desperately to go to a party, however bad. You know. I feel itchy. And anyway Gordon and Peter will be there.’

That sounded better. Gordon and Peter were, while very much bachelors and Barnet party goers, very intelligent and Understood What One Said.

*

When we were in Barnet High Street, Nick said: ‘I suppose you don’t know where Albert Road is, do you?’

‘No. Sorry.’

He produced a scrap of paper from his pocket and gave it to me. It said: 9 Goreham Avenue. Ask for Vicky.

‘Ask someone.’

It was getting dark and there were hardly any people in the street. He drew up by a doddering old man who was spitting into the gutter.

‘Excuse me …’ I said, leaning out of the window.

He didn’t look up.

‘Excuse me … I wonder … ? Excuse me …’

‘Yell,’ said Nick.

‘EXCUSE ME … I?’

The old man slumped over.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you know where Goreham Avenue is?’

‘Where? Goreham Avenue? No. Can’t say I do. Wait a minute, though … maybe …’

He gave us various incomprehensible instructions, Nick and I saying, ‘Yes … I see … thank you so much’ and we started off again.

‘Did you get any of that?’ asked Nick.

‘No. Didn’t he say something about turning left somewhere?’

‘I should think so. Let’s look at the map.’

After quarter of an hour’s driving around we found it, a suburban house with vague sounds of Nina and Frederik emerging from it.

Nick parked the car and paused.

‘Sounds awful,’ he said, listening. ‘Still, Gordon’s car is here so he must have got in.’

We walked up the garden path and Nick rang the bell. He’d bought a bottle of wine at the Weaver and was holding it ostentatiously in front of him.

The door was opened suspiciously by a bearded character in a chunky pale blue jersey. ‘Can’t come in unless you’ve got a bottle,’ he said gruffly, then, seeing the bottle of wine said, ‘You can’t come in unless you’ve been invited.’

‘Vicky invited us,’ said Nick.

‘Vicky? Vicky who?’

‘I don’t know. I only met her this morning and she said to come along.’

‘VICKY!’ The bearded man shouted into the passage. ‘Oh well. Come in.’ We went down the passage.

‘Leave your coats here if you want to. I’ll tell Vicky you’re here.’

‘Let’s have something to drink,’ said Nick and we went into the sitting-room.

It was pitch dark and full of dreadful people – girls in party frocks and fringe Beatniks with mangy beards and baggy corduroys. They looked like medical or science students. There was a great pile of them necking on the sofa and Ray Coniff blared out from a gramophone the other side of the room.

Nick winced.

‘Let’s find Gordon.’

We went into the next room but there was no sign of the others, only a group of wallflower men with glasses in their hands. They weren’t in the kitchen either, there was only a girl eating french bread and cheddar cheese.

We found them evenutally upstairs in a bedroom sitting gloomily drinking scotch.

‘Not worth it,’ said Gordon in a depressed way.

‘Have you seen the girls!’ said Peter, screwing himself up and pulling his Cardin jacket round him as if to protect himself from them.

‘We were just going, only Peter’s car has bust.’ Gordon looked really low. ‘I’m sorry. This is a really bad scene.’

‘I shall never go to a party again,’ said Peter.

‘You’re always saying that but you always do.’

‘Yes. But I mean it this time.’

‘You mean it until next Saturday.’

Nick sat down on the bed. ‘What did you expect? Still, there are some more of us to come. I quite like it in a ghastly way.’

We spent an hour talking until Tom arrived with three model girls.

‘Smelled you out … what a party! Let’s all go back and have a drink at my place.’

He was immediately popular. Gordon and Peter leapt on two of the model girls and carried them downstairs to dance and in a few minutes we followed.

The darkened sitting-room was much the same as it had been before, but a bit hotter. The carpet hadn’t been taken up so anything except the cheek to cheek lark was impossible though one couple were trying to jive in a corner. Nick put his arm round me.

‘Come on. I’ve had enough of this party. Let’s go.’

Tom nudged me hard as we left.

‘You look out, young lady. Don’t take Nick too seriously.’ And to Nick he said: ‘Take care of my young lady, mind. Be nice to her.’

‘I’ll treat her like she was my own,’ said Nick lecherously.

As we were driving back to London I said to myself: ‘Now. Watch it, Bennett. None of this larking around for one night’s jazz just now. Cool your scene. You are not going to go back to his flat, you are certainly not going to sleep with him. Maybe later, but NOT NOW. Understand? Particularly not after all those remarks of Tom’s, NO. Certainly not.’

We drove down the King’s Road and he passed the turning up to my street. I couldn’t really say anything. We drove on, down towards the Embankment and he drew up outside a peeling Regency house.

Still nobody said anything. He got out his door key and showed me upstairs. Too late now to do anything about the Not Going Back To His Flat resolution.

It was a very nice flat with dirty green rush matting on the floor and a sofa covered in mattress ticking. There were lots of books lying around, a television and a few dirty coffee cups. He drew the orange curtains and wandered through a door.

I was left standing in my coat and clutching my bag wondering what the hell I was doing there.

‘Want some coffee?’ he called and there was the clink of china.

I paused. I could, of course, have just run out of the door and into the street right there and then. Why didn’t I?

‘Yes. I’d love some. Can I help?’

‘No. Just put some music on. The records are over in the corner.’

I turned on the fire and put on a few more lights. Put some music on! He might as well have said ‘Sharpen the axe, I’m going to chop your head off with.’

Come off it, a voice said inside me. The reason why you’re staying is because you want to stay. If he’d driven you straight home you would have felt mortally offended. This prig’s-face attitude will get you nowhere. You’re going to be seduced whatever face you put on so you might as well be honest and admit you wouldn’t mind staying the night with him.

I put on some records, a bunch of forty-fives that had a fast beat. None of this soft Italian violins for me, thank you very much.

He brought me in some coffee and sat down on the sofa opposite me. In spite of the Little Richard record that was blaring out there was an uneasy silence.

‘Nice flat,’ I said, tentatively.

Nick just looked at me.

‘Come and sit beside me,’ he said.

It seemed to take me hours to get up and walk across the room. I felt all screwed up as I sat nervously on the other side of the sofa and pulled out a cigarette from my bag. ‘Want one?’ My voice was high and squeaky.

Nick leant over. ‘What are you so nervous about?’ he said.

What a question!

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m not nervous.’

‘Well then …’ He kissed me. That was a relief. One at least didn’t have to think of anything to say when kissing people. Someone’s hair had got in somehow and I landed up with it. As I picked it out of my mouth Nick laughed.

‘Come on. Let’s go to bed. I’m not too keen on preliminaries,’ he said, getting up and taking off his jacket.

‘OK.’ That was the last thing I felt like doing right at that moment, but I couldn’t back out now.

He opened the door into the bedroom and I was made even more gloomy to see that he only had a single bed. I knew this single bed scene and I didn’t like it.

He dragged me onto it and started breathing deeply. I breathed back to keep him company but I felt like a dead fish. He undid the buttons of my shirt and then started fumbling with my bra. There are those who can and those who can’t and Nick couldn’t.

‘Sorry. What impossible clothes you wear! How do you ever get out of that thing?’

I did wish he’d turn out the light. I sat up and undid my bra. Men should take classes at this sort of thing.

‘What an extraordinary figure you’ve got!’ he said staring at me.

I laughed.

‘What about you with no clothes on?’ I asked. It’s one thing for a man to stare at a bra-less girl but quite another when they are faced with the idea of being stared at back. He hastily turned off the light.

‘That’s better.’

The gramophone next door was playing a slow song. ‘I love you my darling, our love will always be true.’

‘Oh, that damned record,’ Nick jumped up and turned it off while I lay chuckling to myself. It’ll all be over quite soon, I told myself. Tomorrow afternoon you’ll be safe at home without any heaving men ripping off your clothes.

He came back.

‘Let’s get into bed, honey.’

There was silence again as we undressed, only the sound of underclothes being thrown on the floor. I was still fiddling with my suspender belt when Nick crawled into bed. He stroked my spine.

‘One, two, three, four, five, six … hey, you’ve got the wrong number of knobs.’ The old clichés, I thought to myself.

‘How many should I have?’

‘I don’t know. You’ve got remarkably few, that’s all I know.’

I slipped in beside him.

‘That’s better,’ he said.

I screwed myself up and shut my eyes as tight as I could. I felt I wasn’t going to enjoy this, so I nerved myself to the ordeal. I hoped he wasn’t going to be a two-hour character.

‘Have a cigarette?’ he said, when it was all over. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Sorry about what?’

‘Oh hell. I mean … never mind. Have you got a light?’

When we had lit up, I started up on my own special bed clichés.

‘You look like a Georges de la Tour picture in the light of your cigarette,’ I said, looking at him.

‘Oh yes? So do you.’

He kissed me again.

‘Can you feel my false tooth?’ I asked, in a routine way.

‘No, which one is it?’ He peered into my mouth. ‘Huh. Oh. That. Yes, I wondered. Wonder what Tom’s doing now.’

‘Probably “charvering” somebody,’ I said sarcastically.

Nick laughed.

‘Ah. Or maybe he’s Setting a Trend.’

I laughed. It was a bit easier now. We chatted a bit more and I was very jolly – anything to put off the possibility of starting again. He put out his cigarette and turned over.

‘Hey, are you going to sleep?’ I asked, angrily.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Hell. I want some more room than this.’

He moved over a couple of inches.

‘That all right?’

‘Just.’

I pulled my arm from under him and found it was dead. I waved it in the air to get the circulation going. I really wanted to go home. It was terribly hot and sticky and I wanted my thick clean nightdress to curl up in. I made a couple of faces in the dark, muttered, ‘You ape, Bennett’ to myself, and tried to go to sleep. I was just getting off when he said: ‘You know, you’ve got all the blankets.’

I knew it. Single beds cause more rows than almost anything.

I felt quite terrible the next morning. Nick had woken me up at about seven-thirty wanting a repeat performance and eventually I had to give up pretending to be asleep. It’s extraordinary the way men go on so. And at seven-thirty. How anyone could feel like sex at that time after a sleepless night with no pyjamas is beyond me.

Finally we got up. My teeth felt furry with sleep and all my clothes seemed disgustingly crumpled and dirty. Nick put on clean clothes and I envied him. He hardly said anything and just wandered around reading papers and looking bad-tempered. In fact when I said that I was going he looked quite pleased. ‘See you around,’ he said, showing me out. See you around! Thanks, thanks, thanks.

I stumbled downstairs and waited for a bus in the cold, smoking my first cigarette of the day and feeling sick. Everyone seemed to be looking at me and the bus took ages.

I looked down the road. No sign of one. My head felt like lead and I was stiff, sticky and miserable. As I clutched my old coat to me and waited I resolved that I would never spend an evening like that again. No more one-night stands for you, Bennett, I said firmly. This feeling of gloom after a sordid night was too familiar and too unpleasant.

For once this was no idle resolution. On that particular Saturday morning, in the cold, the raw air biting at my make-upless face and feeling defeated and guilty, I decided I would never do it again. My bag seemed heavier than ever before and dragged on my arm. It seemed as if I had a ton of guilt and shame and headaches inside it.

I was very rational and determined that morning and I checked the tears of self-pity that started to my eyes. Stop it, I said firmly. That was the last time. It’ll never never happen again. From now on it’s career and work for you.

A red speck appeared on the horizon and turned into a bus as it trundled over the bridge.

Never again, I muttered as I stopped it and got on. Stop being such a knowing little nit-wit. You really are the most Christ almighty nutcase I’ve ever met.

*

Once home I had a bath and continued to make wise decisions and cheer myself up. I perked up a bit and when Tom picked me up to go to O’Hara’s I found it had become really rather a nice day. The sun was shining and London smelt of dusty plane trees and hot exhaust pipes. All the West Indians were out in the Portobello Road in very nice clothes, the sun reflecting off their plastic leather coats, and the Salvation Army were playing on the corner in a sad attempt to catch the Beatniks by setting up a band called ‘The Salvation Army Skiffle Group’. They played unheard, junk was changing hands, Americans, Beatniks and locals milled around and the shrieks of the model girls and actresses could be heard from the garden of the pub.

It was once we got inside the pub that I realised that giving up one-night stands alone was not enough. O’Hara’s would be included on my list.

I frowned in a corner, feeling boringly unhappy. The bar was full of get-ahead young things, new photographers chatting about nothing with their arms round stupid but pretty model girls, journalists and pop artists all talking and looking for better photographers and prettier model girls to talk to. To look at it was a nice sight because everyone was well-dressed, but it made me jealous of their ability to enjoy each other's company … how many friends one would have if one liked those sort of people … and how secure one would be in one’s tight yet vast ‘set’. And it made me not only jealous but depressed. Seeing fresh new things, instead of making me feel enthusiastic, always makes me feel very fatalistic with ‘So?’ coming to my lips, accompanied by an elderly knowing sigh. In spite of the fact that they were all about thirty while I was eighteen. Martin shrieked, ‘Great to see you’ from a smoky table and the art school Romeo formed a kiss with his lips at me from nearby. Tom pushed his way over to me, spilling his drink because he was busy looking at everyone.

‘How many people do you know?’ he said.

I counted.

‘Eight.’ It seemed too many really. Features editors drifted in in droves accompanied by their model girl wives, and a few advertising men who modelled in their spare time patted their hair at each other. Men in fur hats, girls in dark glasses, women in Bazaar dresses, art students in jeans, advertising men … they all wore badges of their profession. Tom had seen an artist he knew who had appeared on Monitor and rushed over to him. A drunken poet lay in a stupor in his chair, his face covered by the orange Penguin A Taste of Honey, while his thirty-year old wife in her knee-length boots and leather suit flirted with an Indian antique dealer. What really depressed me was their age, I think. They all seemed just a little bit old for this kind of thing. I hoped desperately that at thirty I wouldn’t be beating it up in pubs and having affairs. I hoped that I wouldn’t remain acting a young married till I was forty (assuming I got married), chatting about reviews of books in the Observer. A man pushed past me flashing his brand new copy of Private Eye and I felt even sicker. I couldn’t bear this sort of set-up any longer. I wanted to go miles away, live in Clapham and wear nondescript clothes and do what I liked, not bound to the social routine or stuck in a 1963 act of With-It-ness as they were.

‘You’re looking lonely,’ shouted an out of place Beatnik who was just allowed in because he sometimes wrote for television. ‘How are you? Who are you sleeping with these days?’ I drew myself in and hunched my shoulders up and frowned. That was another thing. They were all so conceited and chock full of confidence. And so utterly stupid and gross. It amazed me how they got their well-paid high-powered jobs without a grain of intelligence or talent. I suppose they had the common touch.

Tom was at least six conversations away. He had two Cockney-made-good photographers to chat to, an editor, an art dealer and an unlimited amount of models. I waited patiently and talked to the only nice photographer there, a tall shy man with a nice appealing smile and a nervous laugh. Unsuccessful, needless to say. He was nice because he was sympathetic and tripped over carpets and blushed. He liked everyone and even admitted it. ‘I’m so naïve, I haven’t got any enemies,’ he said charmingly and self-effacingly. This was the sort of person to know of course. Just plain NICE. It was a pity that they were generally such bores.

After the barman had shouted ‘Time please’ for the sixth time, Tom came over, flushed with success at talking to an exceptionally ‘In’ person, and we left. I hoped that it was one of the last times that I went there.

It was virtually. And even the Brazil put up a cover charge, which meant that none of the old crowd could afford to go there so I lost touch with them and I only saw Nick again once. It was quite soon after the unfortunate night I had spent with him.

I accidentally bumped into Damon, who remained the last of my illusions to go, and was delighted when he asked me round that evening.

His flat was a very ritzy place. There were a few people there when I arrived, reading magazines and playing pop records. They looked incongruous in a vulgarly furnished room. I sat down sociably in a chair and Damon pushed a drink into my hand. I was surprised to see such affluence and generosity. The room was furnished revoltingly. Tasteful was obviously the word to describe it. Tasteful is a word like Intellectual. Although ‘tasteful’ basically is a word meaning ‘good taste’, and ‘intellectual’ a word meaning an ‘educated intelligent person’, the connotations are such that both words are only used to describe ‘bad taste’ and ‘a person who is stupid trying to sound informed and wise’. Anyway, when I said tasteful I meant it in the usual sense of the word. Bad taste. The curtains were made of a heavy goldy material with fringes on the curved pelmet, there were a few ‘Good’ chairs covered with the same silky, bumpy material, only in pale blue with vague darker blue patterns showing, and the carpet was a mushroom number, very deep, like uncut grass and fitted round the white painted mantelpiece. A low coffee table from Peter Jones with brass corners was in the middle of the circle of chairs round the gas fire fitted into the wall. I winced as I saw the wall lights, growing from the cream-flock paper with long bulbs covered in tiny fringed shades, just small enough to reveal the false candle-drips that fell down the gold-brushed carved stem.

‘What a fantastic flat you’ve got!’ I said. Damon looked up from the latest war thriller in pictures, muttering, ‘Z-z-z-zoom, rattatratrat, kerrrash’ to himself. He looked round at a small man in dark glasses buried in a deep chair who was snapping his fingers through the tasselled cushions and smiled.

‘Yeah.’

I felt very ill at ease and knocked back the drink. Seeing that silence was the rule, I picked out Valentine from a pile of magazines and started to read it.

After about half an hour a couple of girls with long hair in leather coats bounced in, bearing bursting paper bags.

‘Look what we’ve got,’ they cried, jumping on Damon. The paper bags fell open and tins of evaporated milk, sausages and frozen spinach rolled across the floor.

‘Cool it,’ muttered a thin figure from the other side of the room. He had been asleep but now awoke and picked a Gauloise from a packet on the table.

‘Don’t you think it’s great,’ cried one of the girls. ‘Lovely disgusting spinach and revolting evaporated milk. Let’s go and cook it.’

They dashed out and there was a giggling sound from the kitchen.

When they returned I examined them more carefully. Mole, as she was called, had taken off her leather coat and was wearing underneath a dirty vest and a baggy straight skirt from which a grey white slip hung fitfully from the back.

‘Look at my skirt!’ she yelled. ‘Isn’t it great! I nicked it from C&A this morning.’

‘Mine’s better than yours though,’ screamed the other. ‘Look, mine’s too big and baggier. And this great sickly green and orange’s much greater than your brown. You look quite smart in yours.’

Mole frowned and scuffed her baseball shoes loudly on the floor. I felt quite silly in my blue denim skirt and silk Bazaar shirt. I took the plate of spinach handed to me and waded through it retching but desperately muttering, ‘Lovely, GREAT.’

‘Don’t you think so? God, You Understand,’ said Mole appreciatively. She was rather nice. I like people who say ‘God, You Understand’ to me. She saw Valentine on the table, seized it and read it enthusiastically.

As the thin man in the chair, Wilkinson, took one look at his plate of spinach and went to sleep, Damon leant over the table and started rolling himself a reefer. The marijuana (I refuse to say charge) fell dryly onto the newspaper on the table and he carefully picked up every grain and shook the newspaper gently when he had finished. He wrapped it up lovingly and took a slow drag. Oh God, I thought. This is where Bennett backs out. Slowly everyone had a puff except me. It was handed round silently, ritualistically, and when it was handed to me I shook my head casually. No one said anything and it went round again.

By this time the atmosphere was horrible, the sweet and sickly smell of marijuana pervading the air. Damon leant back. Wilkinson leant back. Mole and her friend leant back. Everyone leant back. Damon signed, and Wilkinson turned up the gramophone. ‘Aaaah,’ breathed the tiny man in the arm chair.

‘Oooo,’ cooed Mole. Wilkinson groaned while a good-looking boy with dyed hair in the corner giggled to himself.

I felt more and more ill at ease. When it was next handed round and I was offered it, I accepted and Damon gave me a half smile.

‘Good girl,’ he said thickly.

I dragged slowly, keeping the smoke down as directed by Mole, who was quite chatty and helpful in spite of her previous ecstatic sighs.

I waited a second. I took another drag. Nothing happened. I tried again. It was too embarrassing. All eyes were upon me. I felt very sane and ordinary, but I couldn’t face the stares. I leant back in my chair and muttered, ‘Aaah’ and wondered if they were all pretending like me. Mole obviously was as she sometimes forgot to put on her high act and pulled her skirt over her knees and looked bored.

I also felt guilty at the waste. I wondered how much money I had smoked. A shilling perhaps. For nothing? I tried once again, but the result was negative once more.

‘What’s it like?’ asked Mole.

‘It’s like, ah … um … going up in an aeroplane,’ I answered. I felt it was a safe reply.

‘Aeroplane … hahahaha,’ chortled the blond.

I got bored and wondered how long it had to be kept up. Eventually the cigarette was finished and everyone perked up and started reading again.

The blond fumbled with a pencil and wrote something down with a crafty smile.

He handed it to Damon who read it carefully.

‘Cool,’ he muttered, smiling, and handed it to me. It said: What a lifelike waste of time, but even time wears gumboottees.

‘Ah,’ I smiled, knowingly, wondering what Mole would make of it. She screamed with laughter. ‘Great! so COOL!’

Wilkinson took it and stared at it. ‘There you go,’ he said, handing it to the dark glasses man in the chair.

‘Sorry, I don’t get it,’ he said, apologetically.

‘Don’t get it?’ said the blond, triumphantly. He came over to the chair and looked at it again. ‘Actually SHOWS gumboottees would be better.’

Everyone laughed cleverly.

‘Shows. Marvellous!’

The shades man still looked blank. I rather admired him.

‘Look here,’ said the blond impatiently. ‘Do I have to draw it for you? Now look. You double take here, now, at time, the second time that is, you double take again, then boottees you stop. Now double take the whole thing …’

‘Sorry.’ The shades man blushed.

‘Shows – Shoes,’ shouted Damon. ‘SHOWS – SHOES – GUMBOOTS – GUMBOOTS – GUMBOOTTEES. For Chrissake man …’

‘Oh, I see. Yeah. I’m being very thick this evening. Yeah. God that’s great. I don’t know how you do it.’ The shades man gave in at last.

I felt dizzy and irritated. There was a ring at the doorbell and everyone jumped up.

‘Put on your coats,’ muttered Damon. ‘Look as if we’re visiting,’

Mole sprayed some Freshaire round the room to conceal the smell of marijuana and Damon opened the door cagily.

‘Oh, MAN!’ we heard him say and everyone sat down again.

When he came back I wasn’t surprised to see it was Nick with him. ‘Can’t miss a scene can you,’ I thought privately. I felt rather embarrassed and hoped he would be civilised about it all.

‘Hiya, sexy,’ he said to me and then turning to Damon said, ‘I’ve got the stuff.’

I looked at Mole in non-comprehension.

‘What’s all this coats stuff?’ I asked.

‘Oh, you see this isn’t Damon’s flat. It belongs to some rich creeps who are away and don’t know he’s here. The thing is that we don’t know when they’re coming back so we have to pretend that we’ve just come visiting, as it were. It’s all very dodgy.’

I blushed when I thought of the idiotic remarks I had made to Damon about the flat, but my winces were interrupted by a strange silence in the room. Nick was rolling up his sleeve. Everyone seemed to be looking at me.

‘Come on,’ said Nick. ‘I’m looking forward to this.’

‘Cool it,’ said Damon, pouring out a drink. ‘In a minute.’

‘Oh, you and your cool,’ replied Nick, then noticing me as if for the first time said. ‘Oh. I see. OK.’

‘I think I’d better go,’ I said, feeling suddenly nervous.

‘Yeah. Good idea, kid. Come again. I hope you enjoyed yourself,’ said Damon, opening the door and ushering me into the hall. I tripped on the carpet. ‘Cool it,’ muttered Wilkinson predictably. Once in the hall Damon said: ‘I don’t want to push you out but I don’t think this is really your scene.’

‘Nor do I,’ I said, hurriedly pulling on my coat and catching a glimpse of Nick producing a curious box from his pocket through the half-open door. Get out quick, Bennett, I told myself. I suppose I’m a coward that way, but suddenly I felt frightened of Damon and even Mole and her evaporated milk. I smelt about six dozen rats and they smelt beastly.

‘See you, fruitie,’ said Damon and kissed me goodbye. ‘You’re a nice kid. Don’t tell anyone about this. I mean I don’t know how much you know but it’s not nearly as dangerous as people make out.’

I ran down the steps and along the street. As I passed the drawing-room window of the flat I saw Damon with a hypodermic in his hand. Then the blond hurriedly drew the curtains.

*

After that episode I gradually cooled my enthusiasm for Damon and all his followers. I could even walk down the King’s Road without wishing I knew all the bejeaned people. Martin committed suicide somewhere apparently, Nick inherited a fortune and married a model and I left the art school at last. I had spent far too long there complaining about it and I suddenly realised how silly it was when I could just quit. So I quit and became a secretary. Everyone at Pimlico was horrified. The only person among my friends who was on my side about leaving was Tom. He took me quite seriously when I told him of my plans.

‘Mmm. Wondered when you were going to face the facts,’ he said, when we were having supper one night.

‘Everyone thinks I’m being an ape,’ I said, dismally picking at the coffee sugar.

‘Not at all. You’re being very wise. I always say that if you don’t like something you must leave it.’

‘Oh, that’s all very well if you’re rich – but I’m giving up a trade really. I’m entirely without qualifications, I haven’t even got a degree.’

‘For Chrissake, what does that matter? My degree didn’t get me anywhere after all. No one cared a damn. Don’t start fussing about what you’re going to do until you’re out of Pimlico. If nothing else, you now know that you don’t want to do art, which cuts down the field. Don’t worry, luv. I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’

The rest of them despaired of me. ‘Secretary,’ they sneered. I couldn’t explain that I was really catching the last train from the crumbling city. Most of my contemporaries left and ended up with part-time jobs in factories and painted in their spare time or even took secretarial courses. Ann left early, followed my footsteps through typing school and became a secretary, becoming less jumpy and more predictable, and I … well, I’m just a super birdie still.

Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4