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of Muswell Hill.

      ‘Do you really want to stay at this party, Polly?’

      ‘Not particularly. Why?’

      ‘Come home and have a drink.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Don’t you trust me?’

      ‘It isn’t that.’

      ‘Well let me come and look at your pictures.’

      ‘There’s only coffee.’

      ‘That’s all right.’

      ‘Well all right then.’

      ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’d better say good-bye.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Yes, it does.’

      They said good-bye to Doreen and Brenda, and their host. He wanted them all to see that he was going off with a girl.

      The night was cold. ‘That’s better. It was so unreal in there,’ he said.

      ‘I hate parties,’ said Polly.

      He offered her a taxi, but she said she’d prefer to walk. ‘It’s only just round the corner,’ she said.

      They walked for ninety minutes. On Hampstead Heath he held her tight against a beech tree and squeezed two fingers down as far as they would go between her breasts. Then they walked in silence. He was frozen. An owl hooted. A goods train answered. The owl hooted again.

      ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he said.

      ‘I don’t feel the cold,’ she said. ‘We admirals’ daughters are tough.’

      At last they arrived. Polly lived on the top storey of a grey nineteenth-century terrace behind Swiss Cottage. Her room was quite large. It was full of dirty things, cups, knickers, brushes, overalls, paintings. The bed wasn’t made. There was a smell of cat. All three bars of the electric fire were on. It was stifling.

      She began to make two very disorganized cups of coffee.

      ‘I’m warning you. You’re not making love to me,’ she said.

      ‘Well?’

      ‘I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea, that’s all. I’ve decided to be a virgin until I fall in love. And I hope I never do. Men want you to give yourself to them. I want to be me. I’m an individualist. I believe people should be conventional in unimportant matters like sex. I reserve my rebellion for my work.’

      ‘Are these your pictures?’

      ‘Yes.’

      They were all purple. He hated them.

      ‘I like them,’ he said.

      ‘They’re pretty good. But my next ones’ll be much better.’

      ‘Will they be purple too?’

      ‘I don’t know. Why, don’t you like purple?’

      ‘Yes, I do. I love purple. Polly, would you mind if we opened the window?’

      ‘Sorry, it doesn’t. Why, are you too hot?’

      ‘It is rather.’

      ‘I don’t feel the heat.’

      ‘Could we switch one of the bars off?’

      ‘Sorry, they don’t. It’s all or nothing. The switch has gone.’

      He took a sip of his coffee. He was beginning to sweat.

      ‘Do you think this milk’s all right?’ he said.

      ‘Oh, God, isn’t it?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I’ll make you a black one.’

      ‘Thanks. Do you have a cat?’

      ‘No. Why?’

      ‘I just wondered.’

      He hated to admit to himself his delicacy over smells, and sweating, and sour milk.

      ‘It’s funny you should say that. People often ask me that,’ she said.

      ‘Perhaps you strike them as the sort of person who’d like cats.’

      ‘I don’t. I hate them.’

      The sweat was pouring off him. His skin was prickling all over. How loathsome it all was, parties and sex and purple paintings and sour milk and unmade beds.

      Over their coffee Polly amused him with further mimicry, imitating to perfection such well-known characters as her mother, sister, brother and headmistress. He felt too tired to do more than laugh in the right places, and as soon as he could he took his leave.

      ‘Thanks, Polly. It’s been lovely. See you,’ he said.

      As he went down the stairs his pants and vest stuck to his body. He opened the door and breathed a great gulp of air. He was feeling sick. He was a lump in the sore throat of night. He felt messy and miserable. He wanted to play Scrabble and read books and improve his mind and work hard and help British exports and raise a family. His own children, loved and loving.

      He picked up a milk bottle and hurled it viciously at the railings. Nothing stirred in the Swiss Cottage night.

      It was 2.45 a.m. Perhaps Brenda or Doreen would be there and they could have a cup of coffee, delaying the moment when he’d be alone again, alone in bed. But perhaps they wouldn’t.

      Bayswater 27663. Probably she’d be in bed, or still at the party, or with someone. It was absurd to ring her up at 2.45 a.m.

      The tone of her telephone was French and encouraging. He whistled to keep up his worldliness.

      ‘Hullo.’

      ‘Hullo. Robert here.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Robert. I met you at the party.’

      ‘Oh, yes. Hullo.’

      ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you.’

      ‘No. I was just having a coffee before going to bed.’

      ‘It’s just that I’ve sort of found myself in your area and …’ And what?

      ‘Twenty-three, Leominster Crescent. Top bell.’

      He took a taxi. She lived between Bayswater and Notting Hill, also in a nineteenth-century terrace, but this one was cream. She had a glorious Persian carpet – a family heirloom – and a great number of books. She had a record player but no television. She was tall, slim, angular, with rather a large nose and a voice that sounded as if she had a perpetual cold caught at a very good school. When she was old there would be a permanent dewdrop on the end of her nose. She wasn’t his cup of tea, unlike her coffee, which was superb.

      She represented good coffee and elegant maturity. She had bags under her eyes, and looked tired, but made no effort to get rid of him. She was 23. He couldn’t kiss her, couldn’t rouse himself to anything like that, and she seemed to understand this. She told him how much she hated parties. She didn’t mention the man she’d been with. They played a desultory but enjoyable game of Scrabble and she gave him a pile of books which she thought he’d enjoy. She asked him why he tried so hard to be amusing. Did he think himself dull? She didn’t think he was dull, except perhaps when he tried to be amusing.

      They had further cups of coffee and he began to tell her the story of his life. At last the grey nicotine-stained thumbs of a London dawn began to squeeze the darkness out of the sky. Sonia drew back the curtains and made breakfast, and then he went home to bed.

      ‘I’m sorry I told you the story of my life,’ he said.

      ‘Not at all. I enjoyed it,’ she said.

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