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Authors: Graham Greene
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You can remember that.’ He took her arm and propelled her away from the lonely pier-end, back by the lit concert-hall, the music drifting landwards, grief in the guts. ‘Pinkie,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t want to interfere. I don’t interfere in anyone’s business. I’ve never been nosy. Cross my heart.’
‘You’re a good kid,’ he said.
‘You know an awful lot about things, Pinkie,’ she said with horror and admiration, and suddenly at the stale romantic tune the orchestra was playing—‘lovely to look at, beautiful to hold, and heaven itself—’ a little venom of anger and hatred came out on the Boy’s lips: ‘You’ve got to know a lot,’ he said, ‘if you get around. Come on, we’ll go to Sherry’s.’
Once off the pier they had to run for it; taxis splashed them with water; the strings of coloured bulbs down the Hove parade gleamed like pools of petrol through the rain. They shook the water off on to the floor of Sherry’s and Rose saw the queue waiting all the way upstairs for the gallery. ‘It’s full,’ she said, with disappointment.
‘We’ll go on the floor,’ the Boy said, paying his three shillings as carelessly as if he always went there, and walked out among the little tables, the dancing partners with bright metallic hair and little black bags, while the coloured lights flashed green and pink and blue. Rose said, ‘It’s lovely here. It reminds me,’ and all the way to their table she counted over aloud all the things of which it reminded her, the lights, the tune the band was playing, the crowd on the floor trying to rumba. She had an immense store of trivial memories and when she wasn’t living in the future she was living in the past. As for the present—she got through that as quickly as she could, running away from things, running towards things, so that her voice was always a little breathless, her heart pounding at an escape or an expectation. ‘I whipped the plate under the apron and she said, “Rose, what are you hiding there?”’ and a moment later she was turning wide unfledged eyes back to the Boy with a look of the deepest admiration, the most respectful hope.
‘What’ll you drink?’ the Boy said.
She didn’t even know the name of a drink. In Nelson Place from which she had emerged like a mole into the daylight of Snow’s restaurant and the Palace Pier, she had never known a boy with enough money to offer her a drink. She would have said ‘beer’, but she had had no opportunity of discovering whether she liked beer. A twopenny ice from an Everest tricycle was the whole extent of her knowledge of luxury. She goggled hopelessly at the Boy. He asked her sharply, ‘What d’you like?
I
don’t know what you like.’
‘An ice,’ she said with disappointment, but she couldn’t keep him waiting.
‘What kind of an ice?’
‘Just an ordinary ice,’ she said. Everest hadn’t in all the slum years offered her a choice.
‘Vanilla?’ the waiter said. She nodded; she supposed that that was what she had always had, and so it proved—only a size larger; otherwise she might just as well have been sucking it between wafers by a tricycle.
‘You’re a soft sort of kid,’ the Boy said. ‘How old are you?’
‘I’m seventeen,’ she said defiantly; there was a law which said a man couldn’t go with you before you were seventeen.
‘I’m seventeen too,’ the Boy said, and the eyes which had never been young stared with grey contempt into the eyes which had only just begun to learn a thing or two. He said, ‘Do you dance?’ and she replied humbly, ‘I haven’t danced much.’
‘It don’t matter,’ the Boy said. ‘I’m not one for dancing.’ He eyed the slow movement of the two-backed beasts: pleasure, he thought, they call it pleasure: he was shaken by a sense of loneliness, an awful lack of understanding. The floor was cleared for the last cabaret of the evening. A spotlight picked out a patch of floor, a crooner in a dinner jacket,
‘You’re a good kid,’ he said.
‘You know an awful lot about things, Pinkie,’ she said with horror and admiration, and suddenly at the stale romantic tune the orchestra was playing—‘lovely to look at, beautiful to hold, and heaven itself—’ a little venom of anger and hatred came out on the Boy’s lips: ‘You’ve got to know a lot,’ he said, ‘if you get around. Come on, we’ll go to Sherry’s.’
Once off the pier they had to run for it; taxis splashed them with water; the strings of coloured bulbs down the Hove parade gleamed like pools of petrol through the rain. They shook the water off on to the floor of Sherry’s and Rose saw the queue waiting all the way upstairs for the gallery. ‘It’s full,’ she said, with disappointment.
‘We’ll go on the floor,’ the Boy said, paying his three shillings as carelessly as if he always went there, and walked out among the little tables, the dancing partners with bright metallic hair and little black bags, while the coloured lights flashed green and pink and blue. Rose said, ‘It’s lovely here. It reminds me,’ and all the way to their table she counted over aloud all the things of which it reminded her, the lights, the tune the band was playing, the crowd on the floor trying to rumba. She had an immense store of trivial memories and when she wasn’t living in the future she was living in the past. As for the present—she got through that as quickly as she could, running away from things, running towards things, so that her voice was always a little breathless, her heart pounding at an escape or an expectation. ‘I whipped the plate under the apron and she said, “Rose, what are you hiding there?”’ and a moment later she was turning wide unfledged eyes back to the Boy with a look of the deepest admiration, the most respectful hope.
‘What’ll you drink?’ the Boy said.
She didn’t even know the name of a drink. In Nelson Place from which she had emerged like a mole into the daylight of Snow’s restaurant and the Palace Pier, she had never known a boy with enough money to offer her a drink. She would have said ‘beer’, but she had had no opportunity of discovering whether she liked beer. A twopenny ice from an Everest tricycle was the whole extent of her knowledge of luxury. She goggled hopelessly at the Boy. He asked her sharply, ‘What d’you like?
I
don’t know what you like.’
‘An ice,’ she said with disappointment, but she couldn’t keep him waiting.
‘What kind of an ice?’
‘Just an ordinary ice,’ she said. Everest hadn’t in all the slum years offered her a choice.
‘Vanilla?’ the waiter said. She nodded; she supposed that that was what she had always had, and so it proved—only a size larger; otherwise she might just as well have been sucking it between wafers by a tricycle.
‘You’re a soft sort of kid,’ the Boy said. ‘How old are you?’
‘I’m seventeen,’ she said defiantly; there was a law which said a man couldn’t go with you before you were seventeen.
‘I’m seventeen too,’ the Boy said, and the eyes which had never been young stared with grey contempt into the eyes which had only just begun to learn a thing or two. He said, ‘Do you dance?’ and she replied humbly, ‘I haven’t danced much.’
‘It don’t matter,’ the Boy said. ‘I’m not one for dancing.’ He eyed the slow movement of the two-backed beasts: pleasure, he thought, they call it pleasure: he was shaken by a sense of loneliness, an awful lack of understanding. The floor was cleared for the last cabaret of the evening. A spotlight picked out a patch of floor, a crooner in a dinner jacket,
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