All the Way Home and All the Night Through Read Online Free PDF Page A

came near again, I said:
    â€œI think maybe it’s got something to do with Hilary. I’m beginning to get a bit choked. I need a change.”
    â€œNever could understand that anyway.”
    My pride stopped me from going on truthfully.
    â€œOh, I think she’s all right, you know. It was all right at the beginning. As usual. Still, I’ll see the summer out.”
    â€œI wouldn’t bother if I was you.”
    â€œGet lost.”
    â€œI’m going to. I’m off to have another word with that Janet.”
    I watched him climb down off the stage and walk over to the crowd of late-leavers standing by the exit, where the girl, Janet, was being helped into her coat by a tall fair-haired boy of about seventeen. Her face wore an unsure, worried expression, as though it was hard for her to trust anyone who spoke to her. I turned away before Harry reached her.
    â€œWhat do you think of that bird Harry’s talking to?” I asked the drummer.
    He looked up from unscrewing a cymbal.
    â€œWhat, the one in the red dress?”
    â€œYes”.
    â€œLooks all right to me. I noticed her earlier on. Reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. Best here tonight, I reckon.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œWhat do you think of her?”
    â€œNot much,” I said.
    I went over the river to see Hilary on the Saturday.
    The weather was dry and sticky and after every cigarette, I felt like drinking a pint of ice-cold milk. Streets were black and yellow with light and shade; people were outlined in the sunlight with white intensity.
    The minute I saw her, I knew it was the day to finish it.
    I met her off her bus at one thirty. She was wearing a starched, flared summer dress, white and crisp and covered with red roses. She was carrying a rolled umbrella and her hair was too carefully done. Her big straw bag brushed raspingly against the stiffness of her dress. We smiled as she walked toward me.
    â€œNow then,” she said.
    â€œHello,” I said.
    â€œIsn’t it hot?” she said. “It was scorching in the bus. It’s made me feel all sticky.”
    We walked out of the shade of the bus station and into Victoria Square. Saturday shoppers were beginning to shove uncomfortably about in the heat.
    I suggested we went and had a drink of something cold.
    â€œYes, all right, but can we go in the Picadish? I want to see Gwen. She’s had her hair done this morning and I want to see what it’s like. She said she was going to have the biggest beehive ever. I must see.”
    â€œDo we have to, really, Sweet?” I said as pleasantly as I could. “I mean, it’ll be really crowded and uncomfortable in there with the heat. You know what it’s like on a Saturday.”
    â€œOh, it’ll only be for a minute. I won’t take long,” she said and laughed and squeezed my hand as I gave in.
    The Picadish was a self-service restaurant on the top floor of a big department store across the Square from where we were standing. All the mob met up there on a Saturday, screaming and shouting in a corner of the restaurant, finding out about the parties which were to take place in the evening.
    I walked behind Hilary, carrying two glasses of cold milk. We made for a group of about a dozen of the mob who had spread themselves over a couple of tables.
    Gwen’s beehive was ridiculous. It must have been over a foot tall. Hilary shrieked over to where Gwen was sitting, leaving me holding the milk. There was no one I wanted to talk to so I sat on my own at the end of a nearby table.
    I was taking a drink of milk when a little prat called Reggie came over. He was about seventeen, still at school, and dressed in cords with an art college scarf decorating his mucky neck. He used to turn up all over the place. A fund of snide information such as: how your girl ended up in the bedroom at George’s party. He considered himself a sharp man.
    â€œNow Vic,” he said as he sat