Collected Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

up by booths, corners and turns. Men sat alone, reading, staring, talking to themselves, as if modelling for a picture entitled ‘The Afternoon Drinkers’. There was a comfortable aimlessness; in here nothing had to happen.
    Jimmy raised his glass. Roy saw that his hand trembled, and that his skin looked bruised and discoloured, the knuckles raw, fingers bitten.
    ‘By the way, how was Clara this morning?’
    ‘That was her, right?’ said Jimmy.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘She’s big outfront but looking great. A bit like Jean Shrimpton.’
    ‘You told her that?’
    Jimmy nodded.
    Roy said, ‘That’s what did the trick. You’ll be in with her for a couple of days now.’
    ‘Still fuck her?’
    ‘When I can’t help myself,’ said Roy. ‘You’d think she’d appreciate the interest but instead she says that lying beside me is like sleeping next to a bag of rubbish that hasn’t been collected for a fortnight.’
    ‘She’s lucky to have you,’ said Jimmy.
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Oh yes. And she knows it too. Still, thank Christ there’s plenty of pussy back on stream now that that Aids frenzy has worn off.’
    Roy said, ‘All the same, it’s easy to underestimate how casual and reassuring married love can be. You can talk about other things while you’re doing it. It isn’t athletic. You can drift. It’s an amicable way of confirming that everything is all right.’
    ‘I’ve never had that,’ said Jimmy.
    ‘You’re not likely to, either.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    After a time Jimmy said, ‘Did I mention there was a phone call this morning. Someone’s office. Tuesday?’
    ‘Tuesday?’

    ‘Or was it Wednesday?’
    ‘Munday!’
    ‘Munday? Yeah, maybe it was … one of those early days.’
    Roy grasped him by the back of the neck and vibrated him a little. ‘Tell me what he said.’
    Jimmy said, ‘Gone. Everything vaporises into eternity – all thoughts and conversations.’
    ‘Not this one.’
    Jimmy sniggered, ‘The person said he’s in the air. Or was. And he’s popping round for a drink.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘I think it was … today.’
    ‘Christ,’ said Roy. ‘Finish your pint.’
    ‘A quick one, I think, to improve our temper.’
    ‘Get up. This is the big one. It’s my film, man.’
    ‘Film? When’s it on?’
    ‘Couple of years.’
    ‘What? Where’s the hurry? How can you think in those kinda time distances?’
    Roy held Jimmy’s glass to his lips. ‘Drink.’
    Munday might, Roy knew, swing by for a few minutes and treat Roy as if he were a mere employee; or he might hang out for five hours, discussing politics, books, life.
    Munday embodied his age, particularly in his puritanism. He was surrounded by girls; he was rich and in the film business; everywhere there were decadent opportunities. But work was his only vice, with the emphasis on negotiating contracts. His greatest pleasure was to roar, after concluding a deal: ‘Course, if you’d persisted, or had a better agent, I’d have paid far more.’
    He did like cocaine. He didn’t like to be offered it, for this might suggest he took it, which he didn’t, since it was passé. He did, nevertheless, like to notice a few lines laid accidentally out on the table, into which he might dip his nose in passing.
    Cocaine would surely help things go better. As Roy guided Jimmy back, he considered the problem. There was a man – Upton Turner – who was that rare thing, a fairly reliable dealer who made home visits and occasionally arrived on the stated day. Roy had been so grateful for this – and his need so urgent – that when Turner had visited in the past, Roy had enquired after his health and family, giving Turner, he was afraid, the misapprehension that he was a person as well as a vendor. He had become a nuisance. The last time Roy phoned him, Turner had flung the phone to one side, screaming that the cops were at the door and he was ‘lookin’ at twenty years!’ As Roy listened, Turner was dumping thousands of pounds worth of powder down