Early One Morning Read Online Free PDF Page B

checked he had his identity card with him, but the pair cycled by, one of them even giving him a respectful nod, as if in workers’ solidarity.
    Ten minutes after the end of the execution story the party were out, with Orpen in the vanguard, weaving as he approached, hanging on to Eve’s arm, his bulk forcing her to trace the same sinuous pattern on the pavement as him. ‘OK, Williams, we have to squeeze eight in now. Including Hettie there.’ He indicated the towering woman with the rice-powdered face at the rear of the group, a Lilly Dache cloche hat pulled down over her ears and a red squirrel fur coat. ‘The tallest transvestite in Paris. Off to the Jockey Bar. Apricot cocktails. Then dancings. And Barley here wants to try Chez Hibou.’
    The group all guffawed and young Barley managed a good-sport grin, even though all had clearly neglected to mention that Chez Hibou, on rue St Apolline, was a leading licensed brothel, one, if the rumours and the portrait above the mantelpiece were to be believed, which once had regular, if anonymous, royal patronage in the form of Edward VII.
    One of the party, though, made his excuses. ‘Thanks for the drinks and tall stories, Bill, but I gotta go.’
    ‘George,’ protested Orpen. ‘Come on. Be fun.’
    ‘I’ve got work to do.’
    ‘Work. Call that bloody awful racket you write work?’
    George laughed good naturedly and adjusted his glasses. ‘Unless I do something I’ll be just like every other American in Paris. A bum.’
    ‘You can write as much of that jazzy stuff as you like, George. You’ll always be a bum to me.’
    George smiled, waved a hand and disappeared in search of a cab. Orpen looked at Williams. ‘He thinks I’m joking. Have you heard his stuff? All right, off to Hibou.’
    Williams sighed as he opened the door for Orpen. Heading for the discreet pink light of Chez Hibou meant more waiting, even though Orpen, Eve and the travesti would spend the time in the bar, paying for the naked girls to drink a harmless mixture of lemonade and grenadine while they sipped overpriced iced mousseux and tried to slip some into the poules’ drinks whenever the eyes in the back of the fearsome Madame Hibou’s head blinked.
    Williams looked the fresh-faced American up and down as he climbed in beside Eve, and noticed the slight nervous tremor in his hands, the moist upper lip. A dizzying mixture of more alcohol, dancing with the tapettes and dinges at Bal des Chiffoniers, then on to choose from the flesh rack at a brothel. Boy was out of his depth. Eve caught Williams’ eye and winked. Perhaps the wait wouldn’t be too long at Chez Hibou after all.
    Williams had grown used to Orpen’s bouts of melancholy. Sometimes late into the evening when Eve was off with her own friends or visiting her father in Lille, Orpen would ring the bell and summon Williams with a bottle of Johnnie Walker or, if he was feeling homesick for Ireland, Jameson, and invite him to sit and chat in the living room in front of the fire.
    Two nights after the Chez Hibou episode—when the Barley boy had finally figured out what was going on and fled, leaving the rest of them to go on to Bricktop’s and hear the flame-haired negress sing Cole Porter songs—Orpen did just that.
    He was in his cardigan, worn as usual over a waistcoat in place of a jacket, shirt with bow tie, spectacles on the end of his nose, swirling the drink in his glass, when he asked a startling question. ‘How much d’you think I earned last year, Williams?’
    Williams sipped at his own whiskey, eking it out. He was rarely offered a refill. ‘I have no idea, Sir William.’
    Orpen sniffed. ‘Have a guess.’
    ‘I really—’
    ‘Have a guess, man, damn you.’
    ‘Twenty thousand.’
    Orpen smiled. ‘Forty-six thousand, three hundred and ninety-four pounds.’
    Williams raised a cautious eyebrow. ‘Very good, sir.’
    ‘Good? Bloody marvellous. And you know what?’
    ‘No?’
    ‘I’d give it all away if I could