The Furnished Room Read Online Free PDF Page A

might as well stop wasting time and put your coat on.’
    â€˜Come on. It’s my risk, you’ve got nothing to lose.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I’ll lay a fiver you can’t hurt me.’
    â€˜This is absurd,’ Beckett said. ‘No.’
    â€˜Why are you so scared? I’ve told you, it’s my risk.’
    Beckett was angry. His impulse was to conquer Dyce by taking him at his word. He wanted to see the handsome patronizing face distorted with pain. Perversely, his obstinacy had pledged him against the very thing he wanted to do.
    Dyce’s face was rigid as steel. The same rigid quality was in his voice. ‘You will do it. I have been trained to command. You don’t know it yet, but if I give an order, a real order, you will find yourself obeying automatically.’
    Surprise at this took Beckett aback. He realized that it was a battle of wills. He said: ‘You think you’re strong-willed, but you’re not, because strength involves having a purpose. And you have no purpose, except to senselessly try to boss me around. You just want to prove to yourself what a tough guy you are. You’re nothing but a moron.’
    â€˜I am, hey?’
    â€˜Yes, you bloody well are.’
    For a moment they stood facing each other, with violence and mutual antagonism like a bond between them. Then Dyce threw his head back and laughed in great shouts. When he had stopped laughing, he said in a normal voice: ‘Never mind. Skip it for now.’ Beckett relaxed also, and shrugged.
    â€˜I like you, old boy. Like people but never trust them. Only trust myself to keep a grip on the other fellow so he won’t have a chance to do me down.’ Dyce lay down on the grass, on his back, and clasped his hands under his head. ‘You know what?’
    Beckett sprawled on the grass also. It smelled fresh and earthy. The trees above him had silver leaves.
    â€˜You know what?’ Dyce said. ‘I was in the Army. Sometimes I wish I had stayed in, but Christ! I had a nice little racket going. Sale of equipment. Not just knocking off a few cans of stuff; any fool can do that. But in a big way. I had it all lined up: organization, contacts, men working for me. I was raking in a tidy bit on the side. Then somebody tumbled to it. The fuss that was made was bloody ridiculous. I mean, everybody in the Army works a fiddle of one kind or another. They’d want their heads testing if they didn’t. Selling equipment is something that goes on all the time. A recognized thing. Officially it’s illegal, but everybody knows about it and the authorities just turn a blind eye. That’s why it was ridiculous to make such a fuss in my case. All I’d done was to show a bit more enterprise than usual. They should have been glad to find somebody with some sense and enterprise.’
    Beckett laughed. ‘I like your reasoning!’
    â€˜I wish they had. Result was I resigned my commission.’ Dyce’s shrewd eyes looked at him too straight: the too-straight eyes of a liar. ‘Damned if I was going to crawl and grovel to a lot of bloody little clerks.’
    Beckett suspected that Dyce had really been chucked out, but his natural politeness prevented him from voicing his suspicion.
    â€˜Anyway, I was out, and I had to reorganize my life. Decided to sponge off my relations for a bit. I’ve got an old trout of an aunt who has more money than use for it, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t spend some on her blue-eyed nephew. But, Christ, I couldn’t stand her for long. She handed out mean little sums as if they were charity soup, and accompanied each quid with a pious prayer that I wouldn’t squander it in riotous living. Putting up with her lectures meant that I earned every penny I