The Furnished Room Read Online Free PDF Page B

round the neck of each, and swung his feet off the ground. ‘Darlings, are you gay? Let’s all be gay!’
    They staggered under his weight. Then Dyce disengaged himself and pushed the boy away. He exclaimed to Beckett: ‘That brat needs a few well-placed kicks.’
    â€˜Oh, I rather like him.’
    â€˜I can’t stand queers. They give me the creeps.’ Dyce returned indoors.
    Beckett went to assist Michael, who was now being sick into the roses.
    When Beckett rejoined the party, noise and brightness were like a wall. He inspected everybody to see whether they were Dyce and Georgia, but they were not.
    There were some men wearing the rosettes and striped scarves of football-team supporters. They carried rattles and cardboard trumpets. Nobody seemed to know how they had got there. They all stood together, with their raincoat pockets stuffed with beerbottles, blowing raspberries down their trumpets.
    He found Ilsa and said: ‘Hello.’
    â€˜I’m drunk. I’m bloody drunk.’
    â€˜You are a bit.’
    â€˜Am I? Does it show?’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter.’
    Her face was pale and strained; the skin was taut over the sharp cheekbones. She pushed her hair back with the hand that held the habitual cigarette, then squashed the cigarette out. ‘Don’t know why I bother to get cigarettes,’ she said. ‘Never finish the damn things. Never finish anything. Unfinished conversations, unfinished love-affairs. I get bored.’ The cigarette had broken where she had squashed it, spilling tobacco. ‘See, I spoil things.’
    He said: ‘You don’t belong here.’
    â€˜Don’t belong where?’
    â€˜To this party. To all these stupid drunks.’
    â€˜You’re crazy! Of course I belong. I love them all; they’re my sort of people.’
    â€˜You don’t belong,’ he repeated. He knew she was right, but wanted to convince her and himself.
    â€˜Oh, you’re making a big mistake. I’m like them; absolutely like them. They spoil things too, they never finish anything. That’s why I’m at home here. That’s why I’m happy. That’s why I’m drunk. Are you drunk?’
    â€˜No. I was, but I got sober again.’
    â€˜Do you know, I was in a pub once, and they had some stuffed owls in a glass case. It was funny somehow; I can’t explain. None of us could stop looking at them. We all sat looking at the owls and roaring with laughter.’
    â€˜Ilsa —’ he began.
    â€˜Oh, listen! Is that a Bugloss record?’ She pointed to the radiogram.
    Irritated, he said: ‘Can’t you stay in one place for a minute?’
    â€˜Gotta keep moving, gotta keep moving.’
    He followed her over to the radiogram. When she listened to the record her body tensed, and she tapped her foot as if the jazz was jerking her like a marionette. He felt annoyed that it should have such a hold on her. Looking at her thin arm with its golden down, he felt a sudden desire to seize her, to bend her physically and morally to his will.
    â€˜Ilsa, let’s get out of here,’ he said.
    â€˜Oh, but the party’s only just started. It’s going on all night. Loads more people are coming.’
    â€˜All night?’
    â€˜The parties here always do. We just flop on the floor when we’re exhausted. In the morning we grab whatever food we can find from the larder. Then we all rave off to the Tube and go round to somebody’s place for a coffee-and-record session.’
    â€˜No, come on, let’s go now.’
    She concentrated, peering at him suspiciously. ‘Us? We going together, then?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Well, I dunno about that.’
    â€˜I can’t go with anyone else, love.’
    â€˜What about old fat cow