And then there were his ‘dead’ moods, which were a popular joke – a ‘scream’. Dead-from-the-neck-upwards – that was him. Somebody you could really dismiss with easy conviction as an awful fool – a b.f. It was like that at school from Mr Thome onwards: it was like that now.

And yet he wasn’t such a fool, either. They thought him silly, but he had his own thoughts, and maybe he thought them silly too. They wouldn’t think of that, of course: it wouldn’t cross their minds. But he had his thoughts all the same. He saw much more than they thought he saw. They would get the shock of their lives if they knew how he could see through them at times – how transparent they were, for all their saloon-bar nonchalance and sophistication.

He could see through them, and, of course, he hated them. He even hated Netta too – he had known that for a long time. He hated Netta, perhaps, most of all. The fact that he was crazy about her physically, that he worshipped the ground she trod on and the air she breathed, that he could think of nothing else in the world all day long, had nothing to do with the underlying stream of scorn he bore towards her as a character. You might say he wasn’t really ‘in love’ with her: he was ‘in hate’ with her. It was the same thing – just looking at his obsession from the other side. He was netted in hate just as he was netted in love. Netta: Netta: Netta!… God – how he loved her!

He hated himself, too. He didn’t pretend to be any better. He hated himself for the life he led – the life in common with them. Drunken, lazy, impecunious, neurotic, arrogant, pub-crawling cheap lot of swine – that was what they all were. Including him and Netta. She was an awful little drunk, though she had a marvellous head. She never got up till half-past twelve: just chain-smoked in bed till it was time to drop over and into the nearest pub (only she had to have a man to take her over, because she didn’t want to be taken for a prostitute). And she was the daughter of a clergyman in Somerset. Now deceased!

When you met in the morning all you talked about was last night – how ‘blind’ you were, how ‘blind’ Mickey was, my God, you bet he had a hangover. (‘Taking a little stroll round Hangover Square’ – that was Mickey’s crack.) So-and-so might have been ‘comparatively sober’, etc., etc. And when you had had a lot more to drink you felt fine again, and went crashing round to lunch upstairs at the ‘Black Hart’ (the table by the fire) where you ragged the pale waiter and called attention to yourselves. (Of course the trades people and commercial gents stared at Netta because she was so lovely and striking.)

He hated it and was sick of it. How long had it been going on? Over a year now – he had known Netta over a year. And when would it ever stop? Never, of course. So long as Netta willed it, so long as she chose to live the life she was living now, never.