In the early days he still thought of getting a job in spite of her, still hoped that something would turn up, that he would somehow get his life straight again. But he had given up all hope of that now. He wouldn’t look at a job – he couldn’t look at one. In that matter he was atrophied. What! – get a job and not be on the spot in the mornings to take her over for her drinks? Get a job and leave her to Mickey and Peter all the day!

And yet he wasn’t such a fool even here. He wasn’t utterly improvident like they were. He had still got a bit of his mother’s money left. He had got three hundred pounds in War Loan and seventy-eight pounds twelve and threepence above that in current account. That wasn’t much, when it was all you had against starvation, but if he could five down to four pounds a week (and he somehow did manage, or nearly manage, to do this in spite of everything) it would keep you going a long while. Keep you going until all this Netta business somehow ended, if it ever somehow did – keep you going till you somehow got a job again, if you ever somehow did. He was never going to touch that three hundred pounds if he could help it, and he was going to go on living down to four pounds a week. Two pounds a week for living, two pounds for drinks and smokes and Netta. (And ten pounds extra now, to spend all on smokes and drinks and Netta!)

They, of course, would yell at this providence of his – regard it as meanly cautious, middle-class, poor-spirited, all part of his general ‘dumbness’. It was one of their greatest boasts, one of their major affectations, that they were always broke, always ‘touching’ people – that you would go out and spend your last twelve shillings on a bottle of gin rather than get in groceries. They thought this was clever, and that he was less clever than them. But actually he was one cleverer, because he could see what affectation it was on their part – he could see through them. He was one ahead of them, not one behind.

Not that any of them knew anything in a concrete way about his money. They only knew that he tried to live down to a regular something every week, and despised him as a hoarder. But that was not going to stop him.

It wasn’t much, but if it got too low he could live on less, spin it out till something happened, till something turned up.

Till something turned up! What a hope. What could ever turn up now? The year was dying, dead – what had next year, 1939, in store for him? Netta, drinks and smokes – drinks, smokes, Netta. Or a war. What if there was a war? Yes – if nothing else turned up, a war might.

A filthy idea, but what if a war was what he was waiting for? That might put a stop to it all. They might get him – he might be conscripted away from drinks, and smokes, and Netta. At times he could find it in his heart to hope for a war – bloody business as it all was.

But now, according to them, according to Netta and Peter, there wasn’t going to be a war at all. They knew all about it, or were supposed to. But he wasn’t such a fool here, either – he could see how their minds worked, with what facility they turned their ignominious desires into beliefs. He hadn’t fallen for all this ‘I think it is peace in our time’ stuff. But they had – hadn’t they just! They went raving mad, they weren’t sober for a whole week after Munich – it was just in their line. They liked Hitler, really. They didn’t hate him, anyway.