He was aware that, if it was to be in the West End, she was not going to put up with something moderately cheap in Soho. He had tried that one before, and she had made it clear that it would not do. It either had to be the famous, crowded, and expensive Ragloni’s (where Peter sometimes took her) or else it had to be Perrier’s in Jermyn Street. She had, actually, a passion for Perrier’s, he did not quite know why. He had made up his mind, in fact, to name this restaurant.

‘Oh, something in the West End,’ he answered. ‘What about tomorrow? Could you manage it?’

He was not going to give in all at once. It faintly amused him to set in motion and observe her determination and greed working behind her cool demeanour.

But she was not to be played about with, and she came straight to the point.

‘Where in the West End?’ she said.

‘Oh – I thought we might go to Perrier’s again. What about it? Can you manage tomorrow?’

He knew that she was going to accept, for she would not have asked so blatantly where she was to be taken, unless she had intended to do so.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that sounds all right to me – so far as I know.’

‘Oh – good,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow, shall I?’

‘Okay. You phone me tomorrow.’

Though it was not admitted by so much as a flicker of a facial muscle, there was a good deal more than met the eye in this decision that he should phone her. It was, in fact, an acknowledgement of a joint conspiracy – a secret kept from the other two men, from Peter of course, in particular. Otherwise why did they have to phone tomorrow? Why not appoint a time and meeting-place in due course later in the evening or in ordinary conversation tomorrow? The answer was that later in the evening or tomorrow they might have no opportunity of speaking alone – and this matter had to be arranged in private. She knew as well as he that it was part of the bargain that no one else should be allowed to butt in, that if she went to Perrier’s she went with him alone. She therefore, on her side, had to bear the burden of a certain amount of subterfuge: she had so to arrange matters that Peter or Mickey either did not know, or were presented with a fait accompli in such a way as precluded them from trying to join the party.

‘Fine,’ he said, and was filled momentarily with a malicious exhilaration at the mere thought of working a deception on Peter, of being able to do something and laugh at him behind his back, above all, of having Netta working with him in such a deception. Such was the reward of his visit to his aunt at Hunstanton. Was there anything which money could not buy?

They were walking down Earl’s Court Road in the direction of the station. Instead of making for the ‘Black Hart’ Mickey and Peter were seen to turn capriciously into a pub on the left which they only used at infrequent intervals, and by the time he and Netta had joined them in its saloon bar they were already throwing darts and had ordered their beer. Netta sat down, and he went to the bar and obtained beer for himself and a large pink gin for her. He sat beside her and watched, in silence, the other two throwing darts in the last hours of the Christmas season, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

The Second Part

PHONING

But now her looks are coy and cold,

To mine they ne’er reply,

And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very irowns are fairer lar

Than smiles of other maidens are.

H. COLERIDGE

Excitation. – N. excitation of feeling; mental – , excitement; suscitation,
galvanism, stimulation, piquancy, provocation, inspiration,
calling forth, infection; animation, agitation, perturbation;
subjugation, fascination, intoxication; en-, ravishment; entrancement, high pressure.

Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend

Nor services to do, till you require.

W. SHAKESPEARE

Chapter One

‘I suppose it’s because he’s so big that he’s so silly…’

Her words came back to him as he walked along in the cold grey morning to cash his cheque at the bank. He again decided that it was the best thing she had said for weeks. For months. Ever since the earliest days, before he was in disgrace. She was full of such intoxicating insinuations then. She thought he had a lot of money, of course.

She was with that theatrical gang, then. She was working on a film down at Denham. It had happened in the big bar of the ‘Rockingham’ opposite Earl’s Court station.