Night of Triumph Read Online Free Page A

advertisements of ales and fortified wines, was darkened with a press of people, all excited by each other, all
wanting their gathered force to cohere into one great moment. This was what his father had told him about 1926, the General Strike. They eavesdropped on the conversation at the next table.
    ‘What are you going to do now, Bill?’
    ‘Well, I expect Laura and I can get married.’
    ‘Oh, jolly good. In Saxmundham?’
    ‘That all depends.’
    ‘Harry back?’
    ‘No. Still in Singapore. Hasn’t got his demob papers. Could be another year.’
    ‘Do you know what John’s last letter said?’
    ‘No. What?’
    ‘Said his CO asked him, are you a communist or just a trouble-maker?’
    ‘What’d he tell him?’
    ‘Bit of both. Cheer-o!’
    Under their feet was a continual grinding and scrunching of glittering grit, from the heels and soles of newly polished shoes; people slid back and forth to the bar with drinks and orders for
drinks, sometimes coming back to tables in the Saloon Bar with full glasses on round tin trays. The upright piano in the corner had its lid pulled up by one man who, with two fingers, plunked out a
children’s tune on the black notes.
    Oh, will you wash my father’s shirt?
    Oh, will you wash it clean?
    Oh, will you wash my father’s shirt –
    And hang it on the green?
    A cheer and a groan. Someone else took over, rolling up his sleeves, meshing his fingers together and bending them out backwards until they all cracked. Then he played
‘Roll Out The Barrel’ and Hugh joined in cheerfully, and Peter did his best, smiling thinly and uncertainly. He didn’t know any of the words, other than those which were in the
title.
    ‘Hugh.
Hugh
.’
    ‘Mm?’
    ‘I, ah, where’s the ...?’
    ‘Over there.’
    He pointed to a door round by the other side of the bar, so low and unostentatious, Peter assumed it must be a locked store cupboard. He placed his lit cigarette in the ashtray and sidled
through the press with his palms raised and head tilted back, as if gracelessly performing the preliminary moves in some sort of mambo.
    After a futile shove, and then a pull, the door opened onto a descending staircase, almost entirely dark, which led to a dank room. As the door to this shut firmly behind him, Peter was
confronted by a stooping man in a chalk-stripe suit, with a large, balding head and an ingratiating smile: simply standing there. A length of white shirt-tail protruded from his fly-buttons.
    ‘Hello,’ he said.
    Peter considered briefly pretending to have forgotten something – perhaps accompanying this with a snap of the fingers and a pantomimed vexed expression, before turning to flee back up the
stairs. But the man stepped away from the urinal, and motioned for Peter to approach.
    ‘I do apologise,’ he said, and then, ‘Do you have the time?’
    Peter found it difficult to urinate in front of other people at the best of times. It was the sort of thing which, unfairly, aroused suspicion in the services, as if you were a moral danger to
your brother officers. He frowned, looked down, and ducked into the single, enclosed cubicle. Peter closed the door behind him, but was afraid to lock that, in case he was trapped. By pressing
against it with his outstretched, tensed fingertips, he was able to keep the door secure while he relieved himself. After finishing, he listened. There was nothing outside but a dripping,
foul-smelling quiet. Gradually, Peter relaxed. His breathing rate slowed. He stopped trembling. He calmed. He looked around at the words crudely scrawled on the walls, and smiled. Peter adjusted
his dress, pulled the chain, and opened the door.
    ‘I said –
do you have the time?
’ said the man evenly, still there, his smile still in place, as if easy-going and tolerant of Peter’s caprice.
    Peter pushed past him, suppressing a thin squeak of anxiety, and began to wash his hands. This he made take longer than usual, and when he looked up, the man had gone.