The Centre of the Green Read Online Free

of his mind as he walked back with the tonic—very carefully so as not to fall apart, and let his intention out. Sybil poured him another drink, and herself another drink, and another , and another. With each drink, Charles increased his control over himself. If he were to relax, he knew, the pieces of his head would fall outwards like the staves of a barrel. Yet if he made it tighter, he might crack up the middle. He felt like china in a vice. Sybil would stay, taking down her bloody hair until the bottle was empty. Ergo, he would empty it—but he was drinking on an empty stomach, and would be sick. He had another, but decided to drink it slowly. Sybil said, “Here I go, talking about myself again, when, let’s face it, I do lead
the
most bloody uninteresting life. So I’m going to sit here quite still like a little mouse, and you’re going to tell me all about yourself for a change.” Gazing through the bottom of his glass to a
room
as round as a goldfish bowl, he suddenly made a discovery, and began to giggle. “Shall I tell you a terribly funny thing?” he said. “Apart from my editor and his secretary, you’re the first person who’s spoken to me for three days.”
    “What’s so funny about that?”
    “No. There was the man on the bus. He said, ‘Fares, please’.”
    “What’s so funny?”
    “I don’t know. I just thought it was terribly funny.”
    But Sybil was shocked. She knew what was what. She was an actress and a lady. and she knew what response tomake to any situation. She could not see that this was funny at all. Charles stopped laughing. Was she angry with him? Did she dislike him? Would she give him notice? There was a silence. Then Sybil said, “Well, I can’t hang around here all night anyway,” and, taking the almost empty bottle with her, left him alone in the dusk.
    Charles’ head felt strange. Now he must pull himself together. He must wash up. He must make himself a cup of tea, and heat a tin of beans or something. He must decide what to do this evening. “I won’t go to the pictures anyway,” he said aloud, listened, realized that he was talking to himself, and added in bravado, “First sign of madness”. He switched on the radio. “Won’t go for a walk either,” he said. Not down Holland Park Avenue to Shepherd’s Bush and back. Not along the Bayswater Road and into Kensington Gardens, past the rows of men in macintoshes sitting vacantly on wooden benches. Not down Kensington Church Street, staring into the windows of antique shops, along Kensington High Street, and back through Holland Park. (Once, as he stood outside an antique shop, a passing stranger had stopped, pointed to the silver collar on a decanter, and said, “My friend used to wear one of those as a bracelet .”) “Won’t go to the local,” Charles said, “Won’t read a book”. The radio burped, and an announcer began to read the nine o’clock news. Charles switched it off. “So much for you,” he said. Then he said, “Want to go to sleep. Want to go to sleep, and never wake up,” and he remembered what it was he had planned to do this evening.
    Of course it was ridiculous. Of course he wouldn’t do it. Anyway, he didn’t know what would happen. It wasn’t like the gas. He had heard that if you tried to gas yourself, the carbon dioxide paralyzed your motor reactions before you yourself became unconscious, so that youcould lie there wanting desperately to turn it off or open a window or something, but unable to do anything about it. Charles wouldn’t care for that. Pills were the thing, although of course one didn’t know what effect
these
pills would have.
    Charles suffered from a mild hay fever during May and June. There were white pills to take by day, pink pills before going to bed at night. The pink pills made him feel drowsy. Therefore, he thought, they were only to make him sleep. Once he had taken two instead of the one prescribed, and had woken up next morning feeling blurry. What