The Millstone Read Online Free Page B

who was sitting at the table with us did, and he introduced us. George was at first sight rather unnoticeable, being unaggressive and indeed unassertive in manner, a quality rare enough in my acquaintance, but he had a kind of unobtrusive gentle attention that made its point in time. He had a thin and decorative face, a pleasant BBC voice and quietly effeminate clothes, and from time to time he perverted his normal speaking voice in order to make small camp jokes. Not, one might think, a dangerous or threatening character, nor one likely to inspire great passion. He had nothing, for instance, on Joe Hurt, who sat there chewing his yellow fingers with their huge buckled, cracking yellow nails, and winding his legs ferociously round the tubular steel legs of the table, while discoursing in a loudly inaudible voice about the tediousness of experimental novels. The eyes of every girl in the room kept creeping meekly
and with shame back to Joe. He always had such an effect on any assembly. George listened to Joe, and he too seemed impressed, though he would make the odd-sided comment and joke, as I have said. I distinctly thought he fancied Joe. Joe attracted everyone, even those who concealed their attraction by the violence of their abuse.
    After that meeting, I came across George intermittently, about once a week on an average. Sometimes in the street; living where I did, so near Broadcasting House, we were forever crossing paths in Upper Regent Street or along Wigmore Street. Sometimes we met in a pub of which he was clearly an habitué, and which Joe and I took to for a while. It was a nice pub, so I took Roger there too one night. Once we met, George and I, to our mutual surprise, at a party. I used to enjoy meeting him, because he always seemed pleased to see me, and used to make lovely remarks. "You're looking very lovely this evening, Rosamunda," he would say as I entered the Bear and Baculus, or "And how did you get on with Astrophel and Stella today?" He seemed oddly conversant with the poets; I could not place his background or education at all, which intrigued me, naturally. His accent betrayed no locality, for when it slipped from the BBC tone, it slipped not into its origins but into this universal camp parlance. There was something about his hair, oddly enough, that made one think he might not be quite as refined as he otherwise appeared. It did not lie flat, in the usual way: it had an odd sideways angle to it that made him in certain lights look almost raffish and smart. I liked it I liked him, altogether, and after a few weeks I would persuade Joe and Roger to take me to his pub just so that I could talk to him for a few minutes.
    He was very amused by the Joe-Roger alternation, and clearly thought the worst, a conclusion which gratified my pride. He would make slight clucking private noises of reproof, which amused me. I enjoyed the image of my own
imaginary wickedness reflected from his eyes, for he saw what he thought he saw with so entertained an indulgence, exactly the kind of reaction I would have wanted had what he seen been true. One rather fraught summer evening I persuaded Joe to take me to the pub: we were on very bad terms, being engaged in some fruitless dispute about a pound note that we had lent or not lent to a tiresome dud friend the week before. I was very annoyed with Joe, as I have a good memory, and I distinctly remembered the whole occasion: my temper, when we reached the pub, was not improved by the fact that George did not turn up. As the time for his usual arrival passed, I grew increasingly irritable, and in the end Joe flew into a rage and walked out and left me. I sat there grimly for five minutes, pretending to finish my drink, and then I got up to go. I cannot stand sitting in pubs by myself. At the doorway I met George.
    "My goodness me," he said, "all alone tonight, are you?"
    "Just walked out," I said. "Joe just walked out."
    "I know," he said, "I met him on Portland Place. Have