It’s a Battlefield by Graham Greene

believed that it would be safe to love her. Her tears did not frighten him; they meant that she would be glad of company; he got miserable himself when he was left alone, would have paid anything he had for even Conder’s company, was lost, was frightened. Only a woman, only a noise, only a gramophone playing or people talking could save him then from sinking back, back into himself, meeting his harsh mother on the threshold, back past the moaning drunken cries, back past the quarrels in the next room, back to the kisses and the sweets and early bed, back to no more being. Shout, sing, be in a crowd as he was here; that was better than searching in the dark for something as hopelessly gone as the sheltered existence of the womb. ‘Jules, you have forgotten this. . . . Jules, you have forgotten that. . . . God damn you, how much longer have I got to wait?’ Slowly he would emerge, apologize, explain. They thought, all the employers and the customers he had to deal with, that he was lazy, but he forgot as easily his own affairs, his handkerchief, his coat when it was stormy, and today the letter which had come for him, addressed and re-addressed with a French stamp, only this moment remembered. ‘I’ll open it at lunch-time,’ but at lunch-time a hurdy-gurdy was turning in the street, two children were circling with raised pinafores, an unemployed man was slapping his hands to help them with the time, and Jules could stand and laugh and gossip, feel himself for ten minutes part of the street, part of London, part of a country, not one abandoned by his mother’s death to fight his way in a land which was his only by the accident of birth.
    The surface of the brain was aware of Bennett talking, Mr Surrogate bending his head over his shoe, Kay trying to catch his eye; their images danced across his brain like rain on glass, leaving no impression. He was already away, seeking what he had lost, what he was never quite reconciled to losing, complete dependence, a definite object (to breathe, to grow, to be born), the impossibility of loneliness.
    â€˜Come on,’ Conder said, ‘it’s over. I knew they’d do nothing about Drover. They’re good for nothing but talk.’
    â€˜Why do you come?’ Jules asked.
    They were pushed together for a moment in the entrance, somebody thrust petition papers into their hands, and they were again apart with a foot of pavement and a splash of lamplight between them. Something in that quick involuntary contact affected Conder; it was as when one shared a taxi with a strange woman after a party and the chance contact induced confidences between a street and a street. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘when everything is badly wrong, even the talk of something better. . . .’ He looked at Jules sideways, with shame, with a sharp hopefulness.
    The street was full of people, laughing and going home. Jules longed to be with them. He said to Conder: ‘There’s Kay,’ and to Kay: ‘This is Conder.’ Conder took off his hat and Kay’s eyes rested with distress, boredom, a veiled malevolence on the bald head.
    â€˜Can we see you home?’ Conder asked.
    â€˜But I don’t want to go home yet,’ Kay said. ‘It’s early.’ She leant against the lamp-post and pressed her cheek against the iron.
    â€˜Come to the park then,’ Jules said.
    â€˜It’ll be cold.’
    â€˜A café.’
    â€˜Both of you come with me,’ Conder said, ‘and have a drink at the “Fitzroy”.’
    â€˜I’ve had too many drinks at the “Fitzroy”. Can’t you suggest something new, something exciting?’
    Conder put his hand to his head. ‘I’d ask you to come and have some supper, but you see I’ve got to meet someone at 10.45.’ She smiled with unbelief. Men couldn’t even think of a new excuse.
    â€˜We could go to a cinema for an