knitting-needles. It is an exercise of the imagination for me, but, all the same, I was glad enough to be able to examine a real old lady once more at close quarters – a rather fine example of the species. It is lonely here. In your love-nest, you never could imagine the Sou-Ken loneliness of Sunday afternoon. I imagine you and the Major flirting over the crumpets, having a delicious time, licking your fingers of the butter, making one another laugh. Whereas,
my
treat, is to go out soon to the launderette, and then wait impatiently for Monday.’ (He was really writing to himself.)
‘I have never been able to manage a Sunday. Even when I was in Rep, and busy. There is really noescaping it. One has, at some time, to go out into the streets, and there are all the West Indians going to chapel in hideous hats and spectacles – even the tiny girls have felt basins on their heads, and gloves. I never saw
you
wear a hat or gloves in all my life. I’ll say that for you. My Mrs Palfrey I was telling you about was bare-headed; but she wore a pair of stout leather gauntlets, as if she had just returned from hawking.
‘I did, more or less save her life, and she gave me £5.’ (He scratched out ‘£5’, and wrote above it instead ‘dinner at her hotel’.) ‘Not your sort of scene; but I was so bloody hungry, having spent your nice postal-order on baked beans and getting my suit cleaned. (Perhaps your Major has some old suits. I should not be at all offended to receive one; for I have to trim mine with nail scissors before I go to work.)
‘She has bad legs, Mrs Palfrey.’ Then he thought that he was going on too much about Mrs Palfrey, and he was bored with it, and had been trained since early days not to bore his Mimsie. He tapped his forehead with his pen, half closed his eyes, went into a yawning daze, and suddenly wrote, ‘with love from Ludo’, and was done with it.
Something now to do. He could go out and post his letter. He crammed into a polythene bag one sheet, two shirts, two pairs of pants and some towels, and then, for a reason he did not know, suddenly decided to unpin the curtains and take them down. They had a strange, musty smell. He pushed them into the bag and set out.
The streets were as dull as ditch-water. He decidedthat, when he had finished his novel about how dull they were, he would go to live abroad, where even (for he had been to Spain with Mimsie) the Sunday bells sounded better, and the cold was drier.
The launderette (coin-operated) had overhead fluorescent lighting, which enabled him to read easily his George Gissing.
Next to him, in the before quite empty launderette, came and sat down a young girl. The little patent leather shoes with straps, he first noticed, peering over, down, from his book like an old man. One of the tiny shoes went to and fro impatiently. The tights were white. Still from under his lids, his eyes travelled slowly up, over the slim white knees, to a hem of dusty black velvet. Ludo hoisted himself up in his chair, read another paragraph, and then glanced more frankly across at the top of her head, making a show of bored yawning, wrist-watch winding. Her long hair was straight, and dyed an old woman’s grey. Her pale face was touching in its unhealthiness, the mournful eyes, the colourless lips. She was staring ahead of her.
‘Quiet tonight,’ he said.
‘Don’t bother to chat me up,’ she replied.
At the Claremont, the Sunday passed. It could be said to have passed, decided Mrs Arbuthnot. It was another Sunday wrested from the geriatric ward, she told herself. And why? what for? she wondered. What has it
been
for?
Mrs Burton, in a new fur hat, went to church. Mr Osmond, after a word from the hall porter, retired to do up his fly-buttons and also went to church. Roast beef and Yorkshire, and snoozing over the colour supplements. A dread lethargy. Soon, tea. Tiny cucumber sandwiches which repeated, as Mrs Post kept saying, tapping her bird-cage chest.
Mrs
my
treat, is to go out soon to the launderette, and then wait impatiently for Monday.’ (He was really writing to himself.)
‘I have never been able to manage a Sunday. Even when I was in Rep, and busy. There is really noescaping it. One has, at some time, to go out into the streets, and there are all the West Indians going to chapel in hideous hats and spectacles – even the tiny girls have felt basins on their heads, and gloves. I never saw
you
wear a hat or gloves in all my life. I’ll say that for you. My Mrs Palfrey I was telling you about was bare-headed; but she wore a pair of stout leather gauntlets, as if she had just returned from hawking.
‘I did, more or less save her life, and she gave me £5.’ (He scratched out ‘£5’, and wrote above it instead ‘dinner at her hotel’.) ‘Not your sort of scene; but I was so bloody hungry, having spent your nice postal-order on baked beans and getting my suit cleaned. (Perhaps your Major has some old suits. I should not be at all offended to receive one; for I have to trim mine with nail scissors before I go to work.)
‘She has bad legs, Mrs Palfrey.’ Then he thought that he was going on too much about Mrs Palfrey, and he was bored with it, and had been trained since early days not to bore his Mimsie. He tapped his forehead with his pen, half closed his eyes, went into a yawning daze, and suddenly wrote, ‘with love from Ludo’, and was done with it.
Something now to do. He could go out and post his letter. He crammed into a polythene bag one sheet, two shirts, two pairs of pants and some towels, and then, for a reason he did not know, suddenly decided to unpin the curtains and take them down. They had a strange, musty smell. He pushed them into the bag and set out.
The streets were as dull as ditch-water. He decidedthat, when he had finished his novel about how dull they were, he would go to live abroad, where even (for he had been to Spain with Mimsie) the Sunday bells sounded better, and the cold was drier.
The launderette (coin-operated) had overhead fluorescent lighting, which enabled him to read easily his George Gissing.
Next to him, in the before quite empty launderette, came and sat down a young girl. The little patent leather shoes with straps, he first noticed, peering over, down, from his book like an old man. One of the tiny shoes went to and fro impatiently. The tights were white. Still from under his lids, his eyes travelled slowly up, over the slim white knees, to a hem of dusty black velvet. Ludo hoisted himself up in his chair, read another paragraph, and then glanced more frankly across at the top of her head, making a show of bored yawning, wrist-watch winding. Her long hair was straight, and dyed an old woman’s grey. Her pale face was touching in its unhealthiness, the mournful eyes, the colourless lips. She was staring ahead of her.
‘Quiet tonight,’ he said.
‘Don’t bother to chat me up,’ she replied.
At the Claremont, the Sunday passed. It could be said to have passed, decided Mrs Arbuthnot. It was another Sunday wrested from the geriatric ward, she told herself. And why? what for? she wondered. What has it
been
for?
Mrs Burton, in a new fur hat, went to church. Mr Osmond, after a word from the hall porter, retired to do up his fly-buttons and also went to church. Roast beef and Yorkshire, and snoozing over the colour supplements. A dread lethargy. Soon, tea. Tiny cucumber sandwiches which repeated, as Mrs Post kept saying, tapping her bird-cage chest.
Mrs
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