Voyage in the Dark

‘D’you know,’ she said, ‘I never pay for a meal for myself—it’s the rarest thing. For instance, these two—I said to them quite casually, like that, ‘When you come over to London, let me know. I’ll show you round a bit,’ and if you please about three weeks ago they turned up. I’ve been showing them round, I can tell you….I get along with men. I can do what I like with them. Sometimes I’m surprised myself. I expect it’s because they feel I really like it and no kidding. […]’

She came over and helped me to undo it. She seemed very tall and her face enormous. I could see all the lines in it, and the powder, trying to fill up the lines, and just where her lipstick stopped and her lips began. It looked like a clown’s face, so that I wanted to laugh at it. She was pretty, but her hands were short and fat with wide, flat, very red nails.

Joe lit a cigarette and crossed his legs and watched us. He was like somebody sitting in the stalls, waiting for the curtain to go up.

‘How old is she?’ Joe said.

‘She’s only a kid,’ Laurie said. She coughed and then she said, “She’s not seventeen.’

‘Yes—and the rest,’ Joe said.

‘Well, she’s not a day older than nineteen, anyway,’ Laurie said. ‘Where do you see the wrinkles? Don’t you like her?’

‘She’s all right,’ Joe said, ‘but I liked that other kid—the dark one.’

‘Who? Renée?’ Laurie said. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to her. I haven’t seen her since that evening.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I sold my fur coat, I could give her ten quid.’

‘It’s not enough,’ Laurie said. ‘She won’t do it for that. My dear, she’ll want about fifty. Don’t you know anybody who’ll lend it to you? What about that man you talked about who used to give you money. Won’t he help you? […]’