There is a sort of coal hole in the heart of Soho that is open every afternoon: a dark, dank, dead-ended subterranean tunnel. It is a drinking club called the Crypt and the only light to penetrate it is the shaft of golden sunlight slipping through the doorway from time to time glancing off someone’s nose or hair or glass of gin, all the more poignant for its sudden revelations, in an atmosphere almost solid with failure, of pure wind-swept nostalgia, of clean airy summer houses, of the beach, of windy reefs; of the sun radiating through the clouds the instant before the clouds race back over it again—leaving the day as sad and desperate as before.

From my very first glimpse of the battered neon trout sign that hung outside the entrance with its fish-eye winking and sputtering and every now and then slowly dying away, the Truite Bleue impressed me with its air of frank senility. Passing through the shabby entrance hall and coming upon a cubicle in which a few coat-hooks and hat-shelves had been improvised I started to hand my coat over to an old trout-shaped waiter who had been standing there staring into space but at that precise moment another more attractive action presented itself to him and he teetered off out of my reach to grope among the hats for his glass of beer. My coat, suspended in midair, fell to the ground; it was nonetheless three full sips later before he bothered to pick it up. You had to admire that kind of professional slackness.

The waiters looked as if they’d staggered out of an old dark hole. They creaked and wobbled and limped and trembled under their loads, their turkey-gobbler necks rising pink from their stiff wing collars. They rattled and shuffled to and fro groaning, “Y’en a plus!” in hoarse strangled Cockney-French to customers’ requests, laughing toothlessly at the very idea of their clients’ presumption. And yet, looking around, I saw that the restaurant was crowded with contented-looking people. In spite of everything they were eating with gusto. No doubt about it, the place had atmosphere. The genuinely old-fashioned bad service that was being meted out impartially was instantly recognizable as the real thing: a subtle sophisticated Old World incompetence we Americans can never hope to emulate, the best our rustic efforts can produce being a superficial smart-alec surliness not to be spoken of in the same breath as this lofty disdain which was both thoughtful and thorough and would not disintegrate suddenly under a pleading word, a plaintive gesture, or a large tip. These waiters were hand-picked for pleurisy, deafness, and a variety of speech defects. They were flushed of skin, gnarled of hand. The dishes that jumped on to the floor from their palsied hands were never referred to again, as it were, but just lay there for the rest of the evening to be ground under foot by passers-by.

The man looking at me was in his late fifties. Stout and rumpled. Comfortably cushioned. Grey-haired, with a lock that fell across his forehead. A fleshy sensual mouth and a podgy mobile nose. A good coarse face full of robust health and a lustiness one could tell at a glance owed nothing to outdoor life. And those blue eyes—but they were exactly the colour of mine! Not taking his love-glance off me he began talking to his companion. I saw his plump well-padded paws, the fingers lying quietly together like mittens, move forward and sort of hug himself while he sat there still smiling at me as if I were the best thing he’d ever seen in his life. He looked so—what was it that gave him his irresistible charm? He looked so accessible. That was it. A great simple truth struck me with surprise: charm is availability. How had I ever thought otherwise?

Smitty got out the file and I flipped through. C. D. McKee. Cosmo Darwin McKee. Nothing at all about his early life. A few short paragraphs in which he was included in lists of academic honours conferred on him by various foreign universities while at Oxford. The war, his Generalship, meetings with Heads of Staff, etc., etc. Then a sort of social butterfly series—photographs mainly—old Porky leering out from glossy groups at Hunt Balls and deb parties and art exhibitions. I was flipping through faster when suddenly, wedged in between the Hunt Balls and his marriage to the wealthy American widow Mrs. Pauline Saegessor, and on newsprint instead of slick paper—wham—a pile of clips on the Bosworth Clute Securities case. A public scandal; a great big fat juicy business scandal. I caught my breath and studied them closely. What startled me at first was that I knew the name—Bosworth Clute. By, I suppose, a not very wild coincidence, this much married, much divorced English business tycoon was the father of one of the girls I’d been at school with. I ploughed through reams of almost incomprehensible testimony. Something about the firm being hammered on the Stock Exchange. Something about sharepushing. Something about Clute concealing his snowballing losses by using his clients’ securities without their knowledge. Something about gambling on a successful Suez action by Britain that would cause a boom in oil shares. Something about Clute being sentenced to six years in jail having been found guilty on sixteen counts of conspiracy, fraud, and false pretences involving £300,000. But what had all this to do with McKee? Oh—oh. There it was. A little bit tucked away at the end. Clute’s Board of Directors, amongst whom C. D. was singled out for special mention by the Judge. “As to General McKee I have satisfied myself that he was at no time aware of the transactions Clute was conducting though I should like to record my amazement at his lack of interest in the enterprise whether by naïveté or design and the lack of business qualifications which Clute seemed to feel appropriate to the selection of his Board of Directors on the whole and to General McKee in particular.” Hmm. Spot of trouble there.

I ordered a plain old dry martini adding that I wanted it very dry and with a twist of lemon instead of an olive to show that we Americans too can enter the gourmet ring.

C. D. ordered himself a Cinzano and we went ahead and chose our meal. I decided to start with Ogorki Demi-sel and go on to the Filet de Plie Orly while C. D. plumped for the Crème Waldeze followed by a Poulet Braconniers.

The waiter returned with our drinks and began placing them in front of us wrong way round. I’d noticed a kind of mad, satisfied gleam come into C. D.’s eye as he sat silently, watching the mistake to its completion, but nothing to prepare me for the explosion by which he let the waiter—and everyone else in the room—in on his view of the matter. “May I recommend that a little ordinary commonsense brought to your job might help you in overcoming your either real or psychological deafness, young man?” he bellowed. “Who at this table looks young enough to risk a midday martini? Who looks wise enough to choose an aperitif?” It was unexpected to say the least.

“Who is it? The name of your analyst.”

Wonderful how the unexpected always throws us. I was prepared for anything but a simple question like that. I had equipped myself with all possible kinds of false identifications and labels but the name of an analyst wasn’t amongst them. It had never occurred to me that anyone would come out like that and demand the name of an analyst; it was too terribly personal. On top of the confusion I was shocked, really shocked, and I indicated as much.

“I—I don’t think I ought to tell, should I? Isn’t it sort of like breaking the Hipocratic oath? You know, like if it’s all right for me to go around blabbing his name, then it’s all right for him to go around blabbing mine. And everything about me. See what I mean?”

However, as I embarked upon her story the strangest change came over me. I discovered that it was possible to be the sort of liar who comes to believe her lies almost the instant they spring from her lips. For no sooner had I begun to talk about myself as Honey Flood than I felt myself mysteriously osmosing into her: a harrowing experience.

Try telling a story in which you behaved in a somewhat less than exemplary fashion and try telling it from the point of view of the person you behaved that way towards and try laying it on thick for the sympathy of your listener, and see if you don’t find your real self in the disagreeable position of standing by and watching you becoming an absolute fiend.

We greeted each other and he steered me expertly down the ramp alongside the train and into the exact compartment desired, where he skilfully arranged our bags and cosily settled into his seat with an air of putting on his slippers and pulling out his pipe. We were travelling First Class. There was no doubt about that. It said so on the window pane next to me and on the door to the compartment. It said so on the two glass panels on either side of the door and on the window on the other side of our corridor. Altogether it said so not less than five times.

C. D. was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs and we went into the drawing-room together. Introductions again. This time by the hostess but in the same off-hand embarrassed manner as C. D. and acknowledged, I noticed, with equal off-hand embarrassment. I began to wonder if the reason for this might not be just that: embarrassment at having to introduce anyone to anyone else in these particular charmed circles where of course Everyone was supposed to know Everyone already. Whatever the reason, I must confess they showed a remarkable lack of interest in meeting me and for my part I was able to stifle my own. There was a Mr. and Mrs. Something, a Colonel Something, a Miss Something, three growing children, an elderly Mrs. Something-Something and a couple of dogs who bounced all over me and were the friendliest souls there. [...]

C. D. appeared in the drawing-room even later than I so we had a chance for only one small exchange before going in to dinner. However, it did much to make a shambles of the meal for me.

“You’re late,” I said and then I looked at him more closely, for although brushed and combed and freshly shaved there was about him an indefinable air of chaos, a curious rumpledness about his features. “What have you been doing?” I asked.

“Using you for imagery,” he replied blandly. “Are you shocked?”

I wasn’t right away. I didn’t even get it right away. And if he hadn’t pointed up the first part of the remark by adding the second part I probably wouldn’t have. I probably would have regarded it as merely cryptic, what-the-hell. But finally I got it all right. And when I did, I felt myself go bright pink. I stared hard at my drink. “No ice,” I mumbled shakily. “How quaint. Just like they’re always telling you in those Come to Britain books.”

And so we drove, and so we arrived at his house. And there he led me unresisting up the stairs into his bedchamber where, upon his lily-white bed, in the fullness of time he did lay me.

There is a time for asterisks and a time for speaking out. I don’t know—will all this morbid introspection into my terrible itch for that randy old man reveal itself merely as an exercise in self-indulgence, a senseless waste of time? Or will it be that, having put down clearly and to my own satisfaction once and for all precisely what it was like sleeping with foxy grampa, I may finally come to understand what was going on in me? And what was making me go on like that? Maybe not. We must hope for the best. But it’s so hard. I write three words and at the fourth memory seizes me. I waste hours mooning over a situation that play it as I may could only have been resolved by disaster.

Waking Monday morning at Dody’s I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding. He was old. He was my stepfather. I hated him. And I’d enjoyed myself. Promptly I slid back down again stuffing the pillow over my face. Any combination of two would have been enough to send me under—all four was too much. Besides, I hated him but I loved him too. Yes. I know all about that sort of thing. Christ, I should, I’d heard nothing else my last two years in New York. “They have this terrific love-hate thing going,” everybody said about everybody else. “You watch, it’s going to destroy them—.” But never about me. When I took to someone I took to them, and when I took against them ditto. Mostly I felt indifference. Hmm. If you don’t mind I believe I will take this opportunity to apologize for my former fatuousness.

Compared with the slim hard-bodied young men his figure was a joke—round, tubby, pillow-paunchy, it had the consistency of foam rubber; rolling around with him was like rolling around with some big beach toy. But he flung himself into it with a devotion that was disarming. A tyrant on his feet, he turned out to be a real woman-worshipper in the sack. And subtle too. And full of tricks. He knew a trick or two, that one. And then it turned out I knew a trick or two I didn’t even know I knew. He could play a whole jazz concert on me. When we were finished we were covered, absolutely covered with each other. And yet I was never surprised at finding myself, six or seven hours later and in my own bed, in real trouble, seized with a shuddery revulsion of shame and disgust. How could I have? All those things. And with that fat old monster? And on top of everything—who was using whom? The original idea had been to enslave him for ever with my womanly wiles but rather the opposite seemed to be happening. For in spite of those sixth- and seventh-hour shudderings at the ghastly unnaturalness of the liaison, in spite of the painfully sharp recollections of my slender, delicate, gloriously young body stretched out alongside his vast old bulk—I am still at a loss to explain it—but in spite of all this—not once was I able to resist him in the flesh.

“Hey—not so fast! I haven’t had a square meal all day. Remember?”

“My dear. Of course. How unfortunate. I told my couple they could have the weekend off so I don’t suppose there’s a thing in the house. Still, if you’d like to forage.”

“No I would not,” I said firmly. “I mean I know English Sundays are hell and all that but there must be some place open for dinner.”

He looked doubtful. “Let’s see ... Air terminals ... Railway stations.”

The English postal service is one of the glories of its nation. You cannot go into a drugstore for some popular brand of toothpaste without being told they’re sorry it’s on order and will only take ten days. You have to face the fact that certain telephone exchanges are ungettable from certain other ones without begging the operator to intercede for you (KNIghtsbridge and MAYfair weren’t on speaking terms when I was there). Laundry or cleaning might take anywhere from three weeks to three years. But mail is delivered regularly, sometimes four times a day. Londoners think nothing of posting their letters in the morning for their friends to read at tea-time. And their families in Manchester can contact them by the same method in the evening.

So there I was, sprinting back for every post. My morning sleep shot to hell. And all in the name of justice.

We went to three night-clubs in quick succession. They were sad and sleazy and awful in a way I’d never quite come across before. It was the sadness mainly. The what-went-wrong look on the waiters’ faces as they stood staring bewilderedly at an empty room most certainly on the brink of bankruptcy. One thing that went wrong was the night-club comic with his hair too long and combed all funny singing “There’s no business like Shoe Business” to “There’s no business like etc.,” and doing impersonations of King Kong falling for a butterfly. Another wrong thing was the young man with a guitar who sang dirty Scottish ballads about goats sleeping with women (Trad.). Another was the girl in tights with a stocking cap pulled down over her eyes and ears who did a totally inexplicable dance with the lights out, mostly writhing on the floor. And lastly, the audience—a sprinkling of debs and their escorts who jeered and hurled pennies on the stage as the acts progressed—they were awfully wrong. It was discouraging. How was I going to get C. D. hooked on this dissolute way of life—let alone how was I myself going to bear it? How was I going to keep him out till dawn every night, exhausted and spent and running downhill until the final—what?—how about a heart attack?—would carry him off? What I had in mind was some divine little boîte that had good jazz and a sensational entertainer; one that was dark, smoky, and unhealthy and served rot-gut strong enough to melt the mind, rip out the lining of the stomach, explode the liver, and curdle the kidneys. Or, if that was too much to ask, at least a place interesting enough to keep him up late. He went to bed much too early. They all did in London. I never saw such people for leaving each other’s houses at the stroke of midnight.

The fourth night-club was a strip-tease joint. I got us out of there even faster. I wasn’t going to have him going around with erotic images other than my own on his mind if I could help it. The fifth—an enormous one—had not only tumblers but ice-skaters and a ventriloquist. We left during the juggling act.

And out we went. They took us to a small jazz club with a very good quartet and I observed with pleasure that it was not only small and crowded but very hot which meant good pneumonia possibilities. I made a note of its name.

“So am I.” More heavy breathing. “When are you coming back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Good. What airline?” His voice sounded strangled.

“It’s the B. E. A. seven-something-or-other. Wait a sec. Seven-one-five.”

“I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“That’s awfully sweet of you but why bother?”

“Because I’m in a hurry.”

“In a hurry? Why, where are you—”

“My God,” he exploded, “do you understand nothing of lechery? See that you’re on that plane.” And abruptly he hung up.

Well, I thought. Well, well.

To be flung upon a bed—clothes pulled up, clothes pulled down, clothes pulled off every which way—to be the uniquely needed object of a passion so strong that early on it passes you to go soaring endlessly off into an undreamed-of blue infinity. Isn’t that what every woman wants to experience at least once in her life? Not her own fulfilment, not her own orgasm, delicate or lusty, but to be the conducting rod, the spring board from which rises this awe-inspiring fanatical motion. There was no question of my joining him that particular afternoon or even joining in. I must say he presented an interesting if rather alarming sight as I watched him reaching reaching reaching, his hair all mad and awry, his face bright red, veins standing out with strain, his breath fast, his mouth open and aghast. I lay very still, very soft, very open while his heart pounded and his sweat poured over me and finally believed what I had never believed before. That it could kill you. And, lovingly, I wished that he had died like that. I wish he had died that way.

Presently he sat down and gave it to me straight: His high blood pressure. The highly excitable, exciting nature of the life he was leading with me wasn’t good for it. Frankly, it kept his bowels in an uproar, it led to indigestion, it would lead, unless the utmost care was taken, to a recurrence of that awful amoebic dysentery of some five years past. Then: his wretched, wrenched knee-cap (when was that? —oh yes, that day we went to look at the Rolls and he fell out of the car). It was causing him to limp, which was throwing his spine out of line, and this was promoting—any minute now—a slipped disc. How beautifully organic his troubles grew, one out of the other! Executing a stunningly graceful arabesque he managed to connect his hacking morning cough with his split lip (pulling tobacco off it after the cigarette-shooting incident) and banged fingernail (forgotten how). Oh dear—how could one not feel sorry for him? It would be only doing the decent thing to leave him alone for a spell, to turn him out to pasture and let him graze there peacefully awhile before the big push. Passionately, plaintively, pathetically he continued, delving deeper and deeper into the sources of his illnesses, looking so romantically awful that particular day, enfolded in his skin rather like a sick turtle, that even though I was not always attending closely I was relenting; my heart was melting. Then with a jolt I caught something he said. For two weeks now he had felt his hands too unsteady to trust himself shaving—he had given himself some fearful gashes with the razor (a frisson went through me at the great opportunity missed: a slice through the jugular vein and wouldn’t that have done it just!) and had therefore been forced to employ the daily services of Bunty Suffolk’s special barber. So for two whole weeks he’d been throwing away my good money on luxurious kicks for his private pleasure. That was a spine-stiffener.

“The nights were drawing in,” he sighed, “another sad winter coming on. Those womb places, it was all new to me. I liked the new womb places you took me to, their darkness and smallness as much as the youth and the excitement and the clutter. I reached for the truth in those places and it seemed I could see a little in the dark sitting in those places and thinking, at last I can see a little in the dark. And then, stronger—but I can see it in the dark! At last I can see it in the dark.” His voice died away.

“What? See what?”

“My end,” he said gently, suffering no longer. “In a dark night-club with sad music and enough to drink. Watching my girl, so beautiful, so graceful, so contemporary—dancing—knowing she’ll come back with me at the end of the evening. One gets tired of the coldness of life, of the darkness of winter, of the jagged edges of everything. That’s an old man’s tale, tired and baffled. What was it I once wanted? I forget. It’s an awful thing to reach the age of fifty-six and still not know who you are.” He lifted himself up and began coughing, turning red. After a while he subsided. “And there you were trying to do me in,” he went on almost cheerfully, “and I just went along with it. You don’t know how it touched me seeing you want that money, need the money that I had once needed and never would again. It is divine justice,” he said more gravely, “fair payment for Pauly’s poor death. My life for poor Pauly’s. Odd, the guilt only began with having you around; feeling your hungry desperate claim. I didn’t want to live. I wanted you to destroy me.”

“Not at all. Simply another use for my money. Protection money so I don’t have to spend the rest of my life worrying about you sticking pins in my image.”

“How did you find out about that?” I asked startled.

He gave me a really terrible look. “What?” he roared. “This is the last straw,” he thundered. “Out, out, OUT!” He had risen large and looming, filling the room with his fury, pointing a chubby finger theatrically towards the drawing-room doors. And I jumped up cringing, little Eva turned out into the storm.