All the Way Home and All the Night Through (1965) by Ted Lewis

Author:Ted Lewis [Lewis, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime / Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-04-23T02:11:14+00:00

PART TWO

SPRING.

The sun swept across King’s Gardens and lifted huge areas of gusty light to tickle and rock the emerald lawns. Ships glinted on the river and the striding blue sky etched the docks’ warehouses black and olive.

Janet and I walked hand in hand down to the pier. The day was almost too brilliant to comprehend with ordinary eyes. The sky was so bright that it could only be looked at with the eyes half closed. The midday sun cavorted between rushing clouds, now and then gracing the railway lines with long strips of golden sunlight.

We reached the pier and went into the café. It was almost empty.

The café was set on the pier itself and one wall was entirely of glass so that you had an excellent view of the river interrupted only by the supports of the pier’s upper level and part of the roof of the pontoon, the latter being below the pier level and invisible from the café.

We chose the table near the window. Janet sat down and I walked over to the counter to order our lunch. The fat lady behind the counter smiled as I approached. She had come to know us by sight. I ordered bacon, eggs, beans and chips for myself, two toasted tea cakes for Janet and two cups of tea. I went back to our table and we waited for our lunch.

“What a tremendous day,” I said.

“Yes, it’s lovely. It’s wasted on a weekday like this. It ought to be a Saturday.”

“Yes, it should. And we should be together on that day.”

“We will be.”

“And every day.”

Janet smiled and took my hand.

“I can’t believe it.”

“What can’t you believe?”

“Everything. The fact that anything could be like this. That I could meet someone like you.”

“What else can’t you believe?”

“That two people like us can actually feel like this without it having to stop someday.”

“It won’t stop. Each day I get up and I think: Today I’m going see Janet. Not: Today I’m going to see Janet, again. I never think of it like that because each day’s new, different. Better than the last. And I can see no end to it. Can you?”

“No. I can’t. Nothing must go wrong. Nothing must change. You couldn’t go with another girl, could you? I mean, I think I know that you wouldn’t go with another girl because you wanted her more than me, that you could love her, but the times when I’m not with you, at the Steam Packet, when you’re playing out of town and there are so many girls who would be willing. If you did... I don’t know, I can’t say what I might feel; it would have to happen first but it would be all over. Because of what we feel because we’re honest. The reason we’re right together is because we can’t think of things being any other way. If anything like that happened, I think we wouldn’t be the same anymore.”

“I know. But nothing like that will ever happen with me.

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