Girl, 20 by Kingsley Amis

Author:Kingsley Amis [Amis, Kingsley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, comedy
ISBN: 9780141961811
Google: JWm4A9q3B18C
Amazon: 0736600922
Publisher: Harcourt
Published: 1972-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

Five

Absolute Rock

Roy’s car made a quick recovery from its bout of indisposition, as I found the next morning when I telephoned and spoke to Gilbert, who told me, with mild but unconcealed satisfaction, that its owner had taken it to London and that therefore I would have to walk from the Underground station. Asked if there were taxis, he told me in the same vein that there was a taxi office at the top of the station approach, but that in his experience it was always shut. His experience proved a true guide. I set out on foot through the town, expecting a cloudburst at any moment, but the heavens, though no less grey than before, kept their moisture to themselves. The people in the streets looked quite normal, even the younger ones. I found this disproportionately reassuring, and found further, on self-scrutiny, that my subconscious had been harbouring a panic-ridden fantasy in which the whole place had, since my last visit, become a sort of Roytown, with pavements and roadway full of youth smoking pot, twanging guitars, rejecting out-moded ways of thought and calling ‘Christian gentleman, man!’ to one another. But if any of this was happening, it was hidden from sight.

I turned off at a garage and car show-room full of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, made my way along the side of a gloomy green with patches of standing water, and traversed an area where almshouses round the church gave place to establishments that had their names done in reflectors at headlight height and metal statuary on top of their gateposts. This was more like Roytown in fact. When I approached the Vandervane residence I thought I saw Gilbert standing at an upper window, but there was nobody there on a second glance. In the courtyard, as before, I heard from the kitchen the Furry Barrel’s barks and growls; in the hall she appeared, recognized me and submitted to flattery, snorting a good deal in a well-born way. Kitty came out from somewhere and embraced me. After we had moved to the drawing-room she said, quite temperately by her standards,

‘It was sweet of you to come, Douglas dear.’

‘Oh, it’s good to get out for a bit. How are you?’

She gave me a brave, jerky smile that irritated me and made me feel sorry for her. ‘Oh … you know,’ she said with an affectation of affected lightness. ‘One carries on. One has no alternative. Would you like a beer or something?’

‘No thanks. You have something.’

‘I’ve got something.’

She had and no mistake: a tall tumblerful of what was no doubt her favourite fearful gin and water, somehow giving the impression of not being the first of its line. Her clothes and general appearance, like the state of the room, indicated slovenliness, but a slovenliness done with tremendous artistic restraint: her dressing-gown, or dressing-gown dress, was old, moderately torn, and clean; her make-up, though ill applied, had at least been applied that day; used crockery, brimming ashtrays, vases of decaying flowers

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