We Think the World of You by J. R. Ackerley

Author:J. R. Ackerley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59017-525-5
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2012-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

When she woke me I heard a pattering on the roof. The weather was another thing I had omitted from my calculations. What on earth should I do now? Perhaps the rain would stop by the time I was up and dressed. On the contrary it was coming down harder than ever. I knew from experience that one phoned for taxis in vain. I phoned, in vain. Buses were out of the question. How could I walk her to London in this downpour? I stared at her alert, expectant face in dismay. At the base of her ears, in the openings, I noticed, the system of head hair began in a kind of spray. It was as though she had a light gray flower, a puff-ball, stuck in front of each.

“You little bitch!” I said crossly.

Then I remembered the Metropolitan Railway in Hammersmith, which I seldom used, though what I regarded as its cynical humor always entertained me when I did. Fair promise, foul reward! After luring one on with the offer of a choice of stations romantically rural in their names—Royal Oak, Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush, Ladbroke Grove, Westbourne Park—it then ushered one through some of the ugliest and grimiest districts of Central London. But it presented me with a practical solution now; Hammersmith was a terminus; there were no complications of any kind; a train was always waiting, level with the platform, and it would take us direct to Baker Street. When the rain had abated a little we set out.

Evie behaved abominably. I removed her from the train at Royal Oak, I could no longer endure her piercing and violent challenge to everyone else who got in, nor the cold looks and indignant mutterings cast at me from the other end of the compartment where the rest of the passengers huddled. Why, oh why, I asked myself as I took the intolerable creature out and walked her on through the rain, did she have to go on like that? The same thought recurred to me in my office throughout the day. So obviously brimming with intelligence, so fond of me, why, why, in spite of everything I said to her, did she seem unable to understand that my director and other members of the staff, with whom she saw me constantly in conversation, were therefore friends and could be permitted, they at least, to enter my room without being repeatedly threatened? Before the day’s work was half done she had reduced the whole department to a palpable state of nerves. In the afternoon, in extremity, I fell upon her with an exclamation of rage and gave her the soundest biffing with my hands that she had so far received from me. For a moment she concealed herself beneath my desk; then she emerged and stood looking at me with an expression of such sorrow and, at the same time, such dignity, that, falling forward upon my letters, I sank my head on my arms. “Evie, Evie,” I

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