Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

a woman came hurrying down the steps. She looked for a moment to right and left of her, and then she moved swiftly with a wild, irregular walk in Michael’s direction. He had a sensation that she had known he was standing here against this wall, that she had watched him all the while and was hurrying now to ask why he had been standing here against this wall. He could not turn and walk away: he could not advance to meet her: so he stood still leaning against the wall. Michael saw her very plainly as she passed him in the lamplight. Her hat was askew, and a black ostrich plume hung down over her big chalky face: her lips were glistening as if they had been smeared with jam. She was wearing a black satin cloak, and she seemed, as her skirts swept past him, like an overblown grotesque of tragedy being dragged by a wire from the scene.

Michael shuddered at the monstrousness of her femininity; he seemed to have been given a glimpse of a mere mass of woman, a soft obscene primeval thing that demanded blows from a club, nothing else. He realized how in a moment men could become haters of femininity, could hate its animalism and wish to stamp upon it. The physical repulsion he had felt vanished when the sound of her footsteps had died away. In the reaction Michael pitied her, and he went back quietly to Number One with the intention of turning Barnes into the street. He was rather startled as he walked up the steps to see Barnes’ face pressed against the windowpane, for it seemed to him ludicrous that he should wave reassuringly to a mask like that.

Barnes hurried to open the front door before Michael had taken the key from his pocket, and was not at all surprised to see him.

“Here, I couldn’t get down to the Orange tonight. I’ve had a bit of trouble with this girl.”

The gas was flaring in the sitting-room by now, and the night, which outside had been lightening for dawn, was black as ink upon the panes.

“Sit on the bed. The chairs are all full of her dirty clothes. I’ll pull the blinds down. I’m going to leave here tomorrow, Fane. Did you see her going down the road? She must have passed you by. I tell you straight, Fane, half an hour back I was in two minds to do her in. I was, straight. And I would have, if⁠ ⁠… Oh, well, I kept my temper and threw her out instead. Gratitude! It’s my belief gratitude doesn’t exist in this world. You sit down and have a smoke. He left some cigarettes behind.”

“Who did?” Michael asked sharply.

“Who did what?”

“Left these cigarettes.”

“Oh, they’re some I bought yesterday,” said Barnes.

“I think it’s just as well for you that you are going tomorrow morning. I hope you quite realize that otherwise I should have turned you out.”

“Well, don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” Barnes protested. “I’ve had quite enough to worry me without any nastiness between old friends to make it worse.”

“You can’t expect me to be pleased at the way you’ve treated my rooms,” Michael said.

“Oh, the gas-stove, you mean?”

“It’s not a question of gas-stoves. It’s a question of living on a woman.”

“Who did?”

“You.”

“If I’d had to live on her earnings, I should be very poorly off now,” grumbled Barnes, in an injured voice.

Under Michael’s attack he was regaining his old perkiness.

“At any rate, you must go tomorrow morning,” Michael insisted.

“Don’t I keep on telling you that I’m going? It’s no good for you to nag at me, Fane.”

“And what about the woman?”

“Her? Let her go to ⸻,” said Barnes contemptuously. “She can’t do me any harm. What if she does tell the coppers I’ve been living on her? They won’t worry me unless they’ve nothing better to do, and I’ll have hooked it by then.”

“You’re sure she can’t do you any harm?” Michael asked gravely. “There’s nothing else she could tell the police?”

“Here, what are you talking about?” asked Barnes, coming close to Michael and staring at him fixedly. Michael debated whether he should mention Cissie Cummings, but he lacked the courage either to frighten Barnes with the suggestion of his guilt or to preserve a superior attitude in the face of his enraged innocence.

“I shall come round tomorrow morning, or rather this morning, at nine,” said Michael. “And I shall expect to find you ready to clear out of here for good.”

“You’re very short with a fellow, aren’t you?” said Barnes. “What do you want to go away for? Why don’t you stay so as you can see me off the premises?”

Michael thought that he could observe underneath all the assurance a sharp anxiety on Barnes’ part not to be left alone.

“You can lay down and have a sleep in here. I’ll get on into the bedroom.”

Michael consented to stay, and Barnes was obviously relieved. He put out the gas and retired into the bedroom. The dawn was graying the room, and the sun would be up in less than an hour. Early sparrows were beginning to chirp. The woman who had burst out of the door and fled up the street seemed now a chimera of the night. Half-dozing, Michael lay on the bed, half dozing and faintly oppressed by the odor of patchouli coming from the clothes heaped upon the chairs. St. George was visible already, and even the outlines of The Knight in Armor were tremulously apparent. Michael wondered why he did not feel a greater resentment at the profanation of these rooms. And why did Barnes keep fidgeting on the other side of the folding doors? The sparrows were cheeping more loudly: the trains were more frequent. Michael woke from sleep with a start and saw that Barnes was throwing the clothes from the chairs on the floor: stirred up thus in this clear light the scent of patchouli was even more