“You never told me who was behind your flat.
I might not have been so amiable if I'd known.”
“No, darling, that's why.”
Half the house party wondered why Beaver was there; the other half knew.
As a result of this he and Brenda saw each other very little, less than if they had been casual acquaintances, so that Angela remarked to her husband,
“I daresay it was a mistake to ask him.
It's so hard to know.”
Brenda never started the subject of the half finished letter, but she noticed that Beaver was wearing his ring, and had already acquired a trick of twisting it as he talked.
On New Year's Eve there was a party at a neighbouring house.
Tony went home early and Beaver and Brenda returned together in the back of a car.
Next morning, while they were having breakfast, she said to Tony,
“I've made a New Year resolution.”
“Anything to do with spending more time at home?”
“Oh no, quite the reverse.
Listen, Tony, it's serious.
I think I'll take a course of something.”
“Not bone setters again.
I thought that was over.”
“No, something like economics.
You see I've been thinking.
I don't really do anything at all at present.
It's absurd to pretend I'm any use to John, the house runs itself.
It seemed to me time I took to something.
Now you're always talking about going into Parliament.
Well if I had done a course of economics I could be some use canvassing and writing speeches and things — you know, the way Marjorie did when Allan was standing on the Clydeside.
There are all sorts of lectures in London, to do with the University, where girls go, Don't you think it's rather a good idea?”
“It's one better than the bone setters,” Tony admitted.
That was how the New Year began.
CHAPTER THREE
Hard Cheese on Tony
One
IT is not uncommon at Brat's Club, between nine and ten in the evening, to find men in white ties and tail coats sitting by themselves and eating, in evident low spirits, large and extravagant dinners.
They are those who have been abandoned at the last minute by their women.
For twenty minutes or so they have sat in the foyer of some restaurant, gazing expectantly towards the revolving doors and alternately taking out their watches and ordering cocktails, until at length a telephone message has been brought them that their guests are unable to come.
Then they go to Brat's half hoping to find friends but, more often than not, taking a melancholy satisfaction in finding the club deserted or peopled by strangers.
So they sit there, round the walls, morosely regarding the mahogany tables before them, and eating and drinking heavily.
It was in this mood and for this reason that, one evening towards the middle of February, Jock Grant-Menzies arrived at the club.
“Anyone here?”
“Very quiet tonight, sir.
Mr. Last is in the dining room.”
Jock found him seated in a corner; he was in day clothes; the table and the chair at his side were littered with papers and magazines; one was propped up in front of hire.
He was half way through dinner and three quarters of the way through a bottle of Burgundy.
“Hullo,” he said.
“Chucked?
Come and join me.”
It was some time since Jock had seen Tony; the meeting embarrassed him slightly, for like all his friends, he was wondering how Tony felt and how much he knew about Brenda and John Beaver.
However, he sat down at Tony's table.
“Been chucked?” asked Tony again.
“Yes, it's the last time I ask that bitch out.”
“Better have a drink.