A line of lamp-struck faces went by her; the train was full, so full that in the first-class carriages you saw strange shy awkward people who were not at ease in the deep seats, who feared the ticket-collector would turn them out. She gave up the search for a third-class carriage, opened a door, dropped her Woman and Beauty on the only seat and struggled back to the window over legs and protruding suitcases. The engine was getting up steam, the smoke blew back up the platform, it was difficult to see as far as the barrier.
A hand pulled at her sleeve. 'Excuse me,' a fat man said, 'if you've quite finished with that window. I want to buy some chocolate.'
She said, 'Just one moment, please. Somebody's seeing me off.'
'He's not here. It's too late. You can't monopolize the window like that. I must have some chocolate.' He swept her on one side and waved an emerald ring under the light. She tried to look over his shoulder to the barrier; he almost filled the window. He called 'Boy, Boy!' waving the emerald ring. He said, 'What chocolate have you got? No, not Motorist's, not Mexican. Something sweet.'
Suddenly through a crack she saw Mather. He was past the barrier, he was coming down the train looking for her, looking in all the third-class carriages, running past the first-class. She implored the fat man: 'Please, please do let me come. I can see my friend.'
'In a moment. In a moment. Have you Nestle? Give me a shilling packet.'
'Please let me.'
'Haven't you anything smaller,' the boy said, 'than a ten-shilling note?'
Mather went by, running past the first-class. She hammered on the window, but he didn't hear her, among the whistles and the beat of trolley wheels, the last packing cases rolling into the van. Doors slammed, a whistle blew, the train began to move.
'Please. Please.'
'I must get my change,' the fat man said, and the boy ran beside the carriage counting the shillings into his palm. When she got to the window and leant out they were past the platform, she could only see a small figure on a wedge of asphalt who couldn't see her. An elderly woman said,' You oughtn't to lean out like that. It's dangerous.'
She trod on their toes getting back to her seat, she felt unpopularity well up all around her, everyone was thinking,' She oughtn't to be in the carriage. What's the good of our paying first-class fares when...' But she wouldn't cry; she was fortified by all the conventional remarks which came automatically to her mind about spilt milk and it will be all the same in fifty years. Nevertheless she noted with deep dislike on the label dangling from the fat man's suitcase his destination, which was the same as hers, Nottwich. He sat opposite her with the Passing Show and the Evening News and the Financial Times on his lap eating sweet milk chocolate.
Chapter 2
1
RAVEN walked with his handkerchief over his lip across Soho Square, Oxford Street, up Charlotte Street. It was dangerous but not so dangerous as showing his hare-lip. He turned to the left and then to the right into a narrow street where big-breasted women in aprons called across to each other and a few solemn children scouted up the gutter. He stopped by a door with a brass plate, Dr Alfred Yogel on the second floor, on the first floor the North American Dental Company. He went upstairs and rang the bell. There was a smell of greens from below and somebody had drawn a naked torso in pencil on the wall.
A woman in nurse's uniform opened the door, a woman with a mean lined face and untidy grey hair. Her uniform needed washing; it was spotted with grease-marks and what might have been blood or iodine. She brought with her a harsh smell of chemicals and disinfectants. When she saw Raven holding his handkerchief over his mouth she said, 'The dentist's on the floor below.'
'I want to see Dr Yogel.'
She looked him over closely, suspiciously, running her eyes down his dark coat. 'He's busy.'
'I can wait.'
One naked globe swung behind her head in the dingy passage. 'He doesn't generalry see people as late as this.'
'I'll pay for the trouble,' Raven said. She judged him with just the same appraising stare as the doorkeeper at a shady nightclub. She said, 'You can come in.' He followed her into a waiting-room: the same bare globe, a chair, a round oak table splashed with dark paint. She shut him in and he heard her voice start in the next room. It went on and on. He picked up the only magazine, Good Housekeeping of eighteen months back, and began mechanically to read: 'Bare walls are very popular today, perhaps one picture to give the necessary point of colour...'
The nurse opened the door and jerked her hand. 'He'll see you.' Dr Yogel was washing his hands in a fixed basin behind his long yellow desk and swivel chair. There was no other furniture in the room except a kitchen chair, a cabinet and a long couch. His hair was jet-black; it looked, as if it had been dyed, and there was not much of it; it was plastered in thin strands across the scalp. When he turned he showed a plump hard bonhomous face, a thick sensual mouth. He said, 'And what can we do for you?' You felt he was more accustomed to deal with women than with men. The nurse stood harshly behind waiting.
Raven lowered his handkerchief. He said, 'Can you do anything about this lip quickly?'
Dr Yogel came up and prodded it with a little fat forefinger. 'I'm not a surgeon.'
Raven said, 'I can pay.'
Dr Yogel said, 'It's a job for a surgeon. It's not in my line at all.'
'I know that,' Raven said, and caught the quick flicker of glances between the nurse and Dr Yogel. Dr Yogel lifted up the lip on each side; his fingernails were not quite clean. He watched Raven carefully and said, 'If you come back tomorrow at ten...' His breath smelt faintly of brandy.
'No,' Raven said. 'I want it done now at once.'
'Ten pounds,' Dr Yogel said quickly.
'All right.'
'In cash.'
'I've got it with me.'
Dr Yogel sat down at his desk. 'And now if you'll give me your name...'
'You don't need to know my name.'
Dr Yogel said gently: 'Any name...'
'Chumley, then.'
'CHOLMO...'
'No. Spell it CHUMLEY.'
Dr Yogel filled up a slip of paper and handed it to the nurse. She went outside and closed the door behind her. Dr Yogel went to the cabinet and brought out a tray of knives. Raven said, 'The light's bad.'
'I'm used to it,' Dr Yogel said. 'I've a good eye.' But as he held up a knife to the light his hand very slightly trembled. He said softly, 'Lie down on the couch, old man.'
Raven lay down. He said, 'I knew a girl who came to you. Name of Page. She said you did her trick fine.' Dr Yogel said, 'She oughtn't to talk about it.'
'Oh,' Raven said, 'you are safe with me. I don't go back on a fellow who treats me right.' Dr Yogel took a case like a portable gramophone out of his cabinet and carried it over to the couch. He produced a long tube and a mask. He smiled gently and said, 'We don't run to anaesthetists here, old man.'
'Stop,' Raven said, 'you're not going to give me gas.'
'It would hurt without it, old man,' Dr Yogel said, approaching with the mask, 'it would hurt like hell.'
Raven sat up and pushed the mask aside. 'I won't have it,' he said, 'not gas. I've never had gas. I've never passed out yet. I like to see what's going on.'