'For tonight we'll merry be, For tonight we'll merry be, For tonight we'll merry be–e–e— Tomorrow we'll be so–ober!'
9
And, by Jove, tomorrow we WERE sober!
Gordon emerged from some long, sickly dream to the consciousness that the books in the lending library were the wrong way up. They were all lying on their sides. Moreover, for some reason their backs had turned white—white and shiny, like porcelain.
He opened his eyes a little wider and moved an arm. Small rivulets of pain, seemingly touched off by the movement, shot through his body at unexpected places—down the calves of his legs, for instance, and up both sides of his head. He perceived that he was lying on his side, with a hard smooth pillow under his cheek and a coarse blanket scratching his chin and pushing its hairs into his mouth. Apart from the minor pains that stabbed him every time he moved, there was a large, dull sort of pain which was not localized but which seemed to hover all over him.
Suddenly he flung off the blanket and sat up. He was in a police cell. At this moment a frightful spasm of nausea overcame him. Dimly perceiving a W.C. in the corner, he crept towards it and was violently sick, three or four times.
After that, for several minutes, he was in agonizing pain. He could scarcely stand on his feet, his head throbbed as though it were going to burst, and the light seemed like some scalding white liquid pouring into his brain through the sockets of his eyes. He sat on the bed holding his head between his hands. Presently, when some of the throbbing had died down, he had another look about him. The cell measured about twelve feet long by six wide and was very high. The walls were all of white porcelain bricks, horribly white and clean. He wondered dully how they cleaned as high up as the ceiling. Perhaps with a hose, he reflected. At one end there was a little barred window, very high up, and at the other end, over the door, an electric bulb let into the wall and protected by a stout grating. The thing he was sitting on was not actually a bed, but a shelf with one blanket and a canvas pillow. The door was of steel, painted green. In the door there was a little round hole with a flap on the outside.
Having seen this much he lay down and pulled the blanket over him again. He had no further curiosity about his surroundings. As to what had happened last night, he remembered everything—at least, he remembered everything up to the time when he had gone with Dora into the room with the aspidistra. God knew what had happened after that. There had been some kind of bust–up and he had landed in the clink. He had no notion of what he had done; it might be murder for all he knew. In any case he did not care. He turned his face to the wall and pulled the blanket over his head to shut out the light.
After a long time the spyhole in the door was pushed aside. Gordon managed to turn his head round. His neck–muscles seemed to creak. Through the spyhole he could see a blue eye and a semi–circle of pink chubby cheek.
''Ja do with a cup of tea?' a voice said.
Gordon sat up and instantly felt very sick again. He took his head between his hands and groaned. The thought of a cup of hot tea appealed to him, but he knew it would make him sick if it had sugar in it.
'Please,' he said.
The police constable opened a partition in the top half of the door and passed in a thick white mug of tea. It had sugar in it. The constable was a solid rosy young man of about twenty–five, with a kind face, white eyelashes, and a tremendous chest. It reminded Gordon of the chest of a carthorse. He spoke with a good accent but with vulgar turns of speech. For a minute or so he stood regarding Gordon.
'You weren't half bad last night,' he said finally.
'I'm bad now.'
'You was worse last night, though. What you go and hit the sergeant for?'
'Did I hit the sergeant?'
'Did you? Coo! He wasn't half wild. He turns to me and he says— holding his ear he was, like this—he says, "Now, if that man wasn't too drunk to stand, I'd knock his block off." It's all gone down on your charge sheet. Drunk and disorderly. You'd only ha' bin drunk and incapable if you hadn't of hit the sergeant.'
'Do you know what I shall get for this?'
'Five quid or fourteen days. You'll go up before Mr Groom. Lucky for you it wasn't Mr Walker. He'd give you a month without the option, Mr Walker would. Very severe on the drunks he is. Teetotaller.'
Gordon had drunk some of the tea. It was nauseatingly sweet but its warmth made him feel stronger. He gulped it down. At this moment a nasty, snarling sort of voice—the sergeant whom Gordon had hit, no doubt—yelped from somewhere outside:
'Take that man out and get him washed. Black Maria leaves at half past nine.'
The constable hastened to open the cell door. As soon as Gordon stepped outside he felt worse then ever. This was partly because it was much colder in the passage than in the cell. He walked a step or two, and then suddenly his head was going round and round. 'I'm going to be sick!' he cried. He was falling—he flung out a hand and stopped himself against the wall. The constable's strong arm went round him. Across the arm, as over a rail, Gordon sagged, doubled up and limp. A jet of vomit burst from him. It was the tea, of course. There was a gutter running along the stone floor. At the end of the passage the moustachio'd sergeant, in tunic without a belt, stood with his hand on his hip, looking on disgustedly.
'Dirty little tyke,' he muttered, and turned away.
'Come on, old chap,' said the constable. 'You'll be better in half a mo'.'
He half led, half dragged Gordon to a big stone sink at the end of the passage and helped him to strip to the waist. His gentleness was astonishing. He handled Gordon almost like a nurse handling a child. Gordon had recovered enough strength to sluice himself with the ice–cold water and rinse his mouth out. The constable gave him a torn towel to dry himself with and then led him back to the cell.
'Now you sit quiet till the Black Maria comes. And take my tip— when you go up to the court, you plead guilty and say you won't do it again. Mr Groom won't be hard on you.'
'Where are my collar and tie?' said Gordon.
'We took 'em away last night. You'll get 'em back before you go up to court. We had a bloke hung himself with his tie, once.'
Gordon sat down on the bed. For a little while he occupied himself by calculating the number of porcelain bricks in the walls, then sat with his elbows on his knees, his head between his hands. He was still aching all over; he felt weak, cold, jaded, and, above all, bored. He wished that boring business of going up to the court could be avoided somehow. The thought of being put into some jolting vehicle and taken across London to hang about in chilly cells and passages, and of having to answer questions and be lectured by magistrates, bored him indescribably. All he wanted was to be left alone. But presently there was the sound of several voices farther down the passage, and then of feet approaching. The partition in the door was opened.
'Couple of visitors for you,' the constable said.
Gordon was bored by the very thought of visitors. Unwillingly he looked up, and saw Flaxman and Ravelston looking in upon him. How they had got there together was a mystery, but Gordon felt not the faintest curiosity about it. They bored him. He wished they would go away.
'Hullo, chappie!' said Flaxman.
'YOU here?' said Gordon with a sort of weary offensiveness.
Ravelston looked miserable. He had been up since the very early morning, looking for Gordon. This was the first time he had seen the interior of a police cell. His face shrank with disgust as he looked at the chilly white–tiled place with its shameless W.C. in the corner. But Flaxman was more accustomed to this kind of thing. He cocked a practised eye at Gordon.