he had walked down Kingsway to Bush House to record his talk about being an Indian Christian, there had come to Willie for the first time some idea of the wealth and power of pre-war England, so, gradually, out of his friendship with Roger, Willie felt he was seeing behind many blank doors, and there came to him the beginnings of an idea of England far removed from the boys in the college of education and the sensation-seekers of the immigrant-bohemian life of Notting Hill.
Percy Cato said one day, in an exaggerated Jamaican accent, “Wha' happen, Willie-boy? Like somebody out there sweeten you up and you forgetting your old friend Percy” Then in his normal voice he said, “June's been asking about you.”
Willie thought about the room where she had taken him. She and Percy had no doubt often met there. He remembered the toilet, and the black man they had excited afterwards, fresh from the islands, the black man, still with the wide-brimmed Jamaican hat and his going-away tropical zoot-suit trousers. He saw it all from a distance now. In Roger's company it was more than ever like a secret.
Roger said, “I still have no idea what you intend to do. Is there a family business? Are you one of the idle rich?”
Willie had learned to keep a straight face when embarrassing things were said and to walk round the embarrassment. He said, “I want to write.” It wasn't true. The idea hadn't occurred to him until that moment, and it had occurred to him because Roger, embarrassing him, had made him think fast, and because he knew, from many things Roger had said, that he was a great reader and loved the contemporary English masters, Orwell, Waugh, Powell, Connolly.
Roger looked disappointed.
Willie said, “Can I show you some things I've done?”
He typed out some of the stories he had done at the mission school. He took them to Roger's chambers one evening. They went to a pub and Roger read them across the table from Willie. Willie had never seen Roger look so serious. He thought, “That's the lawyer.” And he was worried. He didn't care so much now about the stories, old things, after all. What he didn't want to lose was Roger's friendship.
At last Roger said, “I know your great namesake and family friend says that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. But actually, if you think about it, life isn't like that. Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy end. Life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should all be there. This story about the brahmin and the treasure and the child sacrifice—it could have begun with the tribal chief coming to see the brahmin in his hermitage. He begins by threatening and ends by grovelling, but when he leaves we should know he is planning a terrible murder. Have you read Hemingway? You should read the early stories. There's one called ‘The Killers.' It's only a few pages, almost all dialogue. Two men come at night to an empty cheap café. They take it over and wait for the old crook they've been hired to kill. That's all. Hollywood made a big film out of it, but the story is better. I know you wrote these stories at school. But you are pleased with them. What is interesting to me as a lawyer is that you don't want to write about real things. I've spent a fair amount of time listening to devious characters, and I feel about these stories that the writer has secrets. He is hiding.”
Willie was mortified. He burned with shame. He felt the tears coming. He reached across the table and took the stories back, and in the same movement he stood up.
Roger said, “It's better to clear the air about certain things.”
Willie left the pub, thinking, “I will never see Roger again. I shouldn't have shown him those old stories. He is right. That is the worst part.”
Grieving for the friendship, he began to think of June and the room in Notting Hill. He resisted the idea, but a few days later he went looking for her. He took the Underground to Bond Street. It was the lunch hour. As he was crossing the road to Debenhams he saw June and another girl coming in the opposite direction. She didn't see him. She was chattering away, head bent. Not like the steamy,