Endless Night Read Free

about visiting the stars, there must be something that rouses you, that makes your heart beat, that’s worthwhile searching all over the world to find! One day, I remember, I was walking down Bond Street. It was during my waiter period and I was due on duty. I’d been strolling looking at some shoes in a shop window. Very natty they were. Like they say in the advertisements in newspapers: “What smart men are wearing today” and there’s usually a picture of the smart man in question. My word, he usually looks a twerp! Used to make me laugh, advertisements like that did.
    I passed on from the shoes to the next window. It was a picture shop. Just three pictures in the window artily arranged with a drape of limp velvet in some neutral colour arranged over a corner of a gilt frame. Cissy, if you know what I mean. I’m not much of a one for Art. I dropped in to the National Gallery once out of curiosity. Fair gave me the pip, it did. Great big shiny coloured pictures of battles in rocky glens, or emaciated saints getting themselves stuck with arrows. Portraits of simpering great ladies sitting smirking in silks and velvets and lace. I decided then and there that Art wasn’t for me. But the picture I was looking at now was somehow different. There were three pictures in the window. One a landscape, nice bit of country for what I call everyday. One of a woman drawn in such a funny way, so much out of proportion, that you could hardly see she was a woman. I suppose that’s what you call art nouveau. I don’t know what it was about. The third picture was my picture. There wasn’t really much to it, if you know what I mean. It was—how can I describe it? It was kind of simple. A lot of space in it and a few great widening circles all round each other if you can put it that way. All in different colours, odd colours that you wouldn’t expect. And here and there, there were sketchy bits of colour that didn’t seem to mean anything. Only somehow they did mean something! I’m no good at description. All I can say is that one wanted terribly to go on looking at it.
    I just stood there, feeling queer as though something very unusual had happened to me. Those fancy shoes now, I’d have liked them to wear. I mean I take quite a bit of trouble with my clothes. I like to dress well so as to make an impression, but I never seriously thought in my life of buying a pair of shoes in Bond Street. I know the kind of fancy prices they ask there. Fifteen pounds a pair those shoes might be. Handmade or something, they call it, making it more worthwhile for some reason. Sheer waste of money that would be. A classy line in shoes, yes, but you can pay too much for class. I’ve got my head screwed on the right way.
    But this picture, what would that cost? I wondered. Suppose I were to buy that picture? You’re crazy, I said to myself. You don’t go for pictures, not in a general way. That was true enough. But I wanted this picture…I’d like it to be mine. I’d like to be able to hang it and sit and look at it as long as I liked and know that I owned it! Me! Buying pictures. It seemed a crazy idea. I took a look at the picture again. Me wanting that picture didn’t make sense, and anyway, I probably couldn’t afford it. Actually I was in funds at just that moment. A lucky tip on a horse. This picture would probably cost a packet. Twenty pounds? Twenty-five? Anyway, there would be no harm in asking. They couldn’t eat me, could they? I went in, feeling rather aggressive and on the defensive.
    The inside of the place was all very hushed and grand. There was a sort of muted atmosphere with neutral-colour walls and a velvet settee on which you could sit and look at the pictures. A man who looked a little like the model for the perfectly dressed man in advertisements came and attended to me, speaking in a rather hushed voice to match the scenery. Funnily, he didn’t look superior as they usually do in high-grade Bond Street shops. He