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Back Life at the Top
Chapters (30)
  1. Introduction
  2. LIFE AT THE TOP
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. About the Author
  30. About the Cover

Then I thought of Mrs. Hewley. Not so long ago, I’d heard through devious channels, she’d referred to me as a super­annuated gigolo. She’d be telling Norah my life story now; she’d certainly say nothing to my credit. I would be the villain of the piece, the smooth false-faced villain who’d risen from the work­ing classes, not by brains, not by hard work, but by getting a rich man’s daughter in the family way. And the story of Alice would once again be dragged up; but in Mrs. Hewley’s hands it would be turned into something even worse. It was probably Mrs. Hewley, when I came to think of it, who was responsible for the rumour that I’d told Alice that I was sick of having an old woman hanging on to me and her best way out of the mess was to kill herself.

Even if she hadn’t been responsible for the rumour it would still be fresh in her memory. And her husband and Graffham wouldn’t exactly leap to my defence.

I stopped to adjust my mirror and glanced back at Sindram Grange. It was in the worst of bad taste, it occupied enough space for a hundred Council houses, it was the wildly, almost cruelly ostentatious monument to one man’s greed and egotism, the stone realization of a childish daydream. But it was still well worth looking at and I felt happy looking at it now, its bulk melodramatic against the setting sun.

I started the car again. Sitting in the Hewleys’ little pebble-dashed box of a house Norah would be hearing my life story. She wouldn’t be hearing anything good of me; but she wouldn’t be hearing anything boring.

It might even happen that her curiosity would be aroused; a gigolo may not be a praiseworthy type of human being, but he does possess a certain glamour. I hadn’t got as far as I wanted to go, I was much fatter than I ought to be, Susan had started to nag me again, I wasn’t as clever as Graffham nor was I going to be as rich as young Hethersett; but women had wanted me. I was well aware that my lecture at Sindram Grange had been a shoddy performance, smooth and coherent and delivered in a loud clear voice but without one scrap of originality and I was well aware that I had both bored and infuriated Norah. But in bed it would be a different matter.