“This is Jean Velfrey’s, isn’t it?”

He swayed and recovered himself by putting a hand out against the wall. Looking at him more closely I saw that he wasn’t quite as young as I’d first supposed; nearer forty than thirty, in fact.

He scowled at me. “You’ll know me again, won’t you, mate?”

There was an oak chest beside me with a pile of coats on it; I added mine to the pile. I didn’t need to ask him again whether Jean lived here; I recognized the framed playbills.

“Through that door?” I asked him.

“That’s the bog,” he said, sitting down heavily on the oak chest. “The opposite one, that’s what you require, my friend. But there’s nobody home. These objects on the walls represent all the shows in which Jacky and Jean have taken part. Jean on the left, Jacky on the right. Nothing has come amiss, you see. The Beggar’s Opera, Cymbaroon, She Strips to Conquer, Anouilh, Coward, Novello, the lot. But they’re not home tonight.” He stood up and took my lapel between his fingers and thumb. “That’s a nice piece of cloth,” he said. “I have seen it, or you some­where before.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” I said, feeling my antagonism towards him sharpening violently.

“I didn’t say we had. But I’ve seen you in Warley. I come from Warley.”

“How exciting,” I said. “I’m sure we shall be great chums.”

I turned my back on him; at that moment the door opened and Jean came out. She flung her arms around my neck. “I thought you’d got lost,” she said. “Has Jeff been tiresome?” I shrugged.

“He’s tight, you see. He’s in between jobs and it’s a great strain for him.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” I said. I put my arm round her and nuzzled her neck. “Diorissimo,” I said.

She kissed me again. “How clever you are. And my dress? You like my dress?” Superfluously, she smoothed it over her hips.

“Hardy Amies,” I said. “But mostly Jean.”

“She’s done that with everyone tonight,” Jeff said. “It isn’t Hardy Amies. Madame Winterbottom, High Street, Warley, that’s where she got it. Cut price; no decent woman would wear it.”

Jean kissed me. “It’s lovely to see you,” she said. “Now I don’t feel homesick any more.”

“The big act,” Jeff said. Suddenly he seemed less drunk. “Christ, you only came back on Monday night.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes again; he had a high broad unlined forehead which didn’t match the rest of his face, which was pretty rather than handsome with a dimpled chin and full but well-cut lips. If it hadn’t been for the forehead and tufts of black hair on the cheekbones he’d have made a very pretty girl. I wondered why he was in such a bad temper, and why Jean had put up with him. He’d have to be slapped down somehow; I tightened my arm around Jean’s waist.

I felt young again. It was all so easy. He was jealous. He wanted what I wanted. He was jealous even of Warley. And ahead of me lay pleasure. Not just the pleasure of having Jean but the plea­sure of taking her from someone else, whom I had dis­liked at first sight. I’d spent the whole day pleasing a glut­tonous sadistic old man for the sake of my bread-and-butter, for the sake of my wife and children. I’d spent the whole day from catching the London train at six in the morning, looking at notes and speci­fications and letters with aching eyes, as an employee, as some­thing less than a man. And now I was free, now I was a man again, now I would join the dancers.