Campbell's Kingdom

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I hesitated as I crossed the road and paused to gaze up at the familiar face of Number Thirty-two. There was a coping stone missing from the roof and one of the dirt-blackened panes of the fanlight was cracked. A light on in one of the upper rooms gave it a lop-sided look. For years I had been coming home from the office to this rather drab old Georgian-fronted house on the edge of Mecklenburgh Square, yet now I seemed to be looking at it for the first time. I had to remind myself that those windows on the first floor just to the right of the front door were my windows, that behind them were all my clothes and papers and books, all the things that made up my home.

But there was no reality about it now. It was as though I were living in a dream. I suppose I was still dazed by the news.

I wondered what they’d say at the office — or should I go on as though nothing had happened? I thought of all the years I’d been leaving this house at eight-thirty-five in the morning and returning to it shortly after six at night; lonely, wasted years. Men who had served with me during the war were now in good executive positions. But for me the Army had been the big chance. Once out of it I had drifted without the drive of an objective, without the competitive urge of a closeknit masculine world. I stared with sudden loathing at the lifeless facade of Thirty-two as though it symbolised all those wasted years.

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