Nothing to Lose

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I hesitated as I crossed the road and paused to gaze up at the familiar face of No. 32. 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. 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 close-knit masculine world.

A car hooted and I shook myself, conscious of the dreadful feeling of weariness that possessed my body; conscious, too, of a sudden urgency. I needed to make some sense out of my life, and I needed to do it quickly. As I crossed to the pavement, automatically getting out my keys, I suddenly decided I wasn’t going to tell the office anything. I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I’d just say I was taking a holiday and quietly disappear. I went in and closed the door. Footsteps sounded in the darkness of the unlighted hall.

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