At half past six he walked back to Mortimer Street. It had a forlorn, deserted appearance now that the hawkers’ barrows had gone and the shops were shut. He went into the public house which was opposite Joe’s Club and ordered a pint of bitter. He took his glass to the window, where he could see the club entrance. From the window he had an uninterrupted view of the street. He lit a cigarette and waited.

It was a long wait, but he did not mind. The street was full of interest. After seven o’clock a couple of stout, flashily dressed Jews came along, paused outside the Club, talked for a minute or so and then entered. Almost immediately a blonde woman wearing fox furs came down the street with a coarse, elderly man who was talking excitedly, gesticulating with his hands, an ugly look of rage on his badly shaven face. The woman walked along indifferently. She swayed her hips, and George recognized her for what she was. They, too, disappeared up the stairs to Joe’s Club. A little later three young girls—the eldest could not have been more than seventeen— all blonde, all wearing cheap, tight little frocks, all talking in highpitched, nasal voices, disappeared, giggling and yapping, through the shabby doorway.

George ordered another pint and continued to watch. From what he had seen, Joe’s Club seemed to attract the most odd type of man and woman from the shadowy night life of London. They were out of place in the sunlit street, like slugs you reveal when you turn over a log that has been lying in thick grass for a long time Sunshine was not for them. Dark streets, dimly-lit pavements, tobacco-laden air, the clink of glasses, the sound of liquor running from a bottle—that was their background. They were the “wide” boys and girls of London—the prostitutes, the thieves, the pimps, the touts, the pickpockets, the cat burglars, the hangers-on, the playboys and the good-time girls all moving in a steady stream, like a river of rottenness, into Joe’s Club.

As George watched them, summed them up, recognized them, he began to think about Brant’s sister. Would she turn out to be a brassy, hard little piece like these other girls who had gone up the stairs to Joe’s Club? He hated that type of girl. He had no personality to cope with them. He knew what kind of man they liked. He had listened to them in the park often enough. They and their boyfriends: young men with spotty complexions, padded shoulders, snappy felt hats and cigarettes dangling from their loose mouths. Wise cracking: every remark had a double meaning. The girls would scream with shrill laughter, vying with each other in appreciation. You were not wanted if you couldn’t make them laugh; if you didn’t know all the off-coloured jokes. Would Cora he like that?

George didn’t think so. He felt certain that she would mean something to him when they met. He didn’t know what their relations would he, but he was sure that meeting her was the most important thing in his life. The longer he waited the more excited he became.

Then as he was about to call for another pint, as the hands of the clock above the bar shifted to eight o’clock, he saw her. She was around twenty and dark. She had on a pale blue sweater and dark slacks and she didn’t wear a hat. There was a three-inch-wide red bangle on her wrist. But even without these clues he was quite sure he would have known her. It was as if the finger of destiny had pointed her out to him.

He crossed the bar in two strides, jerked open the door and stepped into the street. He crossed the street, removing his hat, as Cora reached the club door. She stopped when she saw him and stared at him. Her eyes were slate-grey, and had almost no expression when they looked at him

“Are you Miss Brant?” he asked, colour flooding his face. He tried, unsuccessfully, not to look at her breasts. She was flaunting her figure; with every move of her slim body, her breasts jiggled under the soft wool covering. She ought to wear something, he thought.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m George Fraser,” he went on, aware that his heart was thumping wildly. “I don’t know if Syd ever mentioned me. He asked me to tell you that he’d he late. He’s taken the key…”