He drifted towards the shed near the cubby, where Mr. Ellis kept the tools. Somebody unknown and unauthorised had put a barrel of beer inside the shed. Men were there drinking, as he knew they would be.
"Have a pot, youngster?"
"Thanks."
He sat down on a case beside the door, and drank the rather warm beer. His head began to drop. He knew he was almost asleep.
Easu loomed up from the dark, coatless, hatless, with his shirt front open, asking for a drink. He was thirsty. Easu was thirsty. How could you be angry with a thirsty man! And he wasn't so bad after all. No, Easu wasn't so bad after all! What did it matter! What did it all matter, anyhow?
Jack slipped to the ground and lay there fast asleep.
[CHAPTER X]
SHADOWS BEFORE
I
But in the morning memory was back, and the unquenched smouldering of passion. Easu had insulted him. Easu had insulted him, and that should never be forgiven. And he had this new, half painful, more than half painful desire to see Monica, to be near her, to touch her hand; a sort of necessity upon him all the while which he was not used to. It made him restless, uneasy, and for the first time in his life, a little melancholy. He was used to feeling angry: a steady, almost blithe sort of anger. And beyond that he had always been able to summon up an indifference to things, cover them with oblivion: to retreat upon himself and insulate himself from contact.