She shook her head. It seemed as though he were trying to shock her, as he piled on his miseries to her.
"Three times a day the hotel keeper in Australia covers his counter in all sorts of food—cold meat, bread, cheese, pickles, cakes—oh, just everything there is going. He doesn't want you to go out to get food, you see, and perhaps get caught by some other pub. You don't have to pay. You just eat what you like, so long as you go on buying drinks or having them bought for you. There's a lot more there to eat than you want. You don't want much when you're boozing. I lived on counter lunches once—crayfish and celery mostly, with vinegar and cayenne—for four months. I spent not a single penny on food the whole time. Then I nearly died in hospital. They had me in the padded cell for three days."
"Were you mad?" she whispered, wishing he would tell her no more, but fascinated by the horror of it all, the pity of it. "I think you are mad, really, even now—talking like this, almost as if you're proud of it."
"No, I'm not mad—only the usual pink rat sort of madness. The thing's obvious," he said, shrugging his shoulders. It was not obvious to her; he had put her into a maelstrom of puzzles, but she did not tell him so. She preferred to think it out for herself. But suddenly she coupled her little broken arm and the barrel as effect and cause.
He went on muttering. She had great difficulty in hearing all he said.
"At night, at kicking out time, you can hang on, sometimes, to a man with some cash and get asked to kip with him for the night. You can get a bed for a shilling a night in many places. It isn't a feather-bed. If there is no Good Samaritan about you go and lie down in the Domain—that's the public park, you know—praying to whatever gods there be that it won't rain. You never get a decent wash, and as soon as the hotels are open at six o'clock you start again—if you can get the entrance fee. If you haven't, you cadge round till you have."
He broke off, staring bitterly away from her, his knees drawn up, his chin resting on them.
"And you told your mother about it—and your father?" she said.
"Yes, every word, and more. Things I wouldn't tell you, because you're a girl, and I've still some respect for girls. Things that happened in Rio and Rosario—some of the women there, the rich women—Lord, they're the devil's own!" He reflected grimly. "I told the Pater a few things—opened his eyes. He's a publisher—Sunday school prizes and that sort of thing. Stacks of money! No imagination. Most people have no imagination. They see things in a detached way. They see them, somehow, as if they're in print or going on on a stage. But not really happening. The Pater simply said I ought to be ashamed of myself—as if I'm not!"
He broke off and tried to light a cigarette with fingers that trembled. Three, four matches he struck before he got it lighted and puffing. She sat silent, listening to the murmur of voices and the swishing water.