I crawled out of bed with a bad taste in my mouth and my bones creaking.
The fact was that, what with a bottle of wi lund a dinner, and several pints iween, besides a brandy or two, I』d had a bit too much to drink the day before. For several minutes I stood in the middle of the carpet, gazing at nothing in particular and too done-in to make a move. You know that god-awful feeling you get sometimes in the early m. It』s a feeling chiefly in ys, but it says to you clearer than any words could do, 『Why the hell do you go on with it? Chuck it up, old chap! Stick your head in the gas oven!』
Then I shoved my teeth in ao the window. A lovely June day, again, and the sun was just beginning to slant over the roofs and hit the house-fronts oher side of the street. The pink geraniums in the window-boxes didn』t look half bad. Although it was only about half past eight and this was only a side-street off the market-place there was quite a crowd of people ing and going. A stream of clerkly-looking chaps in dark suits with dispatch-cases were hurrying along, all in the same dire, just as if this had been a London suburb and they were scooting for the Tube, and the schoolkids were straggling up towards the market- pla twos and threes. I had the same feeling that I』d had the day before when I saw the jungle of red houses that had swallowed Chamford Hill. Bloody interlopers! Twenty thousand gate-crashers who didn』t even know my name. And here was all this new life swarming to and fro, and here was I, a poor old fatty with false teeth, watg them from a window and mumbling stuff that nobody wao listen to about things that happehirty and forty years ago. Christ! I thought, I was wrong to think that I was seeing ghosts. I』m the ghost myself. I』m dead and they』re alive.
But after breakfast—haddock, grilled kidneys, toast and marmalade, and a pot of coffee—I felt better. The frozen dame wasn』t breakfasting in the dining-room, there was a nice summery feeling in the air, and I couldn』t get rid of the feeling that in that blue flannel suit of mine I looked just a little bit distingue. By God! I thought, if I』m a ghost, I』ll BE a ghost! I』ll walk. I』ll haunt the old places. And maybe I work a bit of black magi some of these bastards who』ve stolen my home town from me.
I started out, but I』d got no farther than the market-place when I ulled up by something I hadn』t expected to see. A procession of about fifty school-kids was marg dowreet in n of fours—quite military, they looked—with a grim-looking woman marg alongside of them like a sergeant-major. The leading four were carrying a banner with a red, white, and blue border and BRITONS PREPARE on it in huge letters. The barber on the er had e out on to his doorstep to have a look at them. I spoke to him. He was a chap with shiny black hair and a dull kind of face.
『What are those kids doing?』
『It』s this here air-raid practice,』 he said vaguely. 『This here A.R.P. Kind of practising, like. That』s Miss Todgers, that is.』
I might have guessed it was Miss Todgers. You could see it in her eye. You know the kind of tough old devil with grey hair and a kippered face that』s alut in charge of Girl Guide detats, Y.W.C.A. hostels, and whatnot. She had on a coat and skirt that somehow looked like a uniform and gave you a strong impression that she was wearing a Sam Brow, though actually she wasn』t. I knew her type. Been in the W.A.A.C.s in the war, and never had a day』s fun sihis A.