Tony was standing outside Yates’s Wine Lodge, his hands deep in his pockets. The fog was thick now. His head was wreathed in it.
   ‘Have you seen the others?’ he asked, as Nina came up. She wasn’t sure what others he meant. With Tony, she rarely asked questions, in case they were stupid ones which would make him whistle through his teeth and then say, ‘Little Nina,’ in a way which even someone who wanted to couldn’t possibly think was affectionate.
   ‘They’re probably inside,’ he went on, moving towards the entrance.
The man with the violin was playing. He wore a shabby loose-sleeved coat which he never took off. His face was morose, but when his bow whipped the music which came off it was as bright as flowers. You would imagine a different player if you closed your eyes.
   ‘He’s getting past it,’ said Tony.
   ‘What?’ Nina was too much astonished, and so the question jumped out of her mouth. It was Tony who’d told her that the violin man had played with Toots Thielmans once. Yates’s would be nothing without him.
   ‘Little Nina,’ said Tony. His eyes were scanning the upper floor. ‘There’s Chris.’
There were five or six of them at the table, but to Nina it was dozens. Maggie moved up to make room for her, and a packet of cigarettes was thrust towards her. She took one and sat back, hidden in smoke. Bodies pressed in on either side.
   ‘Did you move in all right?’ asked Maggie.
   ‘Yes.’
   ‘Good.’
Maggie was twenty-five. She was in love with Tony, or at least, Nina thought so.
   ‘You want to get your own stuff up on the walls,’ said Maggie, ‘That’ll make it feel better.’
   ‘Posters, you mean?’
   ‘Yes, posters.’ Nina heard a tang of impatience in Maggie’s voice.
   ‘I know a guy who works in advertising,’ said Chris, leaning forward out of the noise, ‘He could get you a poster, Nina.’
   ‘You don’t know anyone who works in advertising,’ said Maggie, half-closing her eyes.
   ‘He pastes the adverts onto billboards,’ said Chris.
   'They’d be a bit large for Nina’s room.’
   ‘They come in sections. He’s pasting up whisky ads at the minute.’
   ‘Whisky ads,’ repeated Nina.
   ‘White Horse,’ said Chris.
   ‘Oh!’ She thought of a white horse, as big as the side of a building, galloping across Mrs Bersted’s wall. Or even a section of a horse. Its head, perhaps, or a pair of flashing hooves.
   ‘I’ll ask him for you,’ Chris promised. ‘What’ve you done with Mal?’
Nina said nothing. She hadn’t heard from Mal for a week.
   ‘He’s gone to Leicester to score some dope,’ said Tony.
   ‘I shouldn’t have thought there was any necessity for that,’ said Maggie. ‘All he has to do is walk around the corner.’

1

 

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