514 ANGEL PAVEMENT

was a gay picture of a Turkish woman on the box. He
had had some cigarettes from that box; they were very
good; they were foreign cigarettes; Turkish, of course,
but not sold in England; foreign words just above the
picture of the Turkish woman, foreign words. Very
slowly his eyes left the box and returned to the figure
on the floor. Lena. Not a movement. No, that wasn't
Lena any more; that was a body. You couldn't lie there
like that unless you were dead. Lena was dead.

He stopped thinking then; no more thoughts came,
not one. He picked up his hat and shambled quickly
out of the room, out of the flat, leaving the door wide
open behind him. When he reached the hall below,
somebody came out from somewhere, perhaps spoke to
him, but he took no notice. He left the house. It was
better outside, in the dark.

DOWN the straight length of Maida Vale, past the
detached villas, past the great blocks of flats that were
like illuminated fortresses, he moved at a steady pace,
never lingering, just as if he were a young man who
knew exactly where he was going and knew exactly how
long it would take him to get there. But he wasn't going
anywhere; he was only moving on, simply leaving that
room with the bright cushions and the fancy boxes and
the quiet huddle of clothes and limbs by the end of the
deep sofa. He wasn't quite real. He was a young man
walking in a film. Somebody spoke to him once. It
was a big man in a cap and mackintosh, and he planted
himself squarely in front of the dazed Turgis and said,