Boys and Girls Come Out to Play by Nigel Dennis Read Free Book Online Page A

Mussolini; all the windows were closed; a hot sun poured on to the lemon parquet floor and bounced off it into the reporters’ eyes.
    Divver stood there, cramped and uncomfortable, for a long time. He wavered between anger and misery. He wished he had never left his wife; he thought of how wonderful women were, really. He wondered what an earth he was doing in this ridiculous country and why he had ever gone to New York in the first place; above all, he was overcome by the belief that not one thing he had ever learned had any meaning whatever. I’m a fool, an imbecile, a moron, he kept saying to himself: the sweat began to run down his trousers: I am like someone in an opera. This thought was the cruellest of all; he swayedagainst the man beside him, who without any hesitation placed the flat of his hand against Divver’s ribs and sharply pushed him upright again. Divver said, “Hey, you!” gruffly, and smacked away the man’s hand with his fist. At once, with a noise like a barrage of airguns, the fifty seedy reporters turned in Divver’s direction and hissed. One man fell half over the red cord and was pushed up again by a uniformed attendant; the distant secretary stared in amazement, arching his neck like a giraffe. “No!” said Divver, addressing everyone. The attendant—a big man with huge moustaches—at once turned in Divver’s direction; his eyes flashed, he singled Divver out instantly and began to climb over the cord toward him. At that moment the door behind the desk opened. In came two soldiers in green uniforms who stood one on each side of the desk. Then Mussolini, dressed in black, entered the room, gave a friendly nod in the direction of the reporters and sat down to the desk, where he too at once began to doodle with the golden fountain-pen.
    The secretary began reading in a sonorous voice from a long scroll of paper. Divver was annoyed to find that he read in Italian. But he had hardly had time to resent this when he felt his arm grasped, and saw to his astonishment that an usher was on either side of him and that the reporters had somehow managed so to squeeze themselves together that Divver was no longer part of the cosy crowd. The man who had grasped his wrist was the ferocious attendant, who now, without uttering a word, glowered at Divver from under a massive pair of eyebrows and vulgarly jerked a thumb toward the exit. The secretary read on; Mussolini rested his chin on his knuckles; there was no sound but the voice of the reader and the scratching of reporters’ pencils. The usher on Divver’s right began to nudge him with one elbow; then he leaned the whole side of his body against Divver, and heaved. Simultaneously the usher on the other side gripped Divver’s sleeve and pulled. The fierce attendant ,who was now red in the face, began jerking his thumb so fast that it shot back and forth like a shuttle. Divver tried to pay no attention; he fixed his eyes firmly on Mussolini and strained every pound of his body to keep from being budged. Silly protests, such as: “I’ve paid my fare; I’ve a right to this seat.” “This is a free country,” and so on, snapped through his mind. He and the ushers and the attendant—who had now begun to push Divver in the stomach—all began to breathe heavily; little grunts were heard; Divver yielded a step; the three men pushed harder—and suddenly all four were whirling toward the door. “I will not go!” exclaimed Divver. “I was invited!” He felt a hand over his mouth; he became furious; as the door opened he was twirled around like a top and his last glimpse of the room included the black-coated figure at the desk, who was looking vexed. “You too!” shouted Divver, managing to shake one fist. Then he was shot into the waiting-room.
    Here, three policemen appeared, and Divver was led into another room, where a wall-eyed man slapped his pockets and nipped the seams of his jacket. Divver’s trouser cuffs were turned down and found to be