England Made Me

About the Author

Graham Greene was born in 1904. On coming down from Balliol College, Oxford, he worked for four years as sub-editor on
The Times
. He established his reputation with his fourth novel,
Stamboul Train
. In 1935 he made a journey across Liberia, described in
Journey Without Maps
, and on his return was appointed film critic of the
Spectator
. In 1926 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and visited Mexico in 1938 to report on the religious persecution there. As a result he wrote
The Lawless Roads
and, later, his famous novel
The Power and the Glory. Brighton Rock
was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became literary editor of the
Spectator
. The next year he undertook work for the Foreign Office and was stationed in Sierra Leone from 1941 to 1943. This later produced the novel,
The Heart of the Matter
, set in West Africa.

As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography –
A Sort of Life, Ways of Escape
and
A World of My Own
(published posthumously) – two of biography and four books for children. He also contributed hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews, some of which appear in the collections
Reflections
and
Mornings in the Dark
. Many of his novels and short stories have been filmed and
The Third Man
was written as a film treatment. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.

ALSO BY GRAHAM GREENE

Novels

The Man Within

It's a Battlefield

A Gun for Sale

The Confidential Agent

The Ministry of Fear

The Third Man

The End of the Affair

Loser Takes All

The Quiet American

A Burnt-out Case

Travels with my Aunt

Dr Fischer of Geneva
or

The Bomb Party

The Human Factor

The Tenth Man

Stamboul Train

Brighton Rock

The Power and the Glory

The Heart of the Matter

The Fallen Idol

Our Man in Havana

The Comedians

The Honorary Consul

Monsignor Quixote

The Captain and the Enemy

Short Stories

Collected Stories

Twenty-One Stories

The Last Word and Other Stories

May We Borrow Your Husband?

Travel

Journey Without Maps

The Lawless Roads

In Search of a Character

Getting to Know the General

Essays

Yours etc
.

Reflections

Mornings in the Dark

Collected Essays

Plays

Collected Plays

Autobiography

A Sort of Life

Ways of Escape

Fragments of an Autobiography

A World of my Own

Biography

Lord Rochester's Monkey

An Impossible Woman

Children's Books

The Little Train

The Little Horse-Bus

The Little Steamroller

The Little Fire Engine

1925–1935

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781409020455

Version 1.0

  

Published by Vintage 2006

9 10 8

Copyright © Graham Greene 1935, 1962

None of the characters in this book is intended to be that of

a living person

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 1935 by William Heinemann

First published by Vintage in 2001

Vintage

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London SW1V 2SA

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ISBN 9780099286172

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CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX

PART I

1

S
HE
might have been waiting for her lover. For three quarters of an hour she had sat on the same high stool, half turned from the counter, watching the swing door. Behind her the ham sandwiches were piled under a glass dome, the urns gently steamed. As the door swung open, the smoke of engines silted in, grit on the skin and like copper on the tongue.

‘Another gin.' It was her third. Damn him, she thought with tenderness, I'm hungry. She swallowed it at a draught, as she was used to drinking schnaps;
skål, skål
, but there was no one to
skål
. The man in the bowler hat put his foot on the brass rail, leant his elbow on the counter, drank his bitter, talked, drank his bitter, wiped his moustache, talked, kept his eye on her.

She stared out past the dusty door pane into the noisy dark. Sparks leapt in the thick enclosed air and went out, sparks from engines, sparks from cigarettes, sparks from the trolley wheels beating on the asphalt. An old tired woman swung the door and peered in; she was looking for someone who was not there.

She moved from her stool; the man in the bowler hat watched her, the waitresses paused in their drying and watched her. Their thoughts drummed on her back: Is she giving him up? What's he like, I wonder? Jilted? She stood in the doorway and let them think: the deep silence of their concentration amused her. She watched the blue empty rails in front of her, looked up the platform to the lights and the bookstalls, then she turned and went back to her stool and was aware of their thoughts wilting again in the steaming air round the urns; the waitresses dried glasses, the man in the bowler hat drank his bitter.

‘It never rains but it pours. Take silk stockings for example.'

‘Another gin.' But she left the glass on the counter, after barely touching it this time with her lips, and began hurriedly to make-up, as if it had been a duty she had been too excited to remember. Now, in the deep conviction that he would not come, she had one lonely hour to remember in all the things she had neglected: mouth, nose, cheeks, eyebrows. ‘Oh damn,' she said. The pencil snapped, and she ground the charcoal end into the floor with her toe; ‘Oh damn,' she said, caring not a hang that she was surrounded again by curiosity, alien and unfriendly. It was as if she had broken a mirror; it was unlucky; it was inefficient. Her self-confidence was shaken. She began to wonder if she would recognise her brother if, after all, he came.

But she knew him at once by the small scar under the left eye, the round face which had always looked as if only that day it had lost its freshness, like a worn child's, the bonhomie which even a stranger would not trust. ‘Kate,' he was all contrition, ‘I'm sorry I'm late. It wasn't my fault. The fact is –' and at once he became sullen, prepared not to be believed. And why, she thought, as she kissed him and touched his back to assure herself that he was there, that he had really come, that they were together, should anyone believe him? He can't open his mouth without lying.

‘Have this gin?' She watched him drink it slowly and was aware how her own brain recorded unerringly his anxiety.

‘You haven't changed.'

‘You have,' he said. ‘You're prettier than ever, Kate,' and charm, she thought, charm, your damnable accommodating charm. ‘Prosperity suits you.' She watched him more closely and examined his clothes for any sign that the years had been less prosperous for him. But he always possessed one good suit. Tall and broad and thin and a little worn, with the scar under his lower lid, he was the mark of every waitress in the room. ‘A bitter, please,' and a waitress tore along the counter to serve him, and Kate watched the automatic charm glint in his eye.

‘Where shall we eat? Where are your bags?' He turned cautiously from the counter and one hand straightened his school tie.

‘The fact is –' he said.

‘You aren't coming with me,' she said with hopeless certainty. She wondered for a moment at the depth of her disappointment, for he belonged to this place, to the smoke swirling beyond the door, to the stale beer, to ‘Guinness is good for you' and ‘Try a Worthington', he had the bold approach, the shallow cheer of an advertisement.