Read 1951 - But a Short Time to Live for Free Online Page A

always fall for a bitch. They just don't seem able to help themselves."
    Clair clenched her fists, and looked for a moment as if she was going to hit Brady, then she turned away with an angry shrug.
    He pulled her round.
    "Let's forget about him for the moment, precious. I thought it would be nice if we spent an hour together. You mustn't get temperamental with me, Clair. You couldn't get along without me, you know. You mustn't ever forget that."
    She tried to jerk away, but he held her easily.
    "Come along. Let's go into the other room."
    "No!" she said furiously. "I'm not going to! Let me go, you fat swine."
    He gave her a little shake, jerking her head back.
    "Don't be silly, darling," he said, and the colourless eyes hardened. "Let's go into the other room."
    They stared at each other for a long moment, then he released her and took her face in his moist, soft hands.
    "Lovely Clair," he said, and drew her face to him. Shuddering she closed her eyes, letting his lips rest on hers.
    "Imagine I am him," he whispered into her mouth. "All cats are grey in the dark, darling, and it'll be good practice for you."
    He led her unprotesting into the other room.
     
     

chapter five
     
    A strong smell of codfish on the boil greeted Harry as he opened the front door of No. 24 Lannock Street and groped his way down the dark passage which led to the stairs.
    Somewhere in the basement Mrs. Westerham, his landlady, was mournfully singing an unrecognisable song. It could have been a hymn or a ballad, and pausing to listen, Harry decided it was a hymn. Mrs. Westerham was always singing something.
    "When you live alone," she had once told Harry, "you've either got to talk to yourself or sing. Well, I don't hold with talking to myself. People who talk to themselves are a bit cranky. So I sing."
    Listening, Harry felt sorry for her, and as he mounted the stairs it occurred to him that he never felt lonely, and because he hadn't ever thought of this before it surprised him. He spent a lot of time on his own, but he was never conscious of being alone or wanting company. There was so much going on that interested him. That, he supposed, was the answer to loneliness. If you could interest yourself in other people, if you could be entertained by hanging out of a window, watching people go by and wondering what they did and who they were, if you could sit in a pub and listen, if you could lie in bed and wonder about things like what the young couple in the pub who drank brandy found to talk about, and who the three mysterious men in black homburgs were, you hadn't much time to feel lonely. It was a good thing, he decided, to be interested in people. He wouldn't care to get like Mrs. Westerham. It couldn't be much fun to sing hymns all day, and he wondered if he ought to go down and have a word with her. She liked him to visit her. Only the trouble was once he was there it was so difficult to get away.
    The sound of Ron's typewriter decided him. He felt in need of male company tonight. Only another male would understand how he was feeling. He felt somehow Mrs. Westerham wouldn't approve of Clair.
    He found the air in the big room he shared with Ron heavy with tobacco smoke. Ron always forgot to open a window, and there he was now, seated at the rickety bamboo table, his coat off, his pipe smoking furiously as he hammered away at his typewriter; the floor around him was littered with sheets of paper in a fog that proclaimed he had been at it for hours.
    He waved his hand at Harry and said, "Shan't be a tic; just finishing," and continued to hammer away with a speed and dexterity that Harry never ceased to admire.
    Harry opened the window a few inches at the top and bottom, put his camera away, pulled up an easy chair to the spluttering gas stove and sat down.
    He was suddenly conscious of the drab shabbiness of the room. Its only redeeming feature was its size, but comparing it to Clair's flat, Harry thought sadly that it was little short of a