Read Ladies From Hell for Free Online Page B

glass, and started again. “That’s why these annual things we have are so useful. I get a lot of work done then. It keeps me going.”
    She said, “I haven’t understood about those yet. Are you what they call a school?”
    “Not really. Just people who like the same sortof things. We come from all over. Clancy’s a Canadian for instance. Her real name’s Clarissa though nobody ever uses it. I don’t know why she sticks it out here.”
    She said vaguely, “Oh, they’ve got their problems as well. What’s going to happen this summer? Have you got any Big New Plans?”
    “A few,” I said. “There’s a new painting of Coventina to start with. That’s what the sketches were for this afternoon.”
    She looked interested. She said, “What’s it going to be like?”
    I gave forth. The explanation saw the first bottle away so I fetched number two. She looked alarmed. She said, “Gosh, not for me. I’m tiddly already.”
    “Nonsense,” I said briskly.
    “But it must have cost a fortune!”
    “Not to me,” I said. “And people who hoard wine are like people who hoard paintings. It’s there to be enjoyed.”
    She wavered. “I shall have to go somewhere first,” she said, “or I shall pop.”
    By that time of course every early warning system I possess had already rung itself hoarse. For God’s sake, she’d even set up Standard Excuse No. 1. Though I still think it’s a shame they have to bother. “Clarence,” I said to myself, “you’re either dead in luck or dead out of it, depending on the viewpoint.” My name isn’t Clarence, by the way.
    She was gone for some time. When she came back she was carrying her handbag. And she
was
squiffy too, by George. Not falling about of course, she was far too feminine for that; but something in the care with which she set her feet down was a dead giveaway. She put the bag on the floor, took a tissue from it and touched her nose. She drained her glass, picked the cigarettes up, threw them down, changed her mind and lit one anyway. She said, “I can get drunk if I want to, can’t I?”
    “My dear,” I said, pouring, “anybody should be able to do anything they like. As long as it’s not hurting somebody else, the universe can go to hell.”
    “The universe can go to hell,” she said. “I like it.” She fell to brooding again. I didn’t interrupt her. I’d got more time than she had. She put the cigarette down, picked it upagain, stubbed it and lit another. Finally she said, “Would. I do?”
    “What for?”
    “As a model.”
    “Of course,” I said enthusiastically. “Any time. I can always use costume studies. Even got old George posing once or twice, but he can’t sit still long enough. Got the Service Twitch.”
    She looked crestfallen. She said, “I didn’t quite mean that.”
    “Sorry,” I said, “I’m not with you.”
    She stared at the cigarette. She said, “For the new one. Coventina.”
    I was properly shocked. “You don’t know what you’re saying!”
    “Well, would I or wouldn’t I?”
    I shook my head regretfully. “It just isn’t on. It wouldn’t be right.”
    “Meaning I’m not good enough!”
    “No, no, no,” I said. “It isn’t that at all.”
    Those icy grapes had got her in their grip all right; she didn’t know whether to burst into tears or belt me. “This afternoon,” she said bitterly, “you said I was the Nymph. I thought you’d take it back,”
    “Look,” I said, “I was only thinking about George. You know how he got over the priming …”
    She used a word she’d previously shown no sign of knowing. “
That
to George!”
    “Well, your career then. You just don’t seem to realize …”
    The Word rent the air again. She had got good lungs, after all; the echoes took ages to die away.
    “I can’t
help
it,” I said firmly. “It wouldn’t work, and there’s an end of it.”
    She slammed the cigarette into the tray. “Then it’s like I
thought …
”
    “It’s nothing like you