Read Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) for Free Online Page A

“Straight through, you can’t miss it.”
    When he came back to the little kitchen, she was studying the coral-tinted shrimps massed round a bowl of sauce. “Would you try it, Paul? It’s supposed to be mustard sauce. All right? I’ve been tasting so many things that I’ve lost my judgment.”
    She watched him anxiously. It was very good, he reassured her. “Now, the lemon peel,” she said, remembering the Martinis.
    “Anything else I can do?”
    “Did the drink tray seem all right?”
    “Yes. Everything seems pretty much all right.”
    “Then why don’t you pour yourself a drink and tell me what you’ve been doing?”
    “Oh, I’ve just been walking around, getting acclimated.” He smiled. “I forgot about traffic lights, and I still jump when the elevated roars out of nowhere.”
    “I mean what have you been doing since—since you left London?”
    “Just one job after another,” he said lightly.
    “Well, where did you collect all that?” She pointed to his ribbons.
    “You get one with every fiftieth can of Spam.”
    She laughed. “You’re just the same as Scott,” she said. “He won’t talk about the war, either. He was in Italy, you know.”
    “There are pleasanter things to talk about. By the way, Rona, how is our Trend nowadays, apart from the interior decoration side?”
    “Strictly Virginian this month. March was pure Texan. And it’s going to be very Boston and Harvard in May.” She admired the thin translucent strips of lemon peel which curled delicately from her careful knife. “You’d almost think I liked dry Martinis,” she observed.
    “Still taste like medicine to you?”
    “Still the little country girl at heart,” she admitted. “But why were you so serious when you asked about Trend ? Is it true that you are coming back? Oh, yes, the rumours are flying around.” She was suddenly equally serious, almost worried.
    “You don’t like the idea?” His voice was hard.
    “Not that, Paul,” she said quickly, looking at him. “We mustn’t think back to the old days. You got your freedom again, and that was what you really wanted. I picked up my life. And now I’m terribly happy. So all’s well. Isn’t it?”
    “Yes,” he said. “All’s well.” He turned to look out of the window. He studied the view. Roofs, chimney pots, water towers. And down below, little squares of persevering grass and determined trees, boxed into miniature gardens by brick walls. “Why did you look so worried, there?” he asked suddenly.
    “I was thinking of Blackworth—the man who got your job when you stayed in the army.”
    “Do you like him?”
    “Yes. He’s popular. That’s what makes it so awful. You see, it was my fault—I’m sure it was my fault—that he lost the job. Oh, he’s lost it, Paul, even if you don’t come back.”
    He was startled. “Your fault...?”
    “Paul...” She looked at him uncertainly. “I can’t talk about this to everyone. I’ve told Scott, of course, and Peggy and Jon. You see, Paul, it was like this—oh, it’s so difficult to begin, you’ll think we are all crazy or something, and yet—”
    A bell sounded.
    “That’s Scott,” Rona said quickly. “He was coming early to look after the drinks,” she explained as she hurriedly gave Paul the dish of lemon peel, and then went to press the button that released the lock of the front door.
    “What about this man Blackworth?” he asked.
    “I’ll tell you the story once you’ve seen the Boss. But he will explain most of it, I expect.”
    “Sounds very hush-hush.”
    She looked at him as if she were trying to gauge his thoughts. “It is,” she said. Then she pushed him gently towards the living-room, and she hurried to open the door of the apartment.
    * * *
    It wasn’t Scott who arrived, then. It was Peggy and Jon, slightly breathless after their climb.
    “We came early, because the sitter has to get home by half-past seven,” Peggy was explaining as she came into the living-room.