Read The Man in the Wooden Hat for Free Online Page B

“It’s urgent,” she said. “It’s about a legal Case in the Courts.” He looked at her wild hair and crumpled dress.
    But the lift rolled up, the gates slid open and she was running towards the double doors of Suite Number One and ringing the bell. She rang and rang.
    The door at last was opened by a maid—no, by a nanny. One of the old amahs in black and white, her face gaunt. Behind stood Terry Veneering. And beside him stood Harry.
    “We missed the plane,” the boy shouted. “I’m still here. Mum passed out and we missed it. And one just like it crashed in the Med.” He flung himself on Elisabeth.
    The amah vanished and Veneering said, “Harry—quick. Go and tell them, Miss Macintosh needs some coffee. Go on. Go on.”
    Then he stepped forward and took her hands and led her inside.
    “No, no, I won’t come in,” she said. “It’s all right now. I don’t need to come in.”
    His clownish face of the night before looked thin and white, his blue eyes exhausted. His hands holding hers shook. “I thought so, too,” he said. “But it wasn’t his.”
    “Must go back,” she said. “Find Edward. Tell friend. Isobel. All right now. I’m all right now.”
    “Stop crying.”
    “I must be mad,” she said.
    “I’ll send a car for you tonight. Your hotel the Old C? I’ll send a car at six-thirty. Look. Stop. He’s all right. It wasn’t his flight. Sing Te Deum and Laudamus . Elisabeth, it was a different plane .”
    “Yes. Yes, I will sing—I’ll sing for ever.”
    “You met him—shut up or I’ll shake you—you met him for about half an hour. He’s mine, you know, not yours. Soon you’ll have your own.”
    “Yes. I can’t understand. It must be hysteria. I’m never, never—Oh, but thank God. Thank God, Terry!”
    “Six-thirty,” he said, shutting the door on her.

CHAPTER SIX
    S he went out. She did not telephone Edward or wait for him to ring her, or explain anything to Lizzie who had again vanished. She went to a small, expensive shop and with the end of her money, labelled “emergencies,” she bought a dress.
    The girl selling was shivering with cold because of the new, Western-style air conditioning. She looked ill and resentful. Elisabeth moved the ready-made silk dresses along the rails and found her fingertips covered with oil. She showed them to the sneezing girl, who at first looked away in denial. Then, when Elisabeth said in Cantonese, “Please take a cloth to the rails at once!” went to get one and at the same moment Elisabeth saw a sea-green silk, the dress of a lifetime. She held her black oily fingers out to let the girl clean her hands and when the girl had finished said, “I would like that one.” The girl shrugged and moved her hands in a disenchanted gesture that Elisabeth might want to try it on and Elisabeth said, “No, thank you. It will be perfect. Have you shoes to match?” She paid for it (a price) and walked back towards the hotel room. It was still empty of Lizzie and there was no message light on the bedside telephone. She stood the stiff paper bag on her bed and went to find a hairdresser.
     
    The hairdresser preened above her head.
    “Is it for an occasion?”
    “I don’t know. Well, yes, I’m going out tonight.”
    The hairdresser smiled and smiled, dead-eyed. Elisabeth had the notion that somewhere there was dislike.
    “Would you like colour?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Would you like to be more seriously red?”
    “No. No, not at all.” (Am I making sense?) “Just wash my hair, please. Take the aeroplane out of it.”
    “ Aeroplane out of it.” Silly giggle.
    High on the wall above the line of basins, probably unnoticed for years, was a studio photograph, from before the war, of an English woman of a certain age, her hair sculpted into marcel waves, her ageing manicured hand all rings. And she was resting her cheek against it. Her mouth was dark and sharp with lipstick, her fingernails dark with varnish. Her smile was benevolent but