The Sculptress Part 45

"You're lucky I didn't have my hat pin. Ah, got them." She renewed her search for the lock and found it.

"There." She tried the lights inside the door but the blackness remained impenetrable.

"Come on," she said, catching his jacket and pulling him inside.

"I think there's a candle in the kitchen."

"Everything all right?" called a quavering female voice from the floor upstairs.

"Yes, thank you," Roz called back.

"I trod on something. How long has the power been off?"

"Half an hour. I've telephoned. There's a fuse gone in a box somewhere. Three hours they said. I told them I wouldn't pay my bill if it was any longer. We should take a stand. Don't you agree?"

"Absolutely," said Roz, wondering who she was talking to.

Mrs. Barrett, perhaps. She knew their names from their mail but she rarely saw anyone.

"Bye now." She closed her door.

"I'll try and find the candle," she whispered.

"Why are we whispering?" Hal whispered back.

She giggled.

"Because one always does in the dark."

He stumbled into something.

"This is ridiculous. The street lights aren't out, are they? Your curtains must be closed."

"Probably." She pulled open the kitchen drawer.

"I left early this morning." She felt around the clutter of cotton reels and screwdrivers.

"I think I've found it. Have you any matches?"

"No," he said patiently, *otherwise I'd have lit one by now.

Do you keep snakes by any chance?"

"Don't be silly. I have a cat." But where was Mrs. Antrobus?

Her cries should have risen in joyful greeting when the key sc.r.a.ped in the lock. Roz made her way back to the door and groped for her briefcase where she kept the matches that she took in to the prison.

She snapped the locks and poked amongst her papers.

"If you can find the sofa," she told him, *the curtains are behind it.

There's a cord on the left-hand side."

"I've found something," he said, *but it certainly isn't a sofa."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," he said cautiously, *but whatever it is it's rather unpleasant. It's wet and slimy and it's wound itself round my neck.

Are you sure you don't keep snakes?"

She gave a nervous laugh.

"Don't be an idiot." Her fingers knocked against the matchbox and she s.n.a.t.c.hed at it with relief.

She struck a match and held it up. Hal was standing in the middle of the room, his head and shoulders swathed in the damp shirt she had washed that morning and hung on a coathanger from the lampshade. She shook with laughter.

"You knew it wasn't a snake," she said, holding the candle to the spluttering match flame.

He found the cord and swished the curtains back to let in the orange glow from the street lamps outside. With that and the candlelight, the room sprang alive out of the pitch darkness. He gazed about him.

Towels, clothes, carrier bags, and photographs lay in clutters on chairs and tables, a duvet sprawled hail on and half off the sofa, dirty cups, and empty bags of crisps jostled happily about the floor.

"Well, this is nice," he said, lifting his foot and pr ising off the remains of a half-eaten pork pie.

"I can't remember when I felt so much at home."

"I wasn't expecting you," she said, taking the pork pie with dignity and dropping it into a waste-paper basket.

"Or at least I thought you'd have the decency to warn me of your arrival with a phone-call first."

He reached down to stroke the soft ball of white fur that was stretching luxuriously in its warm nest on the duvet. Mrs. Antrobus licked his hand in approval before embarking on a comprehensive grooming.

"Do you always sleep on the sofa?" he asked Roz.

"There's no telephone in the bedroom."

He nodded gravely but didn't say anything.

She moved over to him, the candle tilted to stop the hot wax burning her fingers.

"Oh, G.o.d, I'm so pleased to see you. You wouldn't believe. Where did you go? I've been worried sick."

He lowered his weary forehead and pressed it against her sweet-smelling hair.

"Round and about," he said, resting his wrists on her shoulders and running the softest of fingers down the lines of her neck.

"There's a warrant out for your arrest," she said weakly.

"I know." His lips brushed against her cheek, but so gently that their touch was almost unbearable.

"I'm going to set fire to something," she groaned.

He reached down to pinch out the candle.

"You already have." He cupped his strong hands about her bottom and drew her against his erection.

"The question is," he murmured into the arch of her neck, *should I have a cold shower before it spreads out of control?"

"Is that a serious question?" Could he stop now? She couldn't.

"No, a polite one."

"I'm in agony."

"You're supposed to be," he said, his eyes glinting in the orange light.

"d.a.m.n it, woman, I've been in agony for weeks."

Mrs. Antrobus, ejected from the duvet, stalked indignantly into the kitchen.

Later, the lights came on, drowning the tiny flame of the candle which, rekindled, had started to splutter in its saucer on the table.

He stroked the hair from Roz's face.

"You are quite the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," he said.

She smiled wickedly.

"And I thought I was too thin?"

His dark eyes softened "I knew you were lying about that blasted answer phone He ran his hands over her silky arms, gripping them suddenly with urgent fingers. She was completely addictive. He plucked her up and sat her astride his lap.

"I've been dreaming about this."

"Were they nice dreams?"

"Not a patch on the real thing."

"Enough," she said even later, sliding away from him and pulling on her clothes.

"What are you planning to do about this arrest warrant?"

He ignored the question and stirred the photographs on her coffee table.

"Is this your husband?"

"Ex-husband." She threw him his trousers.

He pulled them on with a sigh, then isolated a close-up of Alice.

"And this must be your daughter," he said evenly.

"She looks just like you."

"Looked," Roz corrected him.

"She's dead."

She waited for the apology and the change of subject, but Hal smiled and touched a finger to the laughing face.

"She's beautiful."

"Yes."

"What was her name?"

"Alice."

He examined the picture closely.

"I remember falling in love with a little girl just like her when I was six. I was very insecure and I used to ask her every day how much she loved me. She always answered in the same way. She would hold her hands out, like this' he spread his palms apart, like a fisherman demonstrating the length of a fish *and say: this much."

"Yes," said Roz, remembering, "Alice always measured love with her hands. I'd forgotten."

She tried to take the photograph away, but he moved it out of her reach and tilted it to the light.

"There's a very determined glint in her eyes."

"She liked her own way."

"Sensible woman. Did she always get it?"

"Most times. She had very decided views. I remember oncea" But she fell silent and didn't go on.

Hal shrugged into his shirt and started to b.u.t.ton it.

"Like mother, like daughter. I bet she had you wound round her little finger before she could walk. I'd have enjoyed seeing someone get the better of you."

Roz held a handkerchief to her streaming eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Being embarra.s.sing."

He pulled her against his shoulder and rested his cheek against her hair. What a terrible indictment of Western society it was, that a mother should be afraid to shed tears for her dead daughter in case she embarra.s.sed someone.