Whip Hand Part 26

'Sid?' 'I don't know that I'm going on with it,' I said. 'This sort of job.'

'You don't want to take any notice of what she said,' he protested. 'You can't give it up. You're too good at it. Look at the awful messes you've put right. Just because of one that's gone wrong....'

I stared hollowly at a lot of unseen things.

'You're a big boy now,' he said. And he was seven years younger than I, near enough. 'You want to cry on Daddy's shoulder?' He paused. 'Look, Sid mate, you've got to snap out of it. Whatever's happened it can't be as bad as when that horse sliced your hand up, nothing could. This is no time to die inside, we've got about five other jobs lined up. The insurance, and the guard job, and Lucas Wainwright's syndicates...'

'No,' I said. I felt leaden and useless. 'Not now, honestly, Chico.'

I got up and went into the bedroom. Shut the door. Went purposelessly to the window and looked out at the scenery of roofs and chimney pots, glistening in the beginnings of rain. The pots were still there, though the chimneys underneath were blocked off and the fires long dead. I felt at one with the chimney pots. When fires went out, one froze.

The door opened.

'Sid,' Chico said.

I said resignedly, 'Remind me to put a lock on that door.'

'You've got another visitor.'

'Tell him to go away.'

'It's a girl. Louise somebody.'

I rubbed my hand over my face and head and down to the back of my neck. Eased the muscles. Turned from the window.

'Louise Mclnnes?'

'That's right.'

'She shares the flat with Jenny,' I said.

'Oh, that one. Well then, Sid, if that's all for today I'll be off. And... er... be here tomorrow, won't you?'

'Yeah.'

He nodded. We left everything else unsaid. The amus.e.m.e.nt, mockery, friends.h.i.+p and stifled anxiety were all there in his face and his voice.... Maybe he read the same in mine. At any rate he gave me a widening grin as he departed, and I went into the sitting room thinking that some debts couldn't be paid.

Louise was standing in the middle of things, looking around her in the way I had, in Jenny's flat. Through her eyes I saw my own room afresh: its irregular shape, high-ceilinged, not modern; and the tan leather sofa, the table with drinks by the window, the shelves with books, the prints framed and hung, and on the floor, leaning against the wall, the big painting of racing horses which I'd somehow never bothered to hang up. There were coffee cups and gla.s.ses scattered about, and full ashtrays, and the piles of letters on the coffee table and everywhere else.

Louise herself looked different: the full production, not the Sunday morning tumble out of bed. A brown velvet jacket, a blazing white sweater, a soft mottled brown skirt with a wide leather belt round an untroubled waist. Fair hair washed and s.h.i.+ning, rose petal make-up on the English rose skin. A detachment in the eyes which said that all this honey was not chiefly there for the attracting of bees.

'Mr Halley.'

'You could try Sid,' I said. 'You know me quite well, by proxy.'

Her smile reached half-way.

'Sid.'

'Louise.'

'Jenny says Sid is a plumber's mate's sort of name.'

'Very good people, plumbers' mates.'

'Did you know,' she said, looking away and continuing the visual tour of inspection, 'that in Arabic "Sid" means "lord"?'

'No, I didn't.'

'Well, it does.'

'You could tell Jenny,' I said.

Her gaze came back fast to my face. 'She gets to you, doesn't she?'

I smiled. 'Like some coffee? Or a drink?'

'Tea?'

'Sure.'

She came into the kitchen with me and watched me make it, and made no funny remarks about bionic hands, which was a nice change from most new acquaintances, who tended to be fascinated, and to say so, at length. Instead she looked around with inoffensive curiosity, and finally fastened her attention on the calendar which hung from the k.n.o.b on the pine cupboard door. Photographs of horses, a Christmas hand-out from a bookmaking firm. She flipped up the pages, looking at the pictures of the future months, and stopped at December, where a horse and jockey jumping the Chair at Aintree were silhouetted spectacularly against the sky.

'That's good,' she said, and then, in surprise, reading the caption, 'That's you.'

'He's a good photographer.'

'Did you win that race?'

'Yes,' I said mildly. 'Do you take sugar?'

'No thanks.' She let the pages fall back. 'How odd to find oneself on a calendar.' To me, it wasn't odd. How odd, I thought, to have seen one's picture in print so much that one scarcely noticed. I carried the tray into the sitting room and put it on top of the letters on the coffee table.

'Sit down,' I said, and we sat.

'All these,' I said, nodding to them, 'are the letters which came with the cheques for the wax.'

She looked doubtful. 'Are they of any use?'

'I hope so,' I said, and explained about the mailing list.

'Good heavens.' She hesitated, 'Well, perhaps you won't need what I brought.' She picked up her brown leather handbag, and opened it. 'I didn't come all this way specially,' she said. 'I've an aunt near here whom I visit. Anyway, I thought you might like to have this, as I was here, near your flat.'

She pulled out a paperback book. She could have posted it, I thought: but I was quite glad she hadn't.

'I was trying to put a bit of order into the chaos in my bedroom,' she said. 'I've a lot of books. They tend to pile up.' I didn't tell her I'd seen them.

'Books do,' I said.