Endless Night Read Free Page B

service in hotels. Most of the rich people I’ve known have been fairly miserable. They’ve got their worries, too. Taxation and investments. You hear them talking together or to friends. Worry! That’s what’s killing half of them. And their sex life’s not so hot either. They’ve either got long-legged blonde sexy wives who are playing them up with boyfriends somewhere, or they’re married to the complaining kind of woman, hideous as hell, who keeps telling them where they get off. No. I’d rather be myself. Michael Rogers, seeing the world, and getting off with good-looking girls when he feels like it!
    Everything a bit hand-to-mouth, of course, but I put up with that. Life was good fun, and I’d been content to go on with life being fun. But I suppose I would have in any case. That attitude goes with youth. When youth begins to pass fun isn’t fun any longer.
    Behind it, I think, was always the other thing—wanting someone and something…However, to go on with what I was saying, there was one old boy I used to drive down to the Riviera. He’d got a house being built there. He went down to look how it was getting on. Santonix was the architect. I don’t really know what nationality Santonix was. English I thought at first, though it was a funny sort of name I’d never heard before. But I don’t think he was English. Scandinavian of some kind I guess. He was an ill man. I could see that at once. He was young and very fair and thin with an odd face, a face that was askew somehow. The two sides of it didn’t match. He could be quite bad-tempered to his clients. You’d have thoughtas they were paying the money that they’d call the tune and do the bullying. That wasn’t so. Santonix bullied them and he was always quite sure of himself although they weren’t.
    This particular old boy of mine was frothing with rage, I remember, as soon as he arrived and had seen how things were going. I used to catch snatches here and there when I was standing by ready to assist in my chauffeurly and handyman way. It was always on the cards that Mr. Constantine would have a heart attack or a stroke.
    â€œYou have not done as I said,” he half screamed. “You have spent too much money. Much too much money. It is not as we agreed. It is going to cost me more than I thought.”
    â€œYou’re absolutely right,” said Santonix. “But the money’s got to be spent.”
    â€œIt shall not be spent! It shall not be spent. You have got to keep within the limits I laid down. You understand?”
    â€œThen you won’t get the kind of house you want,” said Santonix. “I know what you want. The house I build you will be the house you want. I’m quite sure of that and you’re quite sure of it, too. Don’t give me any of your pettifogging middle-class economies. You want a house of quality and you’re going to get it, and you’ll boast about it to your friends and they’ll envy you. I don’t build a house for anyone, I’ve told you that. There’s more to it than money. This house isn’t going to be like other people’s houses!”
    â€œIt is going to be terrible. Terrible.”
    â€œOh no it isn’t. The trouble with you is that you don’t know what you want. Or at least so anyone might think. But you do know what you want really, only you can’t bring it out into your mind. Youcan’t see it clearly. But I know. That’s the one thing I always know. What people are after and what they want. There’s a feeling in you for quality. I’m going to give you quality.”
    He used to say things like that. And I’d stand by and listen. Somehow or other I could see for myself that this house that was being built there amongst pine trees looking over the sea, wasn’t going to be the usual house. Half of it didn’t look out towards the sea in a