Ikon Read Free Page A

focused on his reflection in the mirror, and realized that he was there.
    ‘Well,’ she said, without turning around. She replaced the cap on her lip-liner, and reached for her blusher. ‘If I’d known you were the kind of guy who likes sneaking into a girl’s bedroom …’
    ‘What would you have done?’ he asked her. His pulse was still beating with that even, purposeful rhythm, but his voice sounded light and amused. On the television, an angry parent was saying, ‘I won’t have my child educated side by side with hoodlums and trouble-makers and ignorant Indians, that’s all. My child has a right to lead the life that / had.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have asked you home.’
    ‘I knew you were going to ask me home the moment I set eyes on you,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, yes?’ Her voice was a little sharper.
    ‘No slight intended,’ said Henry. ‘I didn’t think you looked cheap, or easy, or even particularly lonely. But I could see what qualities you possessed, straight away. Star qualities, you know? You’re a star, in your own way.’
    ‘I wish I was.’
    ‘Oh, believe me,’ said Henry. He raised the flexible saw behind her back, his hands firmly grasping the two wooden handles, stretching the blade out until it was taut.
    Margot Schneider touched up her cheeks with blusher, then pressed her lips tight together and stared at herself closely in the mirror, as if she wasn’t at all pleased with the way her face looked.
    I should lose some weight, you know? But it’s so difficult when you don’t have anybody to lose weight for.’
    ‘Why don’t you lose it for me? I’m as good as anyone.’
    ‘I don’t suppose I shall ever see you again, shall I, after today? That’s the way they all are. Horny, tired, sick of business. All they need is one evening of comfort. Then they go back to their wives.’
    While she rummaged in her dressing-table drawer, Henry raised the saw higher, until it was only a few inches above her head. ‘I’m so untidy,’ she said. They used to tell me that when I was a little girl, you know? I can never find anything.’
    Henry said, ‘Look up. Look at yourself in the mirror. Now, what can you say about a woman who looks like that, at fifty-six?’
    Margot Schneider kept on rummaging for a moment, and then froze. Henry could see the muscles in her back tighten up. It seemed like a whole minute before she spoke, and when she did, she sounded like someone else altogether, someone frightened and small.
    ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ she whispered.
    ‘What do you mean? You’re Margot Schneider, that’s what you told me.’
    ‘You said fifty-six. How do you know I’m fifty-six?’
    ‘You told me.’
    ‘I never told you any such thing. I always tell people I’m fifty-one.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Henry. He was trying hard to make his voice sound normal, praying even harder that she wouldn’t turn around and see him standing right behind her with that thin whippy steel saw held upraised in both tense fists.
    She said, in a haunted gush, ‘Haven’t I given enough? I never had anything to start with. Haven’t I given enough? For the love of God, all of you, you’ve taken everything!’
    ‘Listen, Margot - ‘ he told her.
    ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been taunting me all afternoon with it, haven’t you? Hollywood, the movies, the River Of No Return? and I was dumb enough not to understand what you were doing to me.’
    He said, in a tone that was almost shocking because it
    sounded so sincere, ‘Margot, believe me, I don’t think you’re anyone but Margot Schneider. Why should I?’
    Seconds went past. One of the parents on the television snapped, ‘If they want guinea-pigs then let them use guinea-pigs. They’re not using my kids.’
    Then, almost as if she knew what was going to happen, and had decided to accept it with the dignity of Joan of Arc, or Lady Jane Grey, Margot raised her head and