North Face Read Free Page B

along. It’ll be quiet up there.”
    “Oh, yes, beautifully quiet. You won’t know anyone else is in the house. And the bathroom’s only just at the foot of the steps, quite handy really. They look a bit flimsy, but the builder’s not long been over them and says they’ll be safe for fifty years. You’ll find there’s a lovely view.” She paused on this. “There’s just one thing, Mr Langton, and be sure to tell me, for I’d make arrangements somehow if it meant moving out myself …”
    “What is it?” asked Neil abruptly. The moment of suspense, the impending of a personal question, scraped like a rough thumb along his nerves. He had had an almost sleepless night in the train, besides.
    Taking alarm, Mrs Kearsey dithered, prolonging his discomfort. “It’s nothing, really, only I know some people find … I mean it’s the height. Now please be sure to tell me if you can stand looking down.”
    “Yes, thanks,” said Neil, speaking with rather more irony than he was aware. He had just spent some time on Ben Nevis, going into this question closely. Life had never been much disposed to hand him solutions ready-made.
    Sure that she had offended him beyond repair, Mrs Kearsey launched herself into a stream of palliative platitudes; she had seen, too late, the clinker-nailed boots slung outside the rucksack. It took Neil, who was pre-occupied, a few moments to realize what it was all about. Pulling himself together, he smiled at her.
    “Of course not. Nice of you to worry about it.”
    Mrs Kearsey underwent a relaxing process inconsequent to Neil, who was not given to mirrors. Becoming suddenly almost cosy, she showed him the bathroom and went off promising tea. The tapwater was hot; he quite wished he had taken his razor in with him. But never mind. It was after five; the dining-room would be clear by now, he would get a meal in peace.
    The door of the Lounge was neither really thick nor quite gimcrack. Incomplete, filtered sounds of arrival had come through it: the bell, Mrs Kearsey’s strained twitter, sliding down the register to an easier C natural; infrequent, low-pitched replies, feet, light and decisive on alternate stairs. The feet sounded young.
    A conversation, about the difficulty of understanding Russians, drifted rudderless and ran aground. Miss Searle tried to tug it back into the fairway, but broke off to give a careful pat to her nose. Afterwards, she pushed her handkerchief out of sight into the sleeve of her cardigan, and smoothed out the bulge. Miss Fisher stretched her stockings out sideways, looked for rubbed places over the ankle-bones, and, satisfied, crossed her legs at the knee. They were American nylon; Miss Searle noticed this for the first time. She herself had on woollen ones, because of her cold. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she tucked them under the chair: she was quite unaware, in any cerebral way, of doing this.
    Mrs Kearsey came in with tea, a large plate of bread and butter, and some more scones. She flicked at Miss Searle and Miss Fisher a concealed look which had something of conscience about it. Two minutes later she came in again, with a boiled egg.
    “One shouldn’t spoil them,” she said with guilty brightness. “I warned him not to expect it again! But you know what the food is, travelling nowadays. I always do think the rationing comes hard on these tall men.”
    Miss Searle said nothing. Years of comparison between the endowments of men’s and women’s colleges had left their mark. Miss Fisher gave a little smile, whether of irony or approval it would have been hard to say, and smoothed the hem of her dress over a stocking knee.
    “Now I shall have to hurry him up,” said Mrs Kearsey, rapidly filling-in Miss Searle’s rather palpable silence. It seemed, from the sound, that she had needed to go no further than the foot of the stairs.
    Miss Fisher thrust her needle carefully through a stitch, a little further than one does when about to continue. Miss