The Call-Girls Read Free Page A

whether she did it with a cut-throat razor, and was reminded of Mary Queen of Scots.
    â€˜It’s just a silly habit,’ he said, recovering. ‘Did you get that sunburn in Kenya, or wherever your baboons are domiciled?’
    â€˜Rot. On the Serpentine in Hyde Park. They had a heatwave.’
    â€˜What were you doing in London?’
    â€˜What do you think I was doing? Yawning my head off at a symposium on Hierarchic Order in Primate Societies. I knew what each of them would say – Lorenz and that Schallerwoman, and the Russells and the rest – and they all knew what I was going to say, but I had to go. Why? Because I am an academic call-girl. We are all call-girls in this bus. You are still green, but you might become one in due time.’
    â€˜It’s the first time I have been invited to a symposium of this kind,’ confessed Tony. ‘I am madly thrilled.’
    â€˜Rot. It becomes a habit, maybe an addiction. You get a long-distance telephone-call from some professional busybody at some foundation or university – “sincerely hope you can fit it into your schedule – it will be a privilege to have you with us – return fare economy-class and a modest honorarium of…” Or maybe no honorarium at all, and in the end you are out of pocket. I am telling you, it’s an addiction.’
    â€˜You are pulling my leg,’ protested Tony.
    â€˜Maybe this show will be a little less of a circus because it is Solovief’s idea, and I am a sucker for his ideas, though some say he’s finished. But he always has a surprise up his sleeve, you’ll see.’
    Dr Epsom rotated her head back into quarter-profile, to resume conversation with her neighbour. ‘I have always been mad about baby-blue eyes,’ she remarked audibly. The young woman with the shaven neck said something in a semi-whisper, and both their backs shook with mirth.
    After a final climb round two hairpin bends separated by an S curve, the bus suddenly emerged into the village. It stood on a high plateau surrounded by undulating grassland, wooded mountains, and in the distance some glaciers which were visible only on clear days. The village consisted essentially of a spacious square, formed by the white, Romanesque church, the town-hall-cum-post-office, and two massive old farmhouses converted into inns. From the square, three lanes radiated in three different directions. Each started hopefully with a couple of shops and boarding-houses, but after some fifty yards it petered out and became a dirt-track ambling along pastures and farms. The farmhouses were square, squat and solid, built of seasoned, highly inflammable timber, surrounded by balconies with elaboratecarvings, and with a bell-tower to tell the men in the fields that dinner was ready, or to sound the alarm in case of fire. All over the wide open landscape, two or three farmhouses were always clustered together, but at a distance of several hundred yards from the next cluster.
    â€˜Where is the cinema?’ Harriet Epsom shouted at the driver as they were crossing the church square – white, sundrenched and empty at this hour.
    â€˜The
Kino
?’ the driver repeated, turning round. He had a ginger-coloured, Emperor Franz Josef moustache, twirled and waxed to screwdriver points on a level with his eyes, and spoke a guttural English that sounded like Arabic. ‘The
Kino
is down in the valley. Schneedorf is a backward village, Miss. We have no cinema, only colour television.’
    H.E. rotated her head towards Tony. ‘That stage mountaineer is trying to be funny.’
    â€˜I think …’ Tony started, but did not get further because the moustachioed driver again turned his head and announced: ‘Gentlemen and ladies, we are now arrived at the Kongress-building.’
    And there it stood, improbably, behind another sudden turn, which at the same time was the end of the road. The native building style in