The Flame of Life Read Free

with a woman he doesn’t because the waiter’s back goes up, since he thinks he’s only trying to impress the woman. Even if the man is justified in his complaints the waiter thinks he should show solidarity with the male sex and not mention them, especially in front of a woman. You can’t win. They’ve got the class war in one eye and the sex war in the other. If I had my way there’d be nothing but counters where you had to go up and get your own.’
    â€˜How perfectly horrible,’ she said. ‘I’d never eat out.’
    â€˜You could bring a maid,’ he suggested, ‘and she’d queue for you.’
    Had he really done the paintings she so much admired? It was like having lunch with your chauffeur simply because he was a good driver. And yet, not quite. This might turn out more interesting. ‘Tell me about your life,’ she said when half a melon, big enough to float away on across the blue lagoon, had been set before them. ‘How did you become a painter?’
    â€˜My life’s simple,’ he replied. ‘Always will be, I hope. After prep school, Eton and Oxford, I got a commission in the Brigade of Guards. Fought in France, back through Dunkirk, went to Egypt and got wounded – though not in the groin. I rejoined my battalion and went to Italy, wounded again, invalided out, nothing to do except draw my pension and paint pictures.’
    She laughed. ‘That’s not what you told the newspapers.’
    â€˜You’ve got to make up a good story,’ he said, pushing his melon aside because it tasted like marrow. ‘Uncle Toby would disown me if I didn’t. I love you. But you must forgive me – not for saying that, because I can’t imagine anyone not coming out with it – but for being so blunt and common. I can’t make pretty speeches. I paint, not talk. I’ve never been good at weaving snares of words around women. If I’m so tongue-tied that I can only say “I love you”, you’ll have to forgive me.’
    It seemed impossible to get through to him. There must be a gap in his armour somewhere. He knew she was thinking this, and saw that if he kept up his rigmarole long enough she might come to bed with him. ‘Do you paint all the time?’
    â€˜Every minute God sends.’
    â€˜Don’t you get bored?’
    â€˜I love you, Daphne.’
    â€˜Don’t you get bored with that?’ He was too impertinent to be her chauffeur.
    â€˜Let’s go to Paris for a couple of days.’
    â€˜Certainly not.’
    â€˜Venice, then.’
    It was ludicrous. She laughed. He rubbed his hands under the table. Wiping them on the cloth, she thought, pointing to the napkin. He drew it across his moustache.
    â€˜You haven’t got your passport,’ she said.
    He took it out of his pocket. ‘I never leave the house unless it’s on me – even if only to the pub for a packet of fags – in case I decide not to go back. I always do, though. You only vanish when all the ends will be left hanging.’
    â€˜You’re a very destructive person.’
    â€˜Not really. To myself maybe.’
    â€˜You make my blood run cold,’ she mocked.
    â€˜Here’s the horsemeat,’ he said, glad to end such a note.
    For a thin woman she showed great appetite, and if he kept up with her it was only to get his money’s worth, and because he’d left home with no more than half a grapefruit and a thimble of black coffee under his belt.
    He filled her empty glass close to the brim, hoping she’d bend her lips to the table to sip it, so that he could look down her dress. But he’d underestimated her dexterity, for she lifted it easily without spilling a drop.
    He apologised: ‘I’m no good at serving people.’
    â€˜You’d never make a waiter,’ she smiled. ‘When did you last go to the mainland?’
    â€˜Fortnight ago. Got so