Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge Read Free Book Online Page B

rubber plants, blurred figures moved across rooms that blazed with light.
    ‘Six letters,’ said Edward, looking down at his paper. ‘Beginning with T.’
    ‘Terror,’ said Binny.
    ‘A hard case,’ said Edward. ‘Turtle.’ And he pencilled it in.

5
    D riving in their car across London, the Simpsons exchanged bitter words. Outwardly it was on account of Muriel’s interpretation of the street map of N.W.6. They took a left turning instead of a right and ended up on the wrong side of the park.
    ‘Well, go through the park then,’ advised Muriel, but in fact the gates were locked. They made a minor detour, during which Simpson hunched his shoulders meanly and swore several times.
    ‘Why are you behaving like a fool?’ she asked.
    ‘You never see anything clearly,’ he accused. ‘You haven’t the wit.’
    ‘I try,’ she murmured, thinking he was referring to her map reading. ‘I don’t have X-ray vision. I did tell you to stop under a lamp.’
    ‘God knows what we’re getting mixed up in,’ shouted Simpson. ‘We don’t know this woman from Adam.’
    Muriel pointed out reasonably that they didn’t know a lot of people. Why, only last week they’d had dinner with a young couple neither of them had met before. It had been an enjoyable occasion, even if he’d complained afterwards that the main course was stone cold. ‘Though I can’t think how you noticed,’ she said. ‘You were so busy ogling the girl.’ Muriel hadn’t been perturbed by his behaviour. She knew her husband acted as if he had a roving eye, but really he was seeking attention, not giving it. To her knowledge he was a puritan and an egotist. She considered him incapable of indulging in more than a wink and a nudge; it might interfere with his golf.
    ‘Last week,’ Simpson reminded her heatedly, ‘was business. Bloody bread-and-butter business. The sort of thing that pays the bills and puts the clothes on your back.’
    He was thinking how unfair it was that the nicer moments of life – a few drinks under the belt, good food, a pretty woman seated opposite – were invariably spent in the company of one’s wife.
    ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I know you don’t give a damn about that, as long as you manage to get out of the house and have another excuse for going to the hairdressers, but there are one or two mundane things that have to be paid for.’ He proceeded to list a few of them – the mortgage, the tax on her car, the red telephones she’d insisted on installing. He ended by telling her that Edward Freeman was in a potentially dangerous situation; didn’t she realise it could lead to blackmail?
    ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Muriel. ‘He’s not a member of the Cabinet. Besides, what has it to do with my telephones? It’s no good shouting at me. He’s your friend, not mine. I had nothing to do with the arrangements. As for getting out of the house, I’m perfectly capable of opening a door. I have merely to turn the handle.’
    ‘Go to bloody hell,’ ordered Simpson.
    He almost took the wrong turning at the next roundabout. Muriel remained silent but pointed a contemptuous finger, at the last moment, in the correct direction.
    It was raining heavily as they drove into Fulton Street. Simpson cruised slowly past a row of terraced houses, a block of flats, a further line of houses in a dilapidated condition, and a garage. Reaching the end of the road he reversed some distance down an alley and drove back the way they had come.
    ‘Aren’t the trees pretty?’ said Muriel. ‘The raindrops look like flakes of snow.’ She smiled.
    Simpson stopped the car. He sat there with his leather gloves resting on the wheel and his plump thighs splayed wide. ‘I’ve forgotten the number,’ he confessed. ‘Freeman said something about a black-and-white cat, and some sort of creeper hanging over the balcony.’
    ‘Knock on doors,’ suggested Muriel. ‘Look at the names under the bell.’
    She watched him sprinting across the