Saturn Over the Water by J. B. Priestley, J.B. Priestley Read Free Book Online Page B

turn to make a diversion. ‘And if I did, she wouldn’t be as beautiful as you are. I can’t imagine what work you do – ’
    I left her an opening, but she merely closed it with a shrug. They were all tiny shrugs, by the way, mere ripples of her fine shoulders.
    ‘But you oughtn’t to have to do a damned thing,’ I went on. ‘Just sit about and look like an exquisite witch – wicked and wonderful.’
    ‘I am not wicked and I am not wonderful. That is only your imagination, though of course I like it. I am just a woman – ’
    And that is when Sir Reginald came bustling in. He wasn’t really a bustler, being too smooth, too sure of himself, too well organised, but for once he bustled. I make the point because I had a definite feeling, there and then, that although he’d asked me to stay, now for some reason or other he was anxious to get rid of me. ‘Sorry, Bedford, though I’m sure you didn’t mind being kept here by Nadia.’
    ‘I loved it.’ I smiled at her. She smiled at me, then looked inquiringly at Sir Reginald, who returned a quick shake of the head that certainly didn’t suggest any boy friend relationship. She said good night, and left me with the impression that the work she said she had to do brought Sir Reginald in somewhere, but not directly as her employer.
    He now took me to my Midland landscape, which was hanging in a corridor that led from the top of the stairs to the drawing-room. He said he’d always been curious about what I’d had in mind when I painted it. I told him, briefly and without any enthusiasm. As a rule I like talking about painting, especially late at night and after much drink, but I didn’t on that occasion, partly because he couldn’t keep a patronising tone out of his voice, but chiefly because I was dead certain he’d just invented that curiosity about my landscape. It simply didn’t ring true. Perhaps he’d originally wanted to talk to me about something else, and had then changed his mind. Perhaps he had some reason for wanting to leave me alone with Nadia. Perhaps he just enjoyed keeping fellows like me hanging about, waiting for him to have time for them. But I was ready to bet all I had that what he said about my picture was sheer bull’s wool. Short as I was, replying to him, impatience flickered in his eyes.
    ‘Thank you for asking me,’ I said, after we’d come out of the smoke screen. ‘It was a kind thought, giving me a chance to see those two pictures again.’
    ‘A pleasure.’ Then he looked at me solemnly. ‘I believe in you, Bedford. Ask them at the gallery. Keep on working, won’t you?’
    ‘I’d have to, even if I didn’t want to.’
    ‘It’s not quite what I meant, my dear fellow.’ As he tapped me on the shoulder, his eyes were bright slits. ‘Don’t let anything interfere with it. If you’re ever tempted to start running around, as so many of you fellows do nowadays, take hold of yourself and remember you’re a painter – and a good one. Nasty night out, so I have a car waiting for you. My responsibility – I have an account with ’em – so don’t try to do anything about it.’
    By the time I was back in the studio, now beginning to look forlorn, I was recovering from the wines, spirits and Nadia. The first thing I did – and even now I don’t know why – was to go up the steps at the far end to my one small bedroom, because I knew I’d put that sheet of paper, the one with the names scribbled on it, in the top drawer, where I keep my passport and odds and ends with my ties and handkerchiefs. And it wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember leaving it anywhere else, but of course I looked, down in the studio where there’s an old table I sometimes dump papers on, then back in the bedroom, through the other drawers and in the pockets of my suits. When I couldn’t find it, I took another and more careful look at that top drawer, for when I stopped kidding myself I knew very well I’d left it there, along with the three