Stamboul Train by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page B

mermaids and sea-horses.’ The flare of professional interest guttered as she looked again at Janet Pardoe: no more of a morning would she see Janet in pyjamas pouring out coffee, no more of an evening come in to the flat and find Janet in pyjamas mixing a cocktail. She said huskily, ‘Darling, which pair will you be wearing tonight?’ The feminine question sounded oddly in Miss Warren’s deep masculine voice.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Pyjamas, darling. I want to think of you tonight just as you are.’
    â€˜I don’t suppose I shall even undress. Look, it’s a quarter past one. We must go. You’ll never get your interview.’
    Miss Warren’s professional pride was touched. ‘You don’t think I need to ask him questions?’ she said. ‘Just a look at him and I’ll put the right words in his mouth. And he won’t complain either. It’s publicity.’
    â€˜But I must find the porter with my bags.’ Everyone was leaving the restaurant. As the door opened and closed the cries of porters, the whistle of steam, came faintly down to where they sat. Janet Pardoe appealed again to Miss Warren. ‘We must go. If you want any more gin I shall leave you to it.’ But Miss Warren said nothing, Miss Warren ignored her; Janet Pardoe found herself attending one of the regular rites of Mabel Warren’s journalistic career, the visible shedding of her drunkenness. First a hand put the hair into order, then a powdered handkerchief, her compromise with femininity, disguised the redness of her cheeks and lids. All the while she was focusing her eyes, using whatever lay before her, cups, waiter, glasses and so to the distant mirrors and her own image, as a kind of optician’s alphabetic scroll. On this occasion the first letter of the alphabet, the great black A, was an elderly man in a mackintosh, who was standing beside a table brushing away his crumbs before leaving to catch the train.
    â€˜My God,’ said Miss Warren, covering her eyes with her hand, ‘I’m drunk. I can’t see properly. Who’s that there?’
    â€˜The man with the moustache?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I’ve never seen him before.’
    â€˜I have,’ said Miss Warren, ‘I have. But where?’ Something had diverted her effectually from the thought of separation; her nose was on a scent and leaving half a finger of gin in the bottom of her glass, she strode in the man’s wake to the door. He was out and walking quickly across the black shining hall to a flight of stairs before Miss Warren could extricate herself from the swing door. She crashed into a porter and fell on her knees, swaying her head, trying to free it from the benevolence, the melancholy, the vagueness of drink. He stopped to help her and she seized his arm and stayed him until she could control her tongue. ‘What train leaves platform five?’ she asked. ‘Vienna,’ the man said.
    â€˜Belgrade?’ ‘Yes.’
    It had been pure chance that she had said Belgrade and not Constantinople, but the sound of her own voice brought her light. She called out to Janet Pardoe: ‘Take two seats. I’m coming with you as far as Vienna.’
    â€˜Your ticket?’
    â€˜I’ve got my reporter’s pass.’ It was she who was now impatient. ‘Hurry. Platform five. It’s twenty-eight past. Only five minutes.’ She still kept the porter to her side with a muscular grip. ‘Listen. I want you to take a message for me. Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse 33.’
    â€˜I can’t leave the station,’ he told her.
    â€˜What time do you come off duty?’
    â€˜Six.’
    â€˜That’s no good. You must slip out. You can do that, can’t you? No one will notice.’
    â€˜I’d get the sack.’
    â€˜Risk it,’ said Miss Warren. ‘Twenty marks.’
    The man shook his head. ‘The foreman would