The Fever Tree and Other Stories by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

there in the street, and he had to sit in the car he’d hired till seven. She looked as if she hadn’t slept either. Miss Patricia Gordon, he wrote, painting fast and skilfully.
    â€˜Don’t forget your ginger jar.’ said Betsy. ‘I don’t want it.’
    â€˜That’s for the trunk.’ Miss Patricia Gordon, 23 Burwood Park Avenue, Kew, Victoria, Australia 3101. ‘All the pretty things are going in the trunk. I intend it as a special present for Patricia.’
    The Lowry came down and was carefully padded and wrapped. He wrapped the onyx ashtray and the pen jar, the alabaster bowl, the bronze paperknife, the tiny Chinese cups, the tall hock glasses. The china figurine, alas . . . he opened the lid of the trunk.
    â€˜I hope the customs open it!’ Betsy shouted at him. ‘I hope they confiscate things and break things! I’ll pray every night for it to go to the bottom of the sea before it gets there!’
    â€˜The sea,’ he said, ‘is a risk I must take. As for the customs –’ He smiled. ‘Patricia works for them, she’s a customs officer – didn’t I tell you? I very much doubt if they’ll even glance inside.’ He wrote a label and pasted it on the side of the trunk. Miss Patricia Gordon, 23 Burwood Park Avenue, Kew . . .’ And now I’ll have to go out and get a padlock. Keys, please. If you try to keep me out this time, I’ll call the police. I’m still the legal tenant of this flat remember.’
    She gave him the keys. When he had gone she put her letter in the ginger jar. She hoped he would close the trunk at once, but he didn’t. He left it open, the lid thrown back, the new padlock dangling from the gold-coloured clasp.
    â€˜Is there anything to eat?’ he said.
    â€˜Go and find your own bloody food! Go and find some other woman to feed you!’
    He liked her to be angry and fierce; it was her love he feared. He came back at midnight to find the flat in darkness, and he lay down on the sofa with the tea chests standing about him like defences, like barricades, the white paint showing faintly in the dark. Miss Patricia Gordon . . .
    Presently Betsy came in. She didn’t put on the light. She wound her way between the chests, carrying a candle in a saucer which she set down on the trunk. In the candlelight, wearing a long white nightgown, she looked like a ghost, like some wandering madwoman, a Mrs Rochester, a Woman in White.
    â€˜Maurice.’
    â€˜Go away, Betsy, I’m tired.’
    â€˜Maurice, please. I’m sorry I said all those things. I’m sorry I locked you out.’
    â€˜O.K., I’m sorry too. It’s a mess, and maybe I shouldn’t have done it the way I did. But the best way is for me just to go and my things to go and make a clean split. Right? And now will you please be a good girl and go away and let me get some sleep?’
    What happened next he hadn’t bargained for. It hadn’t crossed his mind. Men don’t understand about women and sex. She threw herself on him, clumsily, hungrily. She pulled his shirt open and began kissing his neck and his chest, holding his head, crushing her mouth to his mouth, lying on top of him and gripping his legs with her knees.
    He gave her a savage push. He kicked her away, and she fell and struck her head on the side of the trunk. The candle fell off, flared and died in a pool of wax. In the darkness he cursed floridly. He put on the light and she got up, holding her head where there was a little blood.
    â€˜Oh, get out, for God’s sake,’ he said, and he manhandled her out, slamming the door after her.
    In the morning, when she came into the room, a blue bruise on her forehead, he was asleep, fully clothed, spread-eagled on his back. She shuddered at the sight of him. She began to get breakfast but she couldn’t eat anything. The coffee made her gag and a great nauseous