The House of Stairs by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

dictionary of psychology, a dictionary of modern Greek that Cosette bought me one Christmas, being unable to get a classical Greek one. And I was cross, I remember, I wasn’t grateful or even resigned.
    “But I told you,” I said, “I told you over and over. I said not to get modern Greek. I told you not to get anything at all. What am I going to do with a dictionary of modern Greek?”
    And poor Cosette said humbly, “I’ll get you the one you want. I’ve ordered it. They’re going to get it in for me, they’re going to get it next week. You’ll have two that way. Wouldn’t you like to have two Greek dictionaries?”
    I stand here in my room looking at the dictionaries and at the sets and novel sequences. I look at my pictures, the watercolors my father gave me from our old house when he moved, the Fulvio Roiter poster of the Venice Carnival, the Mondriaan reproduction, and the Klee reproduction—and I look at the space where I tried hanging the Bronzino but couldn’t, couldn’t face the sight of it. Douglas’s typewriter is dusty and should be covered up, but there is no cover for it, the cover was lost long ago, probably while Cosette was still living at Garth Manor—pretentious, absurd name; if ever there was an instance of belonging in a category of disappointing things, this was it!—or lost in the move. On the desk, which is not the one Cosette bought in the Portobello Road, I have a London telephone directory and a list of numbers, not in London, that I wrote down from other directories while I was in the public library this morning. The London directory is an old one, but Cosette Kingsley isn’t in it. I don’t know why I look for her name, for something so impossible, but I do.
    The Castles’ number I have found, at the same old address in Wellgarth Avenue. It would be useless to phone them anyway, they won’t know. But I could ask them for Diana’s number, I could ask them where she is now, if she has married. I don’t want to speak to them, that is the truth of it, I don’t want to have to parry their innocent inquiries or offers of help. Fay’s number is written on the piece of paper and so is Ivor Sitwell’s. Fay lives in Chester and Ivor in Frome, in a kind of farming commune, I gather, a place where they grow organic vegetables. I couldn’t find the dancers’ number, there was no number either for Llanos or Reed. There is only one Admetus in the phone book, initials M. W., but it must be Walter and he must have moved from Fulham up to Cholmeley Crescent in Highgate. But why should any of them know the whereabouts of Bell, whom they have no reason to care about, whom they may hate?
    Also on the piece of paper is Elsa the Lioness’s number, not because she lives outside London, but because she is ex-directory and I have had a succession of secret, closely guarded numbers of hers written down in my personal phone book for years. The latest is on the paper now because it seemed more convenient to have all the numbers together. I have not seen her or spoken to her for a while, a month or two, but it is not the first time months have elapsed without our seeing or speaking, and when I do get to speak to her it will be all right, there will be no reproaches or accusations or grumbles, I know that. The Lioness has been married and divorced and married again and now lives on her own in a flat in Maida Vale. I dial her number but get no answer.
    Her cousins, Esmond and Felicity, with whom we used to stay, she and I, live outside the area covered by London phone directories. Or they did and probably still do. I find it hard to imagine anyone willingly leaving that house. But then, of course, people leave houses unwillingly, they leave because they must, as Walter Admetus may have done, because they cannot afford them anymore, or find them impossible for physical reasons, because of their staircases and steps up to the front door, their different levels, long passages, heavy doors. I should know