Altered States Read Online Free PDF Page B

eventuallywant was situated in the future, had no shape, but was radiant with promise. My mother had already belonged to someone else’s family. Much as I loved her—and I did love her very deeply—I did not want her to spoil my chances.
    ‘Alan,’ called my mother warningly, and with a nod of her head indicated Brian, who was surrounded by Sarah and her friends and thus effectively separated from Felicity. Felicity, I could see, would not be gracious in such a situation.
    ‘Will you excuse me?’ I said to Jenny. ‘I think Mother …’
    She smiled and patted my hand again. ‘You go, dear. Go and find the young people. Go and find Sarah.’
    The young people, once I had detached them from Brian, closed in on me with the vaguely menacing jollity of nymphs or maenads. Their scents conflicted; hair was tossed carelessly over shoulders, without regard for the plates of food being circulated.
    ‘Sarah I know,’ I began ponderously. ‘But I don’t believe I’ve met …’
    ‘Berthe,’ said the dark one. ‘Berthe Rigaud. Sarah and I were pen friends. She used to come and stay with us in the holidays.’ She spoke with the near cockney accent of the upper-class English girl, only the faintest of intonations giving her away as French. She seemed a cut above the other two socially; that English, I guessed, had been learned at her nanny’s knee. She too was in black, a black suit, with a low-cut black camisole, which she filled abundantly. The other girl, in contrast, although doing her best and parading the same insouciance, seemed out of place, as though she had willed herself into animation and had even had a little too much to drink for that very purpose. In her prim blouse, with its piecrust collar, she was obviously self-conscious. ‘Angela Milsom,’ she confided. ‘We’re actually staying with Sarah this weekend. Your mother very kindly invited us.’ Sheseemed grateful for my presence, as if only a man could save her from other women. I believe I must have subconsciously noted this fact at the time.
    ‘That house!’ shrieked Berthe. ‘In the middle of nowhere! You have to get rid of it, Sarah. No wonder you preferred to come to Paris. The invitation’s still open, by the way.’
    ‘I fully intend to get rid of it,’ said Sarah, feeding in another olive.
    ‘You want to sell the house?’ I sounded fatuous, even to myself. ‘I can help you with the conveyancing, if you like. I’m a solicitor.’
    ‘We know,’ said Berthe. ‘Your mother told us.’ She seemed to find this amusing. In retrospect I can see that it was.
    ‘Have you got a card?’ asked Sarah. The very question seemed to turn me into a terminal bore.
    ‘I’ll send you my address,’ I said. ‘I presume you’re still at Parsons Green?’
    ‘Not for long.’
    ‘But Sarah,’ protested Angela. ‘It’s a lovely house. And the garden is, well, lovely. And anyway doesn’t it belong to your mother?’ A legal mind, I noted.
    ‘It actually belonged to my
father
,’ said Sarah. ‘So it’s come to me, right? My mother doesn’t live there any more. I’m looking for a flat in town. Maybe you can help me with that too.’ She had obviously inherited her mother’s vagueness about my functions, although in this case annexing them for personal use.
    For the first time she seemed to look at me, drawn perhaps by the intensity of my gaze. I had been looking at her, or perhaps looking for her, for a good while now. My higher faculties noted the symmetry of her features, her pre-Raphaelite shock of hair, her icy blue eyes, and registered her as not exactly a beautiful woman but certainly an arresting one. I also registered the fact that she was both vague andunaccommodating, with the sort of insistent presence that made no concession to others. I blushed, in my usual deplorable fashion, and felt ridiculous, so much so that under the pretext of finding another drink I was obliged to move away. A wave of laughter followed my no doubt scarlet