Ice in the Bedroom Read Online Free PDF

Freddie, doing so. 'Nervous and fragile?'
    'Got a lot on my mind. Widgeon,' said Miss Yorke, 'I am standing at a woman's crossroads. Do you read my stuff?'
    'Well – er - what with one thing and another…'
    'No need to apologize. One can't read everything, and no doubt you're all tied up with your Proust and Kafka. Well, for your information, it's too sweet for words.'
    'Really?'
    'Pure treacle. Would you call me a sentimental woman?'
    'Not offhand.'
    'I'm not. In the ordinary give-and-take of life I'm as tough an egg as ever stepped out of the saucepan. Did my butler show you in when you arrived?'
    'No. I came with your secretary, Miss Foster. I met her on the train. We – er - we know each other slightly.'
    'Oh, yes, I remember it was Sally who told me you were here. Well, you ought to see my butler. Haughty? The haughtiest thing you ever met. I've seen strong publishers wilt beneath his eye. And yet that man, that haughty butler, curls up like a sheet of carbon paper if I look squiggle-eyed at him. That's the sort of woman I am when I haven't a pen in my hand, but give me a ball-pointed and what happens? Don't keep all that champagne to yourself.'
    'Oh, sorry.'
    'And don't spill it. The prudent man doesn't waste a drop.'
    'It's good stuff.'
    'It's excellent stuff. It's what Johnny Shoesmith needs to make him realize he isn't something dug out of Tutankhamen's tomb. Where was I?'
    'You were saying what happens.'
    'What happens when what?'
    'When you get a ball-pointed pen in your hand.'
    'Oh, yes. The moment my fingers clutch it, Widgeon, a great change comes over me. I descend to depths of goo which you with your pure mind wouldn't believe possible. I write about stalwart men, strong but oh so gentle, and girls with wide grey eyes and hair the colour of ripe wheat, who are always having misunderstandings and going to Africa. The men, that is. The girls stay at home and marry the wrong bimbos. But there's a happy ending. The bimbos break their necks in the hunting field and the men come back in the last chapter and they and the girls get together in the twilight, and all around is the scent of English flowers and birds singing their evensong in the shrubbery. Makes me shudder to think of it.'
    'It sounds rather good to me. I wouldn't mind getting together with a girl in the twilight.'
    'No, it's kind of you to try to cheer me up, Widgeon, but I know molasses when I see it. Or is it "them"? The critics call my stuff tripe.'
    'No!'
    'That's what they do, they call it tripe.'
    'Monstrous!'
    'And of course it is tripe. But I'm not going to have a bunch of inky pipsqueaks telling me so. And I'm fed to the teeth with all these smart alecks who do parodies of me, hoping to make me feel like a piece of cheese. The worm has turned, Widgeon. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to write a novel that'll make their eyes pop out, What some call an important novel, and others significant. Keep that champagne circulating. Don't let it congeal.'
    'But can you?'
    'Can I what?'
    'Write an important novel.'
    'Of course I can. All you have to do is cut out the plot and shove in plenty of misery. I can do it on my head, once I get started. Only the trouble is that as long as I remain at Claines Hall, Loose Chippings, I can't get started. The atmosphere here is all wrong. Butlers and moats and things popping about all over the place. I've got to get away somewhere where there's a little, decent squalor.'
    'That's exactly what Sally Foster was saying.'
    'Oh, was she? Nice girl, that. She ought to marry somebody. Maybe she will before long. I think she's in love.'
    'You do?'
    'Yes, I've an idea there's someone for whom she feels sentiments deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship. Well, if so, I wish her luck. Love's all right. Makes the world go round, they say. I don't know if there's anything in it, Or if there's anything in that bottle. Is there?'
    'Just a drop.'
    'Let's have it. What were we talking about?'
    'You were