Ladies From Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

transmit.”
    I clucked. “Then try and see it from his point of view,” I said brightly. “It’s probably the only way the poor chap can get an erection.”
    The Overseer stared at me for a moment with total blankness. Then he said, “If only you’d paint more
landscapes
…”
    I made a pot of tea. It seemed the only decent thing to do. By evening he had recovered sufficiently to take a little Schubert. I let it get dark and played the
Winterreise
. The canvases stood about and listened.
    He sat swilling the liquid in his glass till the pickup lifted. Then he said mournfully, “Why do you do it, anyway?”
    “Do what?”
    “Paint all those young girls.”
    I considered. “I like young girls,” I said finally. “So the older I get, the more I do it. Like Father William standing on his head.”
    He rubbed his face wearily. He said, “He even changed his mind about the one he said he liked. Wanted to know what that thing was on her arm.”
    I turned a light on. The three Personae jumped from gloom. “It’s a brace,” I said. “She strained her wrist at tennis. Just a brace.” I wondered what the hell the Controllerhad thought it was anyway. In the mood he’d been in he’d probably taken it as the apparatus of a Nameless Vice.
    The Overseer said suddenly, “You fancy her, don’t you?”
    “Er … sorry?”
    He glared at the canvases. He said, “The girl. Amaryllis. You
fancy
her.”
    I said gently, “I
enjoy
her. That’s a bit different.”
    He tipped the whisky back. “Don’t play bloody word games with me,” he said viciously. “I know what’s going on. And you haven’t got a chance.”
    I have a great line in exits. “I’m sorry,” I said frostily. “You must think what you choose.” I turned to leave, and he called me back. “All right,” he said, “I shouldn’t have said that. Get yourself a glass, there’s no point us quarrelling as well.”
    It takes two to make a quarrel. But I got a glass anyway. He sat brooding for a time; it was obvious something else was coming. Finally it burst out. “I can’t understand you,” he said. “Any of you. I’ve tried, because it’s my job. But I can’t.”
    I was quiet for a bit myself. I was thinking back to the evening I did the sketches for the costume life. It was at the last Summerfest, at the Wellcomes. Jill and Barney had been there, and Clancy and Pete Merriman and Di Tranter. Di perched on a window seat in the long old room; the light from the orchard outside was still intense, it suffused her outline with an emerald dazzle. Baskets of Russets stood about, filling the air with a scent like heavy spice. It was a night for marvels; and Am walked in with the buckled leather brace on her wrist, stepped on to the throne and became still. Her hair was short, like a boy’s, and raven-black. She wore an open-necked shirt, and her legs and arms were slim and very brown.
Une Déesse, en mini et chemisette ambrée
. After the session Clancy played Villa-Lobos; and supper was cheese and crusty bread.
    I looked up. I said, “There’s nothing to understand.”
    “What?”
    I said, “Picasso liked the colour blue. Escher liked crossword puzzles. Peter Paul liked wine and large ladies. I like Am and Clancy. It isn’t a code, there’s nothing there. Only what you see.”
    He didn’t answer, just set his mouth again andlooked haggard. He could still pull the fat out of the fire, if he wanted to. Nobody else could do it for him. But he wouldn’t. Adonis is a force of nature, he doesn’t understand. Not like that.
    The Assistant arrived toward the end of May. I was feeding Lady A’s Birman at the time. Horrible great mog, the bane of my life. It only sharpened its claws on a stretched canvas once though. I will say this for cats, they’re fast learners; we’ve established a good working relationship since. Anyway when James did his hemming and shuffling bit in the doorway and I turned round I got the surprise of my life.
    She was tall,