Listening in the Dusk Read Online Free PDF

the very last time — that they had laughed like this? Laughed in such an ecstasy of shared mockery that it was almost like an ecstasy of love?
    It was hard to believe now that it was this same Rodney, this same beloved husband who, not many months later, had been leaning back against those same cushions, explaining gravely to Alice that he was in love with Ivy, that she was a very wonderful person, and that he wanted to marry her.

Chapter 4
    Oh, but it was cold, cold! The thin army blankets with which the bed was supplied seemed to help not at all. Even with her winter coat still on, even with her boots, the dank chill of the room was getting to her very bones. Draughts whistled in from the winter blackness outside, not only through the ill-fitting dormer window, but through mysterious cracks along the skirting-boards ; the ancient bridal drapery over the motor bike stirred and quivered, showing up the rusty stains of long ago.
    Such cold was not to be endured. She must go down all those stairs and look for her landlady in the basement. Ask for more blankets. For a hot-water bottle. Some kind of heating, an electric fire, or something.
    Oh, and a hot bath! How wonderful that would be! Mention had been made of a bathroom, albeit two or three floors down.
    “A bath? But of course, dearie. Any time. As many baths as you like. The only thing is, Alice, the geyser seems to be in one of its moods this evening. It gets like that sometimes, it won’t light straight away, and then you get this great big pop, makes you jump out of your skin. I’d better come up with you dear, and see how it’s doing. Sometimes, you know, it won’t light at all, and then we have to wait for Brian to come in, he does something to it with a knife, and then it’s all right for a bit. Mare—ee!” she yelled suddenly, turning towards the stairs. “Mare—ee! Where’s Brian? Is he coming back tonight?”
    A distant voice, incomprehensible to Alice, could be heard answering at somewhat greater length than the question would seem to warrant; and though Alice could not make out the words, the peevish tone in which they were uttered was unmistakable.
    “OK, dear, OK! I’m not trying to pry!” yelled back Hetty; andthen she turned with a sigh to Alice: “No dice, never mind, well have a go at it ourselves.” Then, in a lower voice as they set off up the stairs: “I don’t mind who they have up there, boyfriends and that, or who they don’t. Love and let love is what I say. But she’s so touchy, that girl, you wouldn’t believe. The simplest question, and she jumps down your throat like you were accusing her of murder. Never mind, let’s see what we can do.” And continuing on the way up the stairs, she pushed open the bathroom door, revealing an untidy barn of a room containing an ironing board, several suitcases and a roll of carpet as well as a bath.
    “You stay there, over by the door, dear,” Hetty warned; and herself tiptoed warily across the floor towards the ancient geyser, like a cat stalking a rather large rat.
    “Pilot’s off, I’m afraid, Alice,” was her verdict, straightening up after a prolonged inspection of the thing’s internal organs. “I daren’t light it myself, not without Brian here, I just daren’t. I’ve known the flame jump three feet into the room, I’m not exaggerating, and I wouldn’t like that to happen to you, dear. Not your first night.”
    Alice felt that she could do without it on other nights too; but she tried not to seem hypercritical.
    “Well, never mind,” she said, clutching her coat yet more tightly about her. Then: “Do you think — perhaps — if there is an electric fire to spare? If I could have it up in my room? Just for tonight? I’d pay, of course.”
    “ Of course, darling!” cried Hetty, in tones of such impassioned liberality that one could only assume that the words related to the request for the fire, and not at all to the offer to pay. “ Of course, darling, you must