London Transports Read Online Free PDF Page B

a nice time, and impressing Melissa and Malcolm just because she was obviously not trying to.
    This shock was so physical that a piece of something exotic, avocado maybe, anyway something that shouldn’t be in a salad, got stuck in my throat. No amount of clearing and hurrumphing could get rid of it and I stood up in a slight panic.
    Alice grasped at once.
    “Relax and it will go down,” she called. “Just force your limbs to relax, and your throat will stop constricting. No, don’t bang her, there’s no need.”
    She spoke with such confidence that I tried to make my hands and knees feel heavy, and miracles it worked.
    “That’s a good technique,” said Malcolm admiringly, when I had been patted down and, scarlet with rage, assured everyone I was fine.
    “It’s very unscientific,” said the doctor amongst us, who would have liked the chance to slit my throat and remove the object to cries of admiration.
    “It worked,” said Alice simply.
    The choking had gone away but not the reason for it. Why did I suddenly feel so possessive about Alice, so hurt when she hadn’t liked my dress, so jealous and envious that she was accepted here on her own terms and not as my friend? It was ridiculous. Sometimes I didn’t hear from Alice for a couple of weeks; we weren’t soul mates over everything, just long-standing friends.
    “…have you had this flat in the City long?” asked Keith politely.
    “Oh that’s not my flat, that’s Alice’s,” I said. Alice was always unusual. She had thought that since the City would be deserted at weekends, the time she wanted a bit of peace, that’s where she should live. And of course it worked. Not a dog barked, not a child cried, not a car revved up when Alice was sleeping till noon on a Sunday.
    “No, I live in Fulham,” I said, thinking how dull and predictable it sounded.
    “Oh I thought…” Keith didn’t say what he thought but he didn’t ask about my flat in Fulham.
    Malcolm was saying that Alice and I should think about the yachting holiday. Keith and Rosemary were thinking about it, weren’t they? They were, and it would be great fun if we went as a six, then we could sort of take over in case the other people were ghastly.
    “It sounds great,” I said dishonestly and politely. “Yes, you must tell me more about it.”
    “Weren’t you meant to be going on holiday with old Thing?” said Alice practically.
    “That was very vague,” I snapped. “The weekend in Paris was definite but the holiday…nothing was fixed. Anyway weren’t you meant to be going to a cottage with your Thing…?”
    Everyone looked at me, it was as if I had belched loudly or taken off my blouse unexpectedly. They were waiting for me to finish and in a well-bred way rather hoping that I wouldn’t. Their eyes were like shouts of encouragement.
    “You said that if his wife was put away for another couple of weeks you might go to their very unsocialistic second home? Didn’t you?”
    Alice laughed, everyone else looked stunned.
    Melissa spooned out huge helpings of a ten-thousand-calorie ice cream with no appearance of having noticed a social gaffe.
    “Well, when the two of you make up your minds, do tell us,” she said. “It would be great fun, and we have to let these guys know by the end of the month, apparently. They sound very nice actually. Jeremy and Jacky they’re called, he makes jewellery and Jacky is an artist. They’ve lots of other friends going too, a couple of girls who work with Jeremy and their boy friends, I think. It’s just Jeremy and Jacky who are…who are organizing it all.”
    Like a flash I saw it. Melissa thought Alice and I were lesbians. She was being her usual tolerant liberated self over it all. If you like people, what they do in bed is none of your business. HOW could she be so crass as to think that about Alice and myself? My face burned with rage. Slowly like heavy flowers falling off a tree came all the reasons. I was dressed so severely, I had