Stephanie Read Online Free PDF

paper and wrapped it. Better to let Krishna see they had been caring for it.
    She stepped out of the bungalow and began to walk down the stepped slope to the hotel. The breeze caressed her face. There must be some mistake?
    In her two and a half years at Oxford she had mixed with a fair assortment of people, students, dons, many from outside the university. Particularly in the last year she had become friendly with this inner group of rich students, Bob and Tony and Zog and Fiona and Arun Jiva and the rest, and through them she had come to see some of the seamier side of undergraduate life. Nobody was vicious but a number were pretty wild. Some took drugs, some took drink, a few, like Zog, nothing. But she had become familiar with the jargon of the day.
    Flax she knew to be the in name for heroin.
VI
    She was halfway through dinner when he slid into the seat beside her.
    â€˜Hi. Remember me, eh? Sorry, I got delayed at the office.’
    â€˜Hello.’ She looked at him, half smiled, then went on with her dinner.
    No one could call him good-looking, but he had such tremendous bony, whimsical charm, such appeal, and tonight he had a clean glowing look as if he had spent the day in restful ease and was all ready to enjoy the night. She swallowed a mouthful of food, to stop the bile from rising in her throat.
    The music ended and he looked about, nodding to one or two fellow guests. He patted her hand and said: ‘Now you’re cross. Never mind. I’ll make up for it … Oh, I see, no waiter service tonight. One has to go to the burning ghats.’
    It was his name, and a good one, for the barbecue meats laid out and simmering at the trestle tables. He went off, picked up a plate, and presently came back with it filled with a variety of curries.
    â€˜Did you have a good day?’ he asked.
    â€˜Very good. The usual, of course.’
    They ate in silence for a time. The band anyway was noisy enough. Some people who had finished their supper were already dancing. Others had broken off between courses. The white-coated waiters drifted silently in and out of the tables removing used plates.
    â€˜I got some super photographs,’ he said. ‘ The Sé is pretty splendid – that’s the cathedral – neglected but all the more photogenic for that. I took some nice ones through the wheel of a broken handcart … And the Church of St Cajetan – Romanesque, you’d think. The old monastery – not much left but the tower. And some of the colour-washed houses make good subjects. Little enough colour in the people, though.’
    He went on talking but she did not have much to say. Seeing she had finished her meal he said: ‘Dance?’
    â€˜Later. Mind if I smoke?’
    â€˜Like another drink?’
    â€˜Yes, please.’
    He went away and came back with a bowl of fruit. A waiter brought them drinks and Errol sent them back because one of the glasses did not please him.
    Stephanie finished her cigarette. ‘ I took the brooch back to Krishna.’
    He did not say anything until the waiter had returned with fresh glasses. His eyes looked very light coloured in the arc lamps. ‘Whatever made you do that?’
    â€˜He was round me all day with a pathetic tale that he’d be beaten by his father if he didn’t take back the brooch or the money tonight, so I –’
    â€˜And you believed him?’
    â€˜Yes. Well, yes … I waited until after seven. I thought maybe you’d taken off for England and left me to pay the bill.’
    â€˜Could you have?’
    â€˜No.’
    He laughed. ‘These little black devils.’
    The fun around the pool was becoming furious. Urged on by a dozen people in fancy dress, a chain was forming, each holding another’s middle, and jogging round the pool to a South American beat.
    â€˜It’s an eastern Lambeth Walk,’ said Errol. He knitted his eyebrows. ‘But the brooch was in the case, my