Strangers in Company Read Online Free PDF

await it.” It was an order, not a request, and Mrs. Hilton went, her husband meekly, sadly following.
    â€œShe’ll eat him alive when they’re alone.” Stella abandoned her pose of weary detachment. “Poor man.” She looked round at the emptying lobby. “Will our turn never come?”
    â€œI have a nasty feeling,” said Marian, “that singles come last”
    She was right The proprietress dealt first with all the doubles, then turned to the singles, starting with the woman whose voice had suggested the Civil Service. She was a Mrs. Duncan, and Marian found herself wondering, absurdly, if some dreadful fate had befallen her husband.
    â€œâ€˜Wake Duncan with your knocking,’” quoted Stella,
sotto voce
, as she disappeared.
    â€œYou took the thought out of my mouth!” Marian felt oddly reassured by this evidence of common ground.
    â€œIt’s unlucky to quote
Macbeth
,” said Stella, gloomily again, and, damn, thought Marian, she doesn’t want to share her thoughts with me. And why should she?
    Anastasia was having trouble with the next name, and as Cairnthorpe bent forward to try and read it, upside down across the desk, the tall American came forward. “Me, I expect. Thor Edvardson.” He took his key, smiled apologetically at Marian, said something about the luck of the alphabet and disappeared with long strides towards the stairs.
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Esmond,” said Cairnthorpe, and the large woman in the floppy hat moved forward, her son dutifully following.
    â€œAdjoining rooms, I asked for.” Mrs. Esmond had one of those English voices that would be heard though the Tower of Babel fell.
    â€œDid you?” said Anastasia blandly, handing one key to her and the other, despite her still outstretched hand, to her son.
    â€œOh, come
on
, Mother.” His pleasant voice held what sounded like an old despair, and Marian thought he was more surprised than anyone when she shrugged large, angry shoulders and turned, defeated, towards the lift.
    â€œYou’d better bring the bags, Charles.” She would have the last word. “No use waiting for those boys.”
    â€œMrs. Frenche.” Marian was distracted by the sound, at last, of her own name. Moving obediently forward to collect her key, she realised what the American–Mr. Edvardson–had meant about the alphabet. “Shall I wait for you?” She turned back to Stella.
    â€œNo, thanks.” It was politely final. “Are you breakfasting? Nor am I. See you at lunch then.”
    Marian turned away with an uncomfortable sense of being dismissed, as Anastasia called the names of Miss Gear and Miss Grange, two oddly similar, horse-faced, middle-aged ladies, who appeared to be travelling together but with single rooms. They followed her up the stairs, talking loudly and cheerfully about their plans for themorning. Sleep, it appeared, had no part in them; they were discussing whether it was to be the museum or the flea market.
    Marian found her own door, had a moment of despair when the key refused to turn, tried it the other way and discovered that the door had been unlocked all the time. She found herself at last in a cool, twilit room. Sanctuary. What an odd thing to think. She put down coat and bag and moved like a somnambulist to throw back the shutters, then stood there breathing deeply, entranced with what she saw. Her room was at the back of the hotel and looked straight over tiled roofs to the tree-covered side of the hill called Lykabetos. Washing flapped on a line, brilliant white in the morning sunshine that flooded everything. Plants burgeoned out of petrol tins on roofs; a thin tabby cat washed itself busily on a wall. Somewhere nearby, a cock crowed, in odd counterpoint to the muted roar of traffic from Alexander Avenue. She stood for a moment, drinking it in, then moved back, filled with a strange, unfamiliar sensation of peace and safety, to