Strangers in Company Read Online Free PDF Page B

strip off her clothes, rinse face and hands in cold water, pull the seer-sucker nightgown out of her small bag, and plunge, oceans-down, into sleep.
    She woke as suddenly as she had slept and lay for a moment wondering where on earth she was. Midday sunshine, flooding the room, brought it all back, and she looked quickly at her watch. Twenty to one. She was out of bed on the instant, pulling the shutters to with a last delighted glance at the view, somnolent now for the Mediterranean siesta, even the cat—or its twin—fast asleep not far from where she had seen it before. But mad dogs and English tourists—she pulled a cotton dress out of her large case—go out to Sounion.
    Fatigue still dragged at her. The face she dealt with briefly looked aeons more than thirty-five. Even her hair, which could usually be relied on to curl crisply round her face, hung limp and sad from the synthetic air of the plane. Combing it irritably, she reminded herself of Stella and stopped for a moment to smile, with an effort, at thereflection in the glass. “Your smile makes you beautiful.” Who had said that to her? One of those half-remembered young men who had taken her out after Mark left. The one, she rather thought, who used to call her the Snow Queen. Well, it was true, something in her had frozen when Mark left her. Or—before he left her? But that was the past; forget it. She made herself smile again and almost thought, this time, that the young man might have had something. Ridiculous. She turned away from the glass and picked up her bag. High time to stop this maundering and go down to meet Stella for lunch.
    Ten to one. The hotel lobby was crowded all over again with the members of their party, becoming almost distinguishable now that fatigue was merely a blurring at the edges of thought, not a tide submerging it. Not all of them, of course, but enough to make the room seem comfortably crowded. What were they
doing?
Marian saw Mrs. Hilton moving in her direction and took instant, instinctive counteraction. It took her across the lobby to a cool loom of darkness and then, blessedly, to a little bar that opened on to a terrace at the back of the hotel. The American—Edvardson—was peacefully reading the
International Herald Tribune
in one corner, and Stella was sitting limply in the other, gazing out at the view. Both of them had milky white drinks and little saucers of olives and white cheese beside them, and Stella raised her drink in salutation when she saw Marian.
    â€œCome and have your first ouzo,” she said.
    â€œShall I like it?” Marian sat down beside her.
    â€œIf you don’t, you’ll die of thirst. I’ll get you one—They’re short-staffed of course.” Stella threw it back over her shoulder as she disappeared through a door beyond the little bar.
    Returning a few minutes later with another glass and saucer, Stella threw a caustic glance in the direction of the lobby. “Did you see them queueing?”
    â€œQueueing?”
    â€œOf course. For lunch. The British abroad. There’ll be a stampede when the doors open. We all have to eattogether,” she explained. “I have the most dismal feeling we are going to have to share tables.”
    â€œOh, dear.” Marian glanced quickly across at Mr. Edvardson, but he seemed to be absorbed in his paper. She sniffed her glass dubiously. “Aniseed?”
    â€œMore or less. Come on, Mrs. F. It’s the national drink, after all.”
    â€œOuch!” Marian drank, coughed, laughed and felt a fine, rosy warmth flood through her. “Much better than whisky,” she said. “I should have been a Greek.” She picked up an olive and found herself nibbling it ravenously. “I’m famished,” she discovered.
    â€œYes, so’m I, but let’s for goodness sake let the rest of them get settled before we go in. I won’t queue for anyone or