The Ivy Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

she is, staring. Nutty as a fruit cake, love, take it from me.’
    â€˜Stares at me , d’you mean?’
    â€˜That’s what I’m telling you. Three coffees, one tea. Pay at the desk. Stares at you all the time. Can’t seem to take her eyes off you. No, not that girl, she’s with that black-haired chap in the Antarctic get-up who’s over at the juke-box, would you credit it, he’s got that tune again  . . . Yes, that woman over there under the contemp’ry Crusaders. The middle-aged one with the face like blotting-paper.’
    I turned to look. It was true. As my eyes met hers, the woman looked quickly down at her cup. I lowered my tray of dirty crockery slowly till the edge rested against the bar-counter, and considered her for a moment.
    She could have been anything between thirty-five and forty – ‘middle-aged’, to Norma, meant anything over twenty-six – and the first adjective I myself would have applied to her would have been ‘ordinary’, or, at any rate, ‘inconspicuous’, rather than ‘queer’. She wore goodish, but badly chosen country clothes, and a minimum of make-up – powder, I guessed, and a touch of lipstick which did little to liven the dull, rather heavy features. Her hair under the slightly out-of-date felt hat was dark, and worn plainly in a bun. Her eyebrows were thick and well marked, but untidy looking over badly set eyes. The outer corners of brows, eyes, and mouth were pulled down slightly, giving the face its heavy, almost discontented expression. The general effect of dullness was not helped by the browns and fawns of the colour scheme she affected.
    I saw at once what Norma had meant by that last, graphic phrase. One got the curious impression that the woman only just missed being good looking; that the features were somehow blurred and ill defined, as if they had been drawn conventionally enough, and then the artist had smoothed a light, dry hand carelessly down over the drawing, dragging it just that fraction out of focus. She could have been a bad copy of a portrait I already knew; a print blotted off some dramatically sharp sketch that was vaguely familiar.
    But even as I tried to place the impression, it slid away from me. I had never, to my recollection, seen her before. If I had, I would scarcely have noticed her, I thought. She was the kind of woman whom, normally, one wouldn’t have looked at twice, being at first sight devoid of any of the positive qualities that go to make up that curious thing called charm. Charm presupposes some sort of vivacity and spark, at least what one might call some gesture of advance towards life. This woman merely sat there, heavily, apparently content to wait while life went on around her.
    Except for the tireless stare of those toffee-brown eyes. As I let my own gaze slide past her in apparent indifference, I saw her eyes lift once more to my face.
    Norma said, in my ear: ‘D’you know her?’
    â€˜Never seen her before in my life. Yes, I know who you mean, the woman in the brown hat; I just didn’t want her to see me staring, that’s all. Are you sure, Norma? She’s not just sitting there kibitzing in general?’
    â€˜â€™Course I’m sure. What else have I got to do—’ here she laid hold of the Espresso handle with one hand, reached for a couple of cups with the other, filled them, slapped them on to their saucers and the saucers on to a tray, supplied the tray with sugar and teaspoons, and pushed the lot across to Mavis, the waitress on duty in the inner room – ‘What else have I got to do, but watch what’s going on?’
    Mavis, I noticed, had passed quite close to the corner table, bound for the inner room with the coffee cups. The woman didn’t glance at her.
    â€˜Still watching you . . .’ murmured Norma. ‘You see?’
    â€˜You must be mistaken. It’s a nervous