The Means of Escape Read Online Free PDF Page B

risked asking anyone to model for them, just started some sea-pieces between the handfuls of wind and rain. ‘We might come up to the hotel tonight and dine with you. There’s nothing but fish soup in our digs.’
    Hackett discouraged them.
    The hotelier’s wife, when he had made the right preliminary enquiries from her about the red-haired girl, had answered – as she did, however, on all subjects – largely with silences. He didn’t learn who her parents were, or even her family name. Her given name was Annik. She worked an all-day job at the Hôtel du Port, but she had one and a half hours free after her lunch and if she wanted to spend that being drawn or painted, well, there were no objections. Not in the hotel, however, where, as he could see, there was no room.
    ‘I paint en plein air,’ said Hackett.
    ‘You’ll find plenty of that.’
    ‘I shall pay her, of course.’
    ‘You must make your own arrangements.’
    He spoke to the girl at dinner, during the few moments when she was conveniently trapped. When she had quite skilfully allowed the door to shut behind her and, soup-dish in hand, was recovering her balance, he said:
    ‘Anny, I want to ask you something.’
    ‘I’m called Annik,’ she said. It was the first time he had heard her speak.
    ‘All the girls are called that. I shall call you Anny. I’ve spoken about you to the patronne.’
    ‘Yes, she told me.’
    Anny was a heavy breather, and the whole tiny room seemed to expand and deflate as she stood pondering.
    ‘I shall want you to come to the back door of the hotel, I mean the back steps down to the rue de Dol. Let us say tomorrow, at twelve forty-five.’
    ‘I don’t know about the forty-five,’ she said. ‘I can’t be sure about that.’
    ‘How do you usually know the time?’ She was silent. He thought it was probably a matter of pride and she did not want to agree to anything too easily. But possibly she couldn’t tell the time. She might be stupid to the degree of idiocy.
    The Hôtel du Port had no courtyard. Like every other house in the street, it had a flight of stone steps to adapt to the change of level. After lunch the shops shut for an hour and the women of Palourde sat or stood, accordingto their age, on the top step and knitted or did crochet. They didn’t wear costume any more, they wore white linen caps and jackets, long skirts, and, if they weren’t going far, carpet slippers.
    Anny was punctual to the minute. ‘I shall want you to stand quite still on the top step, with your back to the door. I’ve asked them not to open it.’
    Anny, also, was wearing carpet slippers. ‘I can’t just stand here doing nothing.’
    He allowed her to fetch her crochet. Give a little, take a little. He was relieved, possibly a bit disappointed, to find how little interest they caused in the rue de Dol. He was used to being watched, quite openly, over his shoulder, as if he was giving a comic performance. Here even the children didn’t stop to look.
    ‘They don’t care about our picture,’ he said, trying to amuse her. He would have liked a somewhat gentler expression. Certainly she was not a beauty. She hadn’t the white skin of the dreamed-of red-haired girl, in fact her face and neck were covered with a faint but noticeable hairy down, as though proof against all weathers.
    ‘How long will it take?’ she asked.
    ‘I don’t know. As God disposes! An hour will do for today.’
    ‘And then you’ll pay me?’
    ‘No,’ he said, ‘I shan’t do that. I shall pay you when the whole thing’s finished. I shall keep a record of the time you’ve worked, and if you like you can keep one as well.’
    As he was packing up his box of charcoals he added: ‘I shall want to make a few colour notes tomorrow, and I should like you to wear a red shawl.’ It seemed that she hadn’t one. ‘But you could borrow one, my dear. You could borrow one, since I ask you particularly.’
    She looked at him as though he were an