Read Online Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay - Free Book Online

chair from which Sylvia had removed some but not all of her clothes, slopped a little water into his glass and lifted it unsteadily to his lips.
    â€˜You’re a pack of nerves, darling,’ said Sylvia gently. ‘You really ought to take leave.’
    â€˜For God’s sake, stop telling me I ought to take leave!’ he burst out petulantly. ‘Of course I ought to be taking leave! Any fool can see that. I tell you I can’t get away.’ He put down the glass and upset the still unemptied ashtray. ‘Really, Sylvia,’ he continued coldly, brushing ash from his faultlessly laundered trousers, ‘you are a slut. You live like a pig. I don’t know how you can bear this squalid mess.’
    â€˜I tidied it,’ said Sylvia. ‘And you don’t have to come here. I can’t think why you did. You always swore you’d never set foot in this house.’
    Washington, realising that if he became more objectionable he would probably have to leave, did not answer, but leaned back and lit a cigarette.
    Of course it hadn’t been a native, only a girl with a pale face. He could see it now quite clearly. The other figure – of a naked brown man with a face painted white for dancing – had been, as Sylvia had implied, purely imaginary, the figment of wrought-up nerves, a fortuitous banking of lights and shadows. And yet, imagination – he poured the barely diluted gin down his throat – where did it, in this cursed country, begin and end? The longer you stayed the less sure you were where flesh ended and phantom began. That a little brown man with a painted face could project his image over miles of jungle – there was nothing strange about this to a man of imagination. Washington pulled his fingers back through his hair.
    This was the house, he remembered, where David Warwick had shot himself. His hands started to tremble again. Oh, my God! I shouldn’t have come here. Poor Warwick! Perhaps I’ll be the next.
    â€˜And speaking of the girl,’ said Sylvia, ‘she’s an odd little thing, looks like a chicken who’s come out of the egg a few days too soon. And oddest of all is her name. Have a guess what it is.’
    He made an impatient gesture.
    â€˜Warwick,’ said Sylvia. ‘Stella Warwick. Could our ghost have a daughter?’
    â€˜He was only married a few months,’ said Washington shortly. ‘Common enough name.’
    â€˜She had an introduction to a very dear friend of yours.’
    â€˜Of mine?’ He evinced a little more interest.
    â€˜Trevor Nyall,’ Sylvia said with a faint smile.
    Washington did not reply. Six months ago a position as assistant to Nyall had fallen vacant in the department. Washington had applied for it, but his application had been rejected and the position had gone to an older man from the south. Since then Washington had seized on the idea that Nyall was a man who picked the brains of his subordinates but kept them lowly because he could not stand competition. Washington had lost interest in his work. It was, he decided, pointless to work when power from above was always on the look-out to baulk you.
    In the tropics decay is as swift and violent as growth. Overnight, mould will bristle up on a hat or shoe; in a few hours a body will rot, in a few weeks a personality will crumble. It was generally said that over the past few months Washington had gone to pieces. He was aware himself of some sort of internal disintegration. He held together just enough to be able to do his work without provoking complaint, for although he hated Nyall, he also feared him.
    â€˜That,’ said Sylvia, ‘made it even odder.’
    This attempt on her part to involve the girl across the passage with David Warwick annoyed him. Such a circumstance would be one more intolerable quirk to an already intolerable situation. He answered sullenly, ‘Nyall has a million