Read Online Endangered Species by Richard Woodman - Free Book Online

you to suspect the good things of life whether they are in your lap or someone else’s, while at the same time it drives you to accumulate more and more material wealth and to justify your existence by hard work.’
    Stevenson digested Taylor’s words, aware of the underlying irony but uncertain whether or not it was aimed at Stevenson or turned upon himself. Taylor did not give him time to arrive at a conclusion.
    â€˜I don’t suppose those poor bastards in that junk would actually feel real envy for you. Their predominant feeling is probably one of relief at getting to Singapore with an underlying fear about what happens next.’
    â€˜That sounds a bit callous,’ Stevenson said, warming to the conversation and driving to the heart of the matter. ‘I get the impression that your well-to-do forebears bore the burden of their wealth with – what shall I say? – commendable fortitude.’
    Taylor laughed. ‘Ah, the old Whig philosophy was pretty good. Had distinct advantages, you know. A lack of conscience was one of its first attributes. Very useful, did away with all awkward moral dilemmas.’
    â€˜I hope you’re not intending to employ it tonight with her.’ Stevenson nodded at the solitary hostess.
    â€˜Why not?’ Taylor grinned again, then his mouth twisted and his expression hardened. ‘Oh, don’t say “because you’re married”, for Christ’s sake, because as far as I’m aware the instant I’m at sea Caroline forgets I exist. If she occasionallyrecalled me I might get the odd letter. No, Alex, if you want to make me the conscience of the western world, forget it.’ He stood up and added, ‘I’m not in the mood.’
    Taylor walked across the bar and Stevenson watched him strike up conversation with the girl. She seemed reluctant at first, but Taylor was gently persistent. Stevenson felt a prickling of lust followed by a wave of jealousy. He took a long pull at his beer. When he looked again Taylor was sitting alongside the girl and the barman was pouring them both drinks. He sat in the gloom of his secludedly desolate table and printed aimless patterns on its top with the condensation formed round the base of his glass.
    It occurred to him that this was Taylor’s retribution. This abandonment in the face of Taylor’s success at picking up the girl was a refutation of his own accusation that Taylor was no great Lothario. Stevenson watched the pair, their heads close together. No, there was no triumph in picking up a bored professional, and so cheap a revenge was too shabbily obvious to be Taylor’s style. If, Stevenson concluded as he motioned the barman for another drink, it
was
revenge Taylor was meditating, then it was a more profound one than a levelling of a petty score with himself. Taylor had mentioned Caroline’s failure to write; perhaps it was she whom he wished to humiliate.
    â€˜Don’t you want to be introduced?’ Stevenson looked up. Taylor loomed over him, the girl at his side. She was undeniably lovely, with a skin-tight black dress cinched at the waist. It had a high neck, though her shoulders were bare, and a short hemline. From his observations when she had been at the bar, he knew its back was non-existent. He struggled, gentlemanly, to his feet.
    â€˜Sharimah,’ Taylor said, ‘meet Alex.’
    â€˜Hi.’
    Stevenson felt again the prickle of intense desire. Her breasts swelled the soft, slightly elastic material of the dress, but it was her face that transfixed him.
    He was no first-trip apprentice to be cunt-struck by the first painted trollop who squeezed his knee, but he would have had to have been insensible not to have been moved by her genuine beauty.
    â€˜Hullo . . . what are you drinking?’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ put in Taylor, ‘my shout’ – meaning hands off, I picked her up.
    Stevenson sat again, opposite