Read Online Listening in the Dusk by Celia Fremlin - Free Book Online
Authors: Celia Fremlin
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Curiosity mildly aroused, she peered more closely through theglass, and on the other side of a flutter of gauzy curtaining she could just make out the shapes of the Young Ladies employed here (they didn’t have to be young, of course, merely perfect to the last eyelash). In their pink beauty-parlour overalls, they glided back and forth among the shadowy hunks of customers who crouched like untidy bundles of washing under the various machines, a totally different species, one might have supposed, from the glittering lovelies who ministered to them.
And which of the lovelies, Alice wondered, pressing her face yet closer against the glass, was going to prove to be the redoubtable Miss Dorinda with whom she was destined to share the rather patchy amenities of seventeen Beckford Road? It would be a daunting prospect, the encountering of such elegance , such flawless grooming, on the dark stairways first thing in the morning as you stumbled up from the bathroom in dressing-gown and slippers, hair still a mess.
Perhaps, though, Miss Dorinda, being the manageress, no longer had to be perfect? Maybe she had by now attained the exalted status of being able to bite her nails, wear woolly cardigans, and leave her hair untinted? Maybe she would right now be sitting over a gas-fire in a cosy cubby-hole somewhere at the back, smoking a cigarette, reading a tattered copy of Woman’s Dream, and only emerging when she felt like it to reprove one of those glittering underlings, in a super-posh accent, for some small neglect of one of those hunched-up shapes who paid the money that kept the whole thing going …?
At this point in her speculations, Alice became aware of one of the pink shapes gliding purposefully in her direction, and realising suddenly that her rudely staring face must be clearly visible from inside, she backed hastily away and moved on along the pavement, praying that it wasn’t Miss Dorinda herself who had spotted her unmannerly curiosity. Not that the lady would know who Alice was, of course; probably didn’t even know of her existence yet, so no harm had been done. Putting the little incident from her mind, Alice took her list from her handbag and applied herself seriously to her shopping.
By the time she got back to Beckford Road, the sun was quite gone, and the damp misty air was fast thickening into fog. Shestood on the top step, her plastic carrier-bags strewn around her feet, while she struggled with the key Hetty had supplied her with, trying to make it open the door. Was it the wrong key? Hetty had fished it out of her sewing-basket with great aplomb last night, but of course keys that find their way to the bottom of sewing-baskets are bound to be slightly suspect, however encouraging the assurances with which they are handed over.
Alice gave another twist to the thing, still to no avail. It seemed to go in all right, but after that nothing happened; and by now her right hand, from which she had removed the glove the better to cope with the whole manoeuvre, was growing numb with cold and clumsy.
Perhaps it wasn’t the key that was at fault at all? Perhaps the lock was in a mood this morning, like the geyser? Reluctant though she was to be a nuisance on this her first morning in her new home, to which her entitlement was still slightly precarious, Alice gave up and pressed the bell. Which didn’t work either. By now really annoyed, and quite pleased at the idea of being a nuisance, Alice raised the knocker and brought it down with a resounding thump, at which the door burst effortlessly open. It hadn’t been locked at all apparently, merely swollen and stuck with damp. In the whole episode Alice felt herself recognising yet another example of her landlady’s special brand of off-beat logic: it’s all right to give people keys that quite likely won’t work, so long as you also have a front door that quite likely
Curiosity mildly aroused, she peered more closely through theglass, and on the other side of a flutter of gauzy curtaining she could just make out the shapes of the Young Ladies employed here (they didn’t have to be young, of course, merely perfect to the last eyelash). In their pink beauty-parlour overalls, they glided back and forth among the shadowy hunks of customers who crouched like untidy bundles of washing under the various machines, a totally different species, one might have supposed, from the glittering lovelies who ministered to them.
And which of the lovelies, Alice wondered, pressing her face yet closer against the glass, was going to prove to be the redoubtable Miss Dorinda with whom she was destined to share the rather patchy amenities of seventeen Beckford Road? It would be a daunting prospect, the encountering of such elegance , such flawless grooming, on the dark stairways first thing in the morning as you stumbled up from the bathroom in dressing-gown and slippers, hair still a mess.
Perhaps, though, Miss Dorinda, being the manageress, no longer had to be perfect? Maybe she had by now attained the exalted status of being able to bite her nails, wear woolly cardigans, and leave her hair untinted? Maybe she would right now be sitting over a gas-fire in a cosy cubby-hole somewhere at the back, smoking a cigarette, reading a tattered copy of Woman’s Dream, and only emerging when she felt like it to reprove one of those glittering underlings, in a super-posh accent, for some small neglect of one of those hunched-up shapes who paid the money that kept the whole thing going …?
At this point in her speculations, Alice became aware of one of the pink shapes gliding purposefully in her direction, and realising suddenly that her rudely staring face must be clearly visible from inside, she backed hastily away and moved on along the pavement, praying that it wasn’t Miss Dorinda herself who had spotted her unmannerly curiosity. Not that the lady would know who Alice was, of course; probably didn’t even know of her existence yet, so no harm had been done. Putting the little incident from her mind, Alice took her list from her handbag and applied herself seriously to her shopping.
By the time she got back to Beckford Road, the sun was quite gone, and the damp misty air was fast thickening into fog. Shestood on the top step, her plastic carrier-bags strewn around her feet, while she struggled with the key Hetty had supplied her with, trying to make it open the door. Was it the wrong key? Hetty had fished it out of her sewing-basket with great aplomb last night, but of course keys that find their way to the bottom of sewing-baskets are bound to be slightly suspect, however encouraging the assurances with which they are handed over.
Alice gave another twist to the thing, still to no avail. It seemed to go in all right, but after that nothing happened; and by now her right hand, from which she had removed the glove the better to cope with the whole manoeuvre, was growing numb with cold and clumsy.
Perhaps it wasn’t the key that was at fault at all? Perhaps the lock was in a mood this morning, like the geyser? Reluctant though she was to be a nuisance on this her first morning in her new home, to which her entitlement was still slightly precarious, Alice gave up and pressed the bell. Which didn’t work either. By now really annoyed, and quite pleased at the idea of being a nuisance, Alice raised the knocker and brought it down with a resounding thump, at which the door burst effortlessly open. It hadn’t been locked at all apparently, merely swollen and stuck with damp. In the whole episode Alice felt herself recognising yet another example of her landlady’s special brand of off-beat logic: it’s all right to give people keys that quite likely won’t work, so long as you also have a front door that quite likely
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