Read Online On the Blue Train by Kristel Thornell - Free Book Online Page A

be. Intolerable, I’m sure.’ Her expression was uncertain. ‘Who’s to say that cows aren’t great dreamers?’
    ‘Wouldn’t you like to be so docile?’ she asked.
    He didn’t say what was in his mind: Docile until put to death.
    She made an effort to pull herself together. ‘This does seem a healthy place.’
    They were quiet on the return journey. He wondered if her neuritis was niggling at her. He hoped she wouldn’t regret her elliptical yet frank-seeming words and deny a bud of confidence the possibility of blooming. The afternoon was frigid and delicate.
    As they entered the hotel, she said, ‘I heard music last night, before I went to sleep.’
    Lament of the Nymph ? ‘Did you like it?’
    But they were distracted by the Hydro’s proprietress, who announced, ‘There is a package for you, Mrs Neele.’
    ‘A letter?’ Her voice betrayed hope.
    ‘No, a parcel. Small one. From Harrods.’
    ‘Harrods?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘Of course. Thank you.’ Teresa received the package—disappointed, he thought, or a little lost, but concealing it well.
    ‘Coming to hear the Hydro Boys again tonight after dinner?’ he enquired as she made for the stairs.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘In the Winter Garden Ballroom?’
    ‘Oh, perhaps,’ she said. ‘I’ve a massage appointment at three thirty. I was almost forgetting.’
    ‘Well, I hope to see you later. I enjoyed our walk.’
    ‘So did I. Thank you. I think I’ll take the lift up.’
    She was looking pale again, indeed, rather washed out. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, aware of her in the lift’s cage. He was jealous of the package she was holding, a reminder of an existence that laid claim to her and of which he knew nothing.

8

    THE MISSING WOMAN
    He rinsed his face at the basin in his room, and peered into the glass. Cheeks fringed with droplets of water, eyes glistening, he could have just dashed in from a storm. Well, what do you think you are doing? Harry asked this bedraggled specimen. He looked like he couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t trust himself. Prudence, he entreated the fool.
    There was a tingling in his limbs and an ominous doubtfulness in his chest. This didn’t feel like the other infatuations since Valeria, not at all. He was not faintly amused. He was fidgety, rather than slothful. Instead of feeling lascivious in a playful, mellow sort of way, he was painfully edgy. As if his skin had trouble deciding whether it was hot or cold. He considered and decided against changing into the woollen dressing-gown. He’d change his trousers for dinner, so it didn’t matter how creased these became. Oh minor vanities,he reflected, paltry and essential for keeping us pinned to the social world, where we would otherwise flutter away into the yawning holes of solitary hours.
    He hadn’t feared a woman since the early days with Valeria. And then the fear had in large part been excitement at the prospect of pleasure. Wonderment at the discovery of tenderness and the dearly tedious bonds it forged.
    Had he, however, finally happened on what he’d been seeking for months? Was this the sea’s-edge sensation? If so, it wasn’t refreshing in the way he’d imagined. His back to the toasty hearth, he shivered, remembering the dream in which Teresa had turned into sand. His anxiety as she escaped through his fingers, leaving behind her such craving.
    Bed, chair, writing table, gramophone, slippers, and especially the bottles of fortified wine (faithful guides to the vapours of sleepiness), all appeared absurdly precious. Only yesterday he’d considered this decor an irritating mise en scène , and now it gave him a pang to think he might lose what it represented, the relative calm he had fashioned for himself, the hush of hotel dwelling, of absconding, being well-nigh erased. He too had come to see the value, as Teresa claimed she had, of docility, regardless of how bland and empty his days could be. In truth, he was incapable of picturing a