Greyglass by Tanith Lee (story read aloud .TXT) 📕

also by the noises she made, and by the kind woman who, when she came out, pale and sweating, said, “Are you okay, honey? Was it something you ate?”

Which was, in a way, quiet apt, for if not precisely eaten, certainly swallowed.

“I thought you were going to be late,” said Jo, “and you are.”

“Sorry. The train didn’t come for ages.”

“Well, let’s get cracking then, it’s just down this road.”

English autumn, no longer fall, the yellow leaves hung out from the trees. It was raining, and cars splashed through an overflowing drain on crystal tidal waves.

“I thought your mother must’ve delayed you.”

“Oh, no. No, that’s all right.”

“She didn’t mind, then?”

“Oh no. No. She may not be going, anyway.”

“Fallen through has it?”

“Maybe.”

“My dad says you can’t ever trust a Yank. He learnt that in the War.”

“He isn’t a – I don’t want to talk about him.”

The houses were in a terrace, each one narrow, with pointed purplish roofs.

“We’re number 17, Flat 3.”

Their room was about the size of the main room in Anne’s flat overlooking the common. Here the two girls must do their best, with the two mattresses, the gas rings, the light which would flicker like a gas lamp and was always going. With each other’s contrary personalities. The bathroom one floor down. And with the wit of the jovial father of Jo, who sometimes called on them to bring them things they ‘might need’ and catch them out.

“Will your mother want to come over?” Jo asked, that first morning. “Will she want to look round?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

No, Susan didn’t think so. Anne would soon be back in the States, but Jo wasn’t going to know that.

Susan had lied to Jo, ably. Long practice. Oh my mother’s only at a neighbour’s. She’s only in the flat by the common. But the flat by the common had already been given up. Next month someone else would live there, and Susan would only have to pretend, now and then, to visit.

“If you don’t let me, I’ll run away.”

“Oh Susan don’t be so dramatic. And silly.”

“I mean it.”

“What is the matter with you?”

“I don’t want to go. I’ve said. I want to stay here and go to art school.”

“You could have fooled me.”

But Susan did fool Anne. Even when Anne said, “Is it still this idiotic thing you’ve got about Wizz –?”

“I haven’t. I got over that. We had a chat one night.” Susan, her voice coming cool and steady from far off. “He’s all right. He’ll take care of you. It was him really. He said, if I wanted, I ought to start making my own life.”

“He – said that?”

“Yes. And he said how he felt about you, how he thought so much of you. So I feel I’d just be in the way.”

“Susan, that isn’t true –”

“Yes. Oh come on, Anne. You’ve never had a life either, have you? Go on, go with Wizz. It’ll be great. Everyone here can think I’m eighteen, except at the college, and they’ll think you’re still in England. It will be okay.”

Anne phoned Wizz long distance.

Susan would not even listen to her voice, speaking to Wizz over the Atlantic wires.

But at length Anne came into her room. “He said let you.”

Susan said, airily, “Told you.”

“I said you’d said you liked the talk you’d both had. It made you more confident in yourself. He laughed. He sounded pleased. Well… you’ve never had a father, have you?”

“Oh, look at that sparrow on the sill,” said Susan. “Look, isn’t it sweet.”

“Susan, you will be all right?”

I always was, when you left me. And if you don’t leave me now, if you make me go and live with him, I will never be all right. I will die.

“I’ll be all right, Anne.”

Anne’s grey eyes, startled, evasive. “If anything doesn’t work out – you must write – no, call me collect – reverse the charges. I’ll show you what to do. And I’ll be over, often, of course I will – we’re bound to be. I’ll send you some money. The grant isn’t much.”

She’s glad.

I may never see her again. Is that possible? Oh yes. She isn’t mine any more. She’s his. What I’m seeing now, this woman with grey eyes and dyed red hair, it isn’t my mother.

“Oh, don’t cry,” said Anne. “What am I to think now? I don’t know. What should I do?”

But she did know, and she would do it. And the tears meant nothing, not grief really, a reflex, like that drain overflowing in the downpour.

III

Patrick was like an animal which changed its coat for the season. In summer he tanned quickly and easily, the long thick hair, that hung most of the way down his back, turned gold, his eyes a light brown. But in winter his eyes darkened like his hair, while his skin paled. Then he resembled, in his long black leather greatcoat, a straggler from some nineteenth century war. He was well-built and slim, but only about three inches taller than Susan was today, in her flat sandals.

She looked at him covertly. It still half surprised her, to see him there, to be with him, even though they had gone around together for over fifteen months, and had sex regularly.

Fierce May sunlight hit the pavement. She was glad they had left the crowded, noisy pub – but was not quite so sure, however, about their intended destination.

“Patrick – you really do still want to go over there?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be three buses from here.”

“I thought you said the train, then the bus.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“What’s up?” he said. He spoke kindly, but she knew he had made up his mind and would lose patience if she now tried to dissuade him. He would say, justifiably, she was making a fuss about nothing, and look, he’d brought his stuff, and the painting stuff too, and so had she, so what was the problem suddenly.

And what was the problem suddenly?

Last night, sitting over their glasses of beer and wine in the Silver