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

didn’t seem to take long. There was a lot of traffic rumbling the same way, to London, but no significant hold-ups.

“Look, there’s Big Ben,” said Susan, stupidly, to Delores. Who took no notice.

But Anne gave a little snort and woke up.

“God. Was I asleep?”

“I think so,” said Susan. “You must be tired.”

“I don’t get that jet-lag stuff,” said Anne stubbornly. “But I guess I’m tired.” Then she seemed to shake herself together, sitting up, moving her hand over her hair, redoing her lipstick in a car-jolted compact mirror.

“Okay, Delores, we’ll be there in a minute.”

Delores moved vaguely on the seat. Her mouth looked sulky, her eyes almost moronic.

“Where does Delores have to go – I mean where is her father meeting her?”

“It’s an address I have here, off Whitehall. I told the taxi.”

A few minutes later, they turned into a street of large, flat-faced terraced buildings. Broad stone steps, guarded by stone lions with heraldic shields, led to glass doors whose handles glinted cold gold in the muddy sun.

“Impressive, your daddy’s office,” said Anne.

“What number was it, madam?”

The taxi crawled to a halt.

At that instant the child glanced again at Susan. Delores’ face was a total blank. Perhaps there really was something wrong with her mentally. The great black eyes seemed to have no one in behind them, not a child, not a person, no one at all.

Unnervingly, before Susan could get out of the cab to give her access, Delores scrambled unheedingly over her. Anne was already on the pavement, and took the child’s hand firmly. Susan could picture Eve saying, “You have to hold her hand on the street.”

“It’s okay, Sue. I’ll see to this. There’s the doorman.”

A porter had appeared. Anne conducted the child up the stone steps, and spoke to him. A snatch of Anne’s voice, over the traffic noise, said a foreign name, (not Frenowsky, Susan thought) something she didn’t quite catch, or afterwards recall.

Anne and the child went through into a plush, black-carpeted lacuna beyond the glass doors.

Unexpectedly, the driver didn’t start to chat now, either. Susan had assumed he would break loose again, if he and she were alone. Instead they both sat there, dumbly waiting, he with his back to her. Minutes went by.

Susan said, “Perhaps I ought to –” But exactly then Anne came out of the swing doors alone.

“Thank Christ that’s seen to. Someone came down in the elevator. Not the father, mind you. A big guy in a suit. Well, he looked like a bouncer to me. But he knew about Delores. He was very pleasant to me. She just took his hand like a lamb. You know, little bitch, she was all goofy smiles for him, flirting away.”

“Where to, madam?” said the driver.

“Oh, take me to a decent pub,” sighed Anne.

Susan was unsure, but the driver said, “What about the Royal Lion, just around the corner there. Nice enough place, and quiet.”

So they drove round to the Royal Lion.

Anne paid the driver in cash, (he did not offer to assist with Anne’s luggage) and the cab moved slowly off, ahead of two big cars that had also pulled into the street.

The pub looked shabby to Susan. It was not very clean, but there was picturesque sawdust on the floor and old, dark green pots with deadish plants in them – perhaps things the driver thought an American might find quaint. A few people drank at tottery tables. Through a doorway there came a rap of balls in a pool game.

“Shall I get some sandwiches?” Susan asked. “If they do them.”

“If you like,” said Anne. “I’m not hungry.”

But the Royal Lion did not do sandwiches, only bags of crisps and peanuts. Susan thought Anne would be able to get something to eat when they reached her hotel, something to soak up some of the alcohol.

As Susan brought the drinks back to their own rickety table, a tall man in a leather jacket came in from the street. She noticed him for a second because, though younger, he reminded her faintly of R.J.

“Cheers,” said Anne. “That’s English enough, isn’t it?”

Susan laughed falsely. “Oh, yes.”

Anne swallowed some of her drink. “I’ve had enough,” she said.

“Well maybe if we eat soon –”

“No, Susan, I don’t mean the booze. I mean I have had it with him. I have had it.”

Susan cleared her throat. She wished she were not so conscious of the man like R.J., somewhere behind her. R.J. was not what she needed to be reminded of. And not now.

“You mean Wizz.”

“Yes. Who else. I am going to leave Wizz. Oh, I haven’t told him yet. He thinks I’m all set to go on clinging tooth and claw to our non-existent relationship. But I am not. No way.”

“What will you do?”

Don’t, please don’t say you will move back to England and live with me.

Anne parted her enamelled lips to tell Susan what she would do, and instead of elaborating, looked up in surprise. The shadow lay over their table. It was the man like R.J. He wasn’t like R.J. There were three other men, casually dressed, well-built, and a woman in fawn slacks and a cashmere sweater.

The man who was not R.J. had something which he was showing them, some sort of I.D., like a plain-clothes policeman.

“Get up, madam.”

Anne’s face was furious. “What the hell is this? What the fuck do you want?”

The man leaned over and pulled her to her feet, and Susan found she too stood up at the same time, as if some cord connected them. And Anne seemed to struggle, and the woman in the sweater was there. She spoke softly. “You and the young woman come with us now, and quietly. Or we can cuff you and drag you out. Which?”

Outside the sun had gone in. The two large dark cars waited with open doors. This was a dream.

As Anne was ‘helped’ into one car, and Susan into the one behind, Susan tried to speak. “Save it,” said the man who wasn’t like R.J. Then she