The Green Flash (55 page)

It was seven when I checked in at the Berkeley and bathed and changed. By then the day would be over, so I took a taxi to South Audley Street.

A voice answered the buzzer but it was not Shona's. When I got up, a small good-looking girl opened the flat door and said: ‘ I'm Cherry. I'm really the daily help but I've stayed on this evening to get Mme Shona's supper, as she isn't feeling too well.'

Escorted by her I got to the bedroom door, where Cherry discreetly faded out. Shona was sitting up in bed in a scarlet silk bedjacket, her hair tied carelessly back with a scarlet ribbon. She didn't look much different from when I'd seen her last, her fine pure skin with its yellowish tinge, great eyes slanting at me.

‘David! This is a surprise.'

‘Yes. What's wrong with you?'

‘Very little, I'm glad to say. But the specialist is trying a course of injections which are supposed to work miracles but do not have a happy effect at the outset. I have to stay in bed three days.'

‘And this is the first day?'

‘The third. I am now already feeling better, and shall be up tomorrow. And you?'

‘I'm feeling better,' I said.

‘You have come from Scodand?'

‘From Scotland.'

‘To stay a little while in London?'

‘A little while, yes.'

‘Well, do not stand in the doorway, my dear. Let us talk in comfort.'

So I went across and drew up a chair beside the old woman and took her hand.

First published in 1986 by Collins

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