Rose in Darkness Read Online Free Page B

steps with her lover coming after her—’
    ‘You’re thinking of some other film,’ said Phin. ‘She never does run up the steps. As a matter of fact,’ he added, a touch craftily on his own part, ‘on this occasion a young woman ran down some steps: and full tilt into me. ’
    ‘Whatever do you mean—ran into you?’
    ‘Some girl, looking for a seat I suppose, ran down the steps and I bumped into her.’
    ‘Oh, so you did go to the cinema?’ said Nanny; and could have bit her silly tongue out, honest she could.

4
    A ND IN THE FLAT next morning, Rufie was ringing up Sofy. Sofy was short for Sofa because she was so wickedly fat. She was another of the somewhat shifting group which had come to be known - from a Ronald Searle drawing it was - though in fact there were not often as many as eight of them, as the Eight Best Friends. Sari’s Eight Best Friends. ‘Sofy? It’s all right to talk. She’s still sound asleep.’
    ‘Are you sure, Rufie? I know by your voice that it’s Something.’
    ‘Ap-solutely soundo: I’ve just peeked in.’ The Eight Best friends were always tricking Rufie into saying certain words whose correct pronunciation subtly evaded him.
    ‘Yes, well, the cinema at Wren’s Hill, last night—’
    ‘She has no idea—?’
    ‘No, no, she didn’t want anyone to go, so one just plays it that way. Why she should care—?’
    ‘I suppose it’s a bit humiliating, poor love,’ said Sofy, ‘not ever getting any more work. And I never can think why. Of course she pretends to outsiders that it’s because she won’t do nude scenes.’
    ‘And that’s really to laugh,’ said Rufie. ‘Don’t you remember the other day when she opened the door, practically starko and couldn’t think what the lady was so surprised about?’
    ‘No, did she? Oh, Sari!’ said Sofy, fondly. ‘She really is too wonderful.’
    ‘And in a state because the woman might be upset. I mean, the rest of us were falling about with laughter but Sari was so afraid she’d shocked the poor thing and hurt her feelings.’ ‘Sari is a very special person,’ said Sofy. ‘Yes, but this time, darling, it really is a bit too much.... ’
    And Sofy rang up Etho. ‘Darling—have you heard from Rufie?’
    The gay, high voice that always sounded as though you were the one person in the world that Etho had been hoping would ring up! ‘I saw him last night.’
    ‘He called in at your place?’
    ‘Not to tell me anything in particular, though.’
    ‘It’s Sari again,’ said Sofy.
    ‘Oh, my God, no! What now?’
    ‘Followed.’
    ‘Oh, well that,’ said Etho. ‘She’s always being followed.’
    ‘But now some elaborate story, Rufie says, of a tree across the road, blown down by the storm. And can you believe it?—swapped cars with some man who also couldn’t get by because of the tree and he took her car and she took his—’
    ‘My dear, it’s all just fantasy, you people get so worked up. Sari gets bored, she cooks up these things for her own inner amusement. And she knows how Rufie does love a bit of drama.’
    ‘It’s more than that, Etho. I mean, no one loves Sari more than I do, but sometimes I do think that she’s a little bit kinky.’
    ‘She’s not kinky in the least. She’s bored, that’s all. She’s having fun. You don’t know Sari....’
    But he rang up Nan, all the same. ‘Nan, do go round and see what goes with Sari. They’re all in a flap because she had some adventure or other last night. She arrived home in something like a state of shock, apparently. Rufie had to ply her with brandy—’
    Nan was the newest of the Eight Best Friends. She listened with horror to Etho’s brief outline of the story of the tree blown across the road. ‘Oh, poor darling! And in that awful weather. I’ll go round to the flat, of course I will, and see that she’s all right.’
    ‘The only thing is’, said Etho, carefully, ‘that Rufie and Sofy don’t believe a word of it.’
    ‘Don’t believe it?