Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

an earlier phase of the evening. There were no illustrated papers to be seen, nor even brochures about Beautiful Britain, and Maybury found the lad's presence irksome. All the same, he did not quite dare to say, 'There's nothing I want.' He could think of nothing to say or to do; nor did the boy speak, or seem to have anything particular to do either. It was obvious that his presence could hardly be required there when everyone was in the dining room. Presumably they would soon be passing on to fruit pudding. Maybury was aware that he had yet to pay his bill. There was a baffled but considerable pause.

Much to his surprise, it was Mulligan who in the end brought him the coffee. It was a single cup, not a pot; and even the cup was of such a size that Maybury, for once that evening, could have done with a bigger. At once he divined that coffee was outside the regime of the place, and that he was being specially compensated, though he might well have to pay extra for it. He had vaguely supposed that Mulligan would have been helping to mop up in the dining-room. Mulligan, in fact, seemed quite undisturbed.

'Sugar, sir?' she said.

'One lump, please,' said Maybury, eyeing the size of the cup.

He did not fail to notice that, before going, she exchanged a glance with the handsome lad. He was young enough to be her son, and the glance might mean anything or nothing.

While Maybury was trying to make the most of his meagre coffee and to ignore the presence of the lad, who must surely be bored, the door from the dining-room opened, and the tragic lady from the other side of the room appeared.

'Close the door, will you?' she said to the boy. The boy closed the door, and then stood about again, watching them.

'Do you mind if I join you?' the lady asked Maybury.

'I should be delighted.'

She was really rather lovely in her melancholy way, her dress was as splendid as Maybury had supposed, and there was in her demeanour an element that could only be called stately. Maybury was unaccustomed to that.

She sat, not at the other end of the sofa, but at the centre of it. It struck Maybury that the rich way she was dressed might almost have been devised to harmonize with the rich way the room was decorated. She wore complicated, oriental-looking earrings, with pink translucent stones, like rose diamonds (perhaps they were diamonds); and silver shoes. Her perfume was heavy and distinctive.

'My name is Cecile Celimena,' she said. 'How do you do? I am supposed to be related to the composer, Chaminade.'

'How do you do?' said Maybury. 'My name is Lucas Maybury, and my only important relation is Solway Short. In fact, he's my cousin.'

They shook hands. Her hand was very soft and white, and she wore a number of rings, which Maybury thought looked real and valuable (though he could not really tell). In order to shake hands with him, she turned the whole upper part of her body towards him.

'Who is that gentleman you mention?' she asked.

'Solway Short? The racing motorist. You must have seen him on the television.'

'I do not watch the television.'

'Quite right. It's almost entirely a waste of time.'

'If you do not wish to waste time, why are you at The Hospice?'

The lad, still observing them, shifted, noticeably, from one leg to the other.

'I am here for dinner. I am just passing through.'

'Oh! You are going then?'

Maybury hesitated. She was attractive and, for the moment, he did not wish to go. 'I suppose so. When I've paid my bill and found out where I can get some petrol. My tank's almost empty. As a matter of fact, I'm lost. I've lost my way.'

'Most of us here are lost.'

'Why here? What makes you come here?'

'We come for the food and the peace and the warmth and the rest.'

'A tremendous amount of food, I thought.'

'That's necessary. It's the restorative, you might say.'

'I'm not sure that I quite fit in,' said Maybury. And then he added: 'I shouldn't have thought that you did either.'

'Oh, but I do! Whatever makes you think not?' She seemed quite anxious about it, so that Maybury supposed he had taken the wrong line.

He made the best of it. 'It's just that you seem a little different from what I have seen of the others.'

'In what way, different?' she asked, really anxious, and looking at him with concentration.

'To start with, more beautiful. You are very beautiful,' he said, even though the lad was there, certainly taking in every word.

'That is kind of you to say.' Unexpectedly she stretched across the short distance between them and took his hand. 'What did you say your name was?'

'Lucas Maybury.'

'Do people call you Luke?'

'No, I dislike it. I'm not a Luke sort of person.'

'But your wife can't call you Lucas?'

'I'm afraid she does.' It was a fishing question he could have done without.

'Lucas? Oh no, it's such a cold name.' She was still holding his hand.

'I'm very sorry about it. Would you like me to order you some coffee?'

'No, no. Coffee is not right; it is stimulating, wakeful, overexerting, unquiet.' She was gazing at him again with sad eyes.

'This is a curious place,' said Maybury, giving her hand a squeeze. It was surely becoming remarkable that none of the other guests had yet appeared.

'I could not live without The Hospice,' she replied.

'Do you come here often?' It was a ludicrously conventional form of words.

'Of course. Life would be impossible otherwise. All those people in the world without enough food, living without love, without even proper clothes to keep the cold out.'

During dinner it had become as hot in the lounge, Maybury thought, as it had been in the dining-room.

Her tragic face sought his understanding. None the less, the line she had taken up was not a favourite of his. He preferred problems to which solutions were at least possible. He had been warned against the other kind.

'Yes,' he said. 'I know what you mean, of course.'

'There are millions and millions of people all over the world with no clothes at all,' she cried, withdrawing her hand.

'Not quite,' Maybury said, smiling. 'Not quite that. Or not yet.'

He knew the risks perfectly well, and thought as little about them as possible. One had to survive, and also to look after one's dependents.

'In any case,' he continued, trying to lighten the tone, 'that hardly applies to you. I have seldom seen a more gorgeous dress.'

'Yes,' she replied with simple gravity. 'It comes from Rome. Would you like to touch it?'

Naturally, Maybury would have liked, but, equally naturally, was held back by the presence of the watchful lad.

'Touch it,' she commanded in a low voice. 'God, what are you waiting for? Touch it.' She seized his left hand again and forced it against her warm, silky breast. The lad seemed to take no more and no less notice than of anything else.

'Forget. Let go. What is life for, for God's sake?' There was a passionate earnestness about her which might rob any such man as Maybury of all assessment, but he was still essentially outside the situation. As a matter of fact, he had never in his life lost all control, and he was pretty sure by now that, for better or for worse, he was incapable of it.

She twisted round until her legs were extended the length of the sofa, and her head was on his lap, or more