Free The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower Page A

and head on the back of the chair, and supporting his spine in the seat, Felix reminded her gently, ‘It’s two more years, you know. Don’t forget that. At least two years—’ He pondered over his decision, and Laura waited, silence pressing in on her.
    ‘No one kept me there the extra time, and I don’t think I’ve done too badly.’ Felix opened his eyes at her,ruefully, whimsically. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. What do you think? He looked at her suddenly again, with exaggerated alertness, as if her opinion might even yet change the direction of his life.
    Laura jumped. ‘No, no! You’re not wrong. Of course you’ve done—wonderfully.’
    ‘Do you think so?’ he asked keenly, looking at her as if her answer to this, too, interested him tremendously.
    ‘Of course!’ Laura was vehement and whole-hearted in his praise. ‘It was only an idea. Lots of nice young girls go to business college.’
    Felix smiled modestly at his crossed feet. ‘I don’t mind seeing that she gets there. Later on, if she comes up to scratch, we might find something for her at the factory. Who knows?’
    Laura’s left hand tentatively buttoned and unbuttoned and buttoned the button at the neck of her yellow cardigan.
    ‘Where is she, anyway?’ Felix affected to glance over his shoulder as if he might perhaps have overlooked the girl’s presence.
    ‘Reading. In her room.’
    ‘Oh? What’s wrong with our company?’
    Laura looked at him, not quite comprehending. ‘Nothing,’ she assured him suddenly. She continued to look at him till, as suddenly, she said, ‘I’ll go and call—’
    Felix rubbed his nose, appearing inattentive, only saying to his fingernails, ‘I don’t know if you’ve everhad to pay an electricity bill in this district, but—ah—’ He raised his eyes very quickly and laughed.
    ‘I’m getting her.’
    ‘When you come back I’ll beat you at dominoes for the fifth time running. I hope you know that. I hope you know what a fourth-rate brain you’ve got. Do you?’
    The telephone rang in the office and Laura padded rapidly to answer it, and half-ran coming back. ‘It’s for you, Felix.’
    ‘You’re puffing like an old crone,’ he said with distaste. ‘At your age.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    Clearing his throat portentously, he rose and, head down, abstracted as a bishop on Easter Day, he moved out of the room like a procession while Laura stood aside. Then she went to recruit Clare, drawing nourishment through her eyes and fingers on the way. Home.
    ‘What? Are you moving again?’ Peter Trotter climbed into the car with the disengaged air of one who knows he is granting a favour accepting a favour: his own car was being greased, Felix was dropping him off in North Sydney. He turned his long pale face towards Felix and jerked his head at the roof-high collection of ledgers, cash books, stationery, in and out trays, adding machines and books he could not identify, in the back of the car.
    ‘Yeah, I’m thinking of running the office from the house. I’ve been carting this stuff home a bit at a time.’
    Felix drove with the steering-wheel pressed to his chest, his strong arms hooped round it, hanging on for dear life as though it were the neck of a mad bull.
    ‘This is the last shipment.’ He laughed consciously.
    Trotter barely opened his trap of a mouth. ‘What’s it in aid of?’
    ‘Saves a heap of rent, you know. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. She’s got to look after the house and it saves time if she does the typing and phoning at home. Then I’ve got everything handy to work on the books at night.’
    Trotter flicked a platinum lighter and applied its flame to a cigarette. He stared, bored, through the windscreen, felt the back of his patent head. Felix drove in nervous, angry spurts as some feeling of his one-time partner’s elevation in the world and his own opinion dawned on him. Old Pete had taken steps up out of his range. Look at his suit!
    Felix