Free Remedy is None by William McIlvanney Page A

she wanted?
    ‘Jane! Have you gone to bed or something?’
    She started guiltily at Peter’s voice. She hastily checked her appearance again in the mirror, as if afraid her mental disarray might have a physical extension. Putting out the bedroom light, she went through to the living-room, donning a smile at the door.
    ‘I seem to have seen your face before,’ Raymond said. ‘We were nearly sending out a search-party for you there, Jane. You’d better take a compass next time.’
    ‘Were you developing the photographs?’ Peter’s voice was just this side of annoyance and no more.
    ‘Oh, the photographs!’ Her hands went up in surrender to his reproach.
    ‘Well, that was only what you went for, after all.’
    ‘You’d better check that room through there, Peter,’ Raymond said. ‘And make sure there’s not a lodger you don’t know about.’
    She went back through to the bedroom, mingling her laughter with that of the others to cover the furtive sense of guilt she felt. She tried to gear herself to their mood. This was where she belonged, she told herself again. She was going to enjoy this evening. But she couldn’t overcome a vague feeling of strangeness as she re-entered the living-room.
    ‘These had better be good after the time we’ve waited,’ Raymond said. ‘Malta, The Millionaire’s Playground. A Pictorial Account of a Holiday on the George Cross Island. Golden beaches . . . Dusky maidens . . .’
    ‘Here’s one of Peter when his skin was just beginning to peel,’ Mrs Whitmore said, passing the photograph to Eleanor.
    ‘Ooh. Frying tonight.’ Eleanor giggled. ‘Mind you, Peter, you really suit blisters.’
    ‘You mean blisters suit him,’ Raymond emended.
    ‘I mean exactly what I said,’ Eleanor persisted.
    ‘You can say it how you like. It’s no skin off my nose.’
    ‘It’s not until the skin begins to peel that you get the full savour of your sunburn,’ Peter continued, like a lecturer ignoring hecklers. ‘The blisters are only a sort of apprenticeshipin agony. But once you get down to doing a striptease with your skin, you become a real veteran. It’s like a Gipsy Rose Lee that doesn’t know where to stop. You scratch and you scratch. And then you scratch. I could hardly wait for meals to finish so that I could go up to the room for my next performance. I used to invite Jane up to see my itchings.’
    ‘This is one of the harbour at Valletta,’ Mrs Whitmore said.
    They settled down to a relay of snapshots, with Mrs Whitmore providing explanatory captions and Peter using the incidents they recalled as launching pads for sardonic commentary on Malta.
    ‘It’s lovely scenery,’ Eleanor commented after some thought.
    ‘God, I wish I had said that,’ Raymond said, as he took the photograph from her. And went on at once, outrunning riposte, ‘Especially in the foreground there. Wow! Where do you book for this place? I thought Maltese women were supposed to be very prim. Concealing the tempting flesh and all that.’
    ‘Only the ones who’ve nothing to show,’ Peter said. ‘You do see some of them wearing long black dresses to go swimming right enough. Actually, they’re a lot worse than bathing-suits once they’ve been in the water. The way they sag and cling. Typical Maltese Irishness. It’s like the way you have to cover your upper arms in churches, isn’t it, Jane? No sleeveless dresses allowed. But it doesn’t matter how low the neckline is. Or how high you have the hemline.’
    ‘This was taken just coming into Gozo,’ Mrs Whitmore explained. ‘That’s the sister-island to Malta. It’s only half-an-hour in the boat. We spent two days there.’
    ‘Which was just about a day-and-a-half too much,’ Peter said. ‘It’s strictly a poor relation. They play up everything, show you round any old bit of rubble they’ve got handy. They just about give you guided tours of the public conveniences. Remember the prehistoric temple? A ring of boulders with weeds . .