Free Death of a Huntsman by H.E. Bates Page A

go any farther? How much farther have you to go?’
    â€˜About a hundred and fifty,’ he said.
    She seemed to consider this and once again he found her looking at him with microscopic inquisitiveness, from eyes that were simply two dark holes under the drawn-down frame of hair. Then suddenly she said:
    â€˜You can use the telephone if you like. That wasn’t true what I said about being cut off. But I didn’t know who you were—you’ve got to be careful, haven’t you? But I can see you’re all right now—you’re a nice fellow. I can see that.’
    â€˜Thanks all the same. I won’t bother you. I’ll hop down the road.’
    â€˜No, no,’ she said. ‘Oh! no. Don’t do that. It’s a long way. Don’t do that. Come in now. You can use the telephone. I’ve got some tea going. I always have tea going at this time. I drink tea all night.’
    He thought for a moment that she was going to pull him by the hand. Her own hand seemed to snatch at the moonlight in a hungry sort of gesture, almost a pounce, not unlike the grab that a child might make, too late, at a butterfly.
    â€˜You could ring up the Acme Service,’ she said. ‘They’ll come out. They’re four miles down the road. Then you can have some tea while you’re waiting.’
    He thanked her and said all right, he would, and he followed her into the house. The telephone, an old-fashioned fixed wall model, was in the hall, under the single small electric bulb, and while he was telephoning he could smell the fumes of a spirit kettle coming from a room somewhere beyond.
    The garage would be an hour, they said; they had onlyone night-service breakdown truck and that was out. When he heard this he remembered he still had his supper in a haversack in the cab.
    â€˜Where are you going?’ she said.
    â€˜I’ve got a bit of food in the truck,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get it——’
    â€˜Oh! No. Don’t bother with that. I’ve got food. If you’re hungry I have food.’
    So he followed her into the first of what he knew later were many rooms beyond it. It was a large room, furnished in a sort of suburban Jacobean, with a heavy beamed ceiling, encrusted white wallpaper, a big panelled oak fireplace and a bulb-legged dining table in the centre. In one corner was a divan covered by a blue and purple paisley shawl. She sat untidily, almost sloppily, on this divan, in the light of a small brass table-lamp and the mauve flames of the spirit kettle, and told him that that was where she slept.
    â€˜That’s when I do sleep,’ she said. ‘I don’t sleep much. I’m like you—awake most of the night. I have tea and read and then drop off when it’s day.’
    He saw that the spirit kettle was silver, like the big teapot she presently filled with water. The cups were of thin china, fancily flowered, with high handles.
    â€˜I hear the trucks go by all night,’ she said. ‘It’s funny—I expect I’ve heard you go by many a time. What’s your name? Mine’s Broderick. Mrs Broderick.’
    â€˜Charlie,’ he said. ‘Charlie Williams.’
    â€˜Like the prince, eh?’ she said.
    Now, in the double light of the lamp and the spiritkettle, he could see her face more clearly. It was a very white face, the kind of face moulded by sleepless nights and airless days into a mask of paste that made it difficult for him to tell how old she was. He noticed she did not smile. Once or twice it occurred to him that she was a woman of fifty or so, and then suddenly her head would turn sideways in the mauve and yellow glow of light. The profile, no longer depressed by the huge black bunch of hair, became delicate, the line of the pale lips unexpectantly much younger.
    All this time she was lighting one cigarette after another: lighting it, putting it down, forgetting it, lighting a second from the