Free Listening in the Dusk by Celia Fremlin Page A

publishers, concert-promoters — the lot!’ Look, Alice, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we paint the motor bike — scarlet, gold, blue — that sort ofthing! Make it the central feature of your decor! We could start now. I’ve got the remains of some red paint downstairs, and we could buy the blue and the gold — just small tins — tomorrow. No, Monday, those sort of shops won’t be open on Sunday. Anyway, let’s get going with the red … just a sec.”
    In less than a minute he was back, with not only the tin of paint but a couple of relatively un-congealed paint brushes, and they set to work. The rims of the wheels scarlet, they thought, and the antler-like handlebars too. The hubs of the wheels should be gold, and so should its mysterious broken insides, with touches of deep blue here and there to add depth.
    “And significance, too,” Brian insisted. “You must go a bundle on significance, Alice, if you’re going to live in a place like this,” and with swift, deft strokes he set about outlining in scarlet the lopsided rim of the back wheel, while Alice, with a damp rag, prepared the front one for a similarly glorious new career.

Chapter 8
    The sausage supper didn’t turn out quite as Alice had anticipated . Hetty had agreed without protest to her request to be allowed some time after seven-thirty to fry her sausages, but nevertheless seemed a little crestfallen at the proposal. The reason for this soon became clear. It happened that Hetty had, that very day, come into possession of a nice big bacon joint — a real butcher’s joint, with the bone still in, none of your boneless rubbish from the supermarket all done up in plastic. It had been simmering all afternoon with carrots, swedes and a couple of bay leaves, and it had occurred to Hetty that it would make a nice hot supper for everybody, it being such a cold, miserable sort of a night. Especially if she popped a few nice large potatoes into the oven, which it happened she had already done.
    It sounded most inviting; but what about the sausages? “Besides,” continued Alice, “I can’t keep sponging off you for meals. I had that delicious shepherd’s pie last night, remember.”
    Sponging? Oh no, that’s not how Hetty saw it at all. “It’s helping me out, really,” she explained. “I do like a cut off a nice big joint now and again, and how can I have it if I’m just cooking only for myself? I’d be finishing up cold meat day in and day out until my stomach turned. But I’ll tell you what, love, why don’t we be devils and have your sausages as well? Sausages and bacon — it doesn’t go too badly, does it? Sausage and bacon — bacon and sausage — you only have to say it out loud and you can hear how it kind of belongs, if you know what I mean. Our Brian, he’s going to be over the moon when I tell him we’re having both. He does enjoy his food, that boy does, it’s a pleasure to watch his knife and fork going. I only wish I could say the same of Mary; so picky that girl is, it’s not true! Still, I’ll try to get her to come down this evening; maybe if I tell her Brian’s coming too …”
    Clearly this inducement (if indeed it had been an inducement , which Alice doubted after witnessing the little scene on the landing this morning) had failed, for when the little party gathered round the large scrubbed kitchen table, Mary was conspicuous by her absence. In her place, however — much to Alice’s surprise, after all she had heard — was Miss Dorinda, the lady who liked everything just so, and who was supposed to enjoy special privileges each evening for cooking her own carefully-balanced meals. Alice had already met Miss Dorinda earlier in the evening — on the stairs, in fact, exactly as she’d envisaged it — and her first impression had indeed been of someone intimidatingly smart: bleached up-swept hair, a svelte and slender figure, and painfully high heels teetering round the ill-lit bend of the stairway. Not so