Free Slapton Sands by Francis Cottam Page B

she said. Sir Lancelot. It didn’t suit him, not with the shorn hair. It never had. ‘They don’t last, the nicknames. Not if I get to know the people involved. I make snap judgements about people that always turn out to be wrong.’
    â€˜It’s the pill, Alice. It’s the times in which we live. The pill and penicillin and feminism and the ratio of females to males at the college. To some extent it’s environmental. Isn’t it the same in America?’
    It took her a second to realize the talk had got back to sex. ‘Not really.’
    â€˜With role models like Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell?’
    â€˜Joni Mitchell is a Canadian, which I’m frankly sick of telling people. And it’s only really like that on the West Coast. I don’t think America is as permissive as Europe is. Not sexually. Bertolucci wouldn’t have made a film called
Last Tango in Washington
.’
    â€˜Woody Allen might,’ David said.
    â€˜Nope,’ Alice said. ‘Woody Allen’s strictly New York.’
    â€˜Anyway, you’re right,’ David said. ‘If you weren’t American, I’d have been reasonably optimistic about tonight.’
    â€˜You’re quite conceited, aren’t you?’
    â€˜Not particularly. I’m optimistic. Most people are at ourage, you know.’ He got to his feet. ‘You can relax. I won’t try and grope you or anything. I’ll see you home, walk back to the phone box outside the Sally Army and ring for a minicab.’
    Alice stood and brushed sand from her skirt. She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to come between you and Oliver anyway.’
    â€˜He’d have been all right,’ David said. ‘He’s always got Ross Poldark.’
    The new key felt stiff in the new lock. But there appeared nothing different about the room from what they had left behind, hours earlier, when it was still light. There was a faint smell of raw wood from the door, from the drilling and chiselling done by David in fitting the new lock, from the waste-paper bin into which he’d dropped sawdust from the work, swept up with a dustpan and brush. And it was colder, more accurately cooler, than it had been then. But her duvet lay tautly stretched over the bed, and the sheet of typing paper rolled into her Olivetti portable still sat pristine and blank.
    Alice had evolved a theory concerning the visit to her room. She had come to believe that it had taken place prior to her return from the Neptune. Drowsy and preoccupied, she had not noticed the cigarette smoke or the Lucky Strike stub or the ashtray on her desk. She’d come back from a smoky pub, after all. Her landlord had a key and for some reason had visited, or had someone visit the property on his behalf. She didn’t have a telephone. He may have alerted herto the need for the visit by post, but mail deposited in college pigeonholes could easily go astray. He lived in Ashford, her landlord. She had met him only once. He was middle-aged, shy and obliging. Until she managed to catch him in, and she’d telephoned him twice now without success, she couldn’t confirm her theory. But it seemed to her more plausible than any other. It had occurred to her only today. Her dad, who had been a very good cop, would have been appalled at how long it had taken her to reach the obvious conclusion. In mitigation, she thought, she did have rather a lot on her mind at the moment.
    David Lucas was looking at the pictures Blu-Tacked to her walls. He seemed fascinated by the picture of the wounded Panzergrenadier. Then he studied the picture of the firefighter. He turned to Alice, who was standing with her backside resting on the edge of her desk and her arms folded under her breasts. ‘Do you think it’s cold in here?’
    â€˜Colder than it is outside, obviously.’
    He frowned. ‘It feels damp to me. And it smells of the sea.’
    Alice laughed.