The Silver Chain. Primula Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ put my beret back on, fiddling unnecessarily to set it more rakishly on my head. I like the heaviness of my hair on my shoulders and back. It’s comforting and also warm. I glance about for my gloves. My fingers are beginning to stiffen up in the biting cold. ‘That didn’t come out the way I meant it to. You made me jump, that’s all.’

      He lifts his shoulders, opening his arms in the multi-layered gesture which now includes frivolous apology. His arms are so big in the coat, the width of his embrace so inviting. What would it feel like if he wrapped those warm sleeves tight around me, carried me off somewhere? He’s easily strong enough. Embraced me and held me, kept me safe. Or ravished me?

      ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ He leans one elbow casually on the railings and crosses one foot in front of the other. The wind flips his black hair across his face. ‘I should have known you were female. You weren’t loping like a man at all then but moving gracefully. Your hips. Women sway their hips when they don’t even realise it. Especially when they are at their most fertile, apparently.’

      Now I’m certain he’s making fun of me. I hope to God that prevents him from reading what’s really going on in my mind, because my thoughts are skittering off the scale. I must be more frustrated than I realised. Either way I can’t help staring at the way his teeth grate across his lower lip, biting but not piercing the tender skin. The upper lip is harder, less forgiving. Still determined to give nothing away. It’s such a dynamic smile. Look how it brings his face to life, smoothes out the tension. Those strong white teeth could really hurt, I’m certain of it, but oh, if you let them graze across your mouth, your neck, your breasts, they could so easily please as well.

      ‘Hmm. Too much information.’ Thank God it’s dark out here. My whole body is burning hot. I blow on my bare fingers. ‘You sound like a wildlife documentary.’

      ‘Too observant for my own good, especially when there are interesting specimens to track.’ His hair flips off his brow, making his eyes startling like searchlights. ‘I only meant to say that you have much lovelier, longer legs than any male and I should have clocked those. I’m guessing you’re an athlete, or used to running over rough terrain.’

      ‘Athlete? No, Mr Attenborough. But rough terrain, yes. I used to live by the sea.’ My stiff fingers fiddle with my camera. I’m desperate to study the new images.

      ‘Right. And people who live by the sea don’t like being complimented on their legs or any other part of their anatomy?’ The stranger tilts his head like an artist at his easel and with his hands starts to sketch the outline of my legs from my feet upwards. He glances mischievously at me as he reaches my waist and makes an exaggerated hourglass. We both know that’s daft because tonight I’m shapeless in my jacket. ‘Or are you really a mermaid?’

      ‘Nothing mythical ever materialises in my neck of the woods. Not that it’s my neck of the woods any more.’ I have to smile, partly because that is such a good thought. ‘You’re obviously used to charming the birds off the trees, mister, but my being female still doesn’t give you carte blanche to comment on my hips or legs or fertility, or speculate about my natural habitat.’

      He shrugs cheerfully. ‘I’m no Neanderthal, mademoiselle. Just as keen an observer as you are.’

      I’ve only ever seen strong white teeth like that in America, or on television. Over here such fine teeth belong only to the very famous or very rich. In the lamplight, which has continued to brighten and is now as strong as a floodlight, his lips and those teeth are glinting as if he’s hungry. Or thirsty. His firm lips curl back slightly, and there’s that wolfish air again.

       You hungry for some comfort, stranger? Because I sure as hell am.

      ‘You are absolutely right, of course,’ he concedes. His face straightens as he looks away from me again, up towards the town house. ‘And yet again I apologise. I just didn’t expect to bump into someone like you tonight, that’s all. Ever, in fact.’

      ‘Someone real, you mean? Rather than a ghoulie, or a ghostie, or someone dressed up as a sacrificial virgin?’

      He claps his gloved hands. ‘Well, I guess you could pass as a woodland nymph, with a better body, more hair, and a louder voice. But actually I just meant someone who doesn’t have a clue how stunning she is.’

      This doesn’t feel wrong. This encounter. This conversation. How could anyone call this pestering? It feels totally right. I keep the camera in front of my face, framing him in my viewfinder. I have no desire to run away. He could be menacing, if I really wanted to dissect it, but so what? Any sensible girl would be beating a retreat by now with some kind of polite excuse, but I’m done with being sensible. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn towards him like money to a magnet. So who cares? And where are my bloody gloves?

      My cousin Polly, whose chic little riverside flat I’m borrowing while she smashes the glass ceiling in New York, would be that sensible girl. She’d take one look at this tall dark man looming over me, with the black eyes glittering and lively now from the lamplight, and she’d call him a Lothario. Such a great word. So good you can melt it on your tongue. She wouldn’t get that I’m a goner now I’ve seen him smiling. He looks like he would remove every lacy scrap of your underwear with those perfect teeth. She’d declare that proved her point, made him some kind of creep who got his kicks chatting up country bumpkins or scaring the living daylights out of them.

      Well, she’d be wrong. Whether he’s a Lothario or a Lancelot, I want to find out more. I want to go on standing here with my camera, propped up by this Narnian lamp post, staring at this possibly dangerous, probably harmless, smiling stranger.

      ‘Sorry,’ I say, looking down, my boot stirring some little stones sparkling with frost. ‘That did sound surly. What I meant was, do you often play spot the difference between men and women?’

      ‘Any entrepreneur worth his gold-plated pension watches people for a living so he can separate the wheat from the chaff.’ Those eyes again. Nonchalant stance, maybe, all casual against the railings, but those eyes are boring into me so sharply I’m feeling punctured. ‘You know. The sheep from the goats.’

      ‘Same for photographers,’ I mumble. ‘Those biblical sayings have a point.’

      He grins. ‘And in the business world, what that means is, anyone with any nous can spot a success story from fifty paces. Likewise we can sniff out the losers.’

      ‘All sounds a bit Lord Sugar!’

      ‘You better believe it. We’re cut from the same cloth. I happen to be an admirer of his, and yes, I do make it my business to hire and fire apprentices.’ He rubs his nose scornfully. ‘If politicians had half the common sense of people like me and him, we’d all be out of this mess by now.’

      ‘What about personally?’ I’m feeling bold now. Brassy. ‘Do you observe, do you watch people closely who might come into your private life?’

      ‘Do you mean women?’ he asks quietly. ‘Am I discerning about the women I want? I could answer that if I wasn’t so out of practice. But yes. Perhaps I should identify and stalk my prey like I do in business.’

      I realise we’ve moved closer together again, both leaning on the sharp railings. I’m not interested in coming over all Germaine Greer, though. This man can say whatever he likes, and if it wasn’t so cold I’d just stand here all night lapping it up. It’s that damn mouth of his, that soft lower lip, that hard upper clamping down. His mouth has a story to tell, I’m certain of it. How can it be amused and sardonic, hard and inviting, all at the same time? СКАЧАТЬ