The Second Midnight. Andrew Taylor

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      ‘Where does he go?’ Hugh didn’t really want to know, but it was comfortable to have Meg whispering in his ear. He didn’t want to give her an excuse for going.

      ‘I’m sure he goes to parties and shows and restaurants.’ Meg’s voice was bitter. ‘I know he sees a lot of people he knew at school. Especially Paul Bennet: you know the one – his father’s filthy rich and they’ve got a Rolls-Royce. The friends Stephen chooses always have pots of money – have you noticed that?’

      Hugh snuggled closer to his sister. His shoulder was against her breasts. He was beginning to feel drowsy. When she spoke again, her whisper was so low he could hardly catch what she was saying.

      ‘You know Mary? She’s awfully nice – she’s in my form at school and we do everything together. She saw Stephen and Paul on Sunday, in Richmond Park. They were with girls. Mary said they had their arms around their waists. She said the girls looked terribly common and – you know – flashy.’

      Hugh wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but he grunted encouragingly. Meg sounded strangely breathless, as if she found the subject absolutely fascinating. He forced himself to find a question to keep the conversation going.

      ‘Are you going to go out with chaps when you grow up?’

      Meg wriggled beside him. ‘Of course I am. They’ll be rich, too – perhaps they’ll have titles. They’ll take me to nightclubs, you know, and we’ll drink champagne and dance very close to one another.’ She made a sound which was halfway between a sob and a sigh. ‘The trouble is, I never get a chance to meet anyone. Father keeps us cooped up like prisoners. He never lets us invite anyone home. Mary’s people are always having parties. And her brothers bring their friends. They had a tennis tournament last summer and Mark (that’s her elder brother) brought a friend from Oxford. He was called Gerald and looked like Robert Donat. He kissed Mary, in the summer-house. And it was a proper kiss, too, not just a peck on the cheek.’

      Hugh wondered what a proper kiss was: presumably it was a peck on the mouth.

      ‘Sometimes,’ Meg hissed in his ear, ‘I feel so jealous of Mary I could burst. She knows such a lot about men already.’ Her arm tightened around Hugh. ‘I say,’ she said casually. ‘Eight must have hurt an awful lot. Can I see it?’

      ‘It’s dark,’ Hugh protested sleepily. ‘We can’t put the light on again. Besides—’

      He stopped, aware he couldn’t put his other objection into words, even to himself. In any case, he didn’t want to offend Meg.

      She seemed to understand what was in his mind. ‘Don’t be an idiot. You’re my little brother – I used to help bath you. Anyway if it’s dark, I wouldn’t see anything. I could just touch.’

      ‘If you like.’ Hugh tried to make himself sound indifferent. ‘But be careful: it’s jolly painful.’

      Meg’s free hand moved slowly down his spine. She hesitated when she came to the top of his pyjama trousers. He had left the cord untied in the hope that it would be less painful. Her hand slipped underneath.

      Hugh winced as her fingers gently touched the line of welts. His father’s aim had been good: most of the strokes had fallen on the same spot. She touched one of the scabs and sucked in her breath sharply.

      ‘It bled quite a lot,’ Hugh said proudly.

      ‘You poor darling.’

      Meg’s hand moved on. It cupped one of his buttocks for an instant, and then stroked the top of his thighs. Where she touched the welts, it was painful; but elsewhere it made Hugh tingle. He felt a warmth growing inside him. Her hand slipped down between his legs.

      Suddenly they both heard footsteps coming along the landing.

      Hugh and Meg held their breath. They knew it must be their mother – she walked slowly and lightly, while their father’s step was brisk and heavy. As his mother reached the door of his room, Hugh clutched Hiawatha so tightly that one of the Indian’s arms bent beneath the strain.

      But the footsteps passed on to the bathroom. As soon as the bolt shot across, Meg began to wriggle out of bed. In her haste she scraped a fingernail across one of the scabs; Hugh nearly cried out. A long, bare leg rubbed against Hugh’s arm. Meg put on her slippers and bent down to Hugh.

      ‘Don’t make a sound. I’ll wait behind the door until she’s gone back downstairs.’

      Next door, the lavatory flushed. His mother’s footsteps paused outside Hugh’s door, but moved on after a few seconds. Hugh didn’t know whether to be relieved or hurt: his mother’s fear of his father was greater than her desire to comfort him.

      Meg waited a moment and then left without even saying goodnight. Hugh half-wished she would come back to bed, despite the risks. Her visit had made him both warmer and happier. He stirred in the bed; he was suddenly conscious of his body as something outside himself. He realized that other people could give it pleasure as well as pain.

      ‘We’ll survive, old fellow,’ he whispered to Hiawatha. ‘The enemy may have won the battle, but he hasn’t won the war.’

      There would be a respectful grin on the usually impassive face of his batman. ‘Yes, sir. The men are all in good spirits. Permission to kip down?’

      ‘Granted,’ Hugh said. He laid Hiawatha beneath the pillow, but kept his hand on top of him.

      Hiawatha may have gone to sleep at once, but it took Hugh much longer. His drowsiness seemed to have gone. He heard his parents come to bed just after eleven. Neither of them came in to see him.

      The last thing he was aware of was the clock downstairs striking midnight.

      Alfred Kendall always went into the office on Saturday mornings. The journey by train and bus from Twickenham to the City marked the transition from the problems of home to the problems of work. Sometimes he could distract himself from them with a newspaper or a thriller, but not today.

      Kendall and Son occupied two rooms of a building in Sweetmeat Court; in palmier days they had rented the entire first floor. Miss Leaming, the angular secretary whom Kendall had inherited from his father, was in the outer office. She was the firm’s last employee: Kendall kept her on solely because a younger and more efficient secretary would have required a higher salary.

      Miss Leaming fussed ineffectually over his wet overcoat.

      ‘I hope you’ve done the post,’ Kendall said.

      She avoided his eyes. ‘Yes, sir. It’s on your desk.’

      Kendall turned down the gas fire. ‘We’re not made of money, you know,’ he said over his shoulder as he went into the inner office.

      The letters he found on his blotter soured his mood still further. The new director of the Nuranyo glass works at Pilsen announced that he was unable to fulfil some foreign orders, including Kendall’s, owing to a change in company policy. Kendall snorted: a lot of Czech companies had altered their policy since Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, the strip of Bohemia adjoining Germany, last September.

      Kendall’s bank manager had written to remind him that the firm’s overdraft now stood at £343 6s 9d; he drew Mr Kendall’s attention to the fact that the original СКАЧАТЬ