Читать книгу A Pure Clear Light - Madeleine John St. - Страница 20

Simon had forgotten what this felt like, this bolt from the blue. One does. He stood there, feeling weak at the knees and stupid, wanting both to remain and to flee; impaled. ‘Well now!’ said Sarah, ‘what will you drink? Some of this?’ There was a bottle of wine opened on the table; Sarah got him a glass. ‘Why don’t you sit down here for the moment,’ she said. ‘Dave will be back in a tick.’ Simon sat down awkwardly – his knees still weak – on a chair diagonally opposite Gillian Selkirk, and sipped at the wine. It wasn’t awfully nice. Gillian Selkirk caught his eye and smiled very faintly and Simon smiled back and looked down into his glass and sipped again. Sarah was busy at the stove. ‘So, Simon,’ she said, ‘how’s it going?’ They talked shop very briefly and then Sarah brought Gillian Selkirk into the picture.

‘Gillian here’s an accountant,’ she said. ‘She’s been looking into one of these dodgy Lloyd’s syndicates.’

‘Ah,’ said Simon. He was speechless.

‘Naturally, she refuses to tell us anything about it,’ Sarah went on. ‘I dare say it’s over our heads anyway.’

Simon found his voice. ‘Sure to be,’ he said.

‘Oh, I hardly think so,’ said Gillian. She had one of those dark mezzo-soprano voices, the colour of mahogany. ‘There’s no mystery about accounting, it’s perfectly straight-forward.’ She was wearing a little black linen dress with a white collar and a pair of wildly expensive-looking shoes, and she had rather straight flaxen hair, which might have been artificially coloured, because her eyebrows and eyelashes were darker, and her eyes were hazel-brown.

‘Anyway, she’s been giving Dave a few pointers,’ Sarah went on, ‘for this series he’s writing: it’s about the whole Lloyd’s thing. But fictionalised, obviously.’

‘I see,’ said Simon. He looked across at Gillian Selkirk. ‘That’s awfully good of you,’ he said.

‘Oh, well,’ she replied, ‘we City types will grab any chance to mingle with the artistic set. It does such wonders for one’s credibility in the Square Mile.’ Simon wondered how that blighter David Packard had managed to snaffle this particular accountant. His heart was still pounding uncomfortably; looking into his glass he saw that despite the poor quality of the contents it was now empty.

Sarah read his thoughts. ‘Our accountant – Georgie Bligh – he’s yours too, isn’t he, Simon? Dear Georgie looks after us all – put Dave in touch with Gillian.’

‘I owed Georgie a small favour, anyway,’ offered Gillian. ‘He sorted my mother out.’

‘Useful man,’ said Simon.

‘It would take more than an accountant, more even than Georgie, to sort my mother out,’ said Sarah. She picked up the wine bottle, which was now empty. ‘Oh, silly me,’ she said. ‘We’ve been drinking the cooking wine. Well, let’s move on to something better, shall we?’ She took a bottle of something different from the refrigerator and began to open it. ‘I wish Dave would show up,’ she said.

‘Here, let me do that,’ offered Simon; and he drew the cork. Then David came in, and it was time to eat, so the dinner which was to compensate so fully for Simon’s misfortune in having been detained in London while his family were on holiday in France began. Would that it never had.