A Brighter Tomorrow - Maggie Ford (thriller novels to read .txt) 📗

couldn’t just let him stand there. He sounded urgent. Perhaps something was wrong. She had to open it. Taking a hold on herself, she did so, peeping around the crack, one hand clutching the nightgown to her throat. ‘What’s the matter?’ she queried.

‘The matter? The matter, dear girl, is that it’s a new year and you’re in bed!’

His narrow features were lively, flushed with drink, but happily so. ‘I haven’t set eyes on you for a week. I even wondered if you might be dead. Get dressed, girl! We’re going to a party.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can! Do up your hair,’ he said, seeing it hanging loose. His eyes roamed appreciatively over the glossy, dark auburn tresses, never having seen her hair loose before; but his gaze didn’t linger long. ‘Put on something halfway nice, suitable for a party. Hurry up now. I’ll wait out here.’

Suddenly excited, all morbid thoughts gone, quickly she dressed, selecting one of the nicer of her hoarded gowns and hurriedly pinned her hair up into some semblance of order.

She had washed her face for bed so there was no need to wash again. The scent of soap was still on her skin – cheap Sunlight soap, but it smelled nice and fresh. One day, when she was rich, she would have beautiful soap and beautiful perfumes. Casting dreams aside she scrambled into her winter coat, scarf and her straw boater and made for the door.

Felix was still standing there, a long, skinny form in a brown smock-like coat over green plaid trousers, a gaudy neckerchief and some sort of floppy cap of brown velvet, every inch an artist.

‘What party?’ she queried. ‘Where?’

‘Not far away. Friends of mine. Just a step. We’ll be there in no time at all. You’ll enjoy it.’ He sounded almost short of breath. ‘Let’s go!’

Taking her hand he gave her no time to question him further as he ran with her down the two flights of stairs and out into the still lively street.

She’d had a good time but a strange one, one that had taken some time to get used to – certainly it was a side of life she had never seen before and had certainly never known. Poor and rough her upbringing had been before Doctor Lowe had taken her in – quarrelling neighbours, street fights, any person straying into the area often being waylaid, coshed, stripped of their cash, and sometimes even their clothes; petty thieves, fornication and adultery in the dark alleys. But people dressed as decently as they could. Not these people.

Having already welcomed in the New Year before she and Alex had arrived, they were most of them highly charged and very drunk. The rather vast artist’s studio was thick with tobacco smoke, heavy with alcohol fumes and packed with perspiring bodies kicking up their legs to the thump of piano and drums or else slumped around the perimeter. The air was cloyed with cheap scent and body sweat. No one had taken any notice of her as she and Felix had entered, leaving her to melt in with the general noisy mêlée.

As he walked her home, her arm through his, mostly to keep herself steady for she’d had a little more to drink than was good for her, she couldn’t stop talking about it all, how strangely most of them had dressed and behaved.

It seemed to amuse him when she spoke of her horror at seeing women in a state of partial undress, showing no shame in exposing too much of their bosoms as they and their partners openly kissed and cuddled in such a liberated way – and not always their partners, even women with women, men with men, so that she had a job not to gape.

‘No one seemed put out by it all,’ she said, which made him burst out laughing.

‘Why should they be? There’s nothing wrong doing what’s natural. Let’s face it, everyone does it, though the so-called respectable majority do it in secret, thinking others don’t know. They were having fun, a good time. So, what if one gets carried away? Nothing wrong in that.’

She hadn’t referred to it again, thinking of her father. He’d enjoyed himself – at her expense. There was more wrong in that than she cared Felix to know about.

‘You were glad you came?’ Felix queried her silence.

Ellie perked up. ‘Yes, of course I was.’ She’d had a good time, her eyes opened to another world. ‘Thanks for taking me.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said perkily. ‘There’s always something going on somewhere. I’ll take you whenever you like. We all need company; painting, sculpting, writing – it’s a lonely business and most are only too glad of a little company at the first opportunity.’

She knew about loneliness and, despite her having been so taken aback by what she’d seen this evening, the idea of finding friends among these people was tempting. At least they were honest about what they were, every one of them steeped in their art and to hell with the world outside their sphere, spirits unto themselves.

But one thing Ellie still couldn’t get over. There had been a corridor leading off the studio where now and again a couple would wander off, their intentions vividly obvious.

At one time she had lost sight of Felix and felt herself giving way to sudden panic. Then she saw him, his lips almost eating those of a shaggy-haired female with hair shaded an alarming red. Used to elegantly pinned coiffure, Ellie felt quite shaken by the sight as well as by seeing her apparently inoffensive escort practically sucking the girl to death. She’d gone over to them, by then the alcohol inside her creating courage and some annoyance.

At her approach he had let go of the strange female, who had commenced upon a sinuous, gyrating dance all on her own with slow head and body movements as if her mind was somewhere in the clouds. It was then Ellie realized that alcohol wasn’t the only stimulant being