Whoever was there isn’t there now because they’ve moved along a room and they’re trying the windows to that one and whoever it is isn’t doing the best job in the world of keeping quiet about it. Very carefully I find the gap in the curtains and slide my hand through and locate the bolts on the sliding glass and ease them out. I listen for a moment. Whoever is outside is still having a go at the other window. Even more carefully thanI slid the bolts, I exert some pressure on the window and it glides noiselessly open a few inches. Cool mountain air sidles in through the crack. The sounds from outside have ceased for the moment. I slide the window open a bit more and it’s as noiseless as before. It’s now wide enough for me to step through. If I want to. The attention the other window’s been getting starts up again. Very slowly I poke my head through the gap. I can just make out a shadow shaking at the handles of the next window. There only seems to be one shadow but that’s something I can’t be sure of so I straighten up and stand there and wonder what the Christ I’m going to do about it but as it happens I don’t have to come to a decision because the sounds from the other window stop and there’s the new sound of footsteps returning to the window I’m at. I step smartly out of the gap and stand shielded by the curtain, not moving at all. The footsteps stop and there is a short surprised breath from beyond the curtains and also I notice something else, and that is that there’s not only the aroma of the assorted mountains drifting in through the gap, there’s the smell of a rather cheap perfume, cheap and nasty but nice. Then the figure that’s wearing the perfume steps through the gap and into the bedroom and all I have to do is to reach out and grip the figure’s arms behind its back and slap a hand across its mouth and while all the threshing and squirming and suppressed squealing’s going on I call out to Wally, wherever he is.
“Wally, the light.”
A shadow scuttles in from off the landing and almost immediately the bedroom is suffused with the kind of glow my bedroom was suffused with and now I can see the figure I’m wrestling with and as I take it in it occurs to me that I wouldn’t mind the best of three falls with this particular opponent. The reason being that she’s got beautifully cut short black hair, she’s got a body that flatters the blouse and the satin trousers rather than the other way around, and in spite of the way I’m squashingher face I can tell that she and everyone who ever gazes on it will be more than happy with the way it’s arranged and the effect that arrangement has. But what, at the moment, is unavoidably more interesting is Wally’s reaction to the intruder.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says. “What you doing here?”
As he speaks he walks forward towards me and the girl, looking for the first time tonight as though he’s got a set of balls. The girl stops struggling but she doesn’t relax and neither do I except to take my hand away from her mouth.
“What the bleeding hell’s going on?” the girl says, looking at me as if I need to blow my nose. “Just what is this?”
“What do you mean, what is this?” Wally says. “What is this ? Just what the Christ you think you’re doing? Eh? I mean, what are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” she says. “Trying to get in the flaming villa, wasn’t I?”
“Listen, don’t come the snot with me,” Wally says. “I’ll haul you one off if you’re not careful.”
“Yes, I expect you will, seeing as how you’ve got somebody to hold me first. Just your drop, that is.”
And as the girl says, Wally’s drop it appears to be, because he starts to do just that so I let the girl go and she’s fast enough to dodge the swinger, leaving me to catch Wally’s wrist in my hand and get a grip on him.
“Ease off, eh?” I tell him. “Evens?”
Wally looks at me, then relaxes. I
“Wally, the light.”
A shadow scuttles in from off the landing and almost immediately the bedroom is suffused with the kind of glow my bedroom was suffused with and now I can see the figure I’m wrestling with and as I take it in it occurs to me that I wouldn’t mind the best of three falls with this particular opponent. The reason being that she’s got beautifully cut short black hair, she’s got a body that flatters the blouse and the satin trousers rather than the other way around, and in spite of the way I’m squashingher face I can tell that she and everyone who ever gazes on it will be more than happy with the way it’s arranged and the effect that arrangement has. But what, at the moment, is unavoidably more interesting is Wally’s reaction to the intruder.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says. “What you doing here?”
As he speaks he walks forward towards me and the girl, looking for the first time tonight as though he’s got a set of balls. The girl stops struggling but she doesn’t relax and neither do I except to take my hand away from her mouth.
“What the bleeding hell’s going on?” the girl says, looking at me as if I need to blow my nose. “Just what is this?”
“What do you mean, what is this?” Wally says. “What is this ? Just what the Christ you think you’re doing? Eh? I mean, what are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” she says. “Trying to get in the flaming villa, wasn’t I?”
“Listen, don’t come the snot with me,” Wally says. “I’ll haul you one off if you’re not careful.”
“Yes, I expect you will, seeing as how you’ve got somebody to hold me first. Just your drop, that is.”
And as the girl says, Wally’s drop it appears to be, because he starts to do just that so I let the girl go and she’s fast enough to dodge the swinger, leaving me to catch Wally’s wrist in my hand and get a grip on him.
“Ease off, eh?” I tell him. “Evens?”
Wally looks at me, then relaxes. I
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