The Dead of Jericho

'Drop more wine?' he asked.

'Haven't I had enough?'

'As soon as you've had enough, it's time to have a little drop more.'

She laughed sweetly at him. 'Is that original?'

'I read it on the back of a match-box.'

She laughed again, and for a little while they drank their wine.

'You know what you just said about-about-'

'Finding you attractive?'

She nodded.

'What about it?'

'Why did you say it?'

The man shrugged in what he trusted was a casual ma

'You're not answering my question.'

'No? I thought-'

'When you said you found me attractive, it wasn't just what you said. It was-it was the way you said it.'

'Which was?'

'I don't know. Sort of-well sort of nice, somehow, and sort of sad at the same time.'

'You shouldn't say "sort of" all the time.'

'I was trying to tell you something that wasn't easy to put into words, that's all. But I'll shut up if you want me to.'

He shook his head slowly. 'I du

'Trouble with most men is that "attractive" just means one thing, doesn't it? Slip in between the sheets. Ta very much! Cheerio!'

'Nothing much wrong with that, is there?'

'Of course there isn't! But there can be more to it all than that, can't there?'

'I du

'But you can like a woman for what she is, can't you-as well as what she looks like?' She turned her head towards him, the dark hair piled high on top, and her eyes shone with an almost fierce tenderness.

'Will you just tell me-?' He found himself swallowing hard in the middle of whatever he was going to say and he got no further. She had slipped her right hand under the table and he felt the long soft fingers slowly curling and entwining themselves with his own.

'Can you just pass that wine across a sec, old chap?' It was one of the older guests, red-faced, pot-bellied, and jovial. 'Sorry to barge in and all that, but a chap needs his booze, eh?'

Their hands had sprung guiltily apart and remained so, for the other guests were now returning to the tables to make their choice of dessert.

'Do you think we'd better mix in again?' he asked, without conviction. 'We shall be causing a bit of comment if we're not careful.'

'That worry you?'

The man appeared to give his earnest attention to this question for a good many seconds; and then his face relaxed into a boyish grin. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I don't give a bugger. Why the hell shouldn't we sit together all night? Just tell me that, my girl! It's what I want. And if it's what you-'

'Which it is-as you know! So why not stop pretending, and go and get me some of that gateau? And here!' She gulped down the rest of her wine. 'You can fill this up while you're at it-right to the top.'

After finishing their gateaux, and after twice refusing the offer of coffee, he asked her to tell him something about herself. And she told him.

She'd been born in Rochdale, had been a hardworking and clever girl at school, and had won a place at Lady Margaret Hall to read modern languages. With a good second-class honours degree behind her, she had left Oxford and worked as the (sole) foreign sales rep of a smallish publishing company at Croydon, a company started from scratch a few years previously by two bright and reasonably ambitious brothers and dealing with textbooks in English as a foreign language. Just before she'd joined the company an increasing number of contracts had been coming in from overseas, and the need for some more effective liaison with foreign customers was becoming ever more apparent. Hence the appointment. Pretty good job, and not bad money either-especially for someone without the slightest experience in business matters. It had involved a good deal of necessary (and occasionally u

She'd missed something out though-the man knew that. He remembered, albeit vaguely, how Mrs. Murdoch had introduced her to him; remembered clearly the third finger on her left hand as she'd wiped the inside of her wineglass. Had she missed out a few other facts as well? But he said nothing. Just sat there, half bemused and more than half besotted.