The Thin Woman (3 page)

I had visions of an early and tragic death. But Mrs. Swabucher explained that last June her offspring had married a very undeserving liberated person who believed in separate holidays and disliked children.

I, however, was the present and could be helped. The dear lady began taking copious notes in a peculiar-looking shorthand interlaced with blots and arrows: Jobs, hobbies, likes, and dislikes all went into the pot, where they would
be allowed to stew for a while, said Mrs. Swabucher. In the meantime, she would examine her files and put on her thinking cap. Somewhere out there was the man whose life would briefly touch mine.

“Aren’t you going to a conference in a couple of days?” I asked, suddenly realizing how late it was. I had been sitting in this room for two hours.

“That girl can’t tell the truth to save her life. Conference indeed! Sounds grand, doesn’t it? What I’m really doing is visiting my grandchildren for a few days. But business before pleasure. Before I go anywhere I am going to find that man for you.”

We lifted our coffee cups and drank a toast to Mr. Right, wherever he was.

CHAPTER
Two

During the week following my visit to Eligibility Escorts I tried to console myself with the old adage that no news is good news, but even to my ears the cliché rang hollow. Either Mrs. Swabucher was unnecessarily choosy or so far her scouting expedition had met with dismal failure. I had given her Jill’s number, having finally thrown my telephone out. Ideally, I should have sent it to a monastery. Each time I heard Jill’s footfall on the stairs I held my breath until my cheeks turned blue. Usually she was just coming up to borrow an egg. Her latest fad was mixing one in a glass of salt water for a late-night gargle. The only telephone calls she reported were three obscene ones from a lady in Knightsbridge who thought Jill was her paper boy. On Wednesday she did call me down and handed me the receiver. He sounded dreamy! False alarm, it wasn’t him, just Mr. Green from the cleaners at the corner, jubilantly reporting he had found the belt to my blue-and-white-spotted silk dress. I was tempted to tell him to keep it for a clothesline, but he was a kind little man supporting an aged mother.

Saturday arrived, and Jill insisted on a shopping spree. I
absolutely must have a new outfit for the weekend. Bleating miserably that He was bound to ring up the moment my back was turned, I trudged after her into a decrepit little boutique in Soho. We were greeted with repellent ecstasy by the owner herself: a frowsy-looking woman with matted shoulder-length hair and a tattoo of a headless chicken on her left wrist. Serena would transform me. The question was, into what? Against my insistence that I did nothing for it at all, I was bullied into purchasing a full-length purple silk caftan sporting pearl beading round the neckline and gold braid round the sleeves and hem. Serena and Jill insisted I looked opulent. The term I would have chosen was Arabian Fright. But I did feel I had preserved a small measure of integrity in rejecting the gold cloth Aladdin slippers with the raised pointed toes.

“What’s that burbling noise?” I asked, when we finally reached Jill’s door, drenched from the rain that had met us when we came out of the tube. “Sounds like Tobias trapped somewhere. I think he’s suffocating.”

Jill got out her key. “That’s not Tobias. You know how irritated Miss Renshaw, from the basement, sets if the phone rings all day and no one answers it. Now when I go out for any length of time I shove it under a beanbag.”

Her hand paused at the lock. We looked at each other. “The phone!” we screeched in unison. “It’s ringing!”

I grabbed for the key. Jill dropped it, and we heard the soft metallic
thud-thud
as it went flipping across the dark linoleum floor. “Idiot,” we said together. Getting down on our hands and knees, we crawled in circles, rear-ending each other every now and then in our panic.

“Too late!” cried Jill.

“Has it gone down a crack?”

“No! Drat you. The phone’s stopped. Ah! Found it!” She held the key as far away from me as possible and dared me to move until she safely unlocked the door.

“What do you expect me to do? Stay down here forever? I’m getting lockjaw in my knees.”

Jill made a throaty little growl as I staggered up and
followed her inside. We both stood disconsolately in the middle of the floor, still in our wet coats; the telephone squatted on its haunches saying nothing at all.

“Ring, you big black toad,” I ordered, and obediently it did.

“You answer.” Jill peeled off her coat. “And if it’s that laboratory person again asking if I will donate my body for experimentation, say I give while I’m alive.”

“Riverbridge 6890,” I croaked. How can a woman’s voice break at twenty-seven?

“Ellie Simons?” An accusing voice came from the other end.

“Um, ah, what, who is …?”

“Bentley Haskell. I’ve spent half the day on the phone trying to reach you. I understood from Mrs. Swabucher at the service that this was some kind of emergency. If you have perhaps made other arrangements that’s fine with me, but I do like to know where I stand on these assignments.”

“Yes, quite! Naturally I do understand your position.” In my terror I dropped the phone and it went down with a rattling thump.

Jill perched on a stool by my left ear. “Stop grovelling.”

“Shush.” I yanked the cord away from her and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Don’t worry, that was the phone I dropped, not my false teeth.”

Impatient breathing came over the wire. “Miss Simons, I only take a couple of appointments a month. Escorting unattached females is not a full-time profession with me so I endeavour to set up my calendar as much in advance as possible. Exactly how much time are we talking about, and when?”

“When?” I echoed. “I thought Mrs. Swabucher would have—just a moment, please. I’m so sorry about all this. I know I have the invitation right here, somewhere, in my bag. You want to know the dates?”

“You don’t suffer from amnesia, do you, Miss Simons?”

“Oh, how amusing, Mr., eh …!” I did a Blondie Locks titter. “I always enjoy men—people—with a sense of humor.”
Covering the receiver, I mouthed frantically at Jill, “When am I going?”

She closed her eyes in pain. “Do black cats and ladders strike a chord? Friday the thirteenth! And stop whimpering at his feet. It’s dehumanizing.”

Jill was right. Enough of this nonsense! Squaring my shoulders I did an impersonation of my bank manager when he is letting me know he can bounce my cheques with one hand. “Mr. Hammond, I have all the information right here at my fingertips. The dates are February thirteenth to the fifteenth.”

“Haskell. Bentley T. Haskell. I gather from our mutual associate Mrs. Swabucher that your situation is somewhat unusual, that you are looking for more than a mere escort. You wish me to pose as the devoted gentleman friend?”

“Will there be an extra charge? No problem. You may have the money in cash if you prefer.”

“Thank you, and in unmarked bills if you can arrange it.”

Funny man. Did he despise his work, find it demeaning? He sounded in a hurry to move on to whatever eligible men do for indoor entertainment on dreary winter evenings.

“Shall we arrange a meeting before we make this trip?” he asked. “That way you can fill me in on the details.”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” No point in giving this already hostile male an excuse to back out. Mrs. Swabucher’s kindly description of me might not match the truth. “If you give me your address, Mr. Haskell, I will send you an agenda—time of departure, destination, etc.”

“Thank you, but direct all correspondence to the agency. I don’t give out my home address to clients.”

Was the man afraid I might appear on his doorstep one dark and stormy night and try to rape him?

“Perfect!” What was I thinking of? “Like you, Mr. Haskell, I want to keep this matter strictly business.” I gave a little trill of laughter aimed at showing him how amusing I found all this.

“Am I interrupting your dinner?”

“No.” Was he going to let down his defences and ask me out?

“I thought you were choking.”

So much for the light approach! Before he hung up I mentioned transportation. I had thought we would travel by train, but when he suggested our talking his car I found the offer irresistible. Immediately I envisioned us sweeping regally between the iron gates at Merlin’s Court.

“Fine,” I told Mr. Haskell. “Add petrol expenses to the bill.”

He assured me he would and rang off.

I sat by the phone staring at the ceiling and holding my knees together. They were chattering worse than my teeth.

“What’s his name?” asked Jill.

I told her.

“Sounds like a car,” she said.

“Jill, you know I am very sensitive about name jokes.”

“Sorry. I forgot that Ellie is an abbreviation. How about cracking a bottle of rhubarb wine in celebration?”

The evening was a good one, once I came out of shock. In doing an instant replay of the telephone conversation, I deluded myself that anyone as rudely abrupt as Bentley Haskell had to be a dish. Lesser men always try harder. Every gothic hero encountered between the pages of a paperback romance started out hostile, until the heroine got her silky little paws on him. I toyed with a mental image of Mr. Haskell sporting an interesting limp, and a scar trammelling one swarthy cheek—injuries suffered in the traditional hunting accident.

By my third glass of wine I was feeling pretty chipper. But the next morning, sober once more, I remembered those heroines all looked like Vanessa. If I were ever cast in a gothic plot, it would be as buxom Dame Goody trundling through life in the devoted service of others. This is the real world.

The next week passed in an orgy of indecision. I used up my entire supply of writing paper, presents from three years back, drafting letters to Mrs. Swabucher instructing her to cancel the order, all of which got savagely ripped apart and
cremated in my kitchen stove. Tobias, that fearless specimen of feline life, was afraid to say “Meow” to me. I was snappy with Jill. All in all, I was a wreck and getting fatter by the minute. Time was growing short. I wrote to Aunt Sybil saying I would be escorted and I sent the agenda to the agency asking that it be passed on to Mr. Haskell.

When the fateful day arrived, my eyes were bloodshot and my skin—my one prized feature—was a beehive of angry red blotches. Minutes ticked fiercely by, bringing the phantom Mr. Haskell ever closer. I couldn’t find the keys to my suitcase, and the oatmeal-eggwhite face mask Jill had slapped on me from the neck up had set hard as concrete. For a while we were afraid we would need to summon someone from the local petrol station to come and chisel me out.

“It’s a shame this isn’t a masquerade do,” sighed Jill. “You could go as a lump of petrified rock.”

Fortunately I laughed and the rock crumbled. Now came another risky procedure—squeezing me into a new pair of panty hose without popping them like overblown balloons.

Over the head with the purple caftan.

“Are you sure this outfit is suitable?” I was fumbling with a recalcitrant pearl earring.

“Sure!” Jill was trying to pry my left foot into a black grosgrain shoe I hadn’t worn in years.

“Nowadays, you can wear a brown paper bag and no one will bat an eye.”

“What time is it?” I was searching for my small gold watch. My usual Big Ben-sized one would not go with this rig. “He’s due here at three-thirty.”

“You’re fine! Although I wish you wouldn’t always wear your hair in that dowdy bun, or at least do something about the colour. Mid-brown isn’t in this year.” Jill had moved on to the right foot. “Ten more minutes.” The doorbell buzzed and Jill nearly lost her hand as I backed up.

I hate early birds. Punctuality comes high on my list of unforgivable sins. The bell buzzed again, insistently. Jill opened the door while I hovered between the bedroom and the sitting room like a great purple moth.

“Miss Simons?” He sounded pleasant and something else—relieved?

“No, Jill, a friend from downstairs; Ellie’s in here.”

Fanfare and drum roll—my wretched knees knocking again. We were face to face at last. He wasn’t tall, dark, and handsome, but two out of three wasn’t bad. His height was nothing more than average, perhaps five nine, an inch taller than me in heels. His hair was dark and curly, almost black. With his olive skin his eyes should by rights have been brown but they were a vivid blue-green. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that didn’t lose him any points at all (I later found out he wore them only for driving), and he was thin, thin, thin. Perhaps not theoretically handsome but decidedly attractive. Noting his well-cut coat over the dark wool suit, white shirt, and striped silk tie, I knew what I looked like—a fairground fat lady, bawdy, vulgar, grotesque.

Poor man, what a way to earn a living. I’d be nice to him. Tomorrow I would return to my tweeds and when the weekend was over I’d give him a really decent tip so he could take his mother or girlfriend—or wife—out for dinner. Was there any law that said escorts had to be single?

Tying on my best smile, I came forward to shake hands. He had a nice strong clasp, but his eyes were coldly impersonal. Irrationally I resented that. No one had twisted his arm to bring him here.