Beast in View

In Verna’s opinion, Douglas was a born student. He hadn’t finished college because of some highly exaggerated incident in the locker-room of the gym, but he had continued studying on his own and had already covered ceramics, modern poetry, the French impressionists, the growing of avocados, and the clarinet.

‘These long silences make me nervous, they really do. I never know what you’re thinking.’ Helen smiled grimly into the telephone. ‘You might ask me some time.’ ‘I’m afraid you’d answer,’ Verna said with a sharp little laugh.

Blackshear sipped his drink uneasily, realizing that he had never actually known Verna Clarvoe. In the past he had seen her in character, playing the rôle she thought was expected of her, the pretty and frivolous wife of a man who could afford her. She was still onstage, but she’d forgotten her lines, and the props and backdrop had been removed and

‘Patience, Stella. Patience and poise. One moment of distemper can be as damaging to your skin as two éclairs.’

June didn’t believe the rumour. Miss Clarvoe locked things up because she was the kind of person who always locked things up whether they were valuable or not.

I couldn’t go back to sleep. I began to wonder about Miss Merrick and when – whether I would hear from her again and what she hoped to get out of me. The only thing I have is money.’ She paused, as if giving him a chance to contradict her or agree with her. Blackshear remained quiet. He knew she was wrong, but he didn’t feel that anything could be

‘Duty.’ She repeated the word after him, slowly, as if it had a taste that must be analysed, a flavour pungent with the past: castor oil and algebra and unshed tears and hangnails and ink from leaky pens. Miss Clarvoe was a connoisseur. She could pick out and identify each flavour, no matter how mouldy with age.

‘This is our consultation room,’ Miss Hudson said. ‘I never give the girls any personal criticism. I simply let them study themselves in the mirrors and they tell me what’s wrong. That way, it makes for a more pleasant relationship and better business. Please sit down, Mr Blackshear.’ ‘Thanks. Why better business?’ ‘I often find that the girls are

The desk clerk, whose name-plate identified him as G. O. Horner, was a thin, elderly man with protuberant eyes that gave him an expression of intense interest and curiosity. The expression was false. After thirty years in the business, people meant no more to him than individual bees do to a beekeeper. Their differences were lost in a welter of sta