The House of Lost Souls by F. G. Cottam

Author:F. G. Cottam
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780340953921
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

In the Windmill on Lambeth High Street, the bell tolled for last orders. Through the little speakers on their shelf behind the bar, Marvin Gaye lamented his good friend Abraham. An inch of Director’s bitter sat neglected in Seaton’s glass. He slipped Pandora’s journal into its oilcloth and put it in his jacket pocket. He drained his pint and walked the short journey home.

Lucinda was seated on the sofa, her legs drawn up under her, sketching with charcoal on a pad. The hi-fi was playing. Seaton recognised the Cowboys International album. It was an old favourite of hers, a record she played a lot. But the volume had been turned very low. She was listening to it more for the comfort of sound than for the music. She was playing it for company. There was a shot glass of Chartreuse at her elbow, casting a green shadow across the arm of the sofa in the streetlight coming through the half-pulled blind behind her.

‘How was the pub?’

‘Empty.’

‘Just you and your cider-drinking blonde, then?’

‘And the landlord.’

‘Cosy.’

‘It was. Very.’

‘The Windmill on a Tuesday night. Nobody can say you don’t know how to impress a girl.’

‘No.’

She straightened her arms and held the sketch out from her body and tilted her head to look at it. Seaton was aware of how lovely her eyes were, narrowed to focus on the quality of her work. ‘Do you mind if I ask you something serious?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you really think you are going to be able to come up with the goods on my written project, Paul?’

‘I’m across it, Lucinda.’

‘Don’t baffle me with Irish phrases.’ She smiled at him over her sketchpad.

‘I’m taking all of next week off,’ he said. ‘I’ll have the thing cracked, all right.’

‘Your brother rang,’ she said. ‘A group of them are going swimming up at Highgate Ponds on Sunday, if the weather doesn’t break.’

‘The weather won’t break,’ Seaton said. He tweaked a fret of the blind, which hung entirely still against the open window. ‘This heatwave will go on forever.’

‘But despite that you still put your jacket on. To go to the pub.’

‘Because I need somewhere to put my wallet,’ he said, taking off his jacket and going to hang it on a hook in their short hallway, only too aware of the weight and indiscreet bulk of Pandora’s journal in the left-hand pocket.

‘Come here, Paul.’

He sat down beside her. ‘Are you going to interrogate me about the cider-drinking blonde?’

She put down her pad. She stroked his hair, his cheek. She kissed him. Her lips tasted sweet and slightly sticky with Chartreuse. ‘I just want to thank you for doing what you’re doing for me. Taking the week off next week and everything. It’s so good of you. So kind.’

He kissed her neck. Inhaling, he could smell her perfume and skin and against his face could feel the fine subtle touch of her dark-blonde hair. He was intensely aware for a moment of the texture of her skin and hair and the delicate weight and warmth of her.

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