The Tightrope Walkers by Daphne Wright

Author:Daphne Wright [Wright, Daphne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

The following day Flixe went to the constituency office to write innumerable letters and then drove to Ming’s house in Holland Park Avenue. She parked behind her sister’s big blue Citroen and went to ring the front doorbell. Ming answered and flung her arms round her sister.

‘How heavenly! Natalie and I were just talking about you. Come on in and have tea with us. We’ve only just started.’

Flixe kissed Ming and together they walked into the drawing room. Natalie was sitting on one of the matching silver-grey sofas. She rose as soon as she saw who the new arrival was and held out her hands.

Flixe took them and clung tightly. She saw that there were tears in Natalie’s dark eyes, eyes so like Peter’s that her own began to smart.

‘I’ll fetch another cup,’ said Ming, seeing that they needed a little time.

‘Andrew is so like him,’ said Natalie, releasing her sister-in-law’s hands and sitting carefully back on the well-cushioned sofa. ‘It’s wonderful – and difficult sometimes – just to be with him.’

‘I know. It was so good of you to have him. Did he tell you anything? I haven’t any idea how he really is but I do know he’s hurting.’

Natalie shrugged. Her shoulders looked very thin as they raised the smooth dark blue barathea of her perfect suit.

‘That is impossible to say. He was very self-contained, out most of every day and utterly polite when we met. Charming too.’

‘I’m glad he was polite. But how are you? It must have been terrible in Paris.’

‘It was.’ Natalie crossed one slender leg over the other and Flixe silently admired her Ferragamo shoes. It seemed impossible to imagine anyone as exquisite as Natalie being anywhere near rioting students. ‘And Bertrand says it will get worse.’

‘But what is it all about? I can’t understand why students should have got so out of hand in Europe. In America? Yes. They have the draft to contend with and a real campaign about something as important as stopping that awful war, but not here or in Paris.’

‘In Paris they have some real problems, too. Not the war, but problems of being a student in a country where everyone has the right to go to university and there is just not enough room. There are not enough professors or even lodgings for the students. It is not strange that they are restive. And then when you find the Government sending in the CRS with gas! What can they expect?’

‘Still, it’s hardly enough to justify burning cars and causing all that damage. It didn’t actually touch you, did it?’

Ming brought in the third cup then, as well as a kettleful of hot water to refill the teapot. While she was pouring out the tea, Flixe pressed Natalie, trying to understand why she had fled to London. Flixe thought that she looked rather frail sitting there and older than her fifty-eight years. Her dark hair was much greyer than it had been at Peter’s funeral and her skin looked almost papery with a sinister pale yellow tinge.

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