Randall looked carefully round it. Then he turned to look at Lindsay. Her golden hair, falling in disorder, reached well below her breasts. She looked younger, smaller, wilder. With deliberation Randall ran his two hands round the front of her dress and collected all the hair into a great bunch at the back. Then he drew her head 'It's hard to believe she's not here, said Randall.
He was standing in the drawing-room of Emma's flat, holding Lindsay by the hand. The tape-recorder was there, and the smell of tobacco, and the little table with the strewing of Gauloises, but the big armchair was empty. Emma Sands was at Grayhallock..
'If you'd like to make sure you can search the flat! said Lindsay.
'I know it's Absurd, but I think I will, said Randall. He made for the door. Then he said to Lindsay, 'You lead the way.
Lindsay took his hand again and drew him through the hall. There was the kitchen, he knew that. Often enough he had carried tea-trays to and fro. There was the bathroom. He knew that of course. There was the dining-room, where he occasionally dined with them on treat days, such as Emma's birthday. On ordinary days Emma worked all the evening and had a sandwich supper. There was the spare bedroom, which was partially furnished and used as a box room. Emma never had guests. There was Emma's bedroom. Here Randall paused. It was a big Italianate room, airy, like something out of a painting by Carpaccio, and somehow attentive, significant. One expected to see out of the window a clear vista of a distant campanile, and not, through net curtains, the near-by railings. He had never seen this room before. A sweet herbal scent seemed to emanate from the old velvet hangings and from the double bed whose fringed red coverlet swept the floor.
'Perhaps you'd like to look under the bed? said Lindsay jauntily. Randall knelt down arid lifted the coverlet. His heart was beating violently as if he really expected to see the form of Emma crouching in the darkness. There was nothing there except several pairs of shoes and a suitcase. He began to rise he received a sudden blow on the shoulder. He spun round on one heel and over-balanced backwards on the floor with an unplanned exclamation. The next moment Lindsay was lying full length on top of him. 'It's only me! she said.
'As the iceberg said to the Titanic! He clasped his hands in the small of her back, breathing deeply.
'Why, Randall, I believe you really are frightened! said Lindsay. 'I imagined you were joking. You thought just now that Emma was stealing on you with a blunt instrument.
'Yes', said Randall. 'I'm afraid. And not only of Emma. He drew his hands now downwards from her arched shoulders along her spine to her thighs. Her elbows were planted firmly on each side of his neck and her face hung over his, too close for him to see more than the hazy laughing glow of her expression. Her dress caressed the silk beneath as his hand gently moulded her and found the warm flesh at the top of her stocking. Randall groaned softly. Their feet were together under Emma's bed jumbled with the shoes.
Then he drew her head right back with one hand and laid his other hand flat on her cheek. He saw with pleasure a momentary look of alarm. He said 'Since we've had this seductive routine am I to understand that you're changed the order of the programme you announced to the other day?
Lindsay's chin now pointed at the ceiling, her mouth gaped a little.
But she kept her hands down loosely at her sides like a hanged girl. She said, 'What will you do if I tell you that the programme is unchanged?
'I shall probably beat you and certainly rape you, said Randall. He gradually released his grip on her hair.
She drew her head forward again about her brow, massaging her scalp with her fingers. Then she said in a small voice, 'Well, I shall have to change the programme, then, won't I?
'Oh Lord! said Randall. 'Let's go back to the drawing-room. I want a drink.
When they reached the drawing-room Lindsay produced a decanter of whisky, two glasses and a jug of water which she had evidently had in readiness. Randall drank some of me whisky neat. Then he took to staring at Lindsay. She had somehow thrust all her hair down the back of her dress and looked demure and boyish. Ht would never understand her.
'Well, said Lindsay, 'are you satisfied that she isn't there?
It still seemed to Randall eerie and almost incredible that Emma was not in the flat. She hardly ever left it, and the only time he had seen her away from it was at his mother's funeral. He said, 'I suppose I'm satisfied that she isn't here now.
'You mean you think she might have laid a trap for us?
'Yes, said Randall. He thought: or you might both have laid a trap for me. Why, after all, had Lindsay so firmly refused to come to Chelsea? Now that he was passing, as he thought, out of fantasy into reality, the real world seemed a region even more fantastic than the dream palace he had inhabited before. He felt like a favorite slave who bas been kept on cushions and fed on sherbert and who is suddenly put at the gate and told is free. Such stories end with the sword.
Lindsay was very quiet. She stood with her hands behind her, head bent slightly forward. She wore a plain unbelted dress of brown linen which looked like some charming uniform. Her hair still held in the neck of the dress, was beginning to fall forward in two heavy loops on either side of her face. She seemed some young exotic general planning the order of battle. She said, 'Suppose we were to ring up Grayhallock. Would you be satisfied then?
'Oh God! said Randall. He began to pace up and down. He found the idea of Emma at Grayhallock very hard to tolerate. He had been surprised both at her wish to go and at the ease with which she had persuaded his father to take her. Randall, with an eye to his own interests, was of course by no means opposed to, though he was also irrationally disturbed by, a renewal of friendship between his father and Emma. But he was unnerved that the first rite to be celebrated in this revival should comprise a visit to his home. He could not think what it meant. He felt sure Emma was up to something, and, which he felt was indeed irrational, he resented goings-on between his father and Emma the significance of which he was not a party to. He felt himself unjustly robbed of the role of patron; and it was almost as if he were jealous, though quite of whom was not so clear. More simply and immediately he feared and detested the idea of Emma's visiting Grayhallock in his absence or indeed at all; and the thought of her presence there wrung from him a cry of: but those are my people!
It was important that Emma should be guaranteed to be far away.
It was also important that Emma should not know of Randall's visit to the flat. Here he had had to rely on Lindsay. When it emerged that Emma was going to be a. way for a whole day, without Lindsay in attendance, Randall's mind had jumped at the obvious conclusion, only to fall away baffled. There was, to begin with, Lindsay's 'programme'. Randall was quite unsure how far this piece of blackmail would stand up, if they were given a glorious field of hours in which to disport themselves together alone. He knew, confidently, with satisfaction, how much he was desired. But there was another difficulty. He could not bear to go to bed with Lindsay with Emma's permission. To go to bed with Lindsay; without Emma's permission was of course most hazardous and alarming, and the idea of it affected him with a guilty thrill. But to do it with her permission struck him as nauseating; and he had a fear, which increased within him now as he pondered the significance of Lindsay's abandonment of her 'programme', that they had decided between them that he was to be 'brought on'.