The Lake of Darkness by Ruth Rendell Page B

brief unsatisfactory relationships with girls, dinner one night, theatre the next, cinema the next, then dinner again. What else was there? Francesca looked so beautiful that he blurted out his feelings once they were in their seats.
    “You look absolutely beautiful. I can’t stop looking at you.”
    She was wearing a softly draped dress of rose-coloured
panne
velvet, and round her neck on a ribbon a tiny pink rosebud. Her hair was piled like a Japanese lady’s inmounds and coils, fixed with long tortoiseshell pins. The unaccustomed make-up she wore made her seem a little strange, remote, and violently sexually attractive. She winced a fraction at the compliment.
    “Don’t, Martin.”
    He waited until the play was over and they were walking towards his car, parked in Lower Regent Street. Then he said gently and with a smile,
    “You shouldn’t make yourself look like that if you don’t like compliments.”
    His tone was light but hers serious and almost distressed. “I know that, Martin! I know I’m a fool. But I couldn’t help it, don’t you see? I did want you to think I looked nice.”
    “Of course. Why shouldn’t you?”
    “Oh, let’s not talk about it,” she said.
    When they were driving up Highgate West Hill he said he was going to drive her home and where did she live? If he would drop her here, she said, she would get a taxi. He pulled into Gordonhouse Road by the Greek Orthodox Church, switched off the engine, turned to look at her.
    “Have you got a boy friend that you’re living with, Francesca?”
    “No, of course not. Of course I haven’t.” And she added, “Not a
boy friend.
Not that I’m
living
with.” He was quite unprepared for what she did next. She opened the car door and jumped out. He followed her, but not fast enough, and by the time he reached the corner a taxi carrying her was starting off up the hill.
    That night he asked himself if he could possibly, after only three days, be in love, and decided that he couldn’t. But he slept badly and could think of nothing and no one but Francesca until he had phoned Bloomers at nine-thirty and spoken to her and been told she would see him again in the evening.
    They went to a little restaurant she knew at the top of theFinchley Road. He didn’t ask her why she had run away and she volunteered no explanation. After the meal he asked her if she would come back to Cromwell Court with him and he would make coffee. And in saying this he felt shy and awkward with her, for invitations of that kind to girls he supposed always carried the implication of a sexual denouement. He had had a secret half-ashamed conviction since last night that she might be a virgin.
    She agreed to come. The yellow chrysanthemums were still alive, fresh and aggressive as ever, only their leaves having withered.
    “They are
immortelles,”
said Francesca.
    After half an hour she insisted on leaving. He helped her into her coat, she turned to him, and they were so close that he brought his face to hers and kissed her. Her lips were soft and responsive and her hands just touched his upper arms. He put his arms round her and kissed her passionately, prolonging the kiss until suddenly she broke away, flushed and frightened.
    “Darling Francesca, I couldn’t help it. Let me take you home.”
    “No!”
    “Then say you’ll see me again tomorrow.”
    “Will you come down with me and find a taxi?” said Francesca.
    It was a damp rather misty night, the last of November. From every bare twig hung a chain of water drops. They walked out into Highgate Hill. There were plane and chestnut leaves underfoot, slippery and wet and blackened.
    “Shall I call for you at the shop tomorrow?” He had hailed the taxi and it was already pulling in towards them. So many of their dramas, he was later to feel, had been associated with taxis. She took his hand.
    “Not tomorrow.”
    “When, then? Saturday?”
    She gasped, put up her hands to her face. “Oh, Martin, never!” And then