Holly Lester Read Online Free Page A

what’s that?’ the boy asked, pointing at the bubble wrap. Then he sucked his thumb and stared at Billings.
    â€˜It’s a picture, darling. Something mummy’s just bought. This nice man is here to help mummy put it on the wall.’
    A young woman with a pigtail came slowly down the stairs from an upper floor reading a paperback. She looked up languidly, as if from a deep sleep. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, and Holly explained again. ‘We’re just going out to the park,’ the woman said, and began reading her book again as she started down the stairs.
    â€˜Let him have ice cream if he wants, Carrie,’ Holly said, and the woman nodded again without lifting her head.
    â€˜This way,’ said Holly, and marched down the corridor towards the back of the house. Opening a door, she turned to him shyly, and Billings realized he was entering the master bedroom. On the far side of the room, a big brass bed lay between two windows overlooking the garden. Holly went and sat on one side of it; taking this cue, Billings carefully leant the picture against the foot of the bed and sat in a chair across from her.
    Now
he
felt nervous. Looking around, to his astonishment he saw on the walls a Kitaj, an early Hockney, a Henry Moore sketch for his series of paintings of people sleeping in the Underground during the Blitz, and three lithographs by Keith Milow. In his confusion he blurted out, ‘I don’t understand.’
    She looked concerned. ‘Is something wrong?’
    â€˜Sorry, I always tend to look at people’s pictures first. It’s not that it tells me a lot about them or anything like that; it’s just my natural inclination, as a dealer.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜Well, how can I put this? Downstairs, you have a series of what you might call working photographs; in the drawing room upstairs you have very traditional paintings; and in here you have most of Twentieth-century British art represented.’
    She laughed. ‘I see. Actually, it’s simple. Downstairs is a working room – no frills. Upstairs is for formal entertaining – for the likes of Mr Pinter et al. And this room – this room is
mine
.’
    Mine
, he noticed, not ours. He was not sure what to say next, when a shouting child’s voice suddenly echoed through the room – ‘No!’ He was startled, especially since he could see no child in the room. Holly laughed again, and pointed at her night side table, where Billings saw an intercom – one of those portable systems which friends of his with babies spent all their time disconnecting, reconnecting, finding batteries for.
    â€˜I’m afraid the nanny’s hopeless. Australian, but very intellectual.’
    â€˜A contradiction in terms?’
    She giggled.
    â€˜So she’s the nanny. And the woman who answered the door is the daily?’
    â€˜The daily? Oh, you think because she’s large and black and wearing white, she must be the daily.’
    It was said lightly but with a point, and showed the first acerbic edge to her character. He thought for a moment. ‘Yes.’ Any other answer seemed inconceivable.
    She giggled again. ‘At least you’re honest. If not very PC.’
    â€˜I left New York partly to get away from Political Correctness. Only to find it gaining ground fast over here.’
    â€˜Is that troubling? Are you racist?’ Again, there was a hint of steel.
    â€˜Not in the slightest.’
    â€˜Anti-Semitic then?’
    â€˜Less than many of my middle class contemporaries.’
    â€˜Public school contemporaries?’
    â€˜I’m afraid so. No longer acceptable, I’m sure, but public school nonetheless.’
    She scoffed. ‘My husband’s public school. Oxbridge too?’
    â€˜London actually. And then the Warburg.’
    â€˜At least it wasn’t the army.’
    â€˜No, though my father retired a Brigadier. Why, are you