Ladies From Hell Read Online Free Page B

Got a tongue like a bloody anteater, I’d never realized. He still didn’t like the canvas; he’d wanted to shuffle it round and bring one of the cricket series forward, but we’d run out of time.
    The delegation was already sweeping toward us across the grass, making a good twenty knots. We went to meet it. The Controller was leading, flanked by a couple of hardfaced Vopo-type characters from Central Security. I took one look at him and decided I didn’t want to know after all. He had a face I’d have liked to paint, if I could have stood the strain; all the planes exaggerated, long nose and massive jaw, dangerous ears, little wide-set gravy-brown eyes. His cranium looked too small for the rest, and his bowler hat perched on it at an angle of menace. He had a way of moving that would have sent Marcel Duchamp’s knees weak, a sort of drifting action of the arms and legs that stressed the planes there too, in flashes of pinstripe and black; and he was getting bigger by the second. “My God,” I said, “the Great Sorn of Middlesbrough,” and made myself scarce. I had to crawl backout of the woodwork later on though, to explain away the canvases.
    He scrutinized each one in turn in a pin-dropping silence, while the Vopos made little sheafs of notes—God knows what about—and George shuffled his feet and sweated. He did essay a couple of comments, to prove the keenness of his stewardship; the Controller regarded him for a moment with no detectable expression, and he went back into his shell with a click. The Overlord went through the sketchbooks, once more in silence; the studies I’d made for the portrait of Lady A, the cricket match stuff, the drawings I’d done in the Wellcomes’ orchard at the last Fest, the lot. Finally he turned back to the three full-lengths. He paced up and down in front of them for a time like an RSM on punishment parade before he delivered himself of his opinion. He was a New Man, all right; he hadn’t even bothered to have his accent psyched out. “That one,” he said, nodding grimly, “yer might call pretty. But if either of t’others comes on to t’market, I’ll ’ave yer for obscenity. Make a note…”
    The scribbling redoubled; and I did some Shylock-type bobs and hand-wringings. I don’t mind having a bit of a go when the time seems right; but I wasn’t taking him on, he was way out of my league. “It’s lucky it won’t happen then,” I babbled cheerfully. “Coventina belongs to Lady A, and the others aren’t for sale.”
    That spiked the first cannon. But he had plenty of shots left. Like threatening to refer me to the Divisive Activities Committee, getting me drafted into a Socially Profitable Occupation and all the rest. It didn’t worry me too much; it’s been tried already, they know I’m unemployable. But I was still glad when the broadside stopped, and he hauled the Overseer off for his going-over. I sat and smoked a pipe and listened to his voice rising and falling in the distance. It sounded like a summer storm.
    Things quietened down after about an hour; I waited till the black car oozed away along the drive,and went through to the Office. Normally it was out of bounds, but it seemed today was different. George was still sitting behind the desk, like Patience on the Monument but without the smile. In front of him was a virgin bottle of whisky. I looked at it, and so did he. He said, “He’s teetotal.”
    I got him a glass, poured a couple of fingers and took some myself. To my surprise he drained his at a gulp, and held the glass out for a refill. He said, “He’s pegging me. Another three years. Of
this
. Hannah won’t stand for it…”
    I made soothing noises. “I shouldn’t think he meant it,” I said. “He’s probably not half as bad as he seems. You know, bluff exterior concealing a heart of gold…” He looked at me, and I tailed off.
    “He meant it,” he said hollowly. “He signed the Reprimand under my nose. Left it for me to