The Beast Read Online Free

rarely let it blaze before in her life. And if she had been prepared to meet with contempt the prying complaints of her neighbours, it was nothing to the scornful outrage with which she met the man’s enquiry. She took a step back, raised her chin, lowered her lids, and withered him with her eyes. She crushed him, beat him, broke him; she threw him out to the wolves and wild dogs. She did everything possible to smash him with her stare; and then, as he gazed at her courteously and calmly, seemingly unaware of the disdain she was pouring on him, she gave a slight smile, said in her most exaggerated Polish accent, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Vidozza’s dead,’ and closed the door quite gently, but firmly, in his face.
    Then, with the slight smile fixed on her lips, she waddled back to her over-stuffed living room and sat down again.
    Mirko still lay on the floor; and she murmured to him, softly, ‘You’d better go and put something on your finger. You’ve cut it.’
    She didn’t expect a reply; yet perhaps because there was some appeal in her voice, perhaps because he was tired and not ready for the inevitable epilogue to their fight yet, or perhaps simply because he was curious, Mirko looked up at her—his face still stormy, though beginning to clear—and said, with only enough petulance to make sure there was no doubt he was still the aggrieved party: ‘Who was it?’
    Oh, how she smiled now! A great wistful sigh of a smile that appeared to be prompted by the sight, across the wide Polish plains, of the empty steppes that lay beyond. It was a smile she had used sometimes in the past because people, especially men, had found it attractive; and a smile she rarely used any longer because Mirko said it was affected—and it was. Only just at this moment she thought a little affectation was in order. She held it for perhaps ten seconds—long enough to interest Mirko, but not long enough to annoy him—and then shrugged her shoulders.
    ‘It was your father,’ she laughed.
    She had timed it beautifully; for that really made him sit up, and his face cleared completely.
    ‘What did he want?’
    ‘He looked at me and asked me if I—if Mrs Vidozza—lived here.’
    Mirko’s eyes grew huge, and gazed further over the empty steppes than ever hers had. He got onto his knees beside her, took one of her hands, and started, tenderly, to separate her fingers.
    ‘Poor Mamma,’ he whispered eventually. ‘What did you tell him?’
    ‘What could I tell him?’ She paused. ‘I told him she was dead and closed the door in his face.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘Nothing. I didn’t give him a chance to.’
    ‘What was he like?’
    ‘Go and see if you want to. I’m sure he’s still standing outside, wondering whether to ring again and ask how and when and where. Or if not he’ll be going down the stairs, or in the street.’
    Mirko shrugged.
    His mother went on: ‘He looks like his photographs. Only older.’
    Then the boy frowned. ‘How could he?’ he whispered.
    ‘Quite easily, obviously. I mean—look at me.’
    ‘I know. But your voice, your accent, your face. That hasn’t changed very much.’
    He was right; it hadn’t. The lake that had engulfed and become her body had never, for some reason, submerged her head; which still, on a strangely slim neck, thrust up through the surface and was still, with its high Slavic cheekbones and grey eyes—and in spite of its lines—really quite beautiful.
    ‘No. But enough. And I don’t think he really saw my face. I mean—’
    She let her voice trail away, but Mirko suddenly no longer seemed concerned with what she meant. A thoughtful , calculating look had come into his eyes, and after what he obviously judged to be a decent interval he murmured, trying to sound disinterested, ‘Is he rich?’
    ‘No. I don’t think so. In fact no, I’m sure not. He was always too stupid. And anyway,’ she laughed, knowing whathe was getting at, ‘even if he is, he’d never believe that