The Breaking Point Read Online Free Page A

King’s Road. I have passed them shopping. They have boards and easels in the window.’
    He put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile. It was really touching how she had accepted him. It showed such trust, such confidence.
    She led the way back into the passage, and so up the basement stair to the hall once more.
    ‘I’m so delighted,’ he said, ‘that we have come to this arrangement. To tell you the truth, I was getting desperate.’
    She turned and smiled at him again over her shoulder. ‘So was I,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t appeared . . . I don’t know what I might not have done.’
    They stood together at the top of the basement stair. What an amazing thing. It was an act of God that he had suddenly arrived. He stared at her, shocked.
    ‘You’ve been in some trouble, then?’ he asked.
    ‘Trouble?’ She gestured with her hands, and the look of apathy, of despair, returned to her face. ‘It’s trouble enough to be a stranger in this country, and for the father of my little boy to go off and leave me without any money, and not to know where to turn. I tell you, Mr Sims, if you had not come today . . .’ she did not finish her sentence, but glanced towards the child tied to the foot-scraper and shrugged her shoulders.‘Poor Johnnie . . .’ she said, ‘it’s not your fault.’
    ‘Poor Johnnie indeed,’ echoed Fenton, ‘and poor you. Well, I’ll do my part to put an end to your troubles, I assure you.’
    ‘You’re very good. Truly, I thank you.’
    ‘On the contrary, I thank you .’ He made her a little bow and, bending down, touched the top of the child’s head. ‘Good-bye, Johnnie, see you tomorrow.’ His victim gazed back at him without expression.
    ‘Good-bye, Mrs . . . Mrs . . . ?’
    ‘Kaufman is the name. Anna Kaufman.’
    She watched him down the steps and through the gate. The banished cat slunk past his legs on a return journey to the broken window. Fenton waved his hat with a flourish to the woman, to the boy, to the cat, to the whole fabric of the mute, drab villa.
    ‘See you tomorrow,’ he called, and set off down Boulting Street with the jaunty step of someone at the start of a great adventure. His high spirits did not even desert him when he arrived at his own front-door. He let himself in with his latchkey and went up the stairs humming some old song of thirty years ago. Edna, as usual, was on the telephone - he could hear the interminable conversation of one woman to another. The drinks were set out on the small table in the drawing-room. The cocktail biscuits were laid ready, and the dish of salted almonds. The extra glasses meant that visitors were expected. Edna put her hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver and said, ‘The Alhusons will be coming. I’ve asked them to stay on for cold supper.’
    Her husband smiled and nodded. Long before his usual time he poured himself a thimbleful of sherry to round off the conspiracy, the perfection, of the past hour. The conversation on the telephone ceased.
    ‘You look better,’ said Edna. ‘The walk did you good.’
    Her innocence amused him so much that he nearly choked.

2
    It was a lucky thing that the woman had mentioned an artist’s props. He would have looked a fool arriving the following afternoon with nothing. As it was, it meant leaving the office early, and an expedition to fit himself up with the necessary paraphernalia. He let himself go. Easel, canvases, tube after tube of paint, brushes, turpentine - what had been intended as a few parcels became bulky packages impossible to transport except in a taxi. It all added to the excitement, though. He must play his part thoroughly. The assistant in the shop, fired by his customer’s ardour, kept adding to the list of paints; and, as Fenton handled the tubes of colour and read the names, there was something intensely satisfying about the purchase, and he allowed himself to be reckless, the very words chrome and sienna and terre-verte going to his head like