The House of the Scissors (4 page)

“N-not exactly,” she muttered. “There are perks with every trade.”

“So I see!” He looked her up and down, not troubling to spare her embarrassment as he took in the full effect of the tight gold bodice, the neat waistline, and the long, flaring skirt. “Very nice!” He picked up her napkin which had fallen to the floor and returned it to her knee. “I came over to find out if Hilary and I can watch you work tomorrow morning. Nothing short of a promise to that effect would make her go to bed,” he added frankly. “Do you mind?”

Arab shook her head, unable to speak, but Jill had no such difficulty. She looked at Lucien with frankly admiring eyes and said, “We’d be absolutely delighted, Mr. Manners. Come along any time!”

CHAPTER THREE

IT rained in the night. The whole unit waited with bated breath for the magic hour of noon, by which time they would know if there was going to be any breeze or not. Jill elected to go swimming and tried to persuade Arabella to go with her.

“It only means trouble when you go off on your own,” she told the younger girl. “Besides, I’ve been checking up on your new friends and I think someone ought to put you wise to the situation there.”

“Tell me now,” Arab invited, settling more firmly on her beach lounger beneath one of the thatched toadstool shades that the hotel supplied.

“Well, okay. But I’m not just dishing the dirt for my own amusement, you know that. I’ve got kind of fond of you, honey, and I don’t want to see you hurt—”

“There’s not much danger of that!” Arab assured her.

“No? He’s the most handsome hunk of manhood I’ve seen in quite a while, let me tell you! What’s the matter with you, if you can’t see that?”

“I’m immune!” Arab claimed.

Jill gave her a long, brooding look. “How come?”

Arab shrugged. “I don’t like him. He’s too obvious himself, and he judges everyone else the same way. I think he deserves Sandra Dark!”

“That’s what they say,” Jill agreed. “In fact they say he already has her.”

Arab felt a tight knot form itself in her middle and was cross that she should feel anything at all. She was being no more than honest when she said she hadn’t liked Lucien Manners, and she knew that he hadn’t liked her either. Calling her a street arab and telling her off for wearing informal clothes, just as though she were as much his niece as Hilary! And about the same age! Somehow or other, that had been the worst crime of all. Here she was, fully adult, and with one of the most glamorous jobs in the world, and he had made her feel an irresponsible adolescent who had no right to compete with her elders and betters—such as Sandra Dark! Arab’s eyes glinted angrily as she thought about the other girl.

“I think you do mind if it makes you look like that!” Jill’s. voice broke into her thoughts.

“No, I don’t! I was just feeling sorry for Hilary having to put up with Sandra Dark. They don’t like each other.”

Jill’s face softened. “I look forward to meeting this young friend of yours,” she murmured. “If I’d known how much I would miss my own family I don’t think I would have come on this trip! Be thankful you’re heart-whole and fancy free, my dear. They talk laughingly of one’s spouse being one’s better half, but do you know I hadn’t realised how true that is! I’ve left my better half, and more, behind in London. Here we are, with the opportunity of a lifetime, and all this sand and sea, and all I can do is mope for my true love in London.”

“And you wouldn’t have it any other way!” Arab accused her. She sat up, grinning. “Here comes the wind! That should hurry things along!”

“Yippee!” said Jill.

The unit was being run by a younger man than usual. He was a morose individual, with never a good word for anyone. But he certainly knew his job. He had chosen his models with care, seeing immediately that Arabella and Jill showed each other off to perfection, even if both of them could have been bettered individually. His photographers he cared less about, because he directed most of the shots himself, arranging every detail to his own satisfaction. His name was Sammy Silk.

He greeted the news that the wind had got up with a dubious grunt. “I’m not having a repetition of yesterday’s nonsense. If you two are going to wilt away today, I’m looking for another site. There must be somewhere cool in this dump!”

“There is,” Arabella nodded, thinking of Lucien Manners’ delightful house.

“Where?” Sammy Silk shot at her.

Arab coloured, not best pleased at finding herself the centre of attraction. “I don’t really know—that is, it’s privately owned, or at least, I think it is. He—he wouldn’t like it!”

Everyone stared at her.

“He?”
Sammy probed, blinking in the hot sunlight. Jill cast a slanted look at Arab’s flushed face and decided to go to her rescue. “Lucien Manners’ niece asked Arab back to tea,” she smiled. “Hilary is all of eleven years old and, in her uncle’s opinion, in need of friends of her own age!”

The shout of laughter that greeted this sally brought a scowl to Arab’s face.

“Even Mr. Manners didn’t suppose I was
eleven
!” she denied hotly.

Jill looked amused. “But not much older, dear!”

“Anyway,” Arab went on, “he lives in a perfectly gorgeous house. You should see it! But I shouldn’t think he’d agree to our using it. He—he has decided views about things—”

“A big head?” Sammy put in.

Arab nodded slowly. “Yes,” she sighed, “I think that just about sums him up.”

“You forgot to say he and Hilary are coming along today to watch you work,” Jill drawled. “At Hilary’s instigation, of course!”

“I’ll have a word with him,” Sammy said. “Get going, everyone! You’ll be complaining about working in the hottest part of the day if we don’t get started. Arab, do something about your hair. The heat makes it look stringy.”

“Charming!” Arab acknowledged, making a face at him.

“I’ll do it up for you,” Jill offered. “Take everything with you and I’ll do it when we get there. I’ll come with you in the Mini-Moke.”

The two girls set off together, shoving their various appendages into the back of the open vehicle. Arab stopped at the garage for some petrol, jumping out to watch the African as he checked the engine for oil and water and the tyres for air. She found it difficult to make her wants understood, for he spoke only Swahili. Seeing her difficulty, the Indian owner of the garage came out of the office and issued a number of abrupt instructions, smiling appreciatively at Arab as he did so.

“The car is going well?” he asked her.

“Beautifully!”

“That is good, very good. I am happy that it gives you pleasure. I hope you are seeing all our places of interest?”

“We’re working right now,” Arab told him. “But I went to Mambrui yesterday.”

The Indian nodded, his spectacles catching the sun and transmitting little shafts of light across the garage foyer. “I hope you have a pleasant day, yes indeed, a very pleasant day.” He patted the Mini-Moke with affection and hurried back into the office.

“How do you do it?” Jill asked as Arab climbed back into the car and started up the engine. “Aren’t you going to pay, love?”

“Do what?” Arab demanded. She pulled a couple of twenty-shilling notes out of her pocket and handed them to the African, waiting impatiently for her change.

“Well, honey, Lucien Manners might be the big one who got away, but all the others rise swiftly enough to the bait! Even Sammy is indulgent where you are concerned!”

“I can’t say I’ve noticed it!” Arab grunted.

She pocketed the few coins that the African gave her, without bothering to count them, and drove off quickly down the road. The movement of the car made a wind that blew through their hair and cooled them down.

“I love it here!” Arab exclaimed.

“Despite Lucien Manners?”

Arab chuckled. “Yes, despite him. I hope Hilary comes alone today. I can’t imagine Mr. Manners enjoying anything as frivolous as next season’s fashions! He’ll make superior noises and ruin everything!”

Jill stretched herself elegantly. “I think you’re making a great deal too much of this,” she observed. “I thought him a fine man and I very much hope he does come. Sammy hopes so too, if only because he wants to use his house, especially if it’s all you say it is.”

“He won’t ask him, will he?” Arab demanded.

“It won’t be your fault if he does,” Jill pointed out. “Relax. He won’t blame the sins of the outfit on you!”

“That’s all you know!” Arab retorted gloomily.

Casuarina Point was completely deserted, however. The thatched hotel drowsed in the hot sunshine, a relic of earlier days along the coast, before the package tours and the larger, more impersonal hotels they bring in their wake. A number of chalets had been built here and there, where the guests slept, going into the main building only for their meals and for the benefits of the bar and the shop. Sammy had hired one of these chalets for the girls to change in and Arab drove the Mini-Moke straight up to it, parking it neatly beside the would-be garden that was fighting a losing battle with the coral sand.

Sammy was standing looking moodily out to sea. The notes in his hand fluttered in the breeze, but despite the wind it was still extremely hot.

“I’ll take the afternoon dresses first,” he told them. “Try the grey one, Arab, and the blue one for you, Jill.” He gave Arab a despairing shake of his head. “Try and look as though you have a figure, dearie. Borrow Jill’s padded bra if all else fails, will you?”

“I have one of my own,” Arab told him with dignity.

“You could have fooled me!” he jeered.

Arab took herself off into the chalet, telling herself that it was the heat that was getting them all down. Sammy had never complained about her shape before.

Besides, it was the dress that was peculiarly well endowed, the others didn’t hang round her in folds. It would look better on Jill, so why wasn’t she asked to wear it?

The inside of the chalet was extremely hot with that sticky heat that has more to do with humidity than temperature. Arab breathed deeply and sat down on the stool in front of the dressing table.

“I’m beginning to think I’m in the wrong job!” she complained.

Jill didn’t answer. She fished a comb out of her capacious bag and began to do Arab’s hair for her. With a few deft movements she knotted it into her neck and pinned it firmly in place.

“I don’t think you have much to worry about,” she said. “That dress is going to look a mess whatever you do.” She smiled at Arab’s reflection in the glass. “It’s unlike Sammy to give you a bad deal like that. He usually reserves the really bad breaks for me!”

Arab looked up, shocked. “Do you really think that?”

“I’m sure of it!” Jill laughed without much gaiety. “I don’t mind, honey! I have a big, strong husband to provide for me when it all gets to be too much. You haven’t!”

“Nor am I likely to have,” Arab wailed. “I wasn’t going to tell you, Jill, but you should have seen the way that man looked at me! He told me I looked like a street arab!”

“So you do in those ghastly jeans.” Jill looked at her thoughtfully, wondering exactly what had gone on between Arab and Lucien Manners. “I expect he changed his mind when he saw you in that gold number last night!”

But Arab refused to be comforted. She put on the despised grey dress and did her best to fill the bust as Sammy had asked, but whatever she did the line of the bodice refused to look anything but fussy and badly cut. In despair, Arab decided she had done all she could to make the dress look reasonable and turned round to see how Jill looked in the blue.

“You look all right! Very much all right! You’d better try to hide me as much as possible in the final picture.”

But Jill shook her head. “Sammy would have something to say about that. Come on, honey, let’s get it over!”

They emerged into the sunlight and were immediately enveloped in the business of making the dresses they were wearing look as good as possible in print. Sammy moved them here and there, had them standing with a palm tree behind them, changed his mind and moved them into the shade of an outcrop of rocks.

“Arab, sweetie, it won’t do!” one of the photographers groaned at her. “Jill looks great, but that dress does nothing for you.”

“Nothing at all!” Sammy agreed. “Come over here, Arab, and we’ll start again.”

He took her by the hand and drew her across the beach to a palm tree that had been bent by the prevailing wind. Arab did her best to ignore the trickle of perspiration that ran down her back and hoped she looked cooler than she felt.

“Drape yourself over that tree, looking out to sea with a nice, dreamy expression. Lie back, Arab. Hug the tree with your shoulder-blades.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her backwards until she thought she would fall and recoiled against him with a protesting murmur. “Look, Arab honey, you’re not a shy young girl right now! You’re a professional, so behave like one! I’ll get this dress to look something if it takes us all day! Now, throw out your chest, duckie, and I’ll push some of these folds behind you. Let’s have a look at that! Lovely, dear! Lovely! Now hold it!”

Arab sighed a deep breath of relief as the camera shutter clicked and she was allowed to stand up straight and to go back to the chalet to change into the next number. The glare from the white sand and the sea made her screw up her eyes and then, suddenly, there was Hilary dancing in front of her, pumping her arms up and down to attract her attention.

“We’ve been here
ages
!” she announced. “It’s a funny sort of work, isn’t it? Lucien says—”

Arab groaned out loud. “Have you, pet?” she interrupted her young friend. “Come along to the chalet and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

“Can Lucien come too?”

“No, he can’t!” Arab snapped. She pulled at the dress, hating it more than anything she had ever worn. “I have to change, dear,” she added.

She ran across the sand with the futile feeling that she couldn’t get any hotter no matter what she did. Hilary danced along beside her, asking innumerable questions about what a model did and whether such work could be considered important or merely parasitic, leading foolish women into spending more on badly made clothes than they could afford. Arab thought grimly that she knew where such an argument had originated, and she despised him for it.