He was so plastered that he didn’t care if I was going to commit suicide. “Don’t be hard on her,” he said, screwing up his eyes. “She looks a swell girl.”
I signalled to Mardi that I’d meet her downstairs. I didn’t want Dawn to arrive just as we were going. I need not have worried my head about her. She had passed out under the kitchen table.
Five minutes later Mardi came running down the stairs. She wore a perky little hat and a nice fur coat. She looked good.
We didn’t have to wait long before a taxi crawled by. I waved and he pulled up at the kerb. “Where shall I tell him?” I asked.
She hesitated. Then she said: “I—I haven’t got a home any more… do you think I could put up at a hotel or somewhere?”
I gaped at her. “Have you got any luggage?”
She nodded. “It’s at the station,” she said. “I could go there first and collect it, but I want to catch an early train.”
I said: “If I suggest you come back to my place, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything wrong. I just offer you my roof and hope you will accept it.”
She stood looking into my face for several seconds, then she said: “Thank you. It’s nice of you.”
Hardly believing that I had heard correctly, I handed her into the taxi.