Room 2D

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

From Blushes 40 with Gaynor Gold ‘Would I be correct, Miss Milford, to say that temporary employment, such as you enjoy, is scarce in this town? Positions such as yours almost like gold-dust one could say?’ Mr Vortelli’s English was very good, though at times somewhat flowery. Diane answered nervously, ‘I know that. Yes.’ ‘So in that case, Miss Milford, I do not know why you are so free and easy with your job. Twice now you have been significantly late to start.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. Standing before Mr Vortelli in this secluded alcove at the rear of the restaurant. She had been late yesterday and also the day before. Not meaning to, it was that boy she had met. She wasn’t late today, though: the restaurant didn’t open for lunch for another hour. ‘Be there at 11.30 tomorrow, Miss Milford,’ Mr Vortelli had said. ‘Otherwise your employment will terminate immediately. Do you understand?’ Yes, she understood and she was here, o...

From Blushes 27 Ten o’clock on a wet Thursday evening in February just has to be the worst time in the life of an ageing, penurious bachelor. Thus the reflections of Cyril Regis, ageing penurious bachelor of no certain address, as he brooded over the impressive bank of telephones — all of them contemptuously silent — of Custom Car Hire. Once divorced and once stood up at the registry office, Cyril was going nowhere at the speed of light and knew it. Such pleasures as he enjoyed nowadays were few and fleeting and, some might say, a trifle esoteric — not to mention, very often, more damn trouble than they turned out to be worth. Controller of all I survey, he mused — to wit, four silent telephones, one base radio of uncertain reliability, one grotty office, and, somewhere out there in the dripping darkness, three of Custom Car Hire’s finest. Which thought brought him to the evening’s indubitable remaining pleasure — the return of ...