Read Online Another part of the wood by Beryl Bainbridge - Free Book Online Page B

that by the sound of it.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ George said. ‘Possibly it’s hunger. He’s been about since dawn. Still, you’d better go and bring the car round.’
Authoritatively he strode up the path towards the stricken Willie with Balfour in pursuit.
    ‘Where are you going?’ asked Roland, as his father and Dotty crossed the bridge.
    ‘Just to the car, boy.’
    ‘May I come?’ Already the child was scrambling out of the water, boat forgotten.
    ‘No,’ Joseph said, not turning round, going very fast up the slope to the Big House. His hands were quite sore – not burnt,
possibly blistered from all that sycamore-wielding. His head ached and his eyes hurt. It accelerated him the more. He swung
his arms in a fury and leapt up the path.
    ‘Do you think Willie’s dead?’ Dotty cried, sure he wasn’t, but feeling sick as she tried to keep pace with Joseph. It wasn’t
like Joseph to rush in an emergency. More like, he was running away from her.
    ‘Almost certainly,’ he shouted, grinning to himself, holding his smarting hands a fraction before him.
    Stubbornly Dotty ran behind him, both of them pursued by a black spiral of gnats.
    As they drove up the hill in the Jaguar, a green Mini turned the corner. The narrowness of the lane forced Joseph to slow
down. ‘Can’t stop, old man. Somebody’s died on us,’ he called and drove on at speed.
    ‘Was that Lionel?’ shouted Dotty.
    Joseph heard the upward inflection of her provincial voice and found it objectionable. Dotty twisted in her seat in time to
see the green Mini halted and lost in the hedge-rimmed lane. At the crossroads Joseph turned right and drove half a mile to
the corner shop. She was left sitting in the hot car staring at a border of pinks in the small garden.
    Joseph came out of the shop with several bars of chocolate and a tube of cold cream.
    ‘What’s wrong with your face?’ Dotty asked, looking at the colour of it, glowing red and smudged with black.
    He didn’t reply, sitting at the wheel smearing grease into the smarting palms of his hands.
    ‘What have you been doing? You’re all dirty.’
    He reversed the car up the lane, looking over his shoulder as he did so. The breeze blew something from his hair.
    ‘You’ve got bits of leaves in your hair,’ she said, puzzled.
    ‘I’ve been having it off with old George in the bushes,’ he shouted, lips drawn back to show his teeth, and she thought she
saw the small endings of his beard shrivelled up in the bright light, as if singed by the sun.
    The green Mini was at the crossroads. There was Lionel’s elbow in a white sleeve sticking out from the window like a flag
of truce. As the Jaguar sped past, Joseph pointed his arm to the sky, spreading his blackened hand against the cool breeze.
He didn’t turn his head.
    Dotty swivelled round and waved at the Mini. ‘Not long, not long,’ she cried, kneeling in the passenger seat, her hair blowing
about her face.
    The Jaguar turned into an opening at the side of the lane and stopped in front of a five-barred gate. Lionel turned too, manoeuvring
the Mini carefully, and switched off the engine. He let the little silver ignition key dangle between his fingers, sitting
there with pleasure and good humour on his flushed face, waiting for Joseph to greet him, his darling wife May safe beside
him.
    ‘Glad you made it,’ said Joseph, coming to the car. About to shake the hand held out to him, he drew back. ‘Sorry, bit of
a fire down in the Glen … Hands a bit sore.’ He wiped his cold-creamed hands on the side of his trousers and looked at May.
‘Ah, the lovely May. How are you, darling?’
    May giggled and stepped out of the Mini in her new pink trews and her gingham shirt, a white silk handkerchief tied casually
about her neck. She turned her powdered cheek for Joseph’s gallant kiss, moving past Dotty with a jangling of the charm bracelet
on her rounded arm and stood at the barred gate looking about her at the view.
    Lionel said the Mersey