Read Online Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido - Free Book Online

the passenger seat. We get back to find Annie is completely recovered and pottering in the kitchen with Jane. Jonathan, who is in his awful school uniform, is railing against the new English master who has put him down for detention, he says, for being cheeky.
    â€˜You
are
cheeky, Jont,’ Jane says without concern. ‘I consider it part of your charm, but you cannot expect others to do so.’
    â€˜The bloody fool asks me to paraphrase “heaven’s cherubin, horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air”,’ he says, thumping about. ‘What’s the fucking good of paraphrasing it? It sounds better the way it is.’
    â€˜What did you say to him, Jont?’ Jane says.
    â€˜But don’t you agree, Jane, it makes nonsense of it to paraphrase it?’ Jonathan says.
    â€˜What did you say to him, Jont?’ Jane says insistently.
    â€˜I said if he didn’t understand it he shouldn’t be doing it with us.’
    â€˜And?’ she says archly.
    â€˜He said if I was so clever would I like to take the class. So I took the class. A bloody sight better at it I was, too, but he made me stop after about ten minutes because it showed him up. He’d better not try and be funny with me again,’ Jonathan says. This is bigger and better trouble-making than I ever dreamed of. Silently, resentfully, I hand him the crown.
    â€˜You watch it, Jonathan, that’s all,’ Jane says. ‘Neither Jake nor I will be on our knees before the Head, pleading on your behalf when he decides to throw you out.’ She turns to Roger. ‘The young ladies ‘phoned for you, Roger. The ones with the tennis court. They want you to play tennis with them tomorrow.’ Roger shrugs.
    â€˜They play tennis in white togs,’ he says nastily, ‘like walk-ons for
Cinderella on Ice.’
I quail before this snobbish indictment and thank God that I always hid in the library during games. If I hadplayed tennis I would almost certainly have done so in white togs.
    â€˜Go on, Rogsie,’ Jonathan says, as Jane makes us tea. ‘I’d go for the one with the legs.’ Roger says nothing. He goes out to fetch his violin. ‘I have to go now,’ he says to John, who gives him the car keys.

Twelve
    That evening, in the garden, Jane forgives me for picking a half-grown cucumber which I mistake for a courgette. Potatoes come out of the ground white, I discover. The brown skin forms afterwards. Jacob joins us on his return, in the company of Annie and Sam whom he has met at the gate. He has the
Listener
in his hand and a parcel of cheese wrapped in vine leaves for his wife.
    â€˜For you, my love,’ he says. ‘Not for anybody to share with you.’
    â€˜Not even you?’ she says. She is touched. ‘Oh, Jake.’
    Wrapped in the
Listener
he has a Dillon’s bag which he hands to me. In it is a copy of
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
    â€˜Take a holiday from The Great Tradition,’ he says. I thank him, profusely, being honoured by the gift.
    â€˜A Young Person’s Guide to the New Jerusalem, eh, Jake?’ Jane says. ‘I’m rather glad I got the cheese. I’m too old to be converted.’
    â€˜I’m coming out simultaneously in paperback,’ he says to her. She rejoices and kisses him.
    â€˜Oh, wow,’ she says. ‘Oh, Jake, wow.’
    â€˜Come out with me tonight,’ he says. ‘Leave the children, leave the guests and come out with me. Hold hands with me at the pictures.’
    â€˜I have to tell you, Jake, that I’ve been having fairly regular labour contractions this afternoon,’ she says.
    â€˜Christ,’ he says. ‘That’s it then for the next six months. Or can one hire a wet nurse? Who needs an au pair? Why is the world full of au pairs? A wet nurse is what we need.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Jake,’ she says, ‘I’d better not go anywhere