Read Online Come and Tell Me Some Lies by Raffaella Barker - Free Book Online Page B

the wool of his own sheep. He invited my father to give a reading there. Mummy and Daddy took me with them, and we arrived at Felt Hall in Mummy’s mini-van, puffing black billows of smoke like a smouldering dragon. I was very pleased that my parents were visiting a school friend’s parents, but my knees shook with fear in case Daddy shouted at Richard Warton. In the Great Hall Mummy and I pressed together, embarrassed and nervous in the yawning space. We moved towards a wall, its polished panelling scarred by deep scratches. I traced my fingers down the wounds, imagining marauding knights hundreds of years ago.
    Beside us was an open fireplace surrounded by delicate blue and white tiles, and in the near distance a squad of grey plastic chairs huddled in the middle of the flagstoned floor. Daddy sat at a table facing the chairs. Whispering and scraping the floor, a tide of scrubbed women and overweight men seeped on to the chairs, corduroy-covered bottoms overflowing. Others, hesitating over where to sit, caused an eddy in the stream before plunging to a chair stranded on the perimeter of the group. Some of these people I recognized as other parents from school, and pride, mixed with resentment at their gazing at Daddy as though he were an exhibit, choked my lungs.
    Richard Warton sat next to Daddy at the little table, leaningtowards him and talking while people sat down. I watched Daddy’s face anxiously, waiting for his brow to furrow and his mouth to turn down at one corner in anger. But he was laughing. He put his cigarette out in his glass. Richard leapt up to find him an ashtray.
    When all the chairs were full, and some people were standing at the back, Richard stood up. His grey wavy hair curled down to his shoulders, and he wore brown plus-fours and thick patterned socks. He looked like Lord Emsworth showing off the Empress of Blandings. Mummy and I, sitting together at the front, giggled nervously.
    â€˜We are delighted to have with us this evening Patrick Lincoln, one of the greatest poets of this century. Many of you may know him already as a neighbour, for Patrick lives a mile from here at Mildney with his family,’ and Richard beamed a big-toothed white smile and sat down.
    Daddy stood up. He came round to the front of the table, leaned against it and crossed his feet. ‘This is a beautiful house,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get this reading lark over and done with. I shall read to you from a new poem.’ Daddy reached into the top pocket of his jacket and took out a notebook. The audience tittered uneasily, stopping abruptly when Daddy raised his cupped hand to shoulder height. He began to read.
    Daddy’s voice thundered, echoing across the room. He glared at the page he was reading, and his words rolled slowly out. He read for a long time, perhaps twenty minutes, from one poem, and no one moved or sneezed or scratched. When he stopped, I found my nose and eyes smarting with tears. Daddy staredacross the room. There was silence, then clapping began, and although there were no more than fifty people, the clapping was a crescendoed roar. Daddy and Richard left the table and walked through into the next room.
    â€˜I can’t believe he read that poem here,’ Mummy whispered to me. ‘He said he was going to read some children’s poems and one or two about Norfolk.’
    â€˜Perhaps he thought it was a good place to practise it,’ I whispered back. ‘Do you think they understood it? I didn’t.’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter if they did or not,’ said Mummy, crouching beside me and reaching beneath the chair for her bag. ‘Your father wants people to listen to and enjoy his poems; he never cares if they understand them or not.’
    I listened to the comments around us. ‘Quite remarkable, I need a drink after that’; ‘Never heard anything like it, what did Richard say his name was?’
    A woman I had never seen before,