Read Online Evangelista's Fan by Rose Tremain - Free Book Online Page A

– the way my bedroom faced – you could see one other house, much larger than ours. It was made of stone, like a castle. It had seven chimneys.
    On our first day, I found a narrow path that led up from our house directly to it. I climbed it. I could hear people laughing in the garden. I thought, if I were a Martian, I would land on this castle roof and not on our lawn in Wiltshire; I would go and join the laughing people; I would say, ‘I see you have a badminton net suspended between two conveniently situated trees.’
    My parents didn’t seem to have noticed this other house. Wherever they were, they behaved as though that spot was the centre of the universe.
    On our first evening, they stood at the French window, looking out at the sunset. I sat on a chair behind them, watching them and hearing the sea far below them. My mother said to my father: ‘Do you like it here, Hugh?’
    My father said: ‘Beach is ideal. Just the place. Better than the bloody lawn.’
    That night, when I was almost asleep, he came into my room and said: ‘I’m counting on you, Lewis. There’s work to be done in the morning.’
    â€˜What work?’ I said.
    â€˜I’m counting on you,’ he repeated. ‘You’re not going to let me down, are you?’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to let anybody down.’
    But then I couldn’t sleep. I tried throwing an imaginary tennis ball against an an imaginary wall until the morning came.
    We made circles in the sand. I was supposed to calculate the exact spot where the sun would go down, as though we were building Stonehenge. My father wanted the sun to set between the two circles.
    My mother sat in a deck chair, wearing a cotton dress and sunglasses with white frames. My father took some of his pills and went wandering back to the house. My mother went with him, carrying the deck chair, and I was left alone with the work of the circles. They had to have sculpted walls, exactly two feet high. All that I had to work with was a child’s spade.
    I went swimming and then I lay down in the first half-made circle and floated into one of my dreams of previous time. I was woken by a sound I recognised: it was the sound of the castle laughter.
    I opened my eyes. Two girls were standing in my circle. They wore identical blue bathing costumes and identical smiles. They had the kind of hair my mother referred to as ‘difficult’ – wild and frizzy. I lay there, staring up at them. They were of identical height.
    â€˜Hello,’ I said.
    One of them said: ‘You’re exhausted. We were watching you. Shall we come and help you?’
    I stood up. My back and arms were coated with sand. I said: ‘That’s very kind of you.’ Neither of them had a spade.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ they said in unison.
    I was about to say ‘Lewis’. I took my glasses off and pretended to clean them on my bathing trunks while I thought of a more castle-sounding name. ‘Sebastian,’ I said.
    â€˜I’m Fran,’ said one of them.
    â€˜I’m Isabel,’ said the other.
    â€˜We’re twins,’ said Fran, ‘as if you hadn’t guessed.’ And they laughed.
    They were taller than me. Their legs were brown. I put my glasses back on, to see whether they had a bust. It was difficult to tell, because their swimming costumes were ruched and lumpy all over.
    â€˜We’re fourteen,’ said Fran. ‘We’re actresses and playwrights. What are you, Sebastian?’
    â€˜Oh,’ I said, ‘nothing yet. I might be a mathematician later on. What are your plays about?’
    â€˜You can be in one with us, if you like,’ said Isabel. ‘Do you want to be in one?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I said.
    â€˜We only do it for fun,’ said Fran. ‘We just do them and forget them.’
    â€˜I don’t expect I’ve got time,’ I said.