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

‘I’ve got to get these circles finished.’
    â€˜Why?’ said Isabel. ‘What are they for?’
    â€˜Oh,’ I said, ‘for my father. He’s doing a kind of scientific experiment.’
    â€˜We’ve never met any scientists,’ said Isabel. ‘Have we, Fran?’
    â€˜We know tons of sculptors, though,’ said Fran. ‘Do you like sculpture?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’
    â€˜We’ll go and get our spades,’ said Isabel, ‘shall we?’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s jolly kind.’
    They ran off. Their difficult hair blew crazily about in the breeze. I watched them till my eyesight let them vanish. I felt out of breath – almost faint – as though I’d run with them into the distance and disappeared.
    That night, my mother got drunk on Gin and It. She had never explained to me what ‘It’ was. She expected me to know thousands of things without ever being told them. She said: ‘Listen, Lewis, the tragedy of your father is a tragedy of imagination. N’est-ce pas? You see what I mean, darling? If he’d just concentrated on the Consent Orders and the Decrees and so on, this would never have happened. But he didn’t. He started to imagine the feelings. You see?’
    She was scratching her thigh through her cotton dress. Some of the Gin and It had spilled onto her knee. ‘So, listen,’ she said. ‘In your coming life as a great mathematical person, just stick to your numbers. OK? Promise me? You’re my only hope now, darling, my only one. I’ve told you that, haven’t I? So don’t start. Promise me?’
    â€˜Start what?’
    â€˜What I’m saying is, stick to your own life. Yours. Just stay inside that. All right? Your mathematical life. Promise?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘What does “It” stand for, Mummy?’
    â€˜What does what?’
    â€˜â€œIt”. What does it stand for?’
    â€˜â€œIt”? It’s just a name , sweetheart. A name for a thing. And names can make Mummy so happy, or so, you know . . . the other thing. Like your father, Hugh. Darling Hughie. Mostly the other thing now. All the time. So promise and that’s it. Understood?’
    â€˜I promise,’ I said.
    The next day my father came to inspect the circles. Only one was finished. Just beyond the finished one was a sand sculpture of a bird. Fran and Isabel and I had stayed on the beach for hours and hours, creating it. They had made its body and wings and I had made its feet.
    The bird was huge. It had a stone for an eye. My father didn’t notice it. He was admiring the circle. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now the other one. I’ll give you a hand. Because the time’s coming. I can feel it. I’ve been watching the sky.’
    I worked with the child’s spade and my father worked with his hands. The sight of his red hands scooping and moulding the sand made me feel lonely.
    I waited all day for Fran and Isabel to come. At tea-time, it began to rain and I knew they’d be up in the castle, doing a play to pass the time. The rain fell on the bird and speckled it.
    It rained for two days. My parents tried to remember the rules of Ludo. I walked in the rain up the path as far as the castle shrubbery, where I sat and waited. I stared at the droopy badminton net. I counted its holes. And then I walked back down the path and went into the room where my mother and father sat, and closed the door. They’d abandoned the Ludo game. They were just sitting there, waiting for me to return.
    That night, I wrote a note to Isabel and Fran:
    Dear Isabel and Fran,
    When is your next play? I would like to be in it, if you still want me to be.
    Yours sincerely,
    Sebastian
    I set my alarm for four o’clock and delivered the note as the sky got light and the larks in the