Read Online Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks - Free Book Online Page A

My father would have gone crazy. It’s worth a fortune.’
    A gesture of the hand, as if brushing away a fly from his face, hid Morris’s wince. He was teaching Chapter Four of
Simply English
this week, which was all about where people keep things (‘in the kitchen, second cupboard on the right, top shelf, behind the sugar’), and just for fun, to add some spice to the thing, he made a point of asking people if they had any sculptures in the house and where they kept them. ‘In the lounge. A Renaissance piece with Jupiter as a bull carrying off Europa,’ ‘And what’s it made of?’ (Chapter Three, materials, legitimate revision.) ‘Of silver.’ Incredible how ingenuous people could be, Maria Grazia said her grandfather had picked the thing up in a junk shop and later discovered it was worth a lot of money, Morris would be going into arrears on his rent, he calculated, around the end of June.
    He looked out over his wine across the square at the gently milling promenade of shoppers. It was precisely this aspect of Italy that kept him here really; the
passeggiata
, the stylishly flaunted wealth, a sense of repose he enjoyed in simply watching beauty all around him - a liquid clear sunlight across the square, sparkling the fountains, baking the ancient unblinking façades - and these people who had inherited so much, the stones, the sunshine, the style - all laughing and floating through these golden pedestrian streets.
    But how to become a part of it? Morris, who had never been a part of anything, who doubted if such things were possible? (Every man is an island …) Yet the desire was achingly, shamefully strong. Precisely the strength of desire, Morris reflected, if experience was anything to go by, confirmed the unattainability of the object desired.
    Gregorio, meanwhile, was discussing his summertime plans. He was going to stay at the family villa in Sardinia and recover from all the studying he’d been doing before facing university. If he’d passed his exams that is.
    They sat sipping wine under a torch of a sun.
    â€˜And you?’
    â€˜Oh, no plans as yet. Depends on work of course.’
    â€˜Not going on one of your long travels to the ends of the earth?’ Gregorio smiled softly, rather effeminately, Morris thought. And it occurred to him that Gregorio did have rather a curious way of looking at one. Too intense. As if you were an object of interest. Which was perhaps why he liked the boy in a way. One felt flattered.
    â€˜I was thinking of going to Turkey with some others. Like to come?’ Invite to be invited. There was an idea.
    â€˜Love to,’ Gregorio said. ‘If only my damn parents would let me. They’d never give me enough money for the trip.’ Again the smile.
    'There are problems though. (Carefully does it.) I haven’t decided a hundred per cent myself. These people are going in a dormobile and I'm afraid the company isn’t so hot.’
    A long, glass-draining pause, and then, there it was:
    â€˜Would you like to come with us, then? There’s plenty of room. For a few weeks at least. My parents won’t get there till August, but I'm setting off any day now. Saturday probably. We could have quite a time.’
    Morris held his breath. It was like having a creature walk into a trap before you’d barely set it. How many invitations had he had in his life? You could count them on the fingers of one hand.
    'If I could make it, I’d love to see Sardinia. It depends on work though, you know. I've had a couple of offers for interpreting at conferences.’
    â€˜Suit yourself, but the swimming’s excellent there. Plus there’s always plenty of company, not to mention a boat or two to play with.’
    What could be better? And having managed not to jump at it right from the very start, Morris was just going to accept quite definitely, and rather prematurely really, because the lad could