Read Online Remember Me... by Melvyn Bragg - Free Book Online Page A

from Joseph: Roderick, who, like Joe, was reading History, was from an army family, lean-jawed, square-shouldered, in all things brisk, very like the heroes in Joe’s boyhood books on public schools. Bob more languid, owlish, the swotty boy who surprised them all in those school yarns which had been magical kingdoms to Joe. Bob was a zoologist and a fanatical fisherman. Both, Natasha noticed, appeared more relaxed and self-possessed than Joseph but clearly all three were fond of each other in that understated English way she liked.
    Afterwards, they were unreservedly complimentary. Nor in private did their opinion veer from this.
    â€˜They’re so different, it makes a kind of sense,’ Roderick said as he and Bob killed the final hour of the morning in the King’s Arms. ‘I must say I feel rather responsible – hauling him off to that Christmas party.’
    â€˜She is,’ said Bob, his hesitation down to a scientist’s care with fresh evidence, ‘both delightful and very intelligent. Not, I suspect, a common combination. Half of bitter?’
    â€˜She is,’ said Roderick, when Bob returned from the bar, ‘somewhat older.’
    â€˜Possibly a touch more than somewhat.’
    â€˜No bad thing,’ hurriedly added.
    â€˜On the contrary,’ Bob began the lengthy process of filling his big pipe. Roderick waited for more but more was not forthcoming. Bob was fully engaged with his pipe and would be for some time . . .
    In their late-night drawing room, the children fed and finally bedded, Julia and Matthew sat down with their books and drink. The house shivered a little as the single rickety bed two floors up strained at the demands being put on it.
    Matthew glanced at the ceiling.
    â€˜Yes,’ Julia drawled, thoughtfully. ‘He can’t seem to leave the poor woman alone.’
    â€˜Perhaps . . .’ Matthew paused entirely for effect, ‘she enjoys it?’
    â€˜I sincerely hope so,’ said Julia and took a sip of her watery whisky, ‘if only to drive out Robert.’
    In the morning break in the life-drawing class, Don and Jonathan came out for some air and to lounge against the great columns at the entrance to the Ashmolean. Americans appropriately framed in the neo-classical architecture of imperial power. Both enjoyed their awareness of it and took a mental snapshot for memories back home. They smoked American cigarettes, Lucky Strike.
    â€˜He told me,’ said Jonathan, in slow awe, ‘that he thinks she should have an exhibition and he’ll organise it.’ Taking his time, he drew every particle of the smoke deep down into his waiting lungs.
    â€˜He’s certainly changed,’ said Don, with some regret.
    â€˜So,’ Jonathan struggled to reach the next two monosyllables, ‘has she.’
    â€˜Not as much as him. It’s blast-off.’
    Jonathan nodded and once more appeared to attempt to suck through the whole cigarette in a single inhalation.
    â€˜She’s on the rebound,’ Don said. ‘Dangerous.’
    â€˜Maybe,’ said Jonathan. He looked across to the Randolph Hotel, and observed the scurrying grey figures in the bleak English winter light. He wanted to distance himself from Natasha for whom, when she had become, as he thought, free, post-Robert, he had felt an unmistakable pang.
    â€˜She’ll be too complicated for him,’ said Don and ground a wastefully big stub under the heel of his warm American boot. ‘And he needs time to play around.’
    Joe’s essay on the impact of the French Revolution on English thought in the 1790s had been thin. He had read it slowly because it was also too short but a chill had soon settled in his mind as the intensifying boredom of Malcolm Turney, his tutor, had transferred its force across the short space between their armchairs. It was the final tutorial of the morning, the noon-to-one slot, never an easy posting with lunch in