Read Online The Old Jest by Jennifer Johnston - Free Book Online

for you if you believed what they say.’
    â€˜Perhaps.’
    Overcome with a sudden hunger she got up and took the satchel off the shelf; she peered into it.
    â€˜Have a banana?’
    â€˜No thanks. I never eat between meals.’
    â€˜Do you mind if I have one? There are three there.’
    â€˜Go ahead. Help yourself.’
    She took out a banana and pulled the peel back carefully. The flesh of the fruit was beginning to turn from cream to pulpy brown. Reluctantly she sat down again, stretching her legs out in front of her. She wanted to move them, pace like a lion backwards and forwards in her cage. Her long second toe poked inquisitively through the wet canvas of her sandshoe. She chewed and gazed at it as if she were alarmed somehow at its appearance. He wondered whether he should pick up his book and continue with his reading.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ she asked after a long, long silence.
    â€˜Haven’t we had this conversation before?’
    â€˜It didn’t get us very far. One ought … really … technically … to know one’s lodger’s name. I mean … you’re not a … but… anyway.’
    He didn’t say a word.
    She folded the empty banana skin and put it into her pocket.
    â€˜Your name isn’t Robert, by any chance?’
    â€˜I’ve had so many names down the years.’
    â€˜Was Robert ever one of them?’
    â€˜Not that I can recall. It’s not really a very interesting name.’
    â€˜My father was called Robert.’
    He roared with laughter. After a moment she laughed, too, and their laughter and the wind shook the little hut.
    â€˜Ah now, ah come on now, Nancy! You’re not blaming me for that?’
    â€˜Why not? Why not you?’
    â€˜How do you know his name is Robert? After all, if you don’t believe what they say …’
    â€˜I know that. Grandfather talks about Robert from time to time, and he’s well past telling lies. Anyway, I have this book.’ Her fingers stroked an ancient childhood scar on her knee as she spoke. She forever had to be moving. Her hands did not know the meaning of the word peace. ‘It’s a Yeats first edition. You know, that lovely soft paper and ragged edges where someone has cut the pages with a paper knife … He must have given it to her … to my mother. It has Helen … that was her name.’
    The nod of his head could have meant anything or nothing. She wasn’t watching him, though; her eyes were scrutinising the black looped writing on the fly leaf of the book.
    â€˜ … murmur a little sadly how Love fled, And paced upon the mountains overhead, And hid his face amid a crown of stars.’
    Silence.
    â€˜I don’t really know what it means.’
    Silence.
    â€˜It’s nice though … good. “Helen,” it says then “from Robert.” So you see.’
    â€˜Yes, I see,’ he said gently. ‘And I assure you it was not I who wrote those words.’
    â€˜Oh well.’ She spoke with resignation in her voice.
    â€˜It shouldn’t be so important, you know.’
    He bent down and ground out the remains of his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. He held the butt in the hollow of his hand like you might hold a tiny dead animal.
    â€˜When you are young, there is today and tomorrow. A lot of tomorrows. It’s only when you get to my age that the past begins to play a part in your life. Uninvited. Willy nilly.’
    â€˜I’d just like to know what is inside me. What sort of a person I might expect to turn out to be.’
    â€˜That’s rubbish, child.’
    â€˜Surely ingredients must be important?’
    â€˜Irrelevant. We can do nothing about them but forget them and get on with the job of maturing, exploring and expanding our faculties.’
    â€˜Is that what you’ve done? I mean, are doing?’
    He looked down at the butt in his hand.
    â€˜Just throw it