Read Online The Shell House by Linda Newbery - Free Book Online Page B

eventually—sucked back in. Don’t they teach you about cosmology at St Ursula’s?’ It was easier to be flippant than to dredge up Physics lessons he wasn’t sure he could pass on coherently.
    Suddenly Faith was defensive. ‘How do you know I’m at St Ursula’s?’
    ‘Your dad said.’
    ‘Oh, he would!’ Faith said, grimacing Katy-fashion. ‘Why does he have to tell people that? It’s like hanging a label round my neck: St Ursula’s girl!’
    ‘You don’t mind hanging that cross round your neck. Isn’t that a kind of label?’
    Faith’s hand went to her throat; she held out her silver crucifix as far as its chain would allow, as if using it as a charm to ward off evil. ‘That’s not the same thing at all. I choose to wear this—it’s for me. Anyway, what about you? Sixth form or what?’
    ‘Radway. The comp. Doesn’t Daddy mind you hanging around with a pleb like me?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid; you’re not a pleb. And I’m not posh just because I go to St Ursula’s.’ He had annoyed her; she was picking the fruit at accelerated speed, deciding her bag was full enough, pulling out another from her pocket.
    ‘D’you know a girl called Michelle McAuliffe?’ he asked in a gentler tone. ‘Her brother’s in my year.’
    ‘Yes. She’s the year below me, Year Ten. I don’t know her well, but I know who she is.’
    ‘OK, then. Why does God decide to give a fifteen-year-old girl kidney failure? Because he’s so kind and concerned?’
    Faith shook her head. ‘We can’t know why things like that happen.’
    ‘So there is a reason?’
    ‘God has a reason for everything. It’s not for us to know. We just have to accept it as God’s will.’
    ‘So if it were you or me with duff kidneys, we’d have to say,
Oh dear! But I’m sure God must have a
reason, so I’ll have to put up with it
. Is that what you mean?’
    ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.’
    ‘And if you’d been on your way to Auschwitz and the gas chambers? Or buried in an earthquake? Or starving in a famine? All part of the great plan?’
    She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why are you so angry?’
    Only now did he realize how his voice had risen; he’d almost been shouting.
    ‘I believe in God, you choose not to—why should that annoy you?’ Faith asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’ He pulled a stem towards him and plucked off the ripe berries, then released it so that it sprang back out of reach. He let go clumsily; a thorn pricked his thumb. He looked at the bead of blood before sucking his thumb clean, tasting the salt-sweetness. They carried on picking in silence, Greg trying to work out a proper answer for himself if not for her. A few times she glanced at him, seeming about to speak, but said nothing.
    That
was what was annoying him! She was waiting for him to come up with a reason, so that she could trot out her ready-made answer. It was like a barrier, a safety-belt. She wasn’t having to think for herself. She was as well-rehearsed as a double-glazing salesman. Before he could find wording for this that wouldn’t be offensive, she stepped back from the bushes, tied the neck of her carrier bag and said, ‘We’ve got quite a lot. Let’s stop for a bit. I want to show you the most wonderful thing in the whole place.’ Her voice was changed—soft, friendly. He knew she thought she’d won the argument.
    ‘OK,’ he said, glad to change the subject. He put down his bag next to hers—three bags in a row on the grass—and picked up his camera. ‘What is it?’
    She smiled over her shoulder. ‘Wait and see.’
    He expected her to go down to the lake, towards the grotto, but instead she walked back across the orchard to the formal part of the gardens. An electric mower trundled noisily along the main grass path; another pair of workers were cutting down brambles from a plinth that must once have supported a statue.
    ‘There are photos of what this looked like in about nineteen hundred,’ Faith said. ‘It was