1982 - An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd Read Free Book Online Page A

train before he remembered that he and Holland had decided to go about bareheaded. He waited a little longer. It was clear no one had come to meet him. He felt the irrational hatred of his family, which he’d vowed to keep banked down this weekend, flare up inside him. Typical, he thought: a family of soldiers and they can’t even organize someone to meet me off the train. He picked up his suitcases and walked out of the station, handing his ticket to the sleepy collector on the way.
    It was eleven o’clock in the morning and the sun blazed down from a washed-out blue sky. Felix felt his clothes heavy on his body. He wore an old tweed jacket and navy blue serge trousers, a new soft-collared bright emerald green flannel shirt and a red tie. Both these last items had been purchased the day before on Holland’s instructions.
    Felix ran his finger between the prickly collar and his moist, chafing neck. The stationyard was also empty, except for two horse-drawn drays from which chums of milk were being unloaded. The boys hefting the churns looked not much younger than him, sixteen or seventeen. They wore large flat caps, collarless shirts with the sleeves rolled up, coarse woollen trousers that stopped at the ankles, and heavy, clumsy-looking boots. Felix sensed he was being scrutinized. He tried to look at ease and approachable, hoping his coloured shirt would proclaim him an ally. He wished he was still carrying the book he had been reading on the train—it was Kropotkin’s Social Anarchy after all—but realized that, even if the two boys could have read the name of the author, it would be unlikely to have much significance for them. Instead he kicked casually at a pebble and whistled a couple of bars of ‘All Night Long He Calls Her’, a tune he’d come to like recently. He tapped his pockets, wondering if he had time for a cigarette. Perhaps he should set off and walk the mile into Ashurst village: he could get someone to take him out to the house from there.
    “Bloody family,” he said out loud. “Damn bloody damn bloody family.”
    Felix was of average height—five foot nine—and slimly built. His lips were full and a dark pink, almost as if he had rouged them. This vaguely effeminate feature was counter-balanced by his blue-ish beard, unusually heavy for an eighteen-year-old, on his upper lip, spreading from the corners of his mouth and on to his chin, as if it had been blacked in for theatricals. The skin around his eyes had a brown foxed look (which might have indicated a tendency to insomnia), but the most arresting feature of his face was his eyebrows, prematurely thick and wiry, barely thinning where they met above his unexceptionable nose.
    Felix took a cigarette from his cigarette case, and was about to light it when a car—a Humberette—pulled in to the station yard, the klaxon giving a strangled hoot of welcome. When Felix saw who was driving all the accumulating tensions and irritations of the day cleared themselves. It was Gabriel, his brother. Gabriel stepped out of the car and gave a salute, clicking his heels together ostentatiously. He was wearing a Norfolk jacket, a shirt with a cravat and grey flannel trousers.
    “Your excellency,” Gabriel said. “Your motor is waiting.”
    “Gabe,” Felix said. “You’re here.”
    “Looks like it, old fellow. Can’t miss your own wedding, you know.” He strode forward, his hand out, smiling. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His pale brown hair was cut short and parted neatly in the middle. His face was square, as if his jaw muscles were permanently clenched, and his features were even and pleasant. He looked strong and a bit simple. Gabriel was the only member of his family to whom Felix gave his love uncritically and unreservedly. He was twenty-seven and a captain in his father’s old regiment, the Duke of Connaught’s Own West Kents, currently stationed in India, from where he’d just returned. Felix shook his hand, squeezing hard.
    They