After Rain by William Trevor Read Free Book Online Page B

had been removed, a faded green hall-door, the high grass in the garden, the abandoned conservatory. And Timothy’s people — as Timothy always called them - had been as graphically presented: Charlotte’s smile and Odo’s solemnity, their fondness for one another evident in how they spoke and acted, their fondness for Coolattin. Charlotte cut what remained of Odo’s hair, and Timothy said you could tell. And you could tell, even when they were not in their own surroundings, that they weren’t well-to-do: all they wore was old. Hearing it described, Eddie had visualized in the drawing-room the bagatelle table between the windows and Odo’s ancestor in oils over the fireplace, the buttoned green sofa, the rugs that someone had once brought back from India or Egypt. Such shreds of grace and vigour from a family’s past took similar form in the dining-room that was these days used only once a year, on April 23rd, and in the hall and on the staircase wall, where further portraits hung. Except for the one occupied by Odo and Charlotte, the bedrooms were musty, with patches of grey damp on the ceilings, and plaster fallen away. Timothy’s, in which he had not slept for fifteen years, was as he’d left it, but in one corner the wallpaper had billowed out and now was curling away from the surface. The kitchen, where the television and the wireless were, where Odo and Charlotte ate all their meals except for lunch on Timothy’s birthday, was easily large enough for this general purpose: a dresser crowded with crockery and a lifetime’s odds and ends, a long scrubbed table on the flagged floor, with upright kitchen chairs around it. As well, there were the two armchairs Odo had brought in from the drawing-room, a washing-machine Timothy had given his mother, wooden draining-boards on either side of the sink, ham hooks in the panelled ceiling, and a row of bells on springs above the door to the scullery. A cheerful place, that kitchen, Eddie estimated, but Timothy said it was part and parcel, whatever he meant by that.
        ‘Would you go, Eddie? Would you go down and explain, say I’m feeling unwell?’
        Eddie hesitated. Then he said:
        ‘Did Mr. Kinnally ever go down there?’
        ‘No, of course he didn’t. It’s not the same.’
        Eddie walked away when he heard that reply. Mr. Kinnally had been far too grand to act as a messenger in that way. Mr. Kinnally had given Timothy birthday presents: the chain he wore on his wrist, shoes and pullovers. ‘Now, I don’t want you spending your money on me,’ Timothy had said a day or two ago. Eddie, who hadn’t been intending to, didn’t even buy a card.
        In the kitchen he made coffee, real coffee from Bewley’s, measured into the percolator, as Timothy had shown him. Instant gave you cancer, Timothy maintained. Eddie was a burly youth of nineteen, with curly black hair to which he daily applied gel. His eyes, set on a slant, gave him a furtive air, accurately reflecting his nature, which was a watchful one, the main chance being never far out of his sights. When he got away from the flat in Mountjoy Street he intended to go steady for a bit, maybe settle down with some decent girl, maybe have a kid. Being in the flat had suited him for the five months he’d been here, even if - privately - he didn’t much care for certain aspects of the arrangement. Once, briefly, Eddie had been apprenticed to a plumber, but he hadn’t much cared for that either.
        He arranged cups and saucers on a tray and carried them to the sitting-room, with the coffee and milk, and a plate of croissants. Timothy had put a CD on, the kind of music Eddie didn’t care for but never said so, sonorous and grandiose. The hi-fi was Bang and Olufsen, the property of Mr. Kinnally in his lifetime, as everything in the flat had been.
        ‘Why not?’ Timothy asked, using the telecommander on the arm of his chair to turn the volume down. ‘Why not,