Aftershock by Bernard Ashley Read Free Book Online Page A

said to Makis, handing back the mandolin. It was perfect, of course, and Makis found himself doing that same sudden uplift of his face that his father had used to do, to say that he was ready. But he didn’t have a plectrum, and a mandolin needs a plectrum.
    â€˜Here.’ From a small leather pouch Mr Laliotis took a couple of plectrums, held them in front of him, and handed the smaller of the two to Makis.
    â€˜Makis, do you know, “The Cuckoo Sleeps”?‘
    Makis nodded. Of course he did. Every child of three knew the bedtime lullaby; but the way Mr Laliotis pronounced the title, it could have been one of the classics. ‘So, how about if you play the D chords? I’ll bring you in.’
    Makis set his fingers on the E and G strings and checked the sound with a couple of strokes of the plectrum. He looked up again – to see that Mr Laliotis was now wearing a serious BBC face, the professional musician giving respect to his instrument as he played a concert introduction to the simple tune. In came Makis with his D chords, picked rhythmically across the strings like the tick of a clock. And as they got into the tune, they both began to sing.
    â€œThe cuckoo sleeps on the hills, and the partridge in the bush;
    And my baby sleeps in his cot to fill his soul with slumber.”
    Only pride held back Makis’s tears. At one and the same time he was his father playing mandolin under the olive tree, and the small boy he had once been, hearing the words of the lullaby.
    They stopped. ‘Will you take the melody now?’ Mr Laliotis asked. Not
can
you, but
will
you? And Makis thought he could – in fact, he knew he could. It was simple.
    â€˜So… ‘ Again Mr Laliotis did the fancy introduction, and with a nod to Makis, he dropped to the chords while Makis took the tune. And again they sang the lullaby.
    â€˜Bravo! Well done!’
    Makis was pleased with his playing. He rested his father’s mandolin across his knees. No, not his father’s mandolin –
his
mandolin, inherited from his father. Makis Magriotis’s Gibson. His lips quivered, which he quickly turned into a smile; because if he hadn’t, he’d have burst out in a mixed-up wail.

Chapter Nine
    Makis was disappointed when the next round of the Fred Berryman Trophy was drawn. Not by the team they had to play – Larkson Lane was a name that meant nothing to him – but by being drawn away at Chase Fields, Kentish Town – not even in Camden. Makis should have been proud to know he’d been picked to play; instead, he wanted the name on that team sheet to be Denny Clarke. But it wasn’t, and Denny looked at it and swore when he saw the note underneath: Reserve to travel: Clarke.
    â€˜Dirty Greek! Comin’ over here an’ taking the place of a proper English boy.’
    â€˜How do we get to Chase Fields?’ Makis asked Costas.
    â€˜Get a bus after school,’ Costas told him. ‘It’s a good long way.’
    Under his breath, Makis said a Greek word that he shouldn’t have known. The game was on Thursday next week. What was he going to do? Tell Mr Hersee he couldn’t play? Or work on his mother, prepare her for him being extra late that evening? Well, he didn’t know right now, so he just had to leave things as they were.
    The problem went out of his mind when he walked in on her. She was sitting at the table with a Red Spot book. It wasn’t open, but it was there – and somehow her face seemed different. The no-hope look wasn’t there tonight. Instead, she looked the way she’d be on a bad day in Kefalonia, not a bad day in Camden Town. There was a world of difference.
    â€˜Are you going to help me again?’ he asked.
    She gave him a look, as if to say,
who’s fooling who?
He broke away and warmed his hands at the electric fire, rubbing them enthusiastically, the way his father always did when he saw his favourite meal on the