Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope Read Free Book Online

family ripped away. He would look at his children asleep and feel an intensity of possession that was to do
     with something far more visceral than even paternal love. But for all this savage sense of physical belonging, part of him
     still strayed away by itself, part of him that was still engaged upon the lifelong struggle—he supposed every human to be
     similarly engaged—of discovering exactly who he was and how to live with that person. This struggle, which seemed to preoccupy
     the less conscious parts of his mind for most of the time, was in no way eased by his unquestioned love for either Marnie
     or his children. Only two things eased it, two things that he knew Marnie felt were, if not actually disloyal to the family,
     at least not contributory to its welfare. She would never prevent him from doing either, but she silently conveyed to him
     the fact that she considered the time and energy he devoted to these other pursuits was time and energy the family both deserved
     and could well have profited from. These two pursuits were playing chess, and seeing his sister Nathalie.
    Ralph had taught David to play chess when he was seven, and even at seven, David had sensed a kind of rivalry at stake which
     excited him. Ralph was a good, steady player, a member of a local club, and he had said to Lynne that he wanted to teach David
     various skills and games that they might share, perhaps, when talking was simply too difficult. Lynne thought it was a wonderful
     idea. Her eyes shone. They shone with a gratitude to Ralph, which she was always thankful to feel, because it diminished her
     abiding sense of being let down by Ralph in the matter of babies.
    Ralph had a soapstone chessboard that Lynne had given him, and a set of heavily carved wooden pieces which had belonged to
     his grandfather. He set David down one side of the board on a stool.
    "Now," he said. "Before I tell you what's what I want to tell you two things. One is that, because all the moves in chess
     are up to you, you soon find out your own limitations. The second thing is—you could beat me."
    David's head came up. His eyes were bright.
    " Beat you?"
    "The only aim in chess is to checkmate the king. You could capture all the other pieces on the board and still lose. But if
     you checkmate the king, you win. So a boy can win over a man."
    It was evident quite quickly that David was going to be good, very good even, better than Ralph had bargained for. By the
     time he was twelve, Ralph, saying bravado things like, "Well, I always said the game was greater than the players," ceased
     to play with him. David noticed this, but took no account of it, so obsessed was he by then with this mesmerizing activity,
     where thought seemed to replace action, where he could move without really exposing himself, where he felt both his emotional
     and intellectual defenses were safe.
    "Why do you play?" Nathalie said, declining to let him teach her. "Why do you keep on and on playing?"
    He was tearing an envelope into smaller and smaller squares.
    "Because I can control it."
    "No, you can't. You don't always win. When you lose, you've lost control."
    "But I can play again," David said. "There's always another game. Every time I lose, I look forward to winning the next one.
     It keeps me hoping." He balled his fist up round the envelope pieces. "And I can't get lost."
    " What? "
    "There's always an end game. There's always a resolution. If you play chess, you can't get lost."
    "Yes," Nathalie said.
    "See?"
    "Yes," Nathalie said again.
    "I don't have to surrender—"
    "OK, OK," Nathalie said, "I get it. I've got it. But I still don't want to play."
    David started a chess club at school and another at horticultural college. When he met Marnie he suggested that he teach her,
     but she was sure enough of him then not to need to learn. In any case, chess seemed irrelevant to her; it was deliciously
     foreign, a game emerging from the labyrinthine coils of Byzantium, from all