Life Class by Pat Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

in through one of the neighbouring gardens, that, or risk crossing the main line. But nobody with any sense would do that. At the top of the steps he looked around: no sign of anybody, no sign that anybody had been there. Anybody crossing the lawn would have left footprints in the wet grass. Probably she’d imagined it, but he walked round long enough to convince her he was taking it seriously, then went to stand by the wire fence. Beyond the slope of blond grass, the railway line had started to hum. He was aware of Teresa, at the top of the steps now, watching him. In a minute, a dozen or so rocking, swaying carriages hurtled past. A child with her face pressed against the glass waved to him, but the small human gesture was lost in the grind of pistons. He felt a ripple across his naked skin as the displaced air rushed back.
    ‘Can you see anything?’
    ‘No. If he was here he’s gone.’
    ‘It’d be him all right.’
    ‘I didn’t see anybody.’
    She gazed around her, the moonlight glittering in the whites of her eyes. ‘Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m imagining things.’
    But she didn’t sound convinced.
    Shivering, she pulled the edges of her wrap together and went down the steps into the house, and with a last look at the wet grass and the shining rails, he turned to follow her.

Six
    Neville replied to Paul’s note of congratulation with an invitation to lunch. Just family, he’d scribbled underneath his signature. I thought we might go for a swim afterwards? Weather permitting, of course.
    ‘I wonder what he wants,’ Teresa said.
    ‘Does he have to want something?’
    ‘No-o.’
    ‘Well, I’ll know soon enough, won’t I?’
    Sunday found him in the Nevilles’ dining room overlooking a balding lawn. The weather, after a few fitful weeks of mixed sunshine and rain, was now definitely getting warmer. The rhododendron leaves were limp in the midday glare.
    Paul was sitting next to Mrs Neville, a thin, energetic woman who was an enthusiastic suffragist.
    ‘Suffra gist ,’ she insisted. ‘Not gette.’
    ‘No,’ Neville said. ‘But gette ’s on the way, isn’t it?’
    ‘Well, if the moderates don’t make progress, what do you expect? Obviously people are going to be attracted to more extreme tactics.’
    ‘Don’t start throwing bricks, my dear,’ Colonel Neville said. ‘You’re a terrible shot.’
    Mrs Neville seemed to be fond of her family, in an abstracted kind of way, though Neville, jokingly but with an edge to his voice, claimed she never listened to a word he said.
    ‘Poof! What nonsense.’ She dropped a kiss on her husband’s forehead, acknowledged her son and his guest with a vague, bright smile, and swept out of the room.
    ‘It’s true,’ Neville said, caught between amusement and self-pity. ‘Half the time she doesn’t know I’m here.’
    Paul thought he detected a lot of tension beneath the surface in this family. Neville was in awe of his father, a war correspondentwho’d faced danger in every corner of the world. Throughout his life the father had gravitated towards violent conflict, and the son was desperate to measure up. No easy matter if the worst danger you face is a collapsing easel. But it made sense of Neville’s preoccupation with virility in art. Paul had read a couple of Neville’s articles now and both of them were full of the need to stamp out the effeminacy of the Oscar Wilde years. You’d think, the way Neville wrote about it, that the Wilde trials had taken place last year, not a generation ago. What a shadow it cast.
    After coffee Colonel Neville retired to his study and the two young men went upstairs to Neville’s quarters: a large studio right at the top of the house. The treetops were level with his windows.
    There were several completed paintings to admire, one of them very fine indeed. Many were urban, industrial landscapes. Paul was generous with his praise, though inwardly discouraged. In comparison with this his own work was immature,