Mandrake by Susan Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

uneasiness seemed to have grown still more, and he shifted from foot to foot. He was a full yard from the edge of the platform. There was no one else near him. The train’s roar grew louder in the tunnel. And then, in an impossible moment that was to haunt him always in a kind of dreadful slow motion, Queston saw the man take a gradual, dragging step forward, and jerk into the air as if some invisible force had given him a great shove. He did not fall; there was no possibility that he could have fallen. He gave an immense ungainly leap towards the rails, at the exact moment that the train burst thundering out of its black cave a few yards away.
    Queston remembered that blood more vividly. It was bright scarlet, and he had never seen so much suddenly in one place.
    With it he remembered something else. Before it crushed him, the train had tossed the countryman like a bull. For a fraction of a second, as his body turned in the air, Queston had seen the expression on his broad sunburnt face. The eyes widened by horror held only resignation; there was no hint of surprise. As if they said: ‘I told you so.’

Part Two
    Queston lurched down the ladder, his shirt lifting gently in the cool morning draught from the open window. At the sound of his first footstep the dog was across the floor with a yelp, and standing to greet him, tongue dangling, tail waving. She was a Welsh collie, undemanding and intelligent; he had bought her in the second year, after he had realized quite how often he was talking to himself. It seemed less dotty to talk to a dog.
    He ran a hand over her head and went to unbolt the door; the dog bounded out into the sunshine. Queston crossed to the battered sink in the one square room; splashed water over his face, dried it with the towel hanging from a nail, and buttoned his shirt. He combed his hair, frowning at the length of it bushing out grey-streaked behind his ears, and decided not to shave. So few people ever came near the cottage that there was no point in shaving more than twice a week.
    He filled the kettle and put it on the stove; the flames flickered small and yellow-blue, he would need another cylinder of gas soon. Barefoot on the stone floor, cold and uneven to his skin, he opened cupboard doors, methodically took out cup, saucer, plate, knife, spoon. Breadboard, butter, jar of marmalade, tin of powdered coffee. It was an automatic routine; his senses always woke before his mind. Sleepily he set his breakfast on the scrubbed wooden table, groping at the strange sense of excitement which hovered round him that morning like a child’s anticipation of a treat. Long burial in work had made him absent-minded. Perhaps the feeling came only from the sunshine, the blue-white sky hazed with the promise of a fine day. But he knew the real reason. It was finished. The night before, he had finished the last draft of the book. The pattern of work which had carried one day into the next for almost two years would be different now.
    With one foot he pushed aside the square of flat wood covering a hole in the floor, and took out a carton of milk. It was his private device to vanquish the souring summer heat; the milkman called at the cottage only every fourth day. From the clattering bread-bin he took half a loaf, its exposed surface dry and rusklike even when he had sawn off the exposed end. The baker called only once a week. He had ordered his isolation with care.
    He refilled the dog’s water-bowl; she came padding back in, put down her head and lapped noisily.
    ‘What a noise,’ he said aloud. ‘Suppose I drank like that, now? ’ It would hardly matter, he reflected, if he did; in all his time in the cottage he had encountered no one but the tradesmen, and the village shopkeepers when he drove in to buy food and collect his infrequent post. He had never been so content in his life. He had no idea what Mandrake and his Ministry were up to; it was only from a chance remark of the baker’s that he knew