Perfect Gallows by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

character, half a married couple with one son. A strong character, with secrets. No smiles. Anger, sometimes, if that was what it was. Now, as so often before, Andrew brought the Mae West episode out of its mental cupboard and looked at it again. It had been seven years ago, almost. Dad, just home, tanned and alien. Andrew, longing to impress, beginning his new-learnt imitation. He’d done it for Mum only the week before and she’d laughed and laughed—why hadn’t she warned him? She must have known the other meanings in the lines … In order to think about it calmly he made it a scene from a play. Strindberg or someone. Dad’s relish in his own anger, in his power, but also some secret in his life that had put the crack of pain into the whistling belt. You’d find out in Act Three—a visiting sailor would let slip about the yellow house behind the harbour in Veracruz, with the shutters always closed, where Dad lived a quite different sort of life, where the Mae West lines would seem harmless as fairy-tales …
    It had hurt like hell of course, and Adrian was only a name then. He still hadn’t discovered his other uses. Not that he’d have been much help against pure pain. Now, though, Andrew could take pleasure in the discovery that there was an echo of the scene right back in Uncle Vole’s boyhood. No elder brother to hold him down. No need to vow revenge, either. It was all outside himself now, part of a play. And he was going to make his own success, which you couldn’t measure in money, not even in millions. OK, so he wouldn’t tell Mum about that part of it. He picked up his case and walked on.
    Fawley Street? One cut above a slum? Rubbish, if you didn’t count the bombed bit. Most of them had electric doorbells, and till the war there’d been a woman come twice a week to scrub out, and to black the stove. Of course they didn’t look so hot after five years of war, though Mr Toomey had smuggled a bit of Cunard red out of the docks and done his front door over Christmas. Apart from the yelling children the street was empty.
    Andrew put his case down on the doorstep of Number 19, turned into the tiny front garden and lifted the upside-down flower-pot behind the hydrangea. No key. He’d half expected that—she’d have taken it to the NAAFI as she wasn’t expecting him home. So he’d have to go round and leave the case in the coal-shed. Question was, had he best write a note for Mum telling her not to lock up, in case Cyril took him on for that evening’s performance, in which case he’d get home at all hours? He needn’t explain, not till after …
    While he thought about it his hand, unordered, tried the door handle. The door moved. It wasn’t locked. Forgotten? Still at home? Sick? The key was on the inside of the lock. Silently he put his case down in the hallway and tiptoed on into the kitchen.
    The stove was hot. The kettle, drawn to one side, had an inch of tepid water in it. Plates stacked by the sink, unwashed, two lots. Someone in for tea last night, then.
    Upstairs, footsteps and the click of a door. More steps. The hiss of water into the toilet—not Mum’s gush and dribble. The doctor? No, the feet had worn no shoes. The footsteps moved back and the door clicked again. Before it closed he heard Mum’s sleepy murmur, and the man’s chuckle.
    He stood mindless. He didn’t ask Adrian to occupy his surface, to smile an ironic smile and nod, but that was what happened. Yes, she’d got very worked-up about him going to stay away for a week, wouldn’t take No for an answer. Stupid Andrew. People don’t exist solely for you. They have lives of their own.
    Leave her a note, letting her guess he knew? What was the point? She wouldn’t be glad to see him back next day, either, not till Monday tea, when she’d be all hugs and laughter He’d need some money.
    There was