Somewhere Beyond Reproach by Tim Jeal Read Free Book Online

unable to hide my desperation .
    Mrs Lisle nodded sagely.
    ‘I couldn’t agree more.’
    Another silence. I looked at Andrew more carefully. He did not look particularly like either of his parents. This pleased me. It somehow made their marriage seem less important . The child sitting opposite me did not seem a perpetuation of their mutual existence. He was sitting looking at the carpet, obviously not realising that his grandmother’s unpleasantness had been aimed entirely at me. Mrs Lisle’s lengthy and elegant nibbling at a biscuit reminded me that I should have to make any further moves. I sensed her eyeing me, so could not risk making a face at Andrew. A pity; this would have been the best possible action. Andrewcame towards me, carefully carrying a cup of tea and a thin slice of bread and butter. I thanked him quietly and looked at my plate: such a tidily cut piece of bread. Mrs Lisle noiselessly nibbled her biscuit. There would be no help from her. My only consolation was the certainty that the child must hate these evenings with ‘Granny’.
    ‘What do you like doing?’ I asked Andrew. I thought he was not going to answer.
    ‘Making things,’ he replied after careful consideration.
    ‘I’ve never seen any of them,’ cut in Granny.
    ‘Most of them are at school.’ The hostility in this reply delighted me.
    ‘What sort of things?’ I asked.
    ‘Aeroplanes, model boats. I made a sledge in carpentry last winter.’ Granny again:
    ‘I’d have sent you more model kits if I’d known.’ To my amazement the woman was not being sarcastic. She was trying to ingratiate.
    ‘I made a glider with a six-foot wing-span when I was your age.’
    Andrew looked at me with a mixture of admiration and scorn that I should be so boastful. He couldn’t resist asking:
    ‘What happened to it?’
    ‘It crashed into some trees.’
    ‘Didn’t it have a rudder.’
    Did it? I tried to think.
    ‘The elastic must have broken.’
    ‘Bad luck.’
    He was genuinely sorry for me. I laughed.
    ‘No, my fault. I should have seen that the rubber was frayed.’
    ‘Still, it was rough,’ the child insisted.
    ‘I don’t know why you don’t bring some of your models to Wimbledon. We could fly them together on the Common.’
    I noted the dubious look Andrew gave his grandmother. I was surprised that she was trying to compete on these grounds.
    ‘We’d have to walk a lot.’
    ‘I wouldn’t mind that.’
    ‘But, Granny, you said your rheumatism …’
    ‘It’s better since I started seeing Mr Ward-Lee,’ she snapped. Then, recovering, she smiled: ‘Anyway I’m sure I never said I didn’t like walking.’ She turned to me: ‘One of the reasons I live out here is the Common.’
    ‘All the advantages of the country combined with the town,’ I said with magnanimity. A slight smirk may have been responsible for the hostility of her:
    ‘Would you like to stay for another cup?’
    ‘I’d love to when I’ve finished this one,’ I said affably. I reached a hand into my breast pocket and pulled out an envelope.
    ‘Do you collect stamps?’ I asked.
    Andrew nodded.
    ‘Really Mr Cramb, I don’t think you ought to give him anything. Especially after the time it took him to get you some tea.’
    ‘I’ll show it to you anyway,’ I said with a smile of commiseration for Granny’s churlishness. He came over to look. The stamps were from Cambodia. One depicted an elephant uprooting a tree, the other a dancer in traditional dress. Seeing the look of appreciation in his eyes I asked confidently :
    ‘I bet you haven’t got any from there?’
    ‘I’ve got some Burmese ones,’ he replied proudly.
    ‘I get quite a lot from abroad. My firm does quite a bit transporting imported goods from the docks.’
    ‘They don’t need stamps,’ Andrew chipped in, hoping to make up for his humiliating deficiency in Cambodian stamps.
    ‘No, but the firms write to me,’ I made a sucks-to-you face that made me giggle.
    Mrs Lisle said:
    ‘I