The Circle by Elaine Feinstein Read Free Book Online Page B

racquet.
    –My god, he said immediately.    Alan.    How did you do that?
    –Do it? Do it? Alan was dancing with incoherence.
    –Michael, asked Lena slowly.
    He turned on her with sudden hostility:    Oh, I see. You’re going to say I did it.
    –I haven’t said anything yet.
    –Well, I didn’t, said Michael flatly.
    –Just a moment, Lena tried to control her voice, (Alan, go IN, she said furiously, yes go IN, it can be re-strung, shut up). She pushed him out of the way, needing to think clearly.
    –Just a moment, Michael.
    Now his black eyes fixed hers like open tunnels. She could see no end to them. Weakly she began: Did you see anyone? Come in the garden? Any of those park boys?
    –I’ve been in the shed, he answered her.
    –But did you hear anything?
    He appeared to give it fair thought.
    –Wait a minute. Yes. There was some sort of scuffling. But I suppose that might have been Alan and Johnnie after tea. Now she felt very tired, and a great wave of tenderness for him at the same time.
    –Come here darling, she said. Let’s go in with your boat.
    –Phew! He blew an exaggerated sigh of relief. For one moment I really did think you believed it was me.
    With her arm round his thin shoulders, his head in her chest, she didn’t know how to tackle the situation.
    –Did you have a good afternoon? She asked him.
    –Most of it, he said quickly.
    And she hugged at his thin arms miserably not knowing what to do for the best.
    –Poor Alan, she said experimentally. He’s so unhappy about his racquet.
    Michael said: Such a funny thing to happen.
    And she flinched at that.
    –Michael, listen. She knelt down to his level and heldhis arm, kissed him. I know Alan is a bit rotten to you sometimes. Please. If you did that I’d understand. It would worry me, it would mean you were horribly unhappy, that’s why, but I’d have to know. Do you see?
    –Well, if that’s what you want to know I can tell you. I’m bloody unhappy.
    She looked into his completely untearful eye.
    –But I didn’t do that to his racquet, he said. And if you ask me again I’ll never forgive you.
    They walked into the house in silence.
    When they came in Alan was sitting at the piano, light in his hair from a reading lamp. He was fumbling over a book of music he didn’t know, his blunt stubborn fingers following one line at a time, struggling to pull the piece together.
    —Bach, he said, smiling, as they came in. Lovely. Or it would be.
    Lena was holding Michael’s hand.
    –You’ve nearly got it, she said.
    Alan played the same four bars again, making the same mistake.
    Michael grunted: Just listen to that.
    Alan stopped without annoyance.
    –Come on then, he challenged. You do it.
    –I don’t play like that sort of stuff, said Michael loftily. All the same he went over to the piano and began to pick out the top line, by ear, he couldn’t read the music.
    –Sure, sure, said Alan. It’s when the other hand comes in it gets difficult.
    Michael, as all three of them knew, had only one thing he could do with his left hand, a sort of crude sequence of five chords. Rather charmingly now, he grinned and re-phrased it, putting the rhythm of his right hand into an old-time blues.
    –That’s fun, said Lena.–It’s nothing like right ,though, said Alan. And for the first time he sounded hot and angry. Nothing like as good either, he muttered.
    Lena sighed! You have different talents. Don’t you know that? She put her arms round both of them.
    –Just think of me then, she tempted. Can’t sight read, can’t play a note by ear, can’t get past book one of Microcosmos ?
    The boys eyed her tolerantly.
    –You’re awful, they agreed.
    –Well, I’ll get supper.
    In fact she went and sat in the kitchen a long time, doing nothing, while in some compromised and temporary alliance the noises continued. The boys were playing a hand each. She listened to them. Reflecting.
    How the beauty of their talents were all Ben’s, all his lovely