The Green Man by Kingsley Amis Read Free Book Online Page B

that towel. It’s the only way we’d ever see
it again. Or putting tea-cloths and old dusters in all the bedrooms in future
and making them get rid of their fag-ends in empty baked-beans tins. I don’t
know why we go on bothering. Well, there’s nothing else to do, I suppose. If
that’s all you’ve got I’m off to Baldock.’
    ‘Right,
Mr Allington.’ David’s long, very slightly ridiculous face took on a resolute
look. ‘I just want to say, if there’s anything extra or special you want done,
I’d be more than happy to do it. You’ve only to say. And all the staff feel the
same.’
    ‘Thank
you, David, I can’t think of anything at the moment, but I’ll be sure to let
you know if there is.’
    David
left. I collected the cash for the bank, found and pocketed the list I had made
for the drink supplier, put on my check cap and went into the hall. The char, a
youngish, rather pretty woman in jeans and tee-shirt, was crossing towards the
dining-room, vacuum-cleaner in hand.
    ‘Cooler
today,’ she said, raising her eyebrows briefly, as if alluding to how I looked
or was dressed.
    ‘But
tonight it’ll be as hot as ever, you just see.’
    She
acknowledged this thrust with a diagonal movement of her head, and passed from
view. I recognized in her one on whom the lives, or deaths, of others made
little impression. Then Amy appeared, looking eager and rather well turned out
in a clean candy-striped shirt and skirt.
    ‘What
time are we leaving, Daddy?’
    ‘Oh,
darling.’ I remembered, for the first time that morning. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m
afraid it’ll have to be another day.’
    ‘Oh no. Oh, what a drag. Oh, why?’
    ‘Well …
I fixed it up with you before…’
    ‘Before
Gramps died—I know. But what’s that got to do with it? He wouldn’t have minded
me coming. He liked us doing things together.’
    ‘I
know, but there are special things I have to do, like registering the death
and going to the undertakers’. You’d hate all that.’
    ‘I
wouldn’t mind. What’s the undertakers’?’
    ‘The
people who’ll be doing the funeral.’
    ‘I
wouldn’t mind. I could sit in the car. I bet you’ll have a coffee anyway. I
could look round the shops and meet you at the car.’
    ‘I’m
sorry, Amy.’ And I was, but I could not contemplate getting through the next
couple of hours in any company, however relaxing, and I had long ago faced the
fact that I was never quite at my ease with Amy. ‘It wouldn’t be the right sort
of thing for you. You can come with me tomorrow.’
    This
only made her angry. ‘Oh, yawn. I don’t want to come tomorrow, I want to
come today. You just don’t want me.’
    ‘Amy,
stop shouting.’
    ‘You
don’t care about me. You don’t care what I do. There’s never anything for me to
do.’
    ‘You
can help Joyce in the bedrooms, it’s good—’
    ‘Oh, fantastic. Huge thanks. Dad-oh.’
    ‘I
won’t have you talking like that.’
    ‘I’ve
talked like it now. And I’ll take LSD and reefers and you’ll care then. No, you
won’t. You won’t care.’
    ‘Amy,
go up to your room.’
    She
made a blaring noise, halfway between a yell and a groan, and stamped off. I
waited until, quite distinctly through the thickness of the building, I heard
her door slam. At once, with impeccable sardonic timing, the vacuum-cleaner
started up in the dining-room. I left the house.
    It was
indeed cooler today. The sun, standing immediately above the patch of woods
towards which the ghost of Thomas Underhill was said to gaze, had not yet
broken through a thin mist or veil of low cloud. As I walked over to where my
Volkswagen was parked in the yard. I told myself that I could soon start to
relish the state of being alone (not rid of Amy, just alone for a guaranteed
period), only to find, as usual, that being alone meant that I was stuck with
myself, with the outside and inside of my body, with my memories and anticipations
and present feelings, with that indefinable sphere of being