The Pyramid by William Golding Read Free Book Online

would sometimes close it gently. He was very musical himself and could not afford to be distracted at moments when his work was particularly delicate.
    “I didn’t know you passed our house, Evie!”
    “I was in the reception room, silly!”
    I was a little surprised at this. After all, there was the sitting room door, a passage, the door through to the dispensary , another passage and another door between the reception room and our yellowing keys. Perhaps I could play loud.
    “It’s just practice. I do it for fun.”
    “When I left after morning surgery you were playing it. When I came back for evening surgery there you were again! You must like music a lot, Olly. How long were you playing?”
    “I do. All day.”
    “It’s nice. You must play it for me some time. Dr. Ewan likes it too.”
    “Honestly?”
    “He came into the reception room yesterday after Mrs. Miniver left and said was that you still playing.”
    “Did he say anything else?”
    “Not much. Just how glad he was that you were going to Oxford.”
    I was deeply gratified. I had not known that Dr. Ewan was musical too. I was trying to learn the Chopin study, because those wild broken chords, that storm of notes had seemed so exactly to express and contain my own dry-mouthed and hopeless passion for Imogen Greatley; but the technical difficulties were enormous and obsessed me. I explained. “There’s a note—G natural—I have to hit it in passing with this finger, you see—”
    I held my right forefinger up close to her face. She took it in both hands and examined it, pulling it about.
    “Ow! Careful! It’s a bit sore—”
    Laughing aloud, Evie pulled and pulled. Instantly the ice broke up and cascaded away. With shouts and giggles we wrestled in the sodium-lighted twilight. In some way that was not clear to me I changed from pursued to pursuer and Evie was trying to escape.
    “No! No, Olly! You mustn’t—”
    She was close to me, hard against my chest. She ceased to struggle.
    “You mustn’t. Someone’ll see us.”
    I grabbed her wrist and lugged her off the rise of the bridge, down to where the pier was set, half on land, half in water. The sodium lights were out of sight. She had stopped laughing and I had started trembling again. The only light came from Evie, her three black plums so close to me against the pier, but now with no hair smeared across them, no trickling rain, and the exhalation of mysterious perfume constant and maddening. I pressed against her, my loins stirring, my body burning. I got all the kisses I wanted. I got more kisses than I wanted. I didn’t get anything else.
    The church clock struck. Evie changed from a girl whose strength was barely sufficient to protect her from assault unless it was reinforced by warm and pathetic pleading, to one who could carry coal and chop wood. Since my head was still whirling I was not ready for the change, and her thrust with both arms sent me backwards halfway down the bank.
    “There! And Mum said—”
    She was scrambling up to the road. I scrambled after her, pushing clods out of the earth. I caught up with her on the bridge.
    “Evie—Let’s come here tomorrow night. Or can’t we go for a walk or something?”
    She had resumed her movement in the sodium lights.
    “I can’t stop you meeting me, can I? It’s a free country.”
    “Tomorrow then—”
    “If you like.”
    She moved on up the High Street. As my wits settled I became aware of people, and of the delicate radii of influences that we were approaching. Halfway up the street one of my masters lived—or had his rooms—over a shop. At the Town Hall, the area controlled by my parents began. Beyond the Town Hall was our Square, where they might very well be looking out for me. I began to lag. Evie’s forward movement slowed. It was an impasse; and there was only one way to avoid being detected in her company.
    “Well,” I said, coming to a halt. “Well. Till tomorrow.”
    Evie looked over her