The Pyramid by William Golding Read Free Book Online Page B

hum. The notes drew and preoccupied me, as notes always did so that I searched my memory.
    “Dowland!”
    Evie laughed aloud, her face lovely and all alight. She began to sing.
    “‘—and daily weep
    and keep my sheep
    that feed upon the down, upon the down, upon the down, upon the down!’”
    “You’ve got a jolly good voice! You ought to—”
    “Used to have singing lessons.”
    “Miss Dawlish? Bounce?”
    She nodded, laughing.
    “Lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah!”
    Then we were laughing together in the sodium light at the memory of our dreary teacher and her dull lessons.
    “ Lah ,lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah laaaah !”
    “Why don’t you sing more often?”
    “Not Dowland, someone else—see, Mr. Clever!”
    “You should keep it up, Evie.”
    “Would, if I had someone to play for me.”
    “Haven’t you got a piano?”
    She shook her head. I looked past it at the river but examined instead an instant picture of Chandler’s Close. Sergeant Babbacombe’s cottage faced Captain Wilmot’s across the entry—two cottages a distinct degree superior to the rest. Beyond them, the cottages got progressively smaller, meaner, dirtier and more decayed down to the ruined mill. Children tumbled and fought in the muddy road. The boys wore the uniform of a Poor Boy; father’s trousers cut down, his cast-off shirt protruding from the seat. Mostly they had bare feet. I realized suddenly that it was what the papers called a slum. If Sergeant Babbacombe hadn’t got a piano, certainly none of the others would have one.
    “What about Captain Wilmot? He—”
    She shook her head again.
    “He’s got a gramophone and a wireless. Used to ask me in when I was a kid, to listen.”
    “That was kind.”
    “Glass of lemonade and a bun. All classical music. And he’s got a typewriter.”
    We were silent for a while.
    “So I don’t keep up my singing,” said Evie at last. “And what with learning to type—”
    I understood. I nodded solemnly. It was a shame.
    “You weren’t playing today, Olly, were you?”
    I laughed and held up my bruised finger. She took it to examine the tip with her own white fingers; and the performance repeated itself as if we were something reproduced from a die or plate—the giggles and laughter, the change from pursued to pursuer, the lugging down into the darkness of the pier, the semisurrender face to face, denial, consent, denial, kiss and struggle, scent, three plums and a glimmering skin, vibration—
    “Don’t you like me?”
    “‘Course I do—no, Olly, you mustn’t—”
    “Aw come on—”
    “You mustn’t—it’s not nice!”
    I knew and accepted that it wasn’t nice; knew too that as far as I was concerned, niceness wasn’t the point.
    “Leave go, Olly—leave go !”
    I was down the bank again. This time, one foot went in the river. I scrambled back up but Evie was staring into the sky.
    “Listen!”
    There was a faint droning among the stars. She skipped to the rise of the bridge and stood still. As if some exotic star had come adrift, a red light was moving under the shaft of the Great Wain.
    “It’ll come right over head.”
    “R.A.F.”
    A green light appeared beside the red one.
    “I wonder if it’s Bobby?”
    “Him?”
    Evie was still staring up, her mouth open, her head leaning further and further back. The plane became a dark shape between the lights.
    “He said he’d fly here as soon as he could. Said he’d stunt over Stilbourne. Said if he could find a place to land he’d take me up—”
    “I bet!”
    “Oh look! It’s going to—No, it’s not.”
    She turned on her heel as the plane passed us, and lowered her head gradually, until the shadow had sunk behind the trees of the wood.
    “They wouldn’t let him yet. He’s only been there a week or so.”
    She stamped her foot.
    “Boys are lucky !”
    “I shall learn to fly when I go to Oxford—probably. I’d thought of it.”
    She turned back to me quickly.
    “Oh I should like to fly