The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds Read Free Book Online Page B

voice to address anyone near. ‘Thank you. I have to go now.’
    ‘After a bit of food,’ Judith suggested.
    ‘Thanks, I’m full enough for a while.’
    John hurried away or tried to. First he had to shake hands with all the children who’d run to make a ring around him.
    The sun was still low and he reckoned it to be early, perhaps early enough to slip back in unnoticed. The charcoal burners weren’t at their hut. He passed a bird-catcher with two cages swinging from his pole, on his way to London where song was needed.The morning’s catch of finches flew against the narrow bars. The catcher tilted his hat. John did the same and when he’d passed him shook his head at the gross symbol, refusing the easy poem he was offered.
    He was back at the gate before Peter Wilkins. With his own key, he let himself back in. He trudged up the path to Fairmead House and was almost in when Matthew Allen stepped out.
    He saw John - he couldn’t not, they were barely three feet apart - and looked disappointed.
    ‘John, this is very bad,’ he began and John felt anger suddenly buckle inside him, with no possible release. He had done wrong and he knew it and had now to submit to being reprimanded like a child. He tried answering like a child.
    ‘I got lost.’
    ‘Did you?’
    ‘In the dark. I walked too far.’
    Matthew Allen looked at him, sucked at his moustache. John looked back, then down. There was a moment of stalemate before Allen said, ‘It absolutely must not happen again. Can you assure me of that?’
    ‘I won’t walk that far, doctor. And I’ll pay more mind to where I am. I was composing was maybe part of the trouble.’
    ‘Ah, yes, John. After our conversation I collected a few poems from your room. To send to editors.’ Matthew Allen blinked a few times, perhaps not quite sure of the decency of this invasion.
    John saw this,but didn’t mind;he welcomed the chance to even the advantage. ‘Oh, did you?’ he said casually to heat any embarrassment there might be in the doctor. ‘As I was saying,’ John went on, ‘I was composing yesterday. A poem to my wife, Mary. It’s fine I think. I can write it up for you fair to go with the others you took.’
    Matthew Allen shook his head. ‘John, we’ve talked about this.You know that Mary is not your wife. She was your childhood sweetheart. A child, John, a girl of what nine or ten? Patty is your wife, and I know she finds this fixed idea of yours most distressing.’
    ‘No,’ John said. ‘No, I am well acquainted with the truth.’ He knew also that what was law and what was natural were not the same thing. ‘Mary is my wife. And so’s Patty. Just because a thing hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t. And anyway it has occurred, in the Bible.’
     
    Hannah had offered to take Abigail for a walk. As they’d set out, she’d confused the child by turning her from the usual route, on this occasion, towards Beach Hill House.
    Abigail preferred walking with her mother, who took more of an interest in what she picked up, pretty stones or feathers. Hannah’s attention was elsewhere, across and away somewhere, not down with Abigail, and she walked too quickly. Abigail caught her sleeve and leaned her whole weight back over her heels to slow her sister, but she was pulled forward into a trot.
    ‘I hope you’re planning to behave,’ Hannah said, ‘or I shall take you straight back.’
    Hannah’s angrily swishing legs marched ahead. Abigail chased after, then her sister suddenly stopped.
    ‘Why have we stopped?’ she asked. ‘Stopped the wrong way?’
    ‘Shh, Abi. I’m thinking.’
    ‘But what are you thinking?’
    ‘Shh.’
    Hannah stood and looked at the house where he was living, set behind its own large pond and lawn. Formerly of no significance, this place was now charged and thrilling as a beehive. She stood up on her tiptoes to see more.Taking a few paces up like a ballet dancer to bring a hidden corner of the garden into view, she