The Wilt Inheritance by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page B

Emmeline.
    An hour later they’d tried dissolving sugar in eau de cologne, which didn’t work, and then in hot water, which did.
    ‘Great! We’ll just have to dissolve a lot of sugar in hot water and keep it in a bottle. That way Ms Young won’t see any traces of it even if she looks.’
    ‘She’s going up to Scotland for the summer holidays. If this works, she’ll end up having to go by train, which will serve her right. I know! I know! We ought to put it in right at the very end of term then she might break down on her way up there, miles and miles from a garage with any luck.’
    And on this happy note the quads came out from behind the hockey pavilion and split up.

Chapter 7
    At home Wilt was swotting up his notes on Edward’s A-level history course. He was planning to run through a few points with Braintree over a beer at the Dog and Duck, after having first had his hair cut on Eva’s instructions.
    ‘We can’t have you looking like some of these footballers you see on telly,’ she had told him, determined to remain optimistic in spite of the recent warning letter from St Barnaby’s. ‘So don’t let whoever cuts it leave it too long. I’ve had your suit dry-cleaned too. You’ve got to look really smart and be very polite.’
    ‘I’ll look smart enough in my best sports jacket, which does at least fit me. More than I can say forthat ridiculous outfit you bought me. Anyway that’s the sort of thing university lecturers wear. They don’t dress up in pink chalk-stripe suits.’
    ‘Oh, all right, wear the sports jacket if you insist. I still say the suit looks better.’
    ‘It may to you, but I know damned well it wouldn’t impress a wealthy landowner,’ Wilt said before returning to his notes. Thank goodness history A-level was a lot more interesting than he’d remembered. And also sufficiently violent to interest even the dimmest – and doubtless most conceited – teenage boy.
    ‘You’ll just have to get to the hairdresser early and …’ Eva carried on, but Wilt intervened.
    ‘Barber,’ he said. ‘I know it’s an old-fashioned word, and refers to a more elegant age when men wore proper beards and one could get a shave too, but the correct word is barber, Eva.’
    ‘I don’t care. All I want is that you don’t look like some long-haired hippy. A nice short back and sides, please.’
    ‘All right, I heard you the first time,’ said Wilt. ‘Rest assured, I’ve no desire for you to blast the hell out of me when I get home.’
    ‘Well, I have had a particularly disturbing day,’ said his wife, and handed him the Headmistress’s latest letter before storming into the kitchen.
    Wilt read it through and followed her.
    ‘I sort of expected something like that,’ he saidcheerfully. ‘If you will send our darling daughters to a very select and expensive school, you shouldn’t be surprised when they inevitably create havoc and are threatened with expulsion. They’re lucky not to have been expelled long ago. You should have sent them to a reformatory – it would have saved time and been a lot cheaper.’
    ‘They’re not being expelled. Mrs Collinson only says their behaviour has to improve or they may be asked to leave.’
    ‘Where there’s life there’s hope,’ said Wilt. ‘And there’s no hope of that. Well, at least in future years I won’t have to subsidise their awful activities by taking tutoring jobs in my summer holidays.’
    And before Eva could find words to express her annoyance, he had retreated to the front room and was watching the news.
    The subdued friction that was part and parcel of the Wilts’ marriage, and which occasionally broke out into open warfare, had a full-scale eruption later that day when Wilt came back from having his hair cut.
    ‘You call that a haircut?’ Eva demanded. ‘It’s far too long.’
    ‘Well, I only asked for a trim. Did you want me to have my hair shaved off and come back looking like a skinhead?’
    ‘Of course not. But mark