Tim by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

from the fern-house, Tim. You can change in my bathroom, then you’ll be able to see if you have everything on properly.’
    The interior of her house, so chaste and austere, fascinated him. He roamed about the grey-toned living room in his bare feet, digging his toes into the deep wool carpet with an expression of near-ecstasy on his face, and stroking the pearl-grey crushed velvet upholstery.
    ‘Gosh, Mary, I love your house!’ he enthused. ‘It all feels so soft and sort of cool!’
    ‘Come and see my library,’ she said, wanting to show him her pride and joy so badly that she took him by the hand.
    But the library did not impress him in the least; it made him frightened and inclined to be tearful. ‘All those books!’ he shuddered, and would not stay even when he saw that his reaction had disappointed her.
    It took her several minutes to coax him out of his odd dread of the library, and she took care not to repeat the mistake by showing him anything else intellectual.
    Once recovered from his initial delight and confusion, he evinced a critical faculty, and took her to task for not having any colour in the house.
    ‘It feels so lovely, Mary, but it’s all the same colour!’ he protested. ‘Why isn’t there any red? I love red!’
    ‘Can you tell me which colour this is?’ she asked, holding up a red silk bookmark.
    ‘It’s red, of course,’ he answered scornfully.
    ‘Then I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised.
    She gave him an envelope with thirty dollars in it, a much higher wage than any labourer could command in Sydney. ‘My address and telephone number are written on a piece of paper inside,’ she instructed him, ‘and I want you to give it to your father when you get home, so that he’ll know where I am and how to get in touch with me. Now don’t forget to give it to him, will you?’
    He gazed at her, hurt. ‘I never forget anything when I’m told properly,’ he said.
    ‘I’m sorry, Tim, I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ said Mary Horton, who had never cared whether what she said hurt anyone. Not that she habitually said hurtful things; but Mary Horton avoided saying hurtful things from motives of tact, diplomacy, and good manners, not because she wanted to avoid giving another being pain.
    She waved him goodbye from her front stoop, after he had refused to let her drive him to the railway station. Once he had gone a few yards down the street she walked to the front gate and leaned over it to watch him until he disappeared around the corner.
    To anyone else in the street watching, he would have seemed an amazingly handsome young man striding along the road at the height of his health and looks, the world his to command. It was like some divine jest, she thought, the kind of joke the Greek immortals had loved to play on their creation, man, when he got conceited or forgot what was owed to them. The gargantuan laughter Tim Melville must provoke!

7
    Ron was at the Seaside as usual, but early for a Saturday. He had loaded up his portable ice chest with beer and gone off to the cricket match clad in shorts, thong sandals, and a shirt left open all the way down to let in the breeze. But Curly and Dave had not shown up, and somehow the pleasure of lying on the grassy hill in the Sydney cricket ground sleeping in the sun was not the same alone. He stuck it for a couple of hours, but the cricket proceeded at its normal snaily pace and the horses he had backed at Warwick Farm had both come in last, so at about three he had packed up his beer chest and radio, and headed for the Seaside with the unerring instinct of a bloodhound. It would never have occurred to him to go home; Es played tennis with the girls on Saturday afternoons, their local Hit and Giggle Club as he called it, and the house would be deserted with Tim working; Dawnie was off somewhere with one of her Quiz Kid boyfriends.
    When Tim turned up a little after four Ron was very pleased to see him, and bought him a schooner of