Tim by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online Page A

Old.
    ‘How’d it go, mate?’ he asked his son as they leaned their backs up against a pillar and stared across the sea.
    ‘The grouse, Pop! Mary’s a real nice lady.’
    ‘Mary?’ Ron peered into Tim’s face, startled and concerned.
    ‘Miss Horton. She told me to call her Mary. I was a bit worried, but she said it was all right. It’s all right, isn’t it, Pop?’ he queried anxiously, sensing something unusual in his father’s reaction.
    ‘I dunno, mate. What’s this Miss Horton like?’
    ‘She’s lovely, Pop. She gave me a whole heap of beaut things to eat and showed me all over her house. It’s air conditioned, Pop! Her furniture’s real nice, so’s her carpet, but everything’s grey, so I asked her why she didn’t have anything red around, and she said she’d see what she could do about it.’
    ‘Did she touch you, mate?’
    Tim stared at Ron blankly. ‘Touch me? Gee, I dunno! I suppose she did. She took me by the hand when she was showing me her books.’ He pulled a face. ‘I didn’t like her books, there were too many of them.’
    ‘Is she pretty, mate?’
    ‘Oh, gee, yes! She’s got the most lovely white hair, Pop, just like yours and Mum’s, only whiter. That’s why I didn’t know whether it was all right for me to call her Mary, because you and Mum always tell me it isn’t polite to call old people by their first name.’
    Ron relaxed. ‘Oh!’ He slapped his son playfully on the arm. ‘Struth, you had me worried for a minute there, I tell you. She’s an old girl, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did she pay you like she promised?’
    ‘Yes, it’s here in an envelope. Her name and address is inside. She said I was to give it to you in case you wanted to talk to her. Why would you want to talk to her, Pop? I don’t see why you’d want to talk to her.’
    Ron took the proffered envelope. ‘I don’t want to talk to her, mate. Did youse finish the job?’
    ‘No, she had too much lawn. If it’s all right with you, she wants me to do the front garden next Saturday.’
    There were three crisp, new ten-dollar bills in the envelope; Ron stared at them and at the clear, heavy overtones of authority and education in Mary Horton’s handwriting. Silly young girls or lonely housewives didn’t have handwriting like that, he decided. Thirty quid for a day’s gardening! He put the notes in his own wallet and patted Tim on the back.
    ‘You done good, mate, and you can go back next Saturday and finish her lawn if you want to. In fact, for what she pays you can work for her any time she wants.’
    ‘Gee, Pop, thanks!’ He wiggled his empty glass from side to side suggestively. ‘Can I have another beer?’
    ‘Why can’t you ever learn to drink it slowly, Tim?’
    Tim’s face fell into misery. ‘Oh, gee, I forgot again! I really did mean to drink it slowly, Pop, but it tasted so good I went and forgot.’
    Ron regretted his momentary exasperation immediately. ‘No matter, mate, don’t let it worry you. Go and ask Florrie for a schooner of Old.’
    The beer, extremely potent as Australian beer was, seemed to have no effect on Tim. Some dimwits went crazy if they even smelled grog, Ron puzzled, but Tim could drink his old man under the table and then carry him all the way home, he felt it so little.
    ‘Who is this Mary Horton?’ Es asked that night, after Tim had been packed off to bed.
    ‘Some old geezer out at Artarmon.’
    ‘Tim’s very taken with her, isn’t he?’
    Ron thought of the thirty quid in his wallet and stared at his wife blandly. ‘I suppose so. She’s nice to him, and doing her garden on a Saturday will keep him out of mischief.’
    ‘Free you to skip around the pubs and racetracks with the blokes, you mean,’ Es interpreted with the skill of many years.
    ‘Jesus bloody Christ, Es, what a rotten thing to say to a man!’
    ‘Hah!’ she snorted, putting down her knitting. ‘The truth hurts, don’t it? Did she pay him, eh?’
    ‘A few quid.’
    ‘Which you