Tim by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

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!
     
     
     
     

Seven
     
    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 came 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 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 Mary 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 gray, 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