Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame Read Free Book Online Page A

came one day to inspect the house, following complaints from the neighbours, had not enough perception to discern the roots of love in the wild untidy blossoming; nor, Grace remembered, had their father; nor had the tidy powdered relatives who came for holidays, sleeping in the front room in a bed with sheets with a vase of dahlias on the dressing-table, sitting on the edge of the kitchen chairs,
    —Oh no Lottie, oh yes Lottie,
looking with horror at the muddled kitchen.
    —Tidy the place up, the ‘Welfare’ man had said sternly.
    —And have all these dogs put to sleep!
    (He meant the stray spaniels who kept having puppies because there was so much new tar on the road that when the dogs went outside they stuck to other dogs.)
    —Can’t you keep the place clean? their father had said to their mother who, shame-faced, replied,
    —Oh Curly it’s the best I can do.
    Meanwhile the relatives returning from their holidays had spread the news through the Northern, the Southern, and even the Australian branches of the family that ‘Lottie was a hopelessly bad manager’.
     
    Staring solemnly the two children flickered around Grace. They wore long white nighties with ragged edges; honey-coloured snot dribbled from their noses, and now and again Anne reached to a roll of blue toilet paper on the mantelpiece, tore a square, and wiped their noses. Grace could not keep her eyes from Sarah and Noel. How beautiful they were! They were waifs with pointed ears and their father’s amber eyes; they were like beggars’ children. Anne explained to Grace that they had stayed up to see ‘Grace-Cleave’ arrive, and now they must go to bed. She surged them towards the door; they whimpered their protest. Grace stared at them, her eyes shining.
    —Do you know, she whispered,—these children are like little illustrations for The Borrowers .
    —I’m not a ’stration, Sarah protested.
    Philip and Anne exchanged glances which Grace could not read and which embarrassed her - had she said something out of place, perhaps the Thirkettles objected to remarks about their children but they were forced to tolerate visitors who couldn’t be expected to understand the plans of intelligent parents?
    Suddenly Noel wanted to be kissed goodnight. He moved towards Grace, half-crawling, half-walking, muttering in Martian language, which Anne translated.
    —He wants to kiss you goodnight.
    Grace kissed him, her face burning.
    —I’m quite used to children, she said defensively, adding
with reckless inaccuracy,—I used to look after children this age.
    Now Sarah, evading her mother’s grasp, ran to Grace pleading, —Let me climb on your knee!
    Timidly Grace looked at Philip and Anne. Anne nodded.
    —Yes, you can climb on Grace’s knee.
    Awkwardly Grace lifted Sarah who bounced restlessly once or twice, then complained,
    —You’ve got no knee. Grace-Cleave’s got no knee.
    Grace blushed with shame at her deficiency.
    Indignant, Sarah slipped from Grace’s arms, went towards Anne and clasped her skirt, hiding her face in it, and then, rubbing her eyes, she was suddenly almost asleep. Moving her gently before her, carrying Noel with a practised encircling arm, Anne went upstairs to put them to bed.
    —I’ll show you your room, Philip said as they went out. —And I’ll show you the study at the top of the house.
    Tired and confused Grace followed him.
     
     
     
     
    She stood alone in the centre of the room, noting its particulars. Philip had explained that it was less Spartan than the room where she would have slept if ‘Dad’ hadn’t been away in Edinburgh. This was ‘Dad’s room’. Rush matting on the floor, a comfortable single bed; one or two pieces of heavy polished furniture; a tray of seed potatoes on the sideboard; two or three shelves of books - bagpipe music; The First War Rifle Brigade ; Lord Montgomery’s Memoirs ; poems by Robert Burns; the Authorised and New versions of the Bible ; stories by Sapper. Framed photographs