Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke Read Free Book Online Page A

swung into the silence, he stood restlessly by the dormer window, fingertips tapping out the rhythm at his thigh. He had felt like playing something plangent and modern, but his father was working in earshot, so he’d settled instead for King Oliver blowing free and easy out of the Dreamland Café forty years earlier, with Jimmie Noone’s clarinet syncopating at his side and Lottie Taylor at the piano.
    Watching him, Martin thought about the ancient coin in his friend’s pocket, the centuries impressed on it, the strangeness of time. He glanced away and saw the hollow place left by the weight of Adam’s body on the bed. The music was filling him with longings so indefinable and obscure that he couldn’t tell whether they were for something long since lost and gone or for a future that would always lie just beyond his reach.
    Then Adam turned, frowning still. “Looks like you must have said the right word,” he murmured. “It’s started to snow.”
    But only a light smattering of flakes blew about the moorland sky, and none of it was sticking, so there was no sense of urgency in the air when Grace beat the gong that summoned the men down to lunch
    Hal decided that he wanted a photograph of what was, for him, an important historical moment. As he instructed Martin in the use of his German camera, the big man’s voice rang resolutely local in an accent pitched just east of the Pennine ridge. It contrasted so bluntly with the rest of the family’s polished vowels that for a moment Martin wondered whether it was exaggerated for his own comfort. But this was not, he saw, a man likely to make adjustments to those around him.
    Never having used anything more sophisticated than a Box Brownie before, Martin peered through the viewfinder of this snouted monster, fidgeting after the right focal length while Hal marshalled his family in front of the Christmas tree. Emmanuel Adjouna stood at the centre, a blue-striped tribal smock worn over two sweaters, with one arm at Hal’s shoulder, the other round Grace’s waist. Adam and Marina were at either side. The dogs lay panting at their feet. Conscious of Adam’s discomfiture, and of Marina staring back at him with a haughty glare, Martin pressed the shutter switch. The bulb flashed – history arrested there, moment frozen for ever – then it was time for lunch at the round table in the spacious dining room at High Sugden.
    Hal had been an amateur boxer once, and a swaggering contender’s air still governed even his friendliest approaches. His hand lay big on Martin’s shoulder now as he said, “Come and sit down, lad. You must be half starved after that bike ride.” The others were already laughing at a joke Emmanuel had made, and Martin listened in fascination as they began recollecting anecdotes about past times in Africa.
    From his readings in the
Empire Youth
annual, he knew something about that hot, forested world of Paramount Chiefs and painted mammy wagons and nomadic cattle drovers. But these people had lived in the colony, and it was more intimately
home
to them than England ever would be. Adam and Marina told him stories about Wilhelmina Song, who had been their nanny, and about the family’s solemn steward, Joshua. Recalling close friends, Marina teased Adam about pretty Efwa Nkansa and spoke warmly of Ruth Asibu, who dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Emmanuel brought news of these and other people, whose exploits triggered long, amusing tales from Hal, until Grace put a stop to his flow with orders to carve second helpings off the roast.
    Then she turned to the silent young man across from her. “So tell us something about yourself, Martin. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
    â€œNo,” he said, “there’s only me.”
    â€œSingled out for a special destiny!” Adam darted a wry glance at Marina, “As I sometimes wish I’d been.”
    â€œSo what does