A Cry from the Dark Read Online Free PDF

probably wouldn’t notice one way or the other. Mark didn’t. If anyone was making a film on the narcissus myth, Mark would be a natural for the part.
    â€œI’ve been meaning to pop by and make sure you’re still in the land of the living, and I will do, this week or early next. I just haven’t had a minute recently.”
    â€œOh, that’s good,” said Bettina, adding maliciously, “Are the parts beginning to come in?”
    â€œNo, it’s more this personal trainer lark. It’s a soft cop—all perks and no work. Charging around from posh hotels to posh flats and houses, then on to posh gyms. Sounds a drag, doesn’t it? But I suppose that sort of thing’s not your scene, is it, Auntie Betty?”
    â€œIt certainly doesn’t sound like it.”
    â€œYou mentioned parts. I thought you might be able to help there, Auntie B.”
    Bettina left a silence. This was what she had been expecting since she heard his voice.
    He was forced to come out with it explicitly, since she refused to ease the transition. “I hear they’re going to make a film of The Heat of the Land. ”
    â€œ The Heart of the Land. Since it’s set in Armidale the heat is fairly moderate. There is a part for a young man, but he’s quite a lot younger than you.”
    The heroine of her book had a brief and bittersweet romance with the school’s cricket captain. Bettina had portrayed him as a willowy young man perpetually in white flannels. She certainly hadn’t imagined him as a lumbering mass of muscle and self-love, which pretty well summed up her nephew Mark.
    â€œI can look anything from seventeen to forty, Auntie Bet.”
    â€œMaybe. I can mention you to the film company, but that’s all I can do. They’ll make their own decisions. And all the filming is going to take place in Australia.”
    â€œOo-o-oh—really? I thought the interiors would be filmed here.”
    â€œDefinitely not.”
    â€œOf course I want to go back to Australia—naturally I do. But all the action is here at the moment—”
    Being personal something-or-other to people with more money than sense, thought Bettina. She interrupted him.
    â€œWell, you have to make some sacrifices for your Art,” she said. “Or alternatively you could sacrifice your Art for the good life. The loss would be great to Art, but—”
    â€œDon’t be sarky, Auntie B,” said Mark, and she was surprised that he was actually listening. “And another thing. There’s Dad.”
    â€œYour father?”
    â€œHe’s coming over. Should be here in a couple of weeks’ time. That’s if the bargain tickets work out.”
    â€œOh, that will be nice,” said Bettina, genuinely pleased at the prospect of seeing her baby brother again.
    â€œThat was what I was really ringing about,” said Mark, who clearly had had no interest in her well-being and little hope of a part in the film. “I was going to ask a favor of you, Auntie Betty.”
    â€œYe-e-es?”
    â€œI know you don’t like people to stay for too long, and that’s fine—he’ll stay here with me. But I wondered if you could take him around the plays and operas and that sort of cra—thing, just now and again, could you? Save me. I mean, I would do it, but I’m busy most of the time, and I couldn’t afford to lose customers by standing them up. And you know it’s not my thing.”
    â€œYes, I know it’s not your thing, Mark.”
    â€œThat’s beaut, then. What with Dad being a bit of a culture-vulture and you being the same, that suits everyone, doesn’t it?”
    Bettina wondered what sort and degree of a culture-vulture Oliver could have turned out to be, and how he could have produced or nurtured a brainless lump like Mark. Perhaps she had better ring him up and sound him out on what he might like to