A Tree on Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

assignments as a holiday from the regular chore of reviewing. Not that Lincolnshire could be classed as vacation land at this or any other time of the year. What else could one do but become famous if one had been stuck in it for twenty years? Either that, or go mad, if you had anything about you, as Handley presumably had – though we’ll see about that.
    They went into the hall. Where a portrait of the Queen had stood when he was poor, a framed photo of Mao Tse Tung hung now that he was, by comparison, rich. Handley, though tall, had a slight stoop at the shoulder, as if he had walked great distances at some time in his life. He also, Jones noted, had the faintest beginnings of a paunch, not uncommon in a man past forty, a painter who had had half a year of fame with which to glut himself. But Jones found the atmosphere bleak, and was glad when they descended into the large warm kitchen, where Enid passed them black coffee in Denbigh-ware bowls, and thick slices of white bread and butter on wooden plates. Jones thought there was a certain austerity about the house, though nothing that an extended visit to Heal’s wouldn’t fix.
    â€˜What’s to be the tone of your article?’ Handley said, fastening the neck of his collarless shirt. ‘I’m perished. Still, we’ll have the central heating man in next week, then we can start to live.’
    â€˜Don’t you think central heating makes people soft?’Jones said.
    â€˜You mean like the Russians?’ Handley snapped. ‘I’ve nothing against it.’
    Jones was glad of the coffee. The uptilted bowl almost hid his small mouth, and wide all-knowing eyes, brown curly hair coiled aggressively above. ‘Much to do with painting?’ Handley went on.
    â€˜It’s more of a profile – painting, of course, but a general sort of article, something very respectable on you as a man, to explain your painting.’
    â€˜High in tone, low in intent. That sort of thing?’
    â€˜You’re mixing us up with another paper,’ Jones laughed.
    â€˜I’ll tell you when I’ve seen it.’
    â€˜What newspapers do you take?’
    â€˜I don’t. I pick one up once a month, just to make sure I didn’t need to.’
    â€˜Don’t you find yourself awfully cut off?’
    â€˜From my painting?’
    Enid filled his coffee-bowl without asking, and he absentmindedly helped himself to another slab of bread and butter. ‘London, for example?’
    Handley reached for toothpicks. ‘Is this the interview already, or are we just chatting?’
    â€˜Whatever you like,’ Jones said, managing a smile. An au pair girl came into the room, all black ringlets and bosom, a sallow Florentine face at the stove putting on hot water for more coffee. She must be dying in this dead-end, Jones thought, though from what people in the pub said she mightn’t be as bored as she looked. Probably just tired.
    â€˜Whatever I like gives me a crick in the diaphragm,’ Handley said, ‘so we might as well get it over with.’
    Enid was cutting vegetables at the other end of the table: ‘You could at least be polite now he’s here.’
    â€˜I don’t need your advice.’ Albert said. ‘It’s taking me all my time not to choke. Just give me another pint of coffee and shut up.’
    â€˜You encourage these people, then insult them, go on as if they were your mother and father or something. They’ve got to live. Everybody has their work. You ought to control your craven emotions a bit. I know you got out of bed a bit sudden, but it’s no use taking it out on him.’
    Jones shrank, but soon it was plain that the more Enid spoke the more affable Handley became. ‘She doesn’t mean to insult you!’ he said.
    Her face went cold and grey, but kept its remarkable beauty. Who wouldn’t become famous living with such a highly passionate handsome woman,