Bigot Hall Read Online Free PDF Page B

a mini-house, a droplet-lake and a dot-island. We stood up from this diabolical micro-circuit. I had arrived ready for anything but the inconceivable. At what scale were we? Was the Hall a model ending at the perimeter fence? Where was the real me? ‘What level is this?’ I demanded, my voice cracking, and we began the sort of synchronised scream which children can do with such ease. My skull shrieked through my skin, like the Munch painting of that idiot screaming on Hastings pier.
    Bats out of hell, we paddled away from the island, casting fearful looks at the sky.
    When Father found us huddling in a ditch under a tarpaulin sheet he was instantly apprised.
    ‘Oho,’ he said. ‘So you went to the island.’
    ‘Take us to the village, Father,’ I begged. ‘Is there anything outside the fence?’
    He laughed amiably and said he’d just been in the village.
    ‘How did you know we went to the island?’ asked Billy, blowing his nose.
    ‘It’s obvious,’ he said, and I thought he was referring to our shuddering fright. But he said he knew it as soon as he got back and saw a huge hole in the perimeter wall, and a log which appeared to have been snapped in half and tossed aside by a giant.

SKELETON CREW
     
     
    Uncle Burst was no uncle but a tin-eared buffoon who quietly considered our table and food a sacrament to his grandeur. His presence was permanent and no one recalled how it had begun.
    God alone knows what slobbering fiends inhabited the unexplored planet of his head - long silences obscured this aspect of his personality. But on occasion he would look up, his face displaying a wily and distorted power. With the best will in the world we could not ignore Burst’s remarks at these times. His notions were as inconspicuous as underpants on a bayonet.
    ‘This chops of mine,’ he said one day as we were sat in the garden. He rubbed his chin as though considering a shave. ‘Jowls, forehead, eyes - the whole dismal jamboree. Made of pasta, all of it.’
    We sat absolutely still. Even Snapper, who was wont to go bonkers at the sigh of an ant, froze in the act of polishing his gun. There was a pause during which the summer hum approached a deafening pitch.
    ‘Isn’t it a free world?’ Burst shouted suddenly, as if we had spoken. ‘Aren’t I entitled like everyone else?’
    ‘It’s not quite a matter of entitlement,’ said Father carefully. ‘Pasta, you say?’
    ‘Flour and water, yes,’ said Burst curtly.
    Struggling, Father attempted a judicial expression. ‘I’m sure there must be a precedent for this business, Burst,’ he said. ‘What does history teach us –’
    ‘That I’m the cat’s pyjamas,’ stated Burst, and stared at him with a wall-eyed, brutal face.
    ‘He’s due for the laughing academy, that’s what we all know!’ yelled Uncle Snapper, and ran as Burst stood.
    Burst tackled him by the legs, spilling him onto the lawn and yapping like a dog in a cyclone cellar. ‘Shoot him,’ Snapper shrieked, pointing at the rifle.
    ‘No good, Snapper,’ said Father mildly, pouring another scotch. ‘Can’t kill a man who isn’t flesh and blood.’
    That evening Snapper sneaked into Burst’s bedroom with a fork. ‘We’ll soon see who’s made of pasta and who isn’t,’ he said, and woke Burst with his laughter.
    The next morning Snapper was lying tense and motionless in a hammock which I now know to have been an enormous sling, and passing the study I heard Father’s wise voice through the thick oak door. ‘There are certain places, Burst, where pasta is neither needed nor desired, such as in an otherwise authentic salad. Take my good advice sir, and put aside this facial obsession - you are scaring my son and daughter.’
    I did not linger to hear Burst’s response, but he remained bashful and withdrawn for several weeks.
    It was my misfortune to be alone with Burst when he perked up at the dinner table and announced he was beyond analysis. The others were in the hills trying to