Camouflage Read Online Free PDF Page A

have gone one way or the other, I could see. I took another look at him, my sister gaping at one of us, then the other. I ran back to my position, not saying anything.
    I sent over Land of Hope and Glory and, before he could recover, The Barber of Seville , followed by the Nutcracker Suite . I had others in a stack at my feet when the streetlights came on, and Mrs Gill began calling in her musical voice, ‘Gor-don.’
    Anyone could see he was not suited for sporting activities. The sloping shoulders, the paleness, even the hang of his arms—uncoordinated. Yet the following night Gordon was in position early, pacing up and down, looking over to our side.
    I waited for it to be almost dark. To my sister I called out, ‘Look at me. See how I do it. If you like, you can have a go later.’
    I began throwing and threw, in quick succession, one musical disc after the other. They were hard to spot in the night sky, that of Course being the idea, their closeness suddenly revealed by a faint hissing near the face or the back of the head. They were lethal. Quick reflexes were necessary. And concentrating hard and working on his technique Gordon took everything I sent at him. He used his feet, swaying from the hips. With each throw of mine the better he became; and so his confidence grew. It wasn’t long before he began in a lackadaisical manner grabbing at the black shapes as they came down at him or past him, managing to pull down in mid-air one in three or four, without saying a word, even after leaping with an arm outstretched, thereby putting pressure right back on me on the other side, sister looking on. Some I tried sending in low or at unexpected angles, anything to catch him off balance.
    My sister had moved to the front gate where my throwing efforts could not be seen, where instead she could observe Gordon facing up to the onrushing discs. For a while the pressure began to get to me; I had to talk to myself. The heads of Mr Gill’s prizewinning roses were severed; another night, a disc I gave too much wrist kept on going above Gordon’s shout and outstretched arm and smashed against the mock louvred shutters Mr Gill had bolted to the wall, showering Gordon with fine-grooved shards. Almost before he could recover I sent a recital of a legendary pianist, forget his name, Jewish, who died just the other day: wide of the mark, wrong grip, it sailed through the open window of the Gills’ lounge room, my sister and I waiting for the crash of all that bone-china which never came. There were moments of ordinariness, moments of poetry. Simplicity, I realised, produced elegance, not only in the throw, in Gordon’s response as well. One night, Melba, collector’s item I’m told, sliced through Mr Limb’s new telephone wires next door which fell over Gordon’s face and shoulders like string. Gordon froze, my sister too; hand went to her mouth. They didn’t have a due about electricity, Gordon and my sister were not mechanically minded. Realising he was not about to be electrocuted Gordon kicked the wires and some of his embarrassment aside and went back to his crouch.
    Engrossed in our separate tasks we hardly spoke, every throw presenting a different set of problems. It changed Gordon, it opened him up. He’d come around to my side early, rubbing his hands as if it was freezing, my sister looking on.
    â€˜One of those records the other night,’ he followed me into the garage, ‘boy, was it funny.’
    I was sorting through the few that were left.
    â€˜You ought to hear Laughing Gas one day. It had the old man rolling on the floor.’
    Along with Little Brown Jug , the Satchmo selections and Sing, Sing, Sing it would have been our father’s. Our mother, I was told, had a singing voice. Always with a grin hovering at the ready our father had a taste for imaginary honky-tonk playing; he made the cutlery jump on the table, sister and I watching. I began