Human Croquet Read Online Free PDF Page B

of father.
    Of course, he could just have been Gordon come home after seven years’ absence with a new young wife and Eliza might never be coming back. But this version of reality was not to our taste. ‘He’s sad, your dad, isn’t he?’ Carmen says, unnaturally poetic. At least he’s not mad or bad. But we’d prefer it if he was glad. ‘Bit of a lad?’ Carmen offers. But no, not really.
    Malcolm Lovat. If I am to have a birthday wish it must be him. He is what I want for birthday and Christmas and best, what I want more than anything in the dark world and wide.
    Even his name hints at romance and kindness (Lovat, not Malcolm). I have known him all my life, the Lovats live on Chestnut Avenue, and he has grown up handsome, tall and fit and with all his limbs in proportion – not as common as you might think amongst the boys of Glebelands Grammar.
    Girls idolize him. He’s the kind of boy you could take home to your mother (if you had one), the kind of boy you could take up to Lover’s Leap and steam up the car – a boy for all seasons in fact. No-one ever mentions Malcolm Lovat without saying what a great future he’s going to have, he’s reading medicine at Guy’s and is home for the Easter holidays at the moment. ‘Following in my father’s footsteps,’ he says with a wry little smile. His father’s a gynaecologist. ‘Perverted’ is Vinny’s verdict on this particular speciality – she has had ‘women’s trouble’ treated by Mr Lovat – ‘what man wants to specialize in sticking his hands inside women? Perverts, that’s what kind.’ I wonder where Charles and I would get if we followed in our father’s footsteps? Lost, presumably.
    Malcolm wants to be a brain surgeon, which seems just as perverted to me; what person in their right minds would want to stick their hands inside other people’s heads?
    Poor Malcolm, his mother is an ogress. Both his parents are so intolerant and snobbish that it seems a wonder they have a son like Malcolm. Perhaps not such a wonder, for Malcolm is adopted. The Lovats were quite old when they adopted him. ‘I don’t think they knew what to do with me when they got me,’ Malcolm says, ‘I didn’t drink gin and I didn’t play bridge.’ He has learnt to do both.
    Unfortunately, he is a prince out of my star. ‘I don’t know though, Iz,’ he says, rather glumly, to me over a shared packet of crisps. ‘Do I really want to be a doctor at all?’ The dreadful thing is, he thinks of me as a friend . He runs a hand through his dark curls and brushes them away from his handsome forehead. ‘You’re a good pal, Iz,’ he sighs. I am his friend, his ‘pal’, his ‘chum’ – more like a tin of dog food than a member of the female sex, certainly not the object of his desire. Too many years of wandering around the streets of trees after him like a large faithful pet have robbed me of female qualities in his eyes.
    I fall back into a fitful morning doze, it’s the weekend and even a birthday isn’t enough to get me out of bed. The possibility of sleep is too precious. We are unquiet sleepers in Arden, we all of us hear the watches of the night being called by screeching owls and howling dogs. ‘Not asleep yet?’ a tousled Gordon enquires with a rueful smile as we encounter each other on the staircase in the middle of the night. ‘Still up?’ Vinny (irritable in hairnet and bed-jacket) asks.
    When I wake up, the sky is no longer still, thin white clouds are racing each other across the window and the wind rattles the glass. Will anything happen to me on my birthday? (Apart from the pricking of the spindle.) I drag myself reluctantly out of bed.
    Of course, I could have spent the weekend with Eunice. ‘How would you like,’ she asked enthusiastically, ‘to come caravanning with us in Cleethorpes? That would be a nice way to spend your birthday.’
    Enthusiastic Eunice is the last person I would have ever chosen as a friend, but of course you don’t