Other People Read Online Free PDF Page A

stomping on it with her right foot. Her shoe, Mary noticed, was grotesquely enlarged, sporting a brick-like extension on its sole—perhaps for this very purpose.
    'That's my hand you're treading on, Mother,' the man pointed out. 'Get her by the hair.'
    'Bloody Ada. Give us a hand then,' the woman said to Mary. 'Gavin! Gavin!'
    Before Mary had time to comply with such a doubtful request, Gavin strolled down the stairs and sighingly extricated the people below. Mary watched this spirited reunion with a feeling of provisional panic. (She knew the streets were full of traps and pits and nets ...) It made no sense to her, but perhaps it did to them.

    So it proved.
    Very soon Sharon and her Mum and Dad were squabbling companionably in the comfort of the lounge, a cramped inner chamber whose prisms were much too various for Mary to begin to break them down with her eyes. Time passed—lots of it passed. Far from demanding an explanation of her presence, or ignoring her altogether, Mr and Mrs Botham appealed constantly to Mary for corroboration and support in their cheerful denunciations of their daughter. Mary didn't know why she was expected to know anything that they didn't know already. And although she was quite reassured by the way they kept calling her Mary, she couldn't help wondering what they wan ted from her or what they were using her for. I must be pretty amazing, she thought, a girl with bare feet who has lost her mind. But they didn't seem to think so at all. Either this was because they were related in some way (a fact indignantly emphasized with phrases like 'his own daughter' and 'her own father' and 'your own mother'), or else everybody was even queerer than Sharon had let on.
    Yet how dismal if this was all there was. She wouldn't admit that it could be so. Gavin sat beside her. Throughout he had been marked by his own air of cool exemption, and he was without that aura, that drift of lost time. Mary was particularly impressed by his eyes. Apart from their abundance of colour and light, they seemed to know things that nobody else's eyes had so far known. They knew things not contained here.
    He turned to her and said, 'Are you one of them too?'
    'One of what?' said Mary.
    'Another lush-artist.' His eyes flicked towards the other three. 'They're at it all the time,' he said. They never know what the hell's going on.'
    'Do you?'
    'Do I what?'
    '... Know what's going on?'
    'Now if you'll excuse us,' said Sharon loudly, 'I think what my friend Mary would like is a nice hot bath.'
    'Yes of course she would, the poor little thing,' said Mrs Botham. 'However did she get like that?'
    'Oh,' said Sharon, 'she just had a little accident.'
    As soon as they were safely locked in with the bathroom's porcelain and steel, Sharon threw open a cupboard and started rummaging inside it. She did this with the same edge of frenzy that she had shown when looking for money in Mary's bag. And sure enough she met with the same reward.
    'Now you're talking,' said Sharon, uncapping a brown bottle and drinking from it freely.
    'Gavin—what's he like?'
    'Gavin? You can forget him. He's queer. Can't you tell? You see all that shit on his eyes?'
    'Yes I see,' said Mary, giving up hope for the time being.
    'God he's handsome though. Now my girl. We don't really want a proper bath, do we. Do we? We'll just give you a nice stand-up wash, you know, just do your underarms and your love-pot. Mind your legs. Because they'll be opening soon, won't they?' she added ominously. 'Pull it over your head. That's it. Now let's have a little think. You can have my white boots for a start. What size are you? And Mum's red crimplene'll be nice on you. Bit mini on you, mind, but there's no harm in that, is there? Eh? Sorry, does that tickle? I'm awful, I am. I am, I know. Lift up your arms. Mm, you can have my white polo-neck, show off your little titties. You'll knock them dead, girl.' She went away but she soon came back again. 'You know, Mary—sit down