Perfect Gallows Read Online Free PDF

like the play they’d flip gravel on the stage and watch the actors crawl about picking it up, case it might be diamonds. Actresses, now. They could get diamonds. But not like that.”
    â€œI think that’s what you’re trying with me.”
    â€œDon’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œFlipping gravel on to the stage to see if I’ll crawl. Well, I won’t. I’m going to make my own way, by acting. To the top. I’ve got it in me.”
    â€œHow d’yer know, when you’ve done nothing more than put on a long skirt and simper. Oh, la, Sir Jasper. How d’yer know you’re not a bugger when you’ve never had a woman?”
    â€œI do know. To me, it’s obvious. I’m the only person who can know. In both cases.”
    â€œCocky little bugger. All the answers.”
    â€œI expect they said the same about you, sir.”
    â€œHorse shit. They could’ve carved six of you out of me.”
    â€œI think I’ve got about an inch to grow. I’ll be five-foot-four then.”
    His height used to bother Andrew. Until he was twelve or so he’d invented exercises, such as hanging from the kitchen door lintel with his toes hooked into the handles of two of Mum’s flat irons, to stretch his joints. Then he’d noticed how boys a couple of years older suddenly shot up, and had waited for the magic moment. The moment had come with its odd magic, but not the extra inches. He still did exercises, teaching his body to be fit for the most exhausting roles, but nowadays told himself that his shortness didn’t matter. Part of his power would lie in making the audience not see it. The line of his heroes ran from Garrick to Olivier. Six-foot players had to be hams.
    Uncle Vole sneered. He had an A-one sneer, worth copying.
    â€œKnow what the gents called me at the diggings? ‘Wragges-to-riches’. Meant it as an insult, but when I had this place built I half thought of having it carved on my gateposts. I built this house and no man else, and I did it spite of all the nobs and Holy Joes and snivelling politicians in the world. But you, Mr Andrew Wragge, you’ll never carve that anywhere. You’ll be Wragges-and-Tatters, more like, poncing around in flea-pits till you drink yourself into a pauper’s grave.”
    â€œAs a matter of fact my stage name is Adrian Waring.”
    It was the first time he had ever told anyone the secret, since he had chosen the name three years ago, a sudden but fixed decision, made while Mum was out serving at the NAAFI and he was sitting at her dressing-table trying out mouths with the last of her pre-war lipstick. He was startled to hear his own lips speaking it aloud, and the effect on Uncle Vole was startling too. The old man poked his head forward like a darting terrier. A froth of spittle, purple with port, appeared at the corner of his mouth. He snarled. The sneer a moment ago had been calculated, intended to rile Andrew. The snarl was involuntary, real.
    â€œClear out!” he said. “Clear out and don’t come back. I’m through with you.”
    Andrew pushed back his chair and stood looking down, while the old man huddled himself back round the stove, so close that a smell of scorching cloth prickled the air. Pity. It might have been useful to stay long enough to see him get properly drunk. He wouldn’t have been an ordinary drunk either. There was something extra about him, something rare—personality, energy, rage at being so near the end. Andrew knew he mightn’t be able to watch anything like that again.
    But at the same time he felt triumphant. He’d got exactly what he wanted. He could go home. It was the naming of his secret name that had done the trick.
    He bowed politely.
    â€œThank you for your hospitality, sir,” he said. “I will leave first thing tomorrow.”
    TWO
    The bugle call began in his nightmare and ended with him lying