Quartet in Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page B

was studying a church noticeboard. It offered nothing but the barest essentials — Holy Communion at eight on Sundays, Matins at eleven, no weekday services — and when he turned the handle of the door he found that it was locked. A pity, but that was the way things were now — it wasn't safe to leave a church open, what with thefts and vandalism With a slight feeling of frustration he turned away and began walking along the road until he reached a side turning which seemed to go in the direction he wanted. Then he read the name of the road and realized that it was where Marcia lived and he walked on quickly. It would be embarrassing to meet her, even to walk past her house, he felt . They were both, in a sense, lonely people but neither would have expected to meet the other outside office hours. Any kind of encounter would fill her with a dismay equal to his. In any case, Edwin always felt that Norman was more Marcia's friend than he was, more her cup of tea if anyone was. Was he, Edwin, then Letty's friend? Well, hardly that . Something in the idea made him smile and he walked away along the common, a tall, smiling figure carrying a raincoat, although it was a warm evening and the sky was cloudless.
     

Four
    W ITH THE COMING of spring, merging into the sunshine of early May, there was a subtle change in the lunchtime occupations of the four in the office. Edwin went on his usual church crawl, for that season of the year was stiff with festivals and the churches in the area had a rich and varied programme to offer, but he also frequented gardening shops and called at travel agents and collected brochures with the possibility of arranging a late holiday, everyone else having booked theirs in January. Norman plucked up his courage to visit the dentist and arrived at the office feeling very sorry for himself, and with a Thermos of soup which was all he could manage for his lunch.
    Marcia forsook the public library and wandered into a shop full of loud music, merchandise from foreign parts and badly finished eastern-style garments for both sexes. She fingered the crude pottery and the garish flimsy blouses and skirts but did not buy anything. The almost deafening pop music confused her and she felt that people were staring at her. She went out into the sunshine, dazed and bewildered. Then she was roused into alertness by the clang of an ambulance bell and she found herself joining a knot of people gathered round a slumped figure on the pavement. Somebody had collapsed with a coronary, a window cleaner had slipped and fallen — the air was full of excited, confused murmurings, but nobody quite knew what had happened Marcia attached herself to two women and tried to find out, but all they could say was, "Poor soul, doesn't he look terrible — what a shock for his wife.' Her thoughts went back to her own stay in hospital and the excitement when an ambulance came in, for she had been in a ground-floor ward very near Casualty. It was rather disappointing now to see the man on the pavement attempting to get up, but the ambulance men restrained him and bundled him in and Marcia, a smile on her lips, went back to the office.
    Norman and Letty both felt the pull of the open air, Norman to take his mind off his teeth, and Letty because she had the slightly obsessive or cranky idea that one ought to get a walk of some kind every day. So they both made their way, separately and unaware of each other, to Lincoln's Inn Fields, the nearest open space to the office.
    Norman gravitated towards the girls playing netball and sat down uneasily. He could not analyse the impulse that had brought him there, an angry little man whose teeth hurt — angry at the older men who, like himself, formed the majority of the spectators round the netball pitch, angry at the semi-nudity of the long-haired boys and girls lying on the grass, angry at the people sitting on seats eating sandwiches or sucking ice lollies and cornets and throwing the remains on