Sculptor's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

the stone rolled into the chink of the door and got wedged there. There were double doors with coiled iron springs at the top which the caretaker had put there because women always forgot to shut the doors after them. I heard the springs contract and they sang softly to themselves as they squeezed me and the stone together between the doors and I put my legs together and took tight hold of the stone and tried to roll it but the space got narrower and narrower and I knew that the caretaker’s hand was sliding up the banisters all the time.
    I saw the silver of the stone quite close to my face and I gripped it and pushed and kicked with my legs and all of a sudden it tipped over and rolled several times and under the iron railing and into the air and disappeared.
    Then I could see nothing but bits of fluff, light and airy as down, with small threads of colour here and there. I lay flat on my tummy and the door pinched my neck and everything was quietuntil the stone reached the yard below. And there it exploded like a meteor, it covered the dustbins and the washing and all the steps and windows with silver! It made the whole of 4 Wharf Road look as if it was silver-plated and all the women ran to their windows thinking that war had broken out or doomsday had come! Every door opened and everybody ran up and down the stairs with the caretaker leading and saw how a wild animal had bitten bits out of every step and how a meteor had fallen out of a clear blue sky.
    But I lay squeezed in between the doors and said nothing. I didn’t say anything afterwards either. I never told anyone how close we had come to being rich.

Parties
    S OMETIMES I WAS WOKEN UP in the middle of the night by the most beautiful music there is, balalaika and guitar. Daddy played the balalaika and Cavvy played the guitar. They played together very softly, almost in a whisper, both of them a long way away and then they sounded a little closer in turns so that sometimes it was the guitar that I heard and sometimes the balalaika.
    They were gentle, sad songs about things that go on and on and that nobody can do anything about. Then they became wild and disorderly and Marcus broke his glass. But he never smashed more than one and Daddy made sure that he was always given one of the cheaper sort. Below the ceiling near my bed on the top bunk there was a cloud of grey tobacco smoke, and it made everything more unreal than it was. Perhaps we were out at sea or up in the mountains and I heard them shouting to each other through the cloud and things kept falling over andbehind the violent noises came loud and soft waves of balalaika and guitar music.
    I love Daddy’s parties. They could go on for many nights of waking up and going to sleep again and being rocked by smoke and the music and then suddenly a bellow would strike a chill right down to my toes.
    It’s not worth looking because if you do everything you’ve imagined disappears. It’s always the same. You can look down on them and there they are sitting on the sofa or on chairs or walking slowly up and down the room. Cavvy sits huddled up over his guitar as if he was hiding in it, his bald head floating around like a pale spot in the cloud and he sinks lower and lower. Daddy sits very upright and looks straight ahead. The others doze off from time to time because having a party is very exhausting. But they won’t go home because it’s very important to make an effort to be the last. Daddy generally wins and is last. When all the others are asleep he goes on staring and thinking till morning.
    Mummy doesn’t join in the party. She sees that the oil lamp doesn’t start smoking in the bedroom. The bedroom is our only real room apart from the kitchen, I mean it has a door. But there is no stove in it. So the oil lamp must burn all night. If the door is opened the smoke gets into the bedroom and Per Olov gets asthma. Parties have been much more difficult since I got a brother but