Some Here Among Us Read Online Free PDF

jacket. He saw Race and Chadwick and came over.
    ‘I think that calls for a drink,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind a little anti-war rioting, no less than the next man. But spare me the dialectic.’
    And there was Candy Dabchek as well; she was alone and looking around in all directions. She saw the others and came to join them.
    ‘Where’s Adam?’ said Candy. ‘Where’s Morgan? Where’s FitzGerald?’
    There was a discriminating furrow on her brow, as if those present were all very well, but she was used to the best. Candy’s family was rich. Her father had a chain of ‘fashion’ stores – discount, mainly, in poorer suburbs – and wealth gave her a sense of entitlement. She had thick pale hair and big dark eyes, which sometimes looked alarmed, sometimes accusing. None of her features would have amounted to much on their own but she had decided that she was going to be beautiful and so she was – that was the impression she gave. She was beautiful, and determined, and somewhat sly as well: Griffin had met her one fine day coming out of FitzGerald’s bedroom. It was about eleven in the morning and she was in tears at the time. He comforted her, he made her a cup of tea. FitzGerald had the reputation as the heartless Casanova of the group. Candy always denied later that she had slept with FitzGerald, although she had, and in point of fact she continued to do so occasionally after she became Griffin’s girlfriend. Morgan, who watched closely over his friend, suspected it, but said nothing as he had no evidence. Griffin sensed Morgan’s protective posture but if anything he resented it. He felt their relative positions had reversed. He had a girlfriend now, he had no need of Morgan’s protection. Still they formed a trio, Candy and Adam and Morgan, though at times there was a certain silence in the bonds between them, and Adam’s stutter did not go away. Candy filled in the silence with her chatter. Just then she caught sight of a coloured arch – ALL YOU NEEDIS – coming down the hill among the crowd.
    ‘ There they are,’ she said. ‘Oh, there you are, where on earth did you get to? I was hunting everywhere. What about Fitzgerald, do you think they’ll charge him?’ She chattered on as they left the Cenotaph and walked around to Cable Car Lane to catch the cable-car up to Kelburn again, stopping on the way for fish and chips and then a drink in a pub, leaving behind their placards in a rubbish bin outside the pub like umbrellas in a stand. The cable-cars going up the hill were all crowded with people coming from the demonstration. With lectures cancelled or boycotted, everything looked and felt different. You thought of the stage direction in another part of the wood . When they arrived at Kelburn, someone was playing music across the park and suddenly it was an early winter evening, the sky turning slightly pink. Tolerton had bought some wine in town, and as they came out of the station they turned and went away to the right. That in itself felt – what? – revolutionary. Up until then, any of their group getting off the cable-car at Kelburn automatically turned to the left and went round to the dormitory, or straight across the park to the student cafe, the libraries, lecture rooms. No one ever took the other direction to the botanic gardens at the top of the hill. What was there for them? Flowers, lawns, a wood from which sometimes at night you could hear owls calling. And yet this time and for no clear reason and without even any discussion they turned right and drifted up the hill, past the old observatory and the upper lawn and into the manuka wood above the rose gardens, Tolerton holding a wine bottle by the neck, Candy, Adam in a long paisley scarf, the Gudgeon sisters, Rod Orr, Chadwick and Race, and Morgan bringing up the rear.
    Race had a vague idea that they were under Chadwick’s generalship. Chadwick was from Los Angeles. He was black as well, which added to his authority, though no one