Sprout Mask Replica Read Online Free PDF Page B

sued by The
White Star Line. I’d rather not go into it, if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Not in
the least. Now take a seat.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Anywhere
you like, there’s only the ground.’
    Norman
took a seat on the ground. Uncle Brian took another.
    ‘Would
you mind taking your seat just a little further away?’ Norman asked. ‘No
offence meant.’
    ‘None
taken.’ Uncle re-seated himself and crossed his legs.
    ‘Straw
shoes,’ observed Norman.
    ‘I
knitted them myself. Now are you sitting comfortably?’
    ‘Not
really, no, but begin anyway.
    ‘So I
shall.’ And Uncle Brian began. ‘It was all to do with the motorbike.’
    Norman
groaned. ‘I think I must be off,’ said he.
    ‘No,
listen. I was in the hospital, in one of the soft rooms, and I was wearing a
long-sleeved-shirt affair that did up at the back.’
    ‘A
strait-jacket?’ Norman suggested.
    ‘Yes,
all right, it was a strait-jacket. And I was lying on the soft floor and
looking up at this single barred window, and all became suddenly clear — the
science of things and where the world has gone wrong.
    ‘Indeed?’
said Norman, shifting uneasily.
    ‘Iron.
The bars were iron and the bars put me in mind of the motorbike. Bars. Handle bars. And I thought how much ill luck that motorbike had brought me and all
became suddenly clear.’
    ‘Go on,’
said Norman.
    ‘It is
my belief,’ said Uncle Brian, ‘well, it is more than just a belief, it
is my utter conviction that everything has a resonance, or frequency, everything. That’s matter and thought and good and evil and good luck and bad luck and
everything. And my utter conviction is that metal is capable of absorbing good
luck or bad luck, absorbing it and then discharging it.’
    ‘Like
batteries, said Norman.
    ‘A bit
like batteries,’ said Uncle Brian.
    ‘But
good luck and bad luck? I don’t see how.’
    ‘Then
allow me to explain. Think about what metal is used for. There’re a lot of good
things, but there’re a lot of bad things, bullets and missiles, bayonets and
bombs. Go back in history. Imagine, say, one thousand years ago. Some iron ore
is mined and a blacksmith forges it into a sword. At this time the metal is
quite healthy.’
    ‘Healthy?’
asked Norman.
    ‘Let’s
say uncontaminated.’
    ‘All
right,’ said Norman. ‘Let’s say that.’
    ‘It’s
uncontaminated.’
    ‘Well
said,’ said Norman.
    ‘Be
quiet,’ said my uncle.
    ‘I’m
sorry.’
    ‘There
is this iron sword. And a soldier gets hold of it and he goes into battle and
it’s hack hack, stab, thrust, slice, stab, disembowel, decapitate, chop,
mutilate, gouge— ‘Steady on,’ said Norman. ‘I get the picture.’
    ‘Right,
so now the iron of the sword is contaminated, it has absorbed this horror, this
ill luck. It now resonates with it. It oozes with it.’
    Norman
shrugged. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely.’ Uncle Brian scowled through
the gloom. ‘The iron has absorbed the unpleasantness. It is contaminated. Now,
let’s say the sword is later broken. It’s melted down again, becomes a bit of a
farmer’s plough.’
    ‘And
they shall beat their swords into plough-shares,’ said Norman, almost quoting
scripture.
    ‘So the
farmer gets the plough, but what has he got? I’ll tell you what he’s got, he’s
got an unlucky plough. He ploughs his fields and his crops fail. His crops
fail, so he goes bust and he sells his plough.’
    ‘And
the blacksmith makes another sword out of it.’
    ‘Wrong,’
said Uncle Brian.
    ‘Wrong?’
asked Norman.
    ‘Wrong.
This time he makes an axe.
    ‘Are
you just making this up as you go along, Brian?’ Uncle Brian shook his head,
releasing a cloud of dust that whirled as golden motes within a shaft of light.
‘I’ve given this much thought. Our lump of contaminated metal travels on
through history. Spearhead, cannonball, bit of a gun barrel, and when it’s not
these it’s something else, passing on its badness to poor unsuspecting folk.
The