The Birdcage Read Online Free PDF Page B

light that pours through the high arched windows which face both north, towards the sea, and across the garth to the south. Michaelgarth is built on the ruins of an old priory and this room used to be the chapel. To Piers it has a special quality that imposes itself on the day-to-day: despite his need to be quick he finds that he must pause for a moment, to acknowledge whatever it is that lives here in the heart of the house.
    His mother is coming into the scullery; he hears her drop her basket with a dull thud on the kitchen table, and he crosses the hall, flinging open the door of the drawing-room. His grandfather, the newspaper fallen across his knees, jerks upright.
    â€˜What is it? What’s up? Where’s the fire?’
    Piers laughs to himself for he always finds this question very funny. The fire is where it always is: in the big marble fireplace. Monty is stretched out on the rug but his tail beats a welcome on the floor and Piers pauses to stroke him before he feels in his pocket and takes out the sticks of chocolate.
    â€˜I bought one each,’ he says confidentially, placing one of the sticks on his grandfather’s knee. ‘Only don’t tell Mummy. I’m not allowed chocolate except on Saturdays. You can have yours later.’
    His grandfather looks at the two small sticks in their shiny blue and silver wrapping, debating whether he should reprimand his small grandson for being deceitful. The grey eyes with their black lashes – just like his father’s – look up at him with trustful glee and David Frayn takes his stick of chocolate with a wink and puts it in his trouser pocket.
    â€˜Very decent of you, old fellow. It’ll go down a treat a bit later.’
    â€˜That’s what I thought.’ Piers frowns. ‘Do you think Mummy might like the other one? We could say that you bought it. She was a bit down in the mouth just now.’
    He likes the phrase ‘down in the mouth’, which is another of his grandfather’s expressions. It is exactly right for his mother’s face when she’s not happy and the corners of her mouth turn down.
    â€˜Was she?’ His grandfather sounds thoughtful; his eyes scan his grandson’s face as he rubs his fingers over his clean-shaven jaw. ‘And why would that be, I wonder?’
    Piers shrugs – or rather his face shrugs: his lips purse and his eyebrows rise up towards his hairline. He rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t know.’ He thinks of something else. ‘We saw Daddy talking to Mrs Cartwright while we were shopping but he couldn’t come back for tea.’ He hooks his elbows over the arm of his grandfather’s chair and slowly levers himself up so that his feet swing and bump against the chair. ‘She said I was just like Daddy.’
    â€˜Helen Cartwright? Pretty girl.’
    â€˜She had a hat made of feathers. I think she’s pretty too, but Mummy says that’s why Mrs Cartwright thinks I’m like Daddy.’
    David Frayn folds up his newspaper; although his suspicions have been proved correct he wishes it were otherwise. He is well aware of his daughter’s jealous tendencies and his uneasiness is growing. Her mother had been of the same disposition and he knows what it is like to live with suspicion and mistrust; she’d poured all her energy into their son. Peter’s passion for Michaelgarth and Exmoor, his wicked love of practical jokes and his unquenchable kindness had held at bay those spectres of jealousy and fear, and when he’d been killed in the war it was as if his mother’s life had ended with his. David doesn’t want history to repeat itself with Marina and Piers. He’s very fond of his son-in-law, who is a chartered surveyor and land agent, and very proud of him. When Felix returned to his flat in Dunster, after the war, he’d taken over the management of several small estates in Somerset, one of which is Michaelgarth. It is