The Centre of the Green Read Online Free PDF

afternoon. Can’t you get one then.”
    So that afternoon Charles brought a coloured picture postcard of the National Gallery, showing part of Trafalgar Square, and sent it to his parents to tell them that he’d be arriving on Saturday morning.
Julian Baker
    Julian Baker sat at his desk in a small office on the third floor of an advertising agency in Mayfair. Pinned to the wall above his head were a number of proofs of past advertisements and a coloured reproduction of Annigoni’s portrait of Princess Margaret, cut from
Woman’s Own
, and decorated with a fine, curling moustache . Julian shared the office with a fellow-copywriter named Hal Patterson, whose double-breasted dark blue jacket hung next to Julian’s own double-breasted dark grey jacket in the closet which took up most of one wall.
    The day was humid, and Julian was sweating. His striped shirt stuck to his back, and his white collar was limp. He said to himself, as he often did, “I really ought to get a deodorant stick. God knows we advertise the bloody things.” One of the two windows in the tiny office could not be opened without disturbing the
tradiscantia
, or Wandering Sailor, which Hal was growing there; he had propped up the broad-based flower-pot which contained it on top of an old box-file, and secured the tendrils to the window-sill with sellotape. An office boy came into the room, and put one copy of
The Confectionery News
and one of
The British Medical Journal
into Julian’s in-tray. “Hi, Ace!” he said.
    “Good morning, Alfred.”
    The office boy picked
The Grocers
’ Gazette from the out-tray , and added it to the pile of magazines he carriedunder one arm. Then he stepped back a pace, and eyed Julian critically. “You’re getting fat, Ace,” he said.
    “I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Ace’ in the office.”
    “I call everybody ‘Ace’, Ace. Hal Patterson doesn’t mind. He likes it. He says it takes him back to Madison Avenue.”
    “Well, sooner or later somebody’s going to complain.”
    “You wouldn’t like that, Ace. I’m a responsibility to you, aren’t I? You shouldn’t have got me this job, you know. I don’t mind if I lose it, you know. I could get twelve quid a week in a factory, you know.”
    “That’s very short-sighted. You ought to think of your career.”
    “In this? Don’t make me laugh. Were you thinking of my career, Ace, when you asked them to take me on?”
    “No. I was trying to help your father. If you worked hard, took an I.P.A. course, studied in the evenings, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go a long way.”
    “In which direction, Ace? What do you know of my ambitions?”
    The telephone rang. A voice said, “Julian? Can you make it?”
    “Oh yes, of course. Sorry I forgot. Just coming.” Julian put down the telephone. “I’m afraid I haven’t time to talk to you,” he said. “I’m due at a meeting.”
    “Think nothing of it, Ace.”
    Julian went to the cupboard to get his jacket. As he put it on, he could feel the weight of the cloth on his back above his wet shirt. Alfred said, “My sister’s going to tell, Ace. She’s got to now, hasn’t she? She’s going to tell our Dad this evening. You’d better stay late at the office, Ace.”
    Julian buttoned the inside button of his jacket, and then the two outer buttons. He felt suddenly cold, but calm. “What do you mean?” he said.
    “Oh, I know, you know.” Alfred left the room, to take his magazines to those next in line for them. Faintly Julian could hear him saying to Simon Purvis next door, “Hi, Ace. Want a look at
Vogue
before it gets to her ladyship ?”, and Simon’s reply, “Of course I do, you wicked little boy. Give it here.”
    But Alfred was not a wicked little boy; Alfred was sixteen, and a very knowing little boy. Alfred was only a year younger than his sister, and his sister was at least old enough to have a child. Why had she told Alfred? But they were fond of each other, those two; they had shared