The Children's Writer Read Online Free PDF Page B

path leading to the right, through more camellias, very dense, towards the back of the house.
    I followed.
    Ahead I heard music and laughter, then Lootie broke through the shrubbery and was gone. Left alone, I plunged on, but stopped, seeing on the lawn before me a crowd in pink and blue, their faces turned towards me, gaping.
    I side-stepped into a clump of camellias, the foliage thick enough to screen me, and hid, watching. The heavy smell of rotting blooms was all about me, their fallen, fleshy petals crushed beneath my nervous feet.
    I eased my collar, suffocating.
    ‘So you’re a fr- fr- freak too?’ someone stuttered in my ear.
    Behind me stood a bloke in his thirties, his hair red and wavy. I recognised him as the gormless money taker at the Redmond Barry theatre. The dill with the cake tin full of coins. ‘What?’ I said, intimidated.
    ‘You’re hiding t- t- too,’ he said.
    This was true, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Not to any old Tom, Dick or Harry, especially one dressed in ablue-and-white striped seersucker blazer. (My mother was very particular about the naming of fabrics: in haberdashery, she would say, ‘That is a nice poplin,’ and hold the bolt up at one end to smooth the cloth through her fingers. So I came to know.) The red-headed man held a straw-yellow boater in his right hand. By the look in his eyes, which were weak, the colour of water, he might have something wrong with him, mental like.
    ‘At least you look as if you belong here,’ I said, making a vertical sweep of his get-up. ‘You’ve got the coat and hat.’
    ‘You’re w- w- welcome to ‘em,’ he said. ‘They go with the h- h- house.’
    ‘Sorry?’ I said.
    ‘I h- hate the house too.’ He hawked up the word hate , rather than said it, wanting to get it out without the stutter, I suppose. The result was horrible, all the same. ‘I hate the whole place, h- hey!’ and he tore at a camellia leaf for good measure.
    ‘So how come you’re here?’ I asked.
    ‘I didn’t c- c- come,’ he said, shredding the stiff leaf.
    ‘Well you’re here, aren’t you?’ I said, the rotten blooms claustrophobic, the proximity of the stutterer making them more so.
    He shrugged off my question, chucking the remains of the leaf away. ‘I live here,’ he said.
    ‘You live here?’ I backed deeper into my camellia.
    ‘I’m Adrian,’ he said.
    ‘Adrian?’
    ‘The gardener, h- hey. The jack of all trades. The Man F- Friday. The Master’s s- s- shadow…’
    ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘That explains it. I saw you at the Redmond Barry theatre, taking the money.’
    He looked at me vacantly, as if not comprehending and I would have escaped, if I could, I would have cut and run, if the stiff green leaves had not engulfed me, if the giggling pink and blue of the crowd had not confronted.
    ‘And hoo- hoo- who are you?’ he asked, as well he might. ‘And how c- c- come you’re hiding t- too?’
    Finding the balls to step out, I declared, as my mother had taught me, ‘I’m Charles Franklin Bloome. Charlie, if you like. And I’m not sure why I’m here…’
    ‘Not s- sure?’ he said, looking at me queer.
    ‘I came with my partner, Alice,’ I said, remembering. ‘She’s a fan. Of Chanteleer’s.’
    ‘And you’re n- n- not?’
    I shrugged. The crushed petals choked, the stiff leaves scratched. I made the goofy face.
    ‘It’s j- j- just that you’re wearing one of his dragon pins,’ he said. ‘A fan pin.’ He touched a gilt pin in his own lapel, then reached out to touch the one that Lootie had given me.
    ‘Ah, that,’ I said, enlightened. ‘Alice put that there. Not me.’
    ‘Who is…?’ he began.
    I looked into the crowd, saying nothing, not wanting this interrogation to continue.
    ‘Your g- girlfriend?’ he said. ‘H- hey?’
    ‘Something like that,’ I said, brushing myself.
    ‘You’re l- lucky,’ he said.
    ‘Sorry?’ I said.
    ‘S- S- Sebastian gets all the g- g- girls. Always has.’
    I had no idea what