The Evil Seed Read Online Free PDF Page B

materialized, seemingly from nowhere, to
investigate the promise of milk. Alice felt the warm, wriggling bodies around
her legs and felt herself relax a little.
    Rogue memories of Joe.
Joe in the upstairs bedroom practising endless riffs on his guitar, frightening
the cats. Joe frowning over a pile of manuscript paper and an overflowing
ashtray. Joe at the head of a peace demonstration carrying a big banner with ‘Bum
the Bomb’. Joe arguing with a policeman, Alice tugging at his arm. Joe rolling
a joint one-handed, Joe frowning over one of Alice’s paintings, saying: ‘The
lines are too weak. It doesn’t stand out at a distance.’
    Alice: ‘It’s perfectly
all right, you Philistine. It’s supposed to look ethereal, like a Rackham.’
    Alice sneaking back to
her studio later that night to change the picture and sharpen the lines.
    Joe playing in his first
band, blind drunk, but never a wrong note.
    The binges; making love
on an unmade bed with dozens of wine bottles and chocolate wrappers and pizza
boxes piled up on the floor. The quarrels, screaming at each other in Joe’s
music-room as Alice found success and Joe didn’t. His jealousy, his sudden
flashes of bitterness at everything: the band which never managed to get a
contract, never having enough money, never having been given a chance. As they
grew older, watching the students come and go, knowing that the whole world
belonged to them, and finally having to accept that he was ten years
older and that a new generation had sprung up beneath him. Youngsters who were
strong and smart and who knew exactly where they were going. People who wore
the right clothes. Who went to see the right bands. And with that realization
came a kind of helplessness and a kind of anger, against the kids, the
government, all the bloodsuckers who were killing him by degrees.
    Alice smiled,
remembering. If only he had known how to stay friends. If only he hadn’t been
so afraid.
    Still, her choice was
made now. The regrets were few. She checked the ice-box. The chocolate
ice-cream was there after all. That would help a lot, she thought.
    Suddenly, the phone
rang, and Alice knew that it was Joe.
    ‘Alice?’ his voice was
breathless, so that she had difficulty placing it. Then the memory locked into
place with a jolt, like changing gears on an old bicycle.
    ‘Joe! How are you?’ She
fought for control; seeing him, then thinking about him, and now hearing his
voice on the phone gave her a strange sensation, something like dizziness, as
if a long-stopped wheel had begun to turn.
    ‘I’m fine.’ His voice
was slightly unsteady, as it sometimes was when he was particularly excited or
angry; Alice, straining over the poor line, could not tell which.
    ‘Still playing the
blues?’ she asked, stalling for time and automatically slipping into the old
pattern of their conversations, that light, brittle humour which masked so much
intensity.
    ‘That’s me, the mean
guitar machine.’
    A pause.
    ‘What about you, Al? I
saw your book. It was pretty good. Kids’ stuff, but still … I always knew you’d
make it, you know. And I saw your exhibition. You’ll be at the RA next time I
look.’ He gave a little laugh which tugged at her heart. ‘I see you still have
that trouble with outlines, though.’
    ‘Flattery gets you
anywhere, Joe.’
    ‘Me, I’ve got a new
band. We call ourselves Fiddle the Dole. We’ve been going for near to a year,
now. Electric folk, covers and original songs. We play the Wheatsheaf every
Saturday. You should come to listen to us some day. We’re good.’ A pause. ‘So
how’re you doing?’
    ‘Fine, Joe. Yes, I’m—’
    ‘Jess told me about— Are
you OK—’
    ‘You talked to my
mother?’ said Alice. ‘When?’
    ‘Hey, relax. I met her
by accident. We were playing the university in Leeds. She said you’d been ill.
She was just trying to find out how you were.
    ‘I wasn’t ill,’ said
Alice flatly. ‘I just went out of circulation for a