The Intimates Read Online Free PDF Page B

invisible patient. “Here you are, looking rather handsome, but a little short.” My sculpture has a Kenneth Williams-like look of camp disgust on his face. “I think you're being aloof in this one,” Georgina says, walking towards the statue of herself.
    “I don't have a profession I could be attached to, hence the lack of props,” I offer. The model of Georgina stands on the end, clutching what appears to be a wilting bunch of flowers under one arm, holding one out rather desperately. There appears to be a rather pleading look upon her face.
    “There I am, touting whatever wares I can give away. Look, there's the summer house.”
    At the end of the lawn, only just visible amongst the vegetation covering its decaying façade, is the summer house. Georgina steps towards it, abandoning her heels in the spectral grass that's illuminated by the light from the house. “I can't believe it's still here,” she says, moving to the swings next to it, which I remember her favouring during summer parties. I join her as she slips into one of the seats.
    “Do you remember us being unsure about Francoise at first, until we had that party here during the first year?” I ask her.
    “I was more uncertain of her than anyone. But at that party she seemed to treat us as though we were the people we one day would be, rather than the snotty students we actually were. There was something insightful about her, and it made me warm to her a little more.”
    “I remember her offering expensive bottles of champagne, and us spilling them onto one another on the lawn as we didn't know how to open them. I also remember you and I accidently smashing one of her windows during a game of tennis. But she just waved her hand nonchalantly and said, ‘Try to take out one of the top ones. That would really impress me.'”
    “Yes – I remember that. All of us lounging about on the grass in our tight fitting school sports gear, drinking champagne from teacups. And the whole time, me looking so suspiciously at her.”
    “I remember that ,” I laugh.
    “I felt she lacked the history the rest of us had. And then I realised during the party that this summer house was an exact copy of the one your mother had made for us as children. It seemed a sign – that perhaps we should allow her into our gang.”
    “I remember my mum designing that summer house on a napkin during a garden party, when she couldn't bear to speak to any of the other adults there. I was sitting on her lap and telling her to add more turrets to it, and I remember thinking that my father would never allow it to be made. I was wrong – but then she always was the only one able to convince him to do anything.”
    “Your mum was the only parent who would ever play with us children. You remember that time we all went away to the lakes, don't you? Your family, my family, Carina and James' family. Your mum was the only one who spent more time with the children than discussing politics with the elders.”
    “I don't blame her for wanting to stay away from them that summer.”
    “I know. That was the summer they all decided to take a firm hand with our lives, wasn't it? We didn't know at the time what all those discussions were about, but when we went back to our usual lives we soon found out. They'd agreed to make all of us into child prodigies. I think those discussions cost each of us a rather large portion of our childhoods.”
    “My mum was the only one who voiced dissent at that agreement. Who said that it was ridiculous to expect little children to be brilliant when they were only just finding their feet. And after that the other parents shut her out. She was so different to all of the other parents there, she was a mother . When my father used to rage at me for being lost in a daydream, she used to tell him that it was a good thing, a sign that I would be as creative as him. But he used to hate hearing that. He always said a man should be focused, pragmatic. That she was far too