The Old Jest Read Online Free PDF

piano. ‘It has been delightful … thank you …’ She moved slowly towards the door, nodding, smiling at the chairs, the bowls of flowers, the table on which stood or rather pirouetted a bedizened shepherdess. ‘So nice … so kind, au revoir …’
    Once in the garden, she ran down the path and out through the gate in the hedge.
    The gate squealed as she closed it behind her.
    â€˜Traitor,’ she whispered.
    Up the hill smoke drifted from two chimneys, staining the sky: one would be the range in the kitchen, where Bridie would be creaking and humming as she cooked the dinner; the other the newly lighted drawing-room fire, the flames crackling through the structure of sticks and turf.
    As she walked across the field, the anger died inside her.
    â€˜Happy birthday me,’ she said aloud.

8 August
    It has been raining solidly since my birthday, but today the weather seems to be clearing. There are pale streaks of blue in the sky and from time to time sunlight enlivens the flowerbeds for a few moments. The swallows who spend so much of their time rattling around in the eaves just over the head of my bed are swooping and flitting outside the window. They move so fast. A flash of feathers and they are gone, and then moments later breathlessly back again. They are such excited birds. To be alive seems to give them so much pleasure.
    Grandfather has been poorly for the last two days. He has twice fallen out of his chair. He never hurts himself when this happens, as he seems to fall in a completely relaxed and unstruggling way. He then lies helplessly on the floor, and Aunt Mary and I have great trouble in getting him back into his chair. Personally, I think he does it on purpose when he gets bored with his dreaming and singing and scanning the railway line. Aunt Mary just says ‘Tut!’ crossly when I suggest this to her, but I know, I really know, by the look in his eye, that he is getting at us in some way. If he is left safely in bed when he is having one of these little attacks, he cries and moans all day as if he were being tortured. He also refuses to feed himself, and Aunt Mary has to waste her time sitting by his side pushing food into his mouth as a mother does with a naughty child. I hate him when he is like this. He won’t wear his teeth, and mucus drains out of the corners of his eyes, and I despise myself for the violence of the feelings I hold towards him. I could at times happily hold a pillow over his crumbling face. Aunt Mary’s brusqueness is completely obliterated when she is with him. Her capacity for tenderness is amazing. That angers me too. I want him to die before we become damaged by his decay.
    Today, however, the sun will shine again and I will go down the beach to my seagulls and listen to the sea crushing the stones.
    The sun shone. Steam rose cheerfully up from the lawns, and the earth in the flowerbeds became warm again to the touch.
    They were finishing lunch. The tall windows were open and the breeze moved the curtains. The old man’s head drooped forward on his chest. A shaft of sun lay on his pale, almost lifeless hands. Aunt Mary carefully scraped the spoon for one final time around the bowl in her hand and leant towards him.
    â€˜That’s the last little bit, pet. There. You’ve been so good … today so … Bridie will be pleased to see your empty plate. There, pet.’
    She pushed the spoon through his unresisting lips. It had been his own special spoon as a child. His twisted initials, J.D., decorated the handle.
    She put the bowl down on the table and patted his knee. He didn’t respond in any way, just stared down at his hands on the rug. She got up and went to the window.
    â€˜Some people decay,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Some lucky people just drop dead, but others … well … others. That’s the way it is for him. We have to take good care of him. Somewhere inside he