The Queen of the Tambourine Read Online Free PDF

words that Barry had uttered. He had asked me where I lived, about my house, how it is decorated, what is in it. When I got to the portrait he said, “If it’s the pupil of Gainsborough I’ve heard about, it’s worth twenty thousand pounds. I could get you that from a man in Epsom.” There’s gypsy blood in Barry—horses, cars, antiques.
    I looked at the face. Just like Henry’s. Narrow like a goat. I walked across to the picture, took it from the wall and peered at it to see if there was a signature. I turned it back to front and felt the splintery, cracked wood across the back. I turned it round again and tried to look into Henry’s eyes. I made the discovery, Joan, that Peabody eyes are not the sort you can look into. Black—currants. I propped the picture on the desk and thought of Epsom.
    The telephone rang. I was slow to answer. Before I answered I turned the picture round. “Hullo?”
    â€œThomas Hopkin.”
    â€œNo, it’s Eliza Peabody.”
    â€œI’m Tom Hopkin.”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œYou don’t know me.”
    â€œThat is so.”
    â€œI’m down the road in a call-box. Just wondered if I might catch you.” I decided, Joan, that this must be some sort of intricate private detective hired by Henry. Then I thought, what could there be to detect? Unless Henry has left me out of some paranoid and uncommunicated jealousy. Of what? Of whom? Barry is not even likely to have ever crossed Henry’s mind and is dying of AIDS .
    Barry, to Henry, would be an unknown entity. “The Common Man.” He would say of course—and believe—that Jesus loves Barry, which would let him, Henry, out. And fancy, I thought, a private detective working on Christmas Day!
    All my life I have felt events to be the result of my own sins. “I have done nothing wrong,” I said aloud. “It is Henry who has left me.”
    Silence. I was about to put down the telephone when it occurred to me: This is not a private detective. It is a burglar. He is probably trying all the numbers in the Street to find who is in and who is out. Christmas Day is the burglars’ birthday. He has found that I am in, and that I am alone.
    â€œThere are a great many people here,” I said, “I am giving a party. I’m afraid I can’t talk any more and I must feed my bull-terriers.”
    â€œI only wanted to drop in some presents,” said Tom Hopkin. “They are from Joan. I have just flown in. Would it be convenient?”
    Well , Joan. Of course I said yes.
    Then I realised what a very silly position I had landed myself in, solitary in the house. I wondered if I might in some way create the atmosphere of a jolly crowd, perhaps a sleepy, post-prandial murmur. I turned up the television very loud and also a cassette recorder and made it play a cheerful medley. The Requiems I laid aside. I shut the kitchen door so that the dogs could be heard but not seen.
    Predictably, when the bell rang they both set up a furious barking and Tom Hopkin, when he stepped in, was met by a considerable impression of suburban Christmas life.
    He stood on the mat, his arms full of parcels. Snowflakes stuck in splashes on his floppy hair and loose splats stuck to his big glasses. “Tom Hopkin,” he said, “British Council. Bangladesh, but that is not the bark of bull-terriers.” He went to the kitchen door and let them both leap at him. “Jack Russell,” he said to Toby, “shut up. Poodle, let go my leg.”
    â€œI’m afraid he won’t. He’s not a bull-terrier but he has bullterrier pretensions. Please keep the parcels from him. He eats paper. He’s Joan’s. I think he is one of her reasons for going to Bangladesh. Oh dear, we’ll never get him back in his basket.” I had to shriek these words.
    â€œBasket,” commanded this man, kicking out, and Toby went and hid under the kitchen table