The Stars’ Tennis Balls Read Online Free PDF

speech day garb. ‘You go on ahead. I shall join you at the George if I may.'
    ‘Great. Great. That’s great,’ said Ned grinning happily. ‘Okay then. And Rufus, till August, then?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘You
are
coming on Paddy’s school trip?’
    ‘Oh. Yeah,’ said Cade. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’
    ‘I’ll see you in Oban, then. Can’t wait. Right. Okay then. Good.’
    There was a silence in Cade’s study after Ned had backed himself out of the room. As if the sun had been blotted out, thought Ashley with great bitterness.
    That he, Ashley Barson-Garland, should be
patronised
by this brainless, floppy-haired, goody-two-shoed, squeaky-clean, doe-eyed, prefect-perfect, juicy-fruity piece of- He saw it, of course, Ashley saw it quite clearly in Ned’s eyes. The sorrowful apology. The friendly sympathy. Ned was too stupid to know that he knew. If anyone else, anyone else in the school had read his diary, they would have teased him, mobbed him to hell, spread it all over the school. Ashley wasn’t popular, he was fully aware of that. He wasn’t
one of them.
He sounded right, but he wasn’t one of them. He sounded
too
right. These cretinous sons of upper-class broodmares and high-pedigreed stallions, they were loutish and graceless, entirely undeserving of the privilege accorded them. He, Ashley Barson-Garland, stood apart because he wasn’t enough of an oik. Such splendid irony. But, since it was Ned who had stolen a look into his diary, Ashley’s secrets were safe.
    Yet, no secret is ever safe when another has possession of it, Ashley told himself. It was intolerable to imagine his life, any part of his life, having a separate existence inside another person’s head.
    His mind considered the possibility that he had left his bag open beside Ned deliberately. When the message had come that the Headmaster wanted to see him, why had he not taken the bag with him? He was certain that he had never been so lax with his diary before. In the first place he almost never carried it around the school. It was always safely locked up inside the desk in his study. It must be noted too that Biology was the only lesson he took in which he sat next to Ned. Did he therefore
want
Ned to read it? Ashley shook himself out of this spurious cul-de-sac. Cheap psychological guesswork would get him nowhere. More to the point was this question: which pages had Maddstone read? Ned being Ned, Ashley reasoned, he would have started at the beginning. It was impossible that he had got very far. Speed-reading was not one of his accomplishments.
    What would Ned have done next?
Prayed
probably. Ashley wanted to snort at the very idea of it. Yes, Ned would have gone to the chapel, fallen to his knees and prayed for guidance. And what manner of guidance would have been offered by Ned’s shining auburn-haired shampoo-commercial Christ? ‘Go thou and hold Ashley to you as a brother. My son Ashley is frightened and filled with self-hatred. Go thou then and may the kindness and love of God shine upon his countenance and make him whole.’
    Sympathy. Ashley’s whole body tightened. He wanted to bite Ned’s throat open. Wanted to pull the veins and nerves out with his teeth and spit them over the floor. No, that was wrong. That wasn’t it at all. He didn’t want that. That was a scenario that only ended in Ned’s martyrdom. Ashley wanted something far more perfect. He was feeling a new anger that he had some difficulty in identifying at first. It was hatred.
    Cade had finished up the gin. ‘You’re not really going to have dinner with his parents are you?’ he asked.
    ‘Going? Certainly I am going,’ said Ashley sweetly.
    ‘Don’t think he wanted to invite me,’ said Cade. ‘Cunt.’ He banged a fist into the arm of his chair, sending up a puff of dust. ‘I mean, what the fuck did I stand up for? Like he’s a master or something. He acts so fucking
straight.
What a typocritical turd.’
    ‘Typocritical?’ said Ashley. ‘I like