The Walking Stick Read Online Free PDF

resultant reduction in
tensions; but this really is most awful nonsense, because nothing can ever abolish a gap of twenty to thirty years. Far more important is a good imagination on the child’s part and a good
memory on the parent’s; and the second is the most obligatory; because a child can only try to imagine what it must be like to be a parent; a parent ought to be able to remember what
it’s like to be a child.
    Erica, in spite of all her forward-thinking ideas, didn’t seem to be awfully good at this. Maybe too much clinical experience had rubbed away the sensitive feelers that enable one human
being to apprehend how another is feeling. She was terribly proud of her other two daughters but was always making gaffes about their love life; and her attitude towards me seemed to vary between
trying to thrust me into personal relationships with outsiders and trying to guard me against them.
    All I really wanted to do was live the life I’d worked out for myself. I hoped I hadn’t got a chip on my shoulder about a comparatively minor disablement; I tried to be realistic
about it; for the rest I was busy and content and just wanted to be left in peace.
    But no one seemed particularly willing to co-operate in this, except perhaps Douglas, my father, who constitutionally favoured any line which required no effort on his part.
    On the next Saturday we all met for supper, Sarah and Arabella, too, and we had hardly got through the grapefruit before Erica was saying she had heard this young man Hartley twice ringing up,
and me telling Minta to tell him I was out.
    So then we all had to discuss him and to discuss whether it was a good thing or not that I should choke him off. Everybody studiously avoided mentioning that this must be the first young man
I’d had for about four years; instead they talked about him . Sarah didn’t know much, except that she had met him at David Hambro’s, and David Hambro had met him through an
antique dealer and had gone to see an exhibition of his at some East End gallery. She said she’d ask David about him next time they met, and I said, For Heaven’s sake, and she said, But
tactfully, of course, ducky, without mentioning your name. And I said, This family is disgusting; it will leave absolutely nothing alone.
    The following week we were pretty busy in Whittington’s, and on the Tuesday I had coffee and a sandwich for lunch and did not slip out until four for a cup of tea. (Whittington’s
office tea is awful.) As I came out into the thundery gloom of Grafton Street a voice said:
    ‘Do you know that the Kingdom of Heaven is on hand?’
    I should have recognized his voice, but just for a moment I hadn’t, and he must have caught the expression on my face.
    He said: ‘Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Only Deborah Dainton, who now turneth a cold fish eye on him who waiteth.’
    I said: ‘What are you doing here? How did you know I should be coming out now?’
    ‘I didn’t. My flat feet were not flat earlier in the day.’
    ‘You don’t mean you’ve been here for – since lunchtime?’
    ‘I came at twelve. But don’t be unduly impressed. It’s no more than I’d do to see Charlton Athletic.’
    I felt very peculiar for a second or two, flattered, angry with myself for feeling flattered, angry with him for making me feel angry with myself, very slightly happier than I’d been two
minutes ago, but still wanting no part in any of it. I turned and walked on, and he walked with me, taking the side that my stick wasn’t.
    ‘I said: ‘You must be— crazy. Don’t you ever work?’
    ‘Constantly. But look at the day. This light is impossible.’
    ‘So you . . . But there are other things you could have . . .’
    ‘Oh, yes. Where are you going? for tea?’
    ‘Yes.’ Somehow from the beginning the conversation had got off on a different level. ‘Why can’t you—’
    ‘What?’
    I was going to say ‘leave me alone’, but the