Tiger Ragtime Read Online Free PDF

perspiration from their faces with coloured handkerchiefs. Micah left his partner and fell back alongside them.
    ‘Do you think it will take over from the tango?’ he asked.
    ‘Possibly, but I can’t see me adding it to my repertoire,’ Edyth replied.
    ‘Coward.’ He turned to David. ‘Enjoying the carnival?’ David nodded. The beat picked up again, as first one drummer then another and another began pounding their instruments.
    ‘I saw your feet tapping. Come on.’ Judy grabbed David’s hand and pulled him into the circle of dancers. David tried to protest but his voice was drowned by the music, and when he tried to retreat back to the railings, Judy grasped both his hands in hers so he couldn’t escape.
    He glanced around self-consciously. There were onlookers but they appeared to be more interested in chatting to one another than watching the dancers and the people around them were too engrossed in their own enjoyment to care about anyone else. Taking his cue from Judy he tried to follow her steps, and moments later he was waving his arms and leaping with the rest of them, stiffness forgotten, hypnotised by the drumming that seemed to be keyed to his heartbeat.
    The drummers quickened the pace, hitting their instruments louder and louder until they reached a fast-paced crescendo that ended abruptly. Silence reigned, so sudden and absolute it seemed incongruously deafening. David stepped away from Judy and staggered.
    ‘I’m sorry, I should have remembered you’d been ill,’ Judy apologised.
    ‘I’m fine now.’ David only realised he’d snapped when Judy flinched.
    ‘You’re a good dancer,’ she complimented. ‘But I knew that the first time I saw you do the Charleston with Edyth at her sister’s wedding last year.’
    ‘Of course, you were in the band,’ he commented absently, looking around for Edyth. She was still standing talking to Micah. ‘Shall we join the others?’
    ‘If you like, although the Green Swing Band will be playing more conventional dance music in a moment.’
    ‘Harry and Mary are here somewhere. And I promised to keep an eye on my younger brothers and sister …’
    Judy recognised an excuse when she heard one but she had only been trying to be kind to David. She knew from a few things she’d overheard Edyth say to her brother Harry that David’s ‘accident’ hadn’t been entirely straightforward. And from the way David was watching Edyth it was obvious he had a crush on her. ‘Let’s ask Edyth and Mr Holsten if they’ve seen them. If they haven’t, I’ll help you to look for them.’
    ‘Gin and it.’ Aled set the third refill he’d bought Anna in front of her.
    ‘And the last this afternoon, or I’ll be sozzled.’
    ‘Anna Hughes, lose her head for gin?’ he questioned sceptically. ‘I don’t believe it. Remember that bottle we shared the night before I left?’ He pulled his chair close to hers and sipped his cognac.
    ‘We needed it after burying your mother that afternoon. Call me sentimental, but I put up a grave marker – nothing fancy, just a wooden cross with her name and date of death. I wasn’t sure of her date of birth.’
    ‘If ever I knew it, I can’t remember it.’
    She sat back and studied him. ‘Whatever you’ve been doing for the past fifteen years has agreed with you. You’re looking well.’
    ‘Thank you. I could say the same of you.’
    ‘So, what have you been doing?’ she asked directly when he didn’t volunteer any information.
    ‘Growing up, seeing the world, learning a few tricks,’ he replied casually.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Here, there, and everywhere.’
    ‘America by the sound of you.’
    ‘For some of the time.’
    ‘You’re not going to give me any straight answers, are you?’ She took a packet of small cigars from her handbag and opened it.
    ‘Have one of mine, they’re Cuban.’ He slipped his hand inside his coat and pulled out a solid gold cigar case. He pressed the catch and it flew open to reveal a