Twelve Drummers Drumming Read Online Free PDF

code. It hasn’t been changed in years. Anyway, Joyce swears she locked the hall after our rehearsal yesterday. We were the last people here.” She glanced over at Charlie to confirm that he wasn’t overhearing her talk about his mother. “I thought the notion was to keep the large hall closed off until Thursday. Mitsuko booked it from today through to the end of next week. Perhaps someone should put up a Keep Out sign.”
    The sound of a chair scraping along a floor came from the back of the room. “You might see to Colonel Northmore,” Julia told him. “He’s in the kitchen with Bumble and your Madrun.”
    “Is something the matter?”
    Julia shrugged. “I think Madrun just brought him in for a cup of tea.”
    “But there’s a tea tent outside.”
    “I know. Perhaps he wants to get away from the drumming—though he’ll have to plug his ears for that. Or perhaps he just wants to glower at me again for suggesting taiko drumming at the May Fayre in the first place. I would never have mentioned the idea to Peter … to Mr. Kinsey—”
    “I didn’t know you had actually done a performance at last year’s Fayre.”
    “No, we didn’t. We weren’t really ready as a group. And with Peter … disappearing … the Fayre last year was rather low-key.” She looked away. “Anyway, the notion seemed to stick. Colm was keen on the idea. Still … I didn’t think it would upset the colonel so.”
    “It’s not his to say yea or nay.”
    “Are we being insensitive, though? I know it’s ridiculous to have this discussion now—”
    “You mustn’t trouble yourself, Julia.”
    “I do understand his position. I really do, but …”
    She left the rest unsaid. Time had marched on. Two generations had matured since the Second World War; memory of the hostilities weakened with each dying veteran. For Tom and Julia, and for Declan, Charlie, and Daniel, too, the war lived only in books and films, on the whole a period of romance and virtue. Colonel Northmore had not had a good war. He had spent three years in a Japanese prison camp, and if the horrific memories had been softened by time’s passage, the bitterness and resentment had not—at least privately.
    “He’s become a bit frail in the last year,” Julia continued in a low voice. “When Alastair and I first arrived in Thornford five years ago, you wouldn’t have known he was in his eighties, even then.” She gestured to the
o-daiko
drum stationed against the wall and raised her voice: “Declan, you and Charlie need to shift that drum.”
    As Tom made his way to the back of the small hall, he could hear the boys grunting with effort as they pulled the heavy drum away from the wall on its trolley. He could also hear Madrun remonstrating with the colonel about something, though he couldn’t tell what the subject was. Then the air was fractured by a kind of amplified whine, the sort that adolescents produce when the universe is proving to be a great disappointment. “Miss,” one of them groaned—Daniel, perhaps; Tom had noted his voice earlier breaking out of its boyhood timbre—“come look.”
    Tom turned to look, too. He saw Julia move to the other side of the drum and watched the muscles in her face suddenly shift.
    “Bloody hell!” She looked his way. “Tom,” she called, “come and look at this. Someone has gone and slashed the drum. Whatever possesses people to do things like this?”
    “Maybe it split by itself,” Charlie—he was identifiable by his unbroken voice—piped up, his pimply face registering a troubled expression. “It was too tight, like.”
    “Charlie, don’t be ridiculous.” Julia’s voice was sharp with exasperation. “Look at it.”
    “What’s the matter?” It was Miranda, on the other side of the drum.
    “There’s a tear in the drum,” Tom replied.
    “ ‘Tear’ is being kind,” Julia responded tartly.
    Tom, Julia, and the three boys stared at the instrument in helpless dismay. Miranda joined them.