When I Was Otherwise Read Online Free PDF Page B

can’t just sit at home, night after night, like a Brussels sprout—some can, I can’t, no. It’s also the last bastion of civilization around these parts. Not that it is around these parts, thank God—at least Regent Street still has a bit of dignity to it, a small remnant of the old days, not much. London isn’t what it used to be. No.” She gazed at them in displeasure, as though the charge could be laid squarely at their own door.
    â€œBut what do you do at the club, Daisy?” asked Marsha. “Do you simply sit around and discuss things? That sounds very intellectual.”
    â€œWho said anything about discussing things? Yes, of course we do discuss things; the people there have minds . Some of them. The ones who aren’t just silly asses like everybody else. And what a relief that is: to find people who can talk, who don’t just worry about the laundry and making the beds and what little Johnny did at school today. But one doesn’t have to talk. Most of the time I jump about and play the giddy goat. I don’t suppose you’d recognize me.”
    â€œAre you so different, then?”
    â€œI’m alive —that’s how I’m different. I dance. I sing. I flirt. I do everything . Outrageously. ‘Daisy,’ they shout, ‘our mascot! The crest on our coat of arms! The life and soul of every party!’ ‘What, little me?’ I cry. ‘But, yes, you’re right, I am!’”
    Dan burped, discreetly. “What kind of songs do you sing?”
    â€œAll kinds!”
    â€œI used to have a party piece once,” said Marsha.
    â€œOf course, the one they’re forever asking for—no originality, that’s what I tell ’em!—is ‘Daisy, Daisy’. It’s my theme song. My sort of national anthem.”
    She had pushed herself up from the table as she spoke and now faced her audience like a diva about to lead the promenaders into the final chorus on the final night.
    Her present audience felt more constrained than most of those promenaders; seemed reluctant to take part in quite the full-throated way demanded of them.
    â€œDaisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do!
    I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!
    It won’t be a stylish marriage,
    I can’t afford a carriage,
    But you’ll look sweet
    Upon the seat
    Of a bicycle made for two.”
    Daisy’s voice was gravelly but it contained a certain lilt and she undeniably had stage presence: as she sang she took up appropriate stances, assumed the correct expressions, pirouetted round the furniture and gracefully waved her arms about. The joints of her hands were swollen with arthritis and her legs, despite their look of sturdiness, were really far from steady—quite soon, in fact, she would definitely require a stick—but as she told them now, and told them too on many a subsequent occasion, “There’s life in the old dog yet! Life in the old dog yet!”
    Undoubtedly, though, this was the only way in which she ever used that adjective aloud, in reference to herself.

5
    They settled down into their new way of life. Spring had come. The nearby park was filled with blossom. Daisy acquired a favourite bench. Every day, while the weather held, it was a pleasure to sit and watch the young men and women in their fresh white shorts and sweaters bouncing merrily about on the tennis courts. Gradually she got to know them. There were two in particular to whom she always cried “Good luck!” as they walked past her bench; and although for the first few days they only smiled at her, a little shyly, on the fourth or fifth they actually began to speak. The first one was Homayoun and he was very dark and handsome and he came from Iran—although she preferred to use its real name and refer to it as Persia. The other was called Félix, a tall, blond Swiss boy with a charming smile and proper, muscular thighs. They were studying