Faul Lines by David Pryce-Jones

Author:David Pryce-Jones
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780985905293
Publisher: Criterion Books
Published: 2016-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

I showed the constable my war office pass and he agreed to let me on to the aerodrome. “But who,” he asked, “is this young lady? Is she your daughter?” Poppy was wearing her W.V. S. [Women’s Voluntary Service] uniform and looked, in fact, about twelve, which made it all the stranger that we should really be going to pick up David, after so many false starts. We waited for an hour in a cautious waiting-room; modern and antiseptic; built to face the wrong way (for security); built for tea and the Sketch as a balance to nerves. Chintz and sycamore. When I’m waiting for something anxiously I can’t talk. I want to be part of the furniture, a bracket for a newspaper. “Talk to me,” Poppy kept saying, and I couldn’t. People rushed in and out, slamming the door. We stood on the grass verge outside the open window, while an engine in the shops made an unbearable noise. At last someone said, “Here comes the little boy,” and David ran round the corner, just as when I last saw him asleep at Montreuil on New Year’s Eve 1939, only a little larger and speaking with a French accent. He buried his head in our arms, not so much shy as recollecting his courage; then took me off, as if nothing had happened, to look at an aeroplane. We came back to London … [sic] and when I think of Bristol, it is I who am shy, who concentrates on the Clifton terraces and the chapter-house – almost, it oddly seems, from laziness. Do other people spend as much of their time avoiding emotions? I live in them so vigorously that they become an imposition, and a kind of wooden silence my refuge. Now, having David, my self-preservation instinct is to read the paper, in order to avoid the wonder of having him in the room, of enjoying him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.