Gently 15 - Gently Continental by Alan Hunter

Author:Alan Hunter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2012-10-17T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

AFTER LUNCH THE Great Man is to be seen on the cliffs, wandering lonely there, if not like a cloud, at least like some roving demi-god. The reporters mark him; they would wander with him if they could overcome their shyness, in the manner of disciples following a peripatetic philosopher, to grave his words upon their memory. But shy they are, or perhaps unchosen. They wander apart, below on the beach. He wanders above, aloof, unchallenged, his words unspoken and so un-graved. What does he know, moving so slowly in the fire-blue sky, hidden now by scenting gorse, now marching large on stony hillock, along the crumbling cliffs northward, while all the larks sing? He has been telephoning, this is known, and the calls were trunk calls. To Whitehall? To Grosvenor Square? Rumour stays not the question. But there was matter worth transmitting, and this surely irks the reporters, so that, though shy, still they will not let the Great Man from their sight, and follow, from the common sands, his heavenly motions aloft, his slow, sightless, mindless motions, informed, heavy with news. He has it, they are certain, what they can print in explosive type in the late editions, and they may not, cannot, and on all counts will not, let this seminal figure stray from view.

He wanders, and above the pill-box stops to take a bearing. He looks outwards into a jewel of arching sky and splendid sea. The sun twinkles in a corner and floods the jewel with far blaze and shows illimitably blues strained with gold grey and green. And pressing behind him like firm hands is the gorsey heat of the cliff-top within which the larksong, a trembling spirit, wreathes, to be felt more than heard. And centrally in that jewel (because thus he has placed it, where the heel of the compass ethereally sweeping from north to south shall rest) lies the concrete lump, tilted and burying, hooking its rusty claws savagely, exposing broken surfaces, weathering but obdurate, and moulded surfaces, their purpose lost. All below him lies that lump and in the lump Stody’s theorem. The lump, descended thunderously, had blundered clear of the still-scarred cliff. You cannot drop a pebble on it. You must needs throw the pebble. Neither can you drop a body on it. You must needs throw the body. Throw a body? The theorem requires it: must be thrown to reach the lump: must be picked up, or, if alive, grappled with, and thrown or hurled, say, three yards. A notable feat on a dark night! Yet the theorem requires it. Clooney limp or Clooney kicking, he would need to be heaved three yards. Had Clooney then been inflated with hydrogen? Or was his heaver no mortal man? Had the Devil himself descended on Clooney and whirled him, with supernatural precision, thence? The Great Man perhaps considers the Devil along with another dozen surmises, which cannot help including Brother Fred’s concept of a walking, running or leaping American;

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.