The Folks That Live on the Hill by Kingsley Amis

Author:Kingsley Amis [Amis, Kingsley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, comedy
ISBN: 9780141194301
Google: R2iRvwgWGWMC
Amazon: 0736623817
Publisher: Summit Books
Published: 1990-06-14T18:30:00+00:00

‘Und ein Schiff mit acht Segein

Und mit fünfzig Kanonen

Wird liegen am Kai …’

She had known some German too at the same sort of stage, which was another laugh, even bigger when you thought about it, but she had long forgotten what it was exactly that the ship with eight sails and fifty guns got up to after reaching the quay, though she did remember that at the end the crew asked the girl Jenny who was supposed to be singing the song how many of the people in the town she wanted killed and, speaking not singing the word, she answered, ‘Alle!’

All? Everybody? On the principle that charity began at home if anywhere, what about the old head of the clan? Thanks for asking — fuck the Hon. Iain Menzies Carr-Stewart for a start, and go on fucking him. One of the episodes from the alcoholic part of her history that Fiona remembered without any trouble at all — it was an early one, true — was the speed, thoroughness and irreversibility with which the Hon. lain had ditched her when he found out about her and the bottle, not even the whole bottle, just the beginning of it. Her mother, on the other hand, had just not been able to bear any of it from the start, darlings. Her stepfather managed with a choice of three things to tell her, namely to get out if she was there, to stay away if she was not there, and not to forget that whatever anybody said and never mind the rights and wrongs she was over eighteen wherever she was. Elspeth had gone before any of it had got properly started, and was only any good really to mention to people like Harry and to use as a bit of an excuse or extenuation for ending up a drunken wreck. As for Harry himself, he was good, he was kind, he cared, and more than any of that he actually spent money, and there were more reasons than there was tea in China why he could not have actually so to speak really as it were in point of fact gone as far as literally helping her. Who could? — but who could or no who could, all. ‘Alle!’

The doorbell rang without making her jump, thanks to the start she had made on her third glass of White Nun. To tell the truth it would have been rather fun to have silly old Elspie around to fribble with occasionally and suchlike. Fiona opened the door to reveal the minicab driver. He was really quite something, in the sense that other women might have been looking at him even when sober. Further, he gave no sign of recognising her either directly or from the sort of verbal artist’s impression of her that had presumably been going the rounds among the local companies since very soon after her settling in the district.

‘I’m afraid I’m not quite ready,’ she said to him. ‘Would you

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