Utter Folly by Paul Bassett Davies

Author:Paul Bassett Davies [Bassett Davies, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-26T22:00:00+00:00

Seven

“I went to sleep last night.”

“How very conventional of you.”

“You know what I mean,” James said. “I was waiting for you, but I must have just been exhausted after everything that happened yesterday.”

“Sounds like you needed to sleep, then.”

“But did you come?”

Jessica didn’t say anything and kept walking towards the gates. James skipped around in front of her and turned to face her, walking backwards. She wouldn’t meet his eye, and looked down with a shy smile, which made her appear even more demure than she already did in the simple little flowered summer dress she’d put on to go to church. She was also carrying a light raincoat because, incredibly, a few spots of rain had fallen earlier from an utterly cloudless blue sky. There was no sign of rain now, but the coat, folded neatly over her arm, completed the impression of a well-behaved schoolgirl dressed for a special outing. Daphne Longbourne and Auntie Pru, who were ahead of them, both wore hats, and John Longbourne was in a dark suit. James had done his best, with some slightly shiny black trousers and a shirt that had once been white before it had fallen into bad company with a mixed wash at the launderette.

“You’ve got to tell me,” he said. “Did you come to my room?”

“You’ll never know, will you?”

“That’s not fair. Please tell me.”

He’d woken up at about five, still fully dressed, and hadn’t gone back to sleep. He lay on the bed, tormenting himself with visions of Jessica, wearing a transparent nightdress, or, in some versions, nothing at all, tapping softly at his bedroom door, and then walking away sadly when there was no response.

She still wouldn’t look at him. “Some people might say that what’s not fair is someone asking you to come to their room and then going to sleep.”

“Oh, God. So you did come?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But did you?”

“Like I said, you’ll never know. Look out, you’re going into the bushes.”

James turned around and fell back into step beside her.

“Gangway!” cried a voice from behind them.

Spracky trotted past. She was wearing a large straw bonnet, tied under her chin with a ribbon, and she was pushing a wheelchair.

“Who’s that for?” James said.

“Auntie Pru. She doesn’t actually need it, she can walk for miles. Quite often does. She just likes to be wheeled to church and sit there in it. She says it’s because her bottom’s so bony, and she’s entitled to have a comfy seat at her age.”

As the path curved around through the bushes James saw that ahead of them the others were waiting at the gates. Spracky was patting down some cushions in the wheelchair while Auntie Pru stood by, giving instructions.

A figure emerged from the shrubbery beside the gates. It was Bill Longbourne. He was dressed in smarter versions of the tweed and corduroy clothes that James had first seen him in, and a faded brown Trilby. His moustache looked cleaner and he’d either trimmed or brushed it for the occasion.

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