kind. It’s dressed up sex . . .’
‘Dad, if you want to watch the match – ’
‘It says, “You may be presented with a difficult choice and if you continue to be in doubt you should do nothing – let events speak for themselves.” Here’s your
tea.’
‘All right, Mother.’ He took the tea, winked at Gavin and went into the front room. ‘It’ was their horoscopes in the
Mirror
; Mrs Lamb read them every day and
seemed always to know them by heart. They were allowed to wink or smile about them – to tease her very gently in return for seeming to believe them.
‘What about mine then, Mum?’
‘“You will have a quiet, socially rewarding day, but beware of rash impulses that could result in embarrassment.” Going to take your tea up for a nice read, are you?’
‘I thought I’d mow the lawn first.’
She liked the lawn mown within an inch of its life, so this suggestion found favour. While he marched up and down, he wondered anxiously about the rash impulses. Whatever they were, he
determined to beware of them since he could certainly count on the embarrassment. Ordinarily he would, metaphorically speaking, have winked (one did not wink
at
Mrs Lamb), would have
risked a little nudging pat on her shoulder, but the threat of rash impulses froze him. Perhaps it was rash to go to Harry’s party, but if it was, the impulse had been yesterday’s.
The rectangular garden had wallflowers, pink tulips, and forget-me-nots planted in the two beds which contained standard roses of peculiarly fluorescent colours – not in flower yet, but
once they started they went on and on. They were the pride of both his parents: Mr Lamb pruned and fed them with ferocious care; Mrs Lamb sprayed them repeatedly against every known pest. The
wallflowers and forget-me-nots were a concession to him: they really preferred bare, weedless beds symmetrically planted with staked and regimented dahlias and chrysanths. At the far end there was
a small greenhouse where Mr Lamb grew tomatoes and cucumbers, and, outside it, two rows of runner beans behind which was the compost heap. Gavin only had to go there twice with the mowings. When he
had finished, he wondered whether to get a chair and his book to read out of doors, but the rather fitful morning sun had given up, the sky was a pale, dense uniform grey and the neighbour who had
recently embarked upon learning the electric guitar was well away with his explosive and irregular tonic dominant chords. Mowing the lawn had helped to get his lunch down anyway.
He watered his plants, and after wandering round his room picking at books to see what he felt like, took one of his favourite catalogues – of an exhibition he had seen years before in
Paris – on to his bed. It was beautifully produced and he was easily plunged into the lyric composition of early summers, of sunlit waters and orchard greens, and pieces of domestic behaviour
caught with brilliant intimacy. It was the girls he loved: girls brushing out their hair, cutting their toenails, putting on their stockings; cast in languor upon grass, upon chaises-longues, upon
orientally coverletted beds; sitting self-consciously erect upon small severe chairs in a café, one girl sewing the collar on to a flowered dress, one washing cherries at a wooden table, one
reclining in a white basket chair nursing a baby whose head, round and brown like a hazelnut, pushed against her breast. If those girls existed now he would be in love: there was something both
festive and gentle about them whereas he felt that most girls today were as joyless and difficult as Everest – to be conquered by anyone who did not mind discomfort and recognized that they
were there. He let the catalogue lie and closed his eyes . . .
He was walking up a very short, straight drive edged with young poplars towards a white house with green shutters whose door was open. The sun was hot and the house marvellously cool and still,
except for the sound of a
‘Dad, if you want to watch the match – ’
‘It says, “You may be presented with a difficult choice and if you continue to be in doubt you should do nothing – let events speak for themselves.” Here’s your
tea.’
‘All right, Mother.’ He took the tea, winked at Gavin and went into the front room. ‘It’ was their horoscopes in the
Mirror
; Mrs Lamb read them every day and
seemed always to know them by heart. They were allowed to wink or smile about them – to tease her very gently in return for seeming to believe them.
‘What about mine then, Mum?’
‘“You will have a quiet, socially rewarding day, but beware of rash impulses that could result in embarrassment.” Going to take your tea up for a nice read, are you?’
‘I thought I’d mow the lawn first.’
She liked the lawn mown within an inch of its life, so this suggestion found favour. While he marched up and down, he wondered anxiously about the rash impulses. Whatever they were, he
determined to beware of them since he could certainly count on the embarrassment. Ordinarily he would, metaphorically speaking, have winked (one did not wink
at
Mrs Lamb), would have
risked a little nudging pat on her shoulder, but the threat of rash impulses froze him. Perhaps it was rash to go to Harry’s party, but if it was, the impulse had been yesterday’s.
The rectangular garden had wallflowers, pink tulips, and forget-me-nots planted in the two beds which contained standard roses of peculiarly fluorescent colours – not in flower yet, but
once they started they went on and on. They were the pride of both his parents: Mr Lamb pruned and fed them with ferocious care; Mrs Lamb sprayed them repeatedly against every known pest. The
wallflowers and forget-me-nots were a concession to him: they really preferred bare, weedless beds symmetrically planted with staked and regimented dahlias and chrysanths. At the far end there was
a small greenhouse where Mr Lamb grew tomatoes and cucumbers, and, outside it, two rows of runner beans behind which was the compost heap. Gavin only had to go there twice with the mowings. When he
had finished, he wondered whether to get a chair and his book to read out of doors, but the rather fitful morning sun had given up, the sky was a pale, dense uniform grey and the neighbour who had
recently embarked upon learning the electric guitar was well away with his explosive and irregular tonic dominant chords. Mowing the lawn had helped to get his lunch down anyway.
He watered his plants, and after wandering round his room picking at books to see what he felt like, took one of his favourite catalogues – of an exhibition he had seen years before in
Paris – on to his bed. It was beautifully produced and he was easily plunged into the lyric composition of early summers, of sunlit waters and orchard greens, and pieces of domestic behaviour
caught with brilliant intimacy. It was the girls he loved: girls brushing out their hair, cutting their toenails, putting on their stockings; cast in languor upon grass, upon chaises-longues, upon
orientally coverletted beds; sitting self-consciously erect upon small severe chairs in a café, one girl sewing the collar on to a flowered dress, one washing cherries at a wooden table, one
reclining in a white basket chair nursing a baby whose head, round and brown like a hazelnut, pushed against her breast. If those girls existed now he would be in love: there was something both
festive and gentle about them whereas he felt that most girls today were as joyless and difficult as Everest – to be conquered by anyone who did not mind discomfort and recognized that they
were there. He let the catalogue lie and closed his eyes . . .
He was walking up a very short, straight drive edged with young poplars towards a white house with green shutters whose door was open. The sun was hot and the house marvellously cool and still,
except for the sound of a
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