No Wings to Fly by Jess Foley Page B

‘In Amsterdam Where the Tulips Grow’. Lily lowered her eyes from Joel’s gaze and looked down again at the sketch. After a moment she turned thepages back, looking once more at the sketches she had seen. There was the one of the young woman, Simone.
    ‘She really is very pretty,’ Lily said, ‘and very elegant too.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Joel said. ‘Elegant indeed.’
    ‘And you say she’s a cousin of yours.’
    ‘Second cousin, yes.’ He paused. ‘I think there were expectations that she’d become even closer in the family.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘There were hopes – between my father and her parents, that she and my brother might eventually marry.’
    ‘And it’s not going to happen?’
    ‘No, I wouldn’t think so. The idea was just in our parents’ heads. I guess they rather harboured a wish of the families becoming even closer. Cementing the business ties, and the blood ties, and their very strong friendship.’
    Lily nodded, and looked down at the drawing again. ‘Well, if your brother did fall in love with her, I could understand it. She’s really pretty.’
    Suddenly a dog came bounding, leaping between them, so that Lily sat back with a little exclamation of surprise. The dog, a golden retriever, dashed on, a young boy in pursuit. Lily and Joel followed them with their gaze for a moment, then Lily glanced further off and said, ‘The music – it’s stopped. Ah – shame.’
    Joel took his watch from his waistcoat pocket, and said, ‘It’s after five. They’ve finished for now I should reckon.’
    A gentle commotion had started up some little distance from the bandstand, and Joel said, looking over, ‘Something’s going on, though.’ And then, a moment later: ‘It’s Punch and Judy, look.’
    Lily turned and looked over and saw that a little crowd – many children among them – had gathered in front of a small booth with cheap-looking crimson and gold hangings.
    ‘We should go and have a look,’ Joel said. ‘What d’you think?’
    ‘Oh, yes, I think so.’
    They stood, picking up their things, and made their way across the grass to the crowd of adults and children gathered before the booth, and there Joel once more laid down his jacket for Lily to sit upon. He sat down beside her. The show was about to begin, and the air around them was filled with the murmur of excited, expectant children. The puppeteer appeared, a wiry, round-shouldered, shabby-looking man who went around to the back of the small booth and quickly disappeared from view. Another few minutes and the show began.
    Lily was almost as caught up in the melodrama as the children who sat open-mouthed and wide-eyed, all of them spellbound, and shocked, but fascinated by the hook-nosed, hunchbacked Mr Punch who, in his jester’s motley, carried out his outrageous acts, dealing with a crocodile, a dog, a doctor and other challenges, each of his triumphs met with his famous cry of, ‘That’s the way to do it!’ They watched as he strangled his baby, then bludgeoned his wife Judy to death; were horrified as he tossed their bodies out into the street and then fled from the arms of the law. And how shocking it was that he got away with his dreadful deeds scot-free – how shocking and delightful for every member of the crowd.
    The instant the show was over, and while the applause was still ringing out, the puppeteer’s assistant came among the crowd with his hat held out, and pennies and halfpennies and farthings were dropped into it. The crowd began then to disperse. As Lily and Joel rose, a child walked by eating from a piece of sausage wrapped in paper. Joel said to Lily, ‘Did you eat luncheon today?’
    ‘Yes. I had a little. Not much. I wasn’t hungry.’
    ‘Would you like something now? Would you like to go for some tea and a piece of cake?’
    ‘Well – certainly some tea or coffee would be nice.’
    He gestured off. ‘There’s a coffee house on the other side of the park.’
    ‘Oh, yes, but – oh,