Sea Change by Francis Rowan Page A

was so pale, so thin that it
could almost be transparent, up towards the tube under his nose.
"Bloody inconvenience, pain in the backside to be blunt, but not,
as much of an inconvenience as dying, so one has to put up with
such things. Alan tells me that you're a bright boy. Not surprised,
if you take after your sister, she's a smart girl. I can see it in
you. You're alive to the world. So many children today, can't say
the same for them."
    The sudden
change in direction caught John unawares, but he never knew how to
respond to praise, so he just shrugged.
    "Don't do that,
you're not French. Nice people, lived there for nearly a decade,
lovely people, but all that shrugging. Alan tells me you've got a
bit of an interest in the local history. Bought a book on folklore
last time you were in? Read up on it much, that kind of thing?"
    John knew right
away that lying was not an option and would lead to him leaving the
house before Alan came back with the tea.
    "No, not a lot.
I mean, I know a little, Greek and Roman stuff I used to read when
I was younger, but I don't know much. My sister's quite into that
sort of thing."
    Charles
snorted. "You mean her shop? Load of tat to sell to credulous
tourists. Not that there's anything wrong with that, how this
village stays alive but there's no poetry in this new-age nonsense,
no tradition behind it, just a mish-mash of badly worded books by
preposterous fraudsters." Charles paused, closed his eyes again,
concentrating on bringing his breathing under control and taking
more oxygen from the tube under his nose.
    John wondered
whether he could do anything, should offer to help, maybe call
Alan, as the old man seemed to have his eyes closed for a long
time. Then they flicked open. "Damn thing. Ah, I thought you'd died
or been waylaid by bandits."
    The door behind
John had opened, and Alan came in carrying a tray with a pot of
tea, two cups and a plate of biscuits.
    "Boring you
yet, is he?" Alan asked John. "You could always dive out of the
window you know, it's just flowerbeds underneath, if it all gets
too unbearable you shouldn't break too many limbs."
    "No Garibaldi,"
Charles said, peering down at the plate.
    "No—I thought
you hated Garibaldi. Always told me that you couldn't stand the
things."
    "Did I? Well,
when you've lived as long as I have and had as much pain and
trouble as I have had—" here Charles glared at Alan to indicate
precisely where such pain and trouble had come from—"you're
entitled to change your mind. Get some Garibaldi next time you go
shopping, please, if it's not too much bother or disruption."
    Alan turned to
leave, raising an eyebrow at John who could tell from the gesture
that what passed between the two men was an extended game, a battle
of wits and a way to show each other than they loved each other
without ever having to suffer the excruciating pain of having to
say just that.
    They sat in
silence for a while, sipping tea and eating the biscuits that to
John's great relief weren't garibaldi, which always made him think
of dead flies pressed into cardboard boxes. There were a dozen
questions that John wanted to ask, but he was conscious of
Charles's poor state of health and was worried that the old man
might tire and the time together end without any of the things that
were important to John having been discussed.
    “So, which book
is it on the local legends that you bought? Dunstone? Parnaby?"
    "Um," John
said, "I can't quite—it's got a red cover..."
    "Ah, Parnaby.
Hmm." Charles's voice made it quite clear what he thought of
Parnaby. "Take it all with a pinch of salt, I'm afraid. Too fond of
the sound of his own voice. Couldn't just tell a tale without
feeling he could improve it in some way. In a book that claims to
be an accurate account, there's no place for it. Dilutes the real
thing, you see, next generation along another writer produces a new
book based on what's he's read in Parnaby, embellishes it a bit
himself and before you know it, the real