The Backward Shadow by Lynne Reid Banks Page A

homework.
    â€˜Who’s he?.’ asked Henry unwarily.
    â€˜â€œHe” is a village in Kent,’ said Dottie. ‘It’s full of antique shops. Super ones—I drove out there the other day. It’s a lot further from London than this, but people flock there to buy antiques.’
    â€˜Dealers.’
    â€˜Not only.
And
it has a modern fancy-goods shop, which the locals now go to—thriving. It’s all imported stuff there, too. Ours would be local products, cheaper,
nicer
. And think—we’d be helping to prevent local crafts from dying out. I read somewhere that there’s hardly anybody left who knows how to make real rocking-horses any more.’
    â€˜What about all those ones in toy-shops?’
    â€˜Factory made,’ said Dottie scornfully, as if they were somehow fakes.
    â€˜And very nice too,’ said Henry unexpectedly. ‘I hope you’re not going to turn your nose up at everything that hasn’t been turned out by some doddering old bugger sitting on a sunny bench whittling away with a bowie-knife.’ I snorted into my brandy and received a frosty look from Dottie.
    â€˜What’s wrong with that?’ she asked him.
    â€˜Everything. I’ve no objection to a few bits of handicrafts dotted around the place, but the main bulk of the stock’s obviously got to be manufactured. I may as well tell you,’ he went on, now warming up—it seemed to be a side effect of the glasses—‘that if I go into this—
if
, I said—I’m going into it as an investment. I got this bit of money by working damn hard for it and there’s no more where that came from; I’m not planning to chuck it away on any airy-fairy artsy-craftsy nonsense. I’ll have another of those,’ he said to me, passing his glass.
    â€˜Help yourself,’ I said admiringly, passing him his bottle. Hedid so, liberally, while Dottie gazed at him with totally new eyes.
    â€˜I think I’ll have another one too,’ she said faintly.
    â€˜You shouldn’t drink so much,’ he said.
    Dottie was now flabbergasted. ‘Who says so?’ she asked dangerously.
    â€˜I do. It’s not womanly.’
    â€˜Don’t talk cock,’ said Dottie distinctly.
    This shocked him into temporary silence. Dottie reached for the brandy and deliberately poured herself a fair old tot. I couldn’t help finding all this by-play very amusing, and was watching it with a faintly maternal smile when Henry suddenly turned the full force of his new-found belligerency on to me.
    â€˜And what about you?’ he said. ‘You’re keeping dead quiet, I notice. What’s your contribution to all this going to be?’
    â€˜I don’t really know,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Work, I should think. You know, nothing skilled—just black-work. There’s bound to be some of that, isn’t there?’
    â€˜There’s black-work behind every success,’ said Henry tersely. ‘I know. I’ve done some.’ Clue! But it didn’t lead to anything. It seemed Henry was an early retirer, because although it was only just on midnight he suddenly jumped up and said, ‘Here, it’s late! I want to get up early tomorrow and I must get my sleep. Can you show me my bed?’
    â€˜That’s it you’ve been sitting on,’ I said.
    â€˜Oh, well, that’s fine,’ he said, and stood rather awkwardly waiting for us to take ourselves off. I brought him sheets and blankets and showed him the downstairs loo and then Dottie and I went up to my room feeling rather ousted; if we’d been alone we’d have undoubtedly sat talking for another couple of hours at least.
    â€˜There’s more to that one than I thought,’ said Dottie rather grimly as we closed the door of David’s room behind us.
    â€˜Who, David?’ I asked wickedly.
    â€˜No. ’Ennery.’
    â€˜Did you think he was just