Read A Little Death for Free Online Page B

big body, loud voice, and a loud laugh. Always greeting people, kissing cheeks, and shaking hands. Black hair on his hands, on his wrists. Once I kissed the palm of his hand. I remember to this day how it looked: short fingers and his palm was square. It was warm. He was a superb horseman, completely fearless, and he wanted all his children to be good riders. I enjoyed the lessons on the pony, but Edmund hated them. Father was always shouting at him, ‘What do you think your legs are for? Use them!’ Our pony knew jolly well that Edmund was afraid of it; it used to cart him off to the nearest hedge and stand there eating up all theleaves until the man came to rescue them. And then Father would say, ‘If you can’t use your legs to ride, you can use them to walk,’ and send him back to the house in disgrace. But I loved riding. It was a good way of stealing a march on Nurse, because she was frightened of horses and that was seen as a great weakness in my family, fear of animals or not being sensible about them. Of course, nowadays they’d say it was all to do with sex—you love the horse because you’re too young for a man. And perhaps they’re right. Perhaps I should have stuck with horses. Can’t imagine anyone murdering a horse, can you? Not a
crime passionnel
, at any rate. Unless it came last in the 3.30 at Doncaster with your shirt on it. Anyway, I’ve always preferred car racing.
    We fought in silence for the most part, Nurse and I. She was rough with me, clumsy, putting on my clothes. Tugging, yanking, twisting, cramming, and I would be as uncooperative as I possibly could. Teddy Booth said to me once: ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who can be an irresistible force and an immovable object at the same time.’ He wasn’t trying to get my clothes
on
, of course. Nurse used to brush my hair and wrench it back so hard she turned me into a Chinaman. I used to watch our reflections in the looking glass, fighting each other, and I would feel as if it wasn’t me at all, but a scene I was watching for amusement, like a Punch and Judy show. Oh, yes it is; oh, no, it isn’t.
    She never spoke to me, always to Freddie. ‘We’re going for a walk now, Master Alfred,’ or something like that, so I’d know that it was time to fetch my coat. And really, the day was so much regulated, always the same thing at the same time, breakfast or bath or whatever it was, there didn’t need to be a lot of conversation about it. Freddie was really too young to talk to properly, butwhen Edmund was home from school I would speak to him. I rather got into the way of speaking to people through Edmund—we used to roam around by ourselves and if we went into the village or one of the farms, I’d say, ‘Ask the farmer if we can look at the lambs,’ or whatever it was I wanted to do, and he always would.
    We did go to the village sometimes, but we were very much ‘the big house’. I don’t recall playing with any of the local children or anything like that; I don’t think it occurred to us that there was even that possibility. Or to them, probably. But Edmund knew far more of the villagers than I did. I suppose being a boy he went about more and he was interested in the cricket—there used to be a big cricket match every summer and we’d go, and they’d always give us the best place to sit and bring out lemonade. When Edmund was older—fifteen, sixteen— he played himself, but I never saw him. I’d stopped going out by then, I never went anywhere because my clothes were so queer and I didn’t want people to stare at me.
    Whenever I think of Dennys, it’s in the cricket season. Summer. Even going back to Dennys as we did after so many years, when it was all in ruins, couldn’t destroy that memory. To this day, I can almost feel the heat of the sun and I can see us all, sitting on the grass, laughing. Edmund, Freddie and I, and my two cousins, Roland and Louisa. Uncle Jack’s children. Uncle Jack and my father