Read England Made Me for Free Online Page A

ship floated on a still lake flecked with cigarette-cartons. A flower-lined path led in spirals to a little platform where two men in white overalls played chess against all comers at half a crown a game. Wherever you moved, through pink or green courtyards, through carefully contrived darknesses, you heard, beneath the music and the firing, the sizzling of the great concealed lights and saw the moths flock past to shrivel against the burning concave glasses.
    Up into the light, down into the dark the switchback car; in an obscure booth a living fountain with pale-green skin and turban, water spurting out of scarlet stigmata on palms and feet; the cells of fat women, fortune-tellers, lion-tamers; the moths trooping by, like flakes of ash after a fire, going in one direction, not drawn from their course by the dim globes burning in the smaller booths.
    Up above the roofs the switchback car; a rocket burst in mid-air, crowding the darkness with falling yellow fragments; the ragged squad loaded and fired.
    â€˜You are too drunk to dance,’ Kate said.
    â€˜Listen,’ Anthony said, ‘one more drink and I’ll take on the world at anything you like. Throwing rings. You’ve never seen me throw rings.’
    Coloured ping-pong balls danced up and down on a column of water.
    â€˜Would you like a doll?’ Anthony said, ‘or a glass vase? I’ll get you anything you like to name. What do I have to do, anyway?’
    â€˜Come along and throw a ring. You know you can’t shoot. You get nothing unless you hit five balls in five shots. You never could hit a target when you were at school.’
    â€˜I’ve learned a thing or two since then.’ He picked up one of the pistols which lay on the counter of the booth and tried to judge the sights. ‘Be a sport, Kate,’ he implored her, ‘and pay for me.’ He was excited, he felt the weight, he swung it in his hand. ‘You know, Kate,’ he said, ‘I’d like a job with guns. Instructor to a school or something of the sort.’
    â€˜But, Tony,’ she protested, ‘you’ve never been able to hit a thing.’ She opened her bag, but before she could find her money, he had fired. She looked up and saw a yellow ball stagger on the pinnacle of water.
    â€˜What luck,’ she cried. He shook his head, too serious to speak, reloaded with a sharp feathered pellet, sighted quickly, swinging the pistol down to the level of his eyes, and fired. She knew before the ball dropped that he would hit it; she was attending perhaps the only performance at which he was supremely skilful, shooting at a fair. She did not see the balls struck; she watched his face, grave, intent, curiously responsible; his hands broad with bitten nails suddenly became like a nurse’s, capable and gentle. He tucked a hideous blue vase under his arm and began again.
    â€˜Tony,’ she said, ‘what are you going to do with it?’ as he laid a toy tiger at his feet. He paused in the act of opening the breech and frowned. ‘What, what did you say?’
    â€˜This vase and tiger. What will you do with them? For God’s sake, don’t win any more prizes, Tony. Come and have a drink.’
    He shook his head slowly; it was a long time before he realized what she meant; his eyes were continually straying back to the balls dancing in the fountain. ‘A vase,’ he said, ‘it’s always useful, isn’t it? For flowers and things.’
    â€˜But the tiger, Tony?’
    â€˜It’s not a bad tiger.’ He wouldn’t look at it, pressing the pellets into place. ‘If you don’t want it,’ he said, ‘I’ll give it away.’ He fired and loaded, fired and loaded while the balls cracked and dropped and a small crowd gathered behind. ‘I’ll give it to that girl on Tuesday,’ he said, and sighed and pointed to a green tin cigarette-case marked with the initial ‘A’