Atonement Read Free Page A

was.”
    “Definitely.”
    When Lola
spoke, she turned first to Pierrot and halfway through her sentence swung round
to finish on
Jackson
. In Briony’s
family, Mrs. Tallis never had anything to impart that needed saying
simultaneously to both daughters. Now Briony saw how it was done.
    “You’ll
be in this play, or you’ll get a clout, and then I’ll speak to The
Parents.”
    “If you
clout us,
we’ll
speak to The Parents.”
    “You’ll
be in this play or I’ll speak to The Parents.”
    That the
threat had been negotiated neatly downward did not appear to diminish its
power. Pierrot sucked on his lower lip.
    “Why do
we have to?” Everything was conceded in the question, and Lola tried to
ruffle his sticky hair.
    “Remember
what The Parents said? We’re guests in this house and we make ourselves—what
do we make ourselves? Come on. What do we make ourselves?”
    “A-menable,”
the twins chorused in misery, barely stumbling over the unusual word.
    Lola turned
to Briony and smiled. “Please tell us about your play.”
    The Parents.
Whatever institutionalized strength was locked in this plural was about to fly
apart, or had already done so, but for now it could not be acknowledged, and
bravery was demanded of even the youngest. Briony felt suddenly ashamed at what
she had selfishly begun, for it had never occurred to her that her cousins
would not want to play their parts in
The Trials of Arabella
. But they
had trials, a catastrophe of their own, and now, as guests in her house, they
believed themselves under an obligation. What was worse, Lola had made it clear
that she too would be acting on sufferance. The vulnerable Quinceys were being
coerced. And yet, Briony struggled to grasp the difficult thought, wasn’t
there manipulation here, wasn’t Lola using the twins to express something
on her behalf, something hostile or destructive? Briony felt the disadvantage
of being two years younger than the other girl, of having a full two
years’ refinement weigh against her, and now her play seemed a miserable,
embarrassing thing.
    Avoiding
Lola’s gaze the whole while, she proceeded to outline the plot, even as
its stupidity began to overwhelm her. She no longer had the heart to invent for
her cousins the thrill of the first night.
    As soon as
she was finished Pierrot said, “I want to be the count. I want to be a
bad person.”
    Jackson
said simply,
“I’m a prince. I’m always a prince.”
    She could
have drawn them to her and kissed their little faces, but she said,
“That’s all right then.”
    Lola
uncrossed her legs, smoothed her dress and stood, as though about to leave. She
spoke through a sigh of sadness or resignation. “I suppose that because
you’re the one who wrote it, you’ll be Arabella . . .”
    “Oh
no,” Briony said. “No. Not at all.”
    She said no,
but she meant yes. Of course she was taking the part of Arabella. What she was objecting
to was Lola’s “because.” She was not playing Arabella because
she wrote the play, she was taking the part because no other possibility had
crossed her mind, because that was how
Leon
was to see her,
because she
was
Arabella.
    But she had
said no, and now Lola was saying sweetly, “In that case, do you mind if I
play her? I think I could do it very well. In fact, of the two of us . .
.”
    She let that
hang, and Briony stared at her, unable to keep the horror from her expression,
and unable to speak. It was slipping away from her, she knew, but there was
nothing that she could think of to say that would bring it back. Into
Briony’s silence, Lola pressed her advantage.
    “I had
a long illness last year, so I could do that part of it well too.”
    Too? Briony could
not keep up with the older girl. The misery of the inevitable was clouding her
thoughts.
    One of the
twins said proudly, “And you were in the school play.”
    How could she
tell them that Arabella was not a freckled person? Her skin was pale and her
hair was black and her