Atonement Read Free Page A

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, theybelieved 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…’
    â€˜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 thatshe could think of to say that would bring it back. Into Briony’s silence, Lola pressed her advantage.
    â€˜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 thoughts were Briony’s thoughts. But how could she refuse a cousin so far from home whose family life was in ruins? Lola was reading her mind because she now played her final card, the unrefusable ace.
    â€˜Do say yes. It would be the only good thing that’s happened to me in months .’
    Yes. Unable to push her tongue against the word, Briony could only nod, and felt as she did so a sulky thrill of self-annihilating compliance spreading across her skin and ballooning outwards from it, darkening the room in throbs. She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone, face-down on her bed and savour the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime. Not only Leon to consider, but what of the antique peach and cream satin dress that her mother was looking out for her, for Arabella’s