Perfect Gallows Read Free Page B

rooms, how could anyone heat them on a coal-ration? Uncle Vole had a paraffin stove either side of him, but it was an enormous table and Andrew was at the opposite end. A log fire glowed in the grate behind Cousin Blue, but all it seemed to do was suck in a draught from the door.
    Though Andrew could feel no warmth from Uncle Vole’s stoves, he could smell their oily fume. It seemed quite wrong with the silver and the mahogany and the butler, even if the butler was only a darkie. Mum wouldn’t use paraffin if she could help it. She said it made the house smell poor. She usually managed to scrounge coal from somewhere, but of course with the docks so close that was easier than it would be right out here. Andrew was used to a good fug while he ate.
    These people weren’t. Uncle Vole was wrapped in shawls and wore a tasselled smoking cap, but he kept swivelling round to hold his trembling claws in the updraught from one of his stoves. Cousin Blue wore a shawl and mittens, and Cousin Brown a thick velvet dress, almost the same colour as the table, buttoned close at neck and wrists. Her large raw-looking hands did not tremble as she sliced her rissole into sections.
    Andrew did his best not to gobble. Mum would have sniffed at what he had on his plate, not half enough for a growing lad, never mind he’s small for his age. He’d given himself a double go of mash to make up for the one rissole. The rissole was very tasty, what there was of it, and the mash was far better than Mum’s—not a lump anywhere. The sprouts weren’t bad and the gravy had something in it which wasn’t Oxo or Bisto. Wine, too. He’d never tried wine before, not counting Mum’s Christmas port once, early in the war, when you could still get it. He’d almost finished what was on his plate before the others were halfway through, so he pushed his last two sprouts around and studied his new relations under his eyebrows.
    The names weren’t bad, though he’d chosen them when he was too cold to think. He’d met Cousin Brown—Miss Elspeth—and Cousin Blue—Miss May—in the big room they called the Saloon for a few minutes before the meal, which he’d have called tea but they called supper. He’d named them from the colour of their clothes, just to go on with till he knew them better. Uncle Vole—Sir Arnold—had come shuffling in to the dining-room when the other three were already there and waiting. He was tiny, bent, poisonous-looking. He’d given Andrew a furious quick stare when Cousin Brown had introduced him and then gone shuffling on to his place without a word.
    Cousin Brown ate steadily, first the mash, then the sprouts with the gravy on them, last of all, the rissole, all in small mouthfuls chewed thirty times. Cousin Blue pecked, hesitated, sighed at the unfairness of being made to choose. The darkie had dished for Uncle Vole and then taken a fork and mashed everything into a uniform mess which the old man shovelled into his mouth, holding his head so close to the plate that he could just as well have licked it up direct, like a dog. Again he took ages, but this time the conversation didn’t start up when the other three had finished. Instead, to Andrew’s amazement, the darkie came back with second helps. Two more rissoles. Cousin Brown took half of one, but Cousin Blue almost snatched the whole one. The last half appeared at Andrew’s elbow. He hesitated—there was still Uncle Vole.
    â€œMay,” said Cousin Brown. “Andrew is a growing boy.”
    â€œOh, I am so sorry. I forgot. I thought it was only us. But there is plenty of potato, isn’t there, Samuel?”
    â€œPlenty in dish, miss.”
    The darkie’s voice was not at all like Robeson’s, but light and a bit squeaky. Andrew took the half rissole, and more of the veg and gravy when it came. The darkie brought more wine, but he asked for water instead. Silence