The Bellwether Revivals Read Free Page A

once a year. My brother’s always hoping something horrible will befall the Director, but he’s healthy as an ox.’ She stubbed out her clove on the drainpipe. ‘Anyway, I’ll be very glad to see you on Sunday, if you still want to come.’
    ‘Are you an organist too?’ he asked.
    ‘Me? No.
God
, no. I play the cello.’ She gave a little sigh, as if she’d been saddled with an instrument she had no interest in. As if one day in a school music lesson all the triangles and tambourines had been doled out, and her teacher had handed her a hunk of wood and said,
Here, play this until I find you something better
. ‘I haven’t been practising much recently. Not the recital pieces, anyway.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because studying medicine is quite demanding of my time.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘And in my free time I read stuff like this.’ She raised the book. ‘Things my brother tells me I should be reading. I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment that way.
The Passions of the Soul
. Tell me honestly: am I wasting my youth? Should I just be out there getting drunk with the rest of them?’
    ‘That would be a bigger waste, I think.’
    Her face slackened. ‘My problem is, I’m too easily steered off course. Have to be doing several things at once.’
    ‘You’re a butterfly catcher,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘That’s what my father would call you.’
    ‘Well, I suppose that’s a kinder phrase than
hyperactive
. He must be more patient than my parents.’
    Oscar just nodded, peering at the ground. It was strange to hear someone speaking well of his father, because he rarely thought of him that way. He could only recall the rain-soaked building sites where he spent most of his school holidays, helping to heave plasterboards up narrow flights of stairs, and all the weekends he lost stuffing insulation into wall cavities, filling skips with office debris. He could remember the bitterness of his father’s voice when they used to argue on the job: ‘Go then. Leave me. I’ll do it myself. You’ve always got somewhere better to be, don’t you? A butterfly catcher, that’s what you are.’ This was not patience, Oscar knew, but a resentful kind of endurance.
    By the time he turned back to Iris, her attention was elsewhere. She’d noticed something over his shoulder and was gathering herself to leave, fixing her scarf, patting down her coat. The remains of her cigarette lay trodden at her feet. ‘My brother’s here,’ she said. ‘I better go.’
    Oscar heard the gentle tinkling of bike spokes, and spun around to see a man in a pinstripe blazer wheeling a shiny Peugeot racer, dynamo lights strobing on the path. His corduroy trousers were turned up at the ankles, and a mass of wavy hair was spilling from the edges of his bike helmet. There was something ungainly about the way his blazer hung on his body—shoulders and elbows still prominent beneath the fabric, like a sheet thrown over an upturned table.
    ‘Just a sec,’ Iris called to him. She took off her glasses and pushed them into the top pocket of her coat. Without them, her face was more evenly proportioned. ‘Here,’ she said, tossing the Descartes to her brother. ‘Say what you like about French philosophy, but it’s no good when you read it in the dark.’
    Her brother caught the book and stuffed it into the back of his trousers. ‘I’m not letting you off the hook that easily. You’re getting it back first thing tomorrow.’ He squinted at Oscar as if appraising an antique. ‘Who’s your friend?’
    ‘This is Oscar,’ she told him. ‘We’ve been shooting the breeze, as Yin would say.’
    ‘Oh, yeah? About what?’
    ‘Religion, flowers—all the big issues.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Did
you
know the iris is a genus?’ she said.
    Her brother lifted an eyebrow. ‘I think I knew that
in utero
.’ Propping the bike-frame against one knee, he leaned to offer his slender hand to Oscar. ‘If we wait for her to introduce us, we’ll be here all