The Carousel Read Free

greying hair worn long on the back of his collar, possibly to atone for the lack of it on top.
    "There you are," he said to the little girl. "Go on, sit down."
    She did so, cautiously, perched on the very edge of the seat. She carried a single comic paper and wore a red leather purse slung by a strap across one shoulder. She was a pale child, with hair cut very short, exposing a long and slender neck. This, and her spectacles, and her expression of stoic misery gave her the appearance of a small boy, and I was reminded of other small boys I had observed on station platforms, dwarfed by stiff new uniforms, fighting tears, and being told by beefy fathers how much they were going to enjoy being at boarding school.
    "Got your ticket all right?"
    She nodded.
    "Granny'll meet you at the junction." She nodded again.
    "Well . . ." He ran a hand back over his head. He was obviously longing to be off. "That's it, then. You'll be all right."
    Once more she nodded. They looked, unsmiling, at each other. He began to move away and then remembered something else.
    "Here . . ." He felt in his breast pocket, produced a crocodile wallet, a ten-pound note. "You'll need something to eat. When it's time, take yourself along to the restaurant car and get some lunch."
    She took the ten-pound note and sat looking at it.
    "Good-bye, then."
    "Good-bye."
    He went. At the window he paused to wave and give a cursory smile. Then he disappeared, hurrying in the direction of some sleek, showy car that would restore him to the safe, masculine world of his business.
    As I had already told myself that Nigel was nice, I now told myself that this man was horrible and wondered why such an unengaging person had been given the job of seeing the little girl off. She sat beside me, still as a mouse. After a little she reached for her handbag, undid the zipper, put the ten-pound note inside, and shut the zipper again. I thought about saying something friendly to her, but, there was a shine of tears in her eyes behind the spectacles, so I decided, for the moment, to leave well alone. A moment later the train started to move, and we were off.
    I opened my Times, read the headlines and all the gloomy news, and then turned with a pleasant sensation of relief to the Arts page. I found what I was looking for, which was the review of an exhibition that had opened a couple of days before in the Peter Chastal Gallery, which was only a couple of doors away from where I worked for Marcus Bernstein. 
    The artist was a young man called Daniel Cassens, and I had always been interested in his career because, when he was about twenty, he had spent a year in Cornwall living with Phoebe and studying sculpture with Chips. I had never met him, but Phoebe and Chips had become very fond of him, and when he left them to continue his career in America, Phoebe had followed his progress avidly and enthusiastically as if he had been her own son.
    He had travelled and spent some years in America and then had taken himself on to Japan, where he had engrossed himself in the intricate simplicities of Oriental art.
    This latest exhibition was a direct outcome of his years in Japan, and the critic was enthusiastic, revelling in the tranquillity and formality of Daniel Cassens's work, praising the controlled brushwork of the watercolours, the subtlety of detail.
    ". . . This is a unique collection," he finished his piece. "The paintings are complementary, each one a single facet of a total and rare experience. Take an hour or so off from your daily round and visit the Chastal Gallery. You will certainly not be disappointed."
    Phoebe would be delighted, and I was glad for her. I closed the paper and looked out the window and saw that we had left the suburbs behind and were now out into the country. It was a damp day, with large grey clouds rolling across the sky, revealing every now and then a patch of limpid blue. Trees were beginning to turn, the first leaves to fall. There were tractors ploughing