The Carousel Read Free Page B

I've seen your photograph in Phoebe's sitting room. I always thought you looked lovely. " 
    "Thank you."
    "And Phoebe used to tell me about you when I went to see her. It's lovely going to tea with her, because it's not like being with a grown-up person and I'm allowed to go on my own. And we always play with the carousel that used to be a gramophone."
    "That was mine. Chips made it for me."
    "I never knew Chips. He was dead before I can remember."
    "And I," I told her, "never knew your mother."
    "But we go and stay with Granny most summers."
    "And I am usually there at Easter, or sometimes for Christmas, so our paths have never crossed. I don't think I even know her name."
    "It's Annabelle. She was Annabelle Tolliver. But she's called Mrs. Collis now."
    "And do you have brothers and sisters?"
    "One brother. Michael. He's fifteen. He's at Wellington."
    "And the boiler at Wellington hasn't blown up?"
    It was an attempt to add a little levity to the conversation, but Charlotte did not smile. She said, "No."
    I studied the menu and thought about Mrs. Tolliver. My memories of her were of a tall, elegant, and rather chilling lady, always immaculately turned out, her grey hair neatly groomed, her skirts pleated and pressed, her long, narrow shoes polished like chestnuts. I thought of White Lodge, where Charlotte was going to stay, and wondered what a child would find to do in those neatly manicured gardens, that quiet and orderly house.
    I looked across the table at the child and saw that she, too, with furrowed brow, was trying to decide what she would have for lunch. She seemed a sad little person. It couldn't have been much fun, being sent home from school simply because the boiler there had blown up.
    Unexpected and probably unwanted, with your mother abroad and no person to take care of you. It couldn't have been much fun, being put by yourself on a train and shunted off to the end of the country to visit your grandmother. I wished, all at once, for Mrs. Tolliver to be dumpy and cosy, with a round, warm bosom and a passion for knitting dolls' clothes and playing Clock Patience.
    Charlotte looked up and saw me watching her. She sighed hopelessly. "I don't know what I want." 
    I said, "A moment ago you told me you were feeling very hungry. Why don't you have everything?"
    "All right." She decided on vegetable soup, roast beef, and ice cream. "And do you think," she added wistfully, "there might be enough money over for a Coca-Cola?"
    What is there so magical about travelling by train to Cornwall? I know I am not the first person to have known the enchantment as the line crosses the Tamar by the old Brunei railway bridge, as though one were entering the gates of some marvellous foreign country. Each time I go I tell myself that it cannot be the same, but it always is. And it is impossible to pinpoint the exact reasons for this euphoria. The shapes of the houses, perhaps, pink-washed in the evening sun. The smallness of the fields; the lofty viaducts soaring over deep, wooded valleys; the first distant glimpses of the sea? Or perhaps the saintly names of small stations that we rocket through and leave behind, or the voices of the porters on the platform at Truro?
    We reached St. Abbatt's Junction at a quarter to five. As the train drew alongside the platform, Charlotte and I were ready by the door, with our suitcases and my bunch of chrysanthemums, by now distinctly worse for wear. When we stepped down from the train, we were assailed by a blustering west wind, and I could smell the sea, salty and strong. There were palm trees on the platform, rattling their leaves like old, broken umbrellas, and a porter opened the door of the guards' van and manhandled out of it a crate of indignant hens.
    I knew that Mr. Thomas was going to come and meet me. Mr. Thomas owned the only taxi in Penmarron, and Phoebe had told me over the telephone that she had engaged his services. As we walked up towards the bridge, I saw Mr. Thomas waiting,