The Children Of Dynmouth Read Free Page B

begin on Easter Saturday.’
    ‘That’s what I’m saying to you, Mr Feather. Won’t Ring’s take the crowds?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think so. They haven’t in the past.’
    ‘I’d say you were wrong, Mr Feather.’
    ‘Well, we’ll just have to see. Thank you for thinking of it, Timothy.’
    ‘I was wondering about the Spot the Talent comp, Mr Feather.’
    ‘We’re having the Spot the Talent competition at two-thirty. Mr and Mrs Dass will be in charge again.’
    More than a month ago the boy had appeared at the rectory one evening, quite late it had been, after nine o’clock, and had asked if there was going to be a Spot the Talent competition at this year’s Easter Fête because he wanted to do a comedy act. Quentin had told him he imagined there would be, with Mr and Mrs Dass in charge as usual. He’d later heard from the Dasses that Timothy Gedge had been to see them and that they’d written his name down, the first entry.
    He was a strange boy, always at a loose end. His mother was a good-looking woman with brassy hair who sold women’s clothes in a shop called Cha-Cha Fashions, his sister was six or seven years older than Timothy, good-looking also, employed as a petrol-pump attendant on the forecourt of the Smiling Service Filling Station: Quentin knew them both by sight. In adolescence, unfortunately, the boy was increasingly becoming a nuisance to people, endlessly friendly and smiling, keen for conversation. He was what Lavinia called a latch-key child, returning to the empty flat in Cornerways from the Comprehensive school, on his own in it all day during the school holidays. Being on his own seemed somehow to have become part of him.
    ‘She’s a funny woman, that Mrs Dass. He’s funny himself, with that pipe.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I must be off, I’m afraid, Timothy.’
    ‘Will it be in the marquee again, sir?’
    ‘I should think so.’
    ‘D’you know the Abigails, Mr Feather? The Commander and Mrs? I do jobs for the Abigails, you know. Every Wednesday night; I’ll be round there tonight. Funny type of people.’
    Quentin shook his head. He knew the Abigails, he said; they didn’t seem funny to him. His right foot was on the pedal, but he couldn’t push the bicycle forward because the boy was slightly in the way, his knee touching the spokes of the front wheel.
    ‘The Commander’s having his bathe now. I call that funny. In the sea in April, Mr Feather.’ He paused, smiling. ‘I see Miss Lavant’s out on her stroll.’
    ‘Yes, I know –’
    ‘Out to catch a glimpse of Dr Greenslade.’
    The boy laughed and Quentin managed to get the front wheel of his bicycle past the protruding knee. Some other time they’d have a chat, he promised.
    ‘I think I’ll call in on Dass,’ Timothy Gedge said, ‘to see how he’s getting on.’
    ‘Oh, I shouldn’t bother.’
    ‘I think I’d better sir.’
    Quentin rode away, feeling he should have stayed longer with the boy, if only to explain why there was no need for him to go bothering the Dasses. There’d been a period when he’d come to the rectory every Saturday morning, sometimes as early as a quarter to nine. He’d had an idea, as he’d explained to Quentin, that when he grew up he’d like to be a clergyman. But when Quentin had eventually tried to persuade him to join his confirmation class, he’d said he wasn’t interested and had in fact given up the notion of a clerical career. He hung about the church now, and about the graveyard whenever there was a funeral service. It particularly worried Quentin that he was always around when there was a funeral.
    Timothy watched the dark figure of the clergyman pedalling away, thinking to himself that strictly speaking the clergyman was a bit of a fool the way he let himself be taken advantage of. All sorts of tricks people got up to with the man, extraordinary it must be, being a clergyman. He shook his head over the folly of it all, and then he forgot about it and surveyed the