The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Read Free

bellow, incompatible with those tremulous hands. “You’ll have a job. I’m the world’s lousiest typist. Here, you can put it in this.”
    â€œThis” was a cheap-looking plastic briefcase, the kind of thing that, containing the requisite brochures and agenda, is given to delegates at a conference. Titus Romney wouldn’t have been seen dead with it normally. But he had only a short distance to carry it to the hotel. They found Julia in the drawing room, carrying on a stilted conversation with Gerald’s wife. Titus had already forgotten her name, but he didn’t have to remember it, because they were going. It was 3:30 and they were leaving. The daughters had disappeared.
    â€œI’ll walk with you to the hotel,” Gerald said. “I’m supposed to walk a bit every day. A few yards.”
    Julia gushed, the way she did when she had had a horrid time. “Goodbye. Thank you so much. It’s been lovely. A lovely lunch.”
    â€œEnjoy the rest of your stay,” Gerald’s wife said.
    They set off across the garden, Titus carrying the briefcase, at which Julia cast curious glances. The garden extended to about ten yards from the cliff edge, where there was a gate to the cliff path. From this path, all the beach could be seen, and the car park, full of cars and trailers. The beach was crowded and there were a lot of people in the sea. Somewhere Julia had read this described as the finest beach on the English coast, the longest, sevenmiles of it, with the best sand. The safest beach, for the tide went out half a mile and flowed in gently over the flat, scarcely sloping sand, a shallow, limpid sea. It was blue as a jewel, calm, waveless.
    â€œYou must love living here,” Julia said politely.
    He didn’t answer. Titus asked him if he didn’t like walking. The way he talked about it implied he didn’t like it.
    â€œI don’t like any physical exercise. Only cranks like walking. That’s why a sensible man invented the car.”
    A gate in the path bore a sign: THE DUNES HOTEL. STRICTLY PRIVATE. HOTEL GUESTS ONLY . Gerald opened it, then stood aside to let Julia pass through. The hotel, Edwardian red brick with white facings, multigabled, stood up above them, its striped awnings unfurled across the terrace. People sat at tables having tea. Children splashed about in a swimming pool that was barely concealed by privet hedges.
    â€œYour children enjoying themselves?”
    â€œWe haven’t any children,” said Julia.
    â€œReally? Why not?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She was very taken aback. That should be a question people didn’t ask. “I … I don’t necessarily want any.”
    Another gate to pass through and they were on the turf of the big lawn.
    â€œYou don’t want any children?” Gerald said. “How unnatural. You must change your mind. Not afraid to have a baby, are you? Some women are. Children are the crown of existence. Children are the source of all happiness. The great reward. Believe me. I know. Here we are, then, back among the throng.”
    Julia was so angry, she was nearly rude to him. She looked at her husband, but he refused to meet her eyes. She turned to Gerald Candless, resolved on silently shaking hands with him, turning her back on him, and marching quickly up to her room. Her hand went out reluctantly. He failed to take it, though this omission wasn’t rudeness. He was staring up at the hotel, at the terrace, with an expression of astonishment and, more than that, amazement. His eyes were fixed and so unblinking that she followed his gaze.
    Nothing to see, no one to look at, nothing to cause this rigid, fixed stare. It was the elderly people who congregated there on the terrace, she had noticed from the previous afternoon, those who didn’t swim or walk far orventure down the cliff, knowing they would have to climb up again. The old ones sat there under the