The Pyramid Read Free

rise. Still—she’s a really sporty girl, that young Babbacombe, I give her that.”
    “Why?”
    “She tried to steer.”
    Suddenly the weight of the car decreased. It stopped, as I heard Robert pull on the handbrake.
    “What the—”
    “We’re there. Get in.”
    We were at the top of the hill where the road led out of the woods down into Stilbourne. I could make out the church tower, the huddle of houses and dark shapes of trees. I climbed in beside Robert, and settled myself. I muttered, he shivered.
    “God knows how I’ll push her up the High Street!”
    “You’re not going to have to,” said Robert, the duke’s profile lifted against the sky, “because there might be a copper about. Here we go!”
    One hundred and twenty seconds later I had to admit that either Robert’s school, or his family, or possibly even Chums and The Boy’s Own Paper had given him some standards that I found not wholly contemptible. With no lights, and no engine, we leapt off the top of the Old Bridge like ski-jumpers. We shot up the High Street and across the concrete apron of Williams’s garage, turned right between two sheds, then left to the open space where Robert had found the car the evening before, all under the impetus of gravity. Even then we stopped with a jerk that flattened my face against Bounce’s windscreen . When I got my breath back I felt an unwilling respect for him; but we were too angry with each other for anything but the stiffest and most glacial farewell. Without speaking, we tiptoed resentfully round the Square. Robert stopped outside our gate, turned to me, and whispered coldly down from an extra twelve inches.
    “Well. Thank you for your help.”
    I whispered back.
    “Not at all. Don’t mention it.”
    We parted, and set ourselves to our individual problems of noiseless entry. The church clock struck three.
    *
    The sun woke me, as it crawled on to my face; and instantly I remembered everything—the car, Robert, the three plums, one of them lifted, a whiff of scent. I knew, with youth’s intuitive optimism, that something was not ended. Something had begun.
    And there was more. The window of our bathroom not only looked out over our garden, but the Ewans’s garden too. It was possible, even probable, that I should see Robert keeping fit there, and be able to crow over him. Grinning, I hurried to the bathroom. Sure enough, as soon as I looked out of the window, I saw him trot down the path, in shorts and singlet, beating the air fiercely with the padded gloves. He went trotting to the punchball rigged in the stables and struck it smartly.
    “Haa!”
    He danced away from it, then round it, then in again.
    “Haa!”
    The punchball made no reply, only quivered a bit each time he hit it. He danced away, dared it to come after him, then trotted off down the path with the handsome movements of the trained athlete, knees up, gloves up, chin down. As he turned to come back I saw that his shins were heavily armoured with white sticking plaster. He went back to the punchball. I opened the bathroom window, lathering myself vigorously, and began to laugh. Robert faltered, then attacked the punchball with fierce in-fighting.
    “Any more for the Skylark?”
    This time Robert did not falter. He ducked and wove. As I scraped away with my new razor, I sang raucously.
    “We joined the nay-vee to see the world—”
    Robert stopped boxing. I stared cheerfully at the brow of the hill to the north of Stilbourne, the rabbit warren spilt down the slope, the clump of trees at the top, and continued to sing.
    “—we saw the pond!”
    Below the immediate line of my vision, I could see that Robert was giving me a Look. It was the sort of Look that kept the Empire together, or quelled it at least. Armed with that Look and perhaps a riding crop, white men could keep order easily among the clubs and spears. He walked with great dignity into the house, duke’s profile high, attention straight ahead. I laughed loud and long