Trading Rosemary Read Free

could see the dust. She wrinkled her nose behind her daughter’s back.
It probably comes from those bloody animals.
    “They don’t stink that badly!” cried Ruth bitterly. “I can
see
you, you know!”
    Rosemary hadn’t known.
    “You hate
everything
I like!” complained her daughter.
    “I don’t,” Rosemary protested. “Play me something. I promise to like it.” If necessary, she would lie. Anything to bridge the gap that had become a chasm between them since Ruth had grown into womanhood.
    But after hearing her daughter’s attempt at an extremely simple tune, Rosemary strongly suspected the horses had more musical ability. She couldn’t convincingly admit to liking it, and Ruth pounced triumphantly.
    “I told you! I
knew
you’d hate it!”
    “You’ve been trying to learn on your own?” said Rosemary cautiously, and Ruth shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.
    “I might have borrowed some things from the library,” she said, and her tone dared her mother to make something of it.
    Rosemary couldn’t help herself. “You actually
used
the library? For something other than horses? Why, Ruth, that’s wonderful!”
    “I should have known that’s all you’d care about!” Ruth exploded. “That bloody library! Not Granny, not me. Get out. Just
get out.
”
    “You can’t expect it to work immediately,” said Rosemary, moving towards the door in a state of stunned amazement. “The coins will give you the memory of playing, but they won’t magically improve coordination or finger movement, you know. You have to practice as well, like you did with the horses.”
    Borrowed memories had been similarly limited when it came to Ruth’s horses. They could tell her how to fit a bridle, how to rub down a horse after a ride. They could even remind her how to keep her seat, although it took time for her body to adjust to what her mind remembered. But dealing with a horse as an individual . . . each one reacted slightly differently, liked different food, different scratching. To rely on the remembered reactions of another horse was foolish, and Ruth had learnt that the hard way, breaking several bones before she could bring herself to remove the condensed memories of one particular horse—a horse she had never seen or touched. A horse that meant more to her than any of the beasts currently inhabiting the stables that Rosemary had had built for her.
    Not that Rosemary disapproved. On the contrary. Ruth’s interest in the favored coin-horse was at least an indication that the child was not completely insensible. If the coin-horse was the better animal, it was completely normal that Ruth should prefer it, and Rosemary would have been irritated had Ruth allowed sentimentality to influence her towards the living alternatives. Admittedly, Rosemary would have liked her daughter to have a more experimental taste; not to spend her life mooching around with one memory hanging on a chain between her breasts, but that was young people for you. Willful, spoiled. Had they only been able to afford a mediocre library Ruth would no doubt be champing like one of her charges to widen her experience. But with one of the finest libraries in the land at her fingertips, she slouched about like a deprived slum child of bygone times. For years Rosemary hadn’t been able to picture the barrenness of her daughter’s mental landscape without shuddering.
    “I want it back!” Ruth wailed furiously. She actually stamped her foot, then slammed the door in her mother’s face.
    Rosemary was forcibly reminded of her daughter as a small child. Tantrums had always been something Rosemary simply refused to tolerate, and even though she tried to stop it she could feel her already limited stock of good will towards her daughter slipping away. Any capitulation would simply encourage the girl to scream and snap the next time she wanted something. Briefly, Rosemary indulged in the fantasy of screwing a hook through her daughter’s upper lip—the