The Girl Green as Elderflower Read Online Free Page A

masculine.
    ‘Twenty-five.’
    Amabel, with a flimsy booklet in her hand, began to make a calculation. ‘Two and five is seven. Seven is the Chariot. That’s a very good card, Crispin. Success, health and long life.’
    ‘She’s eerie,’ Alicia observed aside. ‘Lovely to look at, and super-intelligent, but eerie.’
    ‘I just hope she’s reliable,’ said Clare.
    ‘Mummy, how old are you?’ Mikey wanted to know.
    ‘As old as her tongue and older than her teeth,’ Mark said.
    ‘Don’t be stupid,’ his little brother said squashingly. ‘How old, Mummy?’
    ‘As old as—’ said Alicia, reflecting; ‘as old as Senator Kennedy.’
    ‘President Kennedy,’ Lucy said.
    ‘No, Clever Clogs,’ Alicia said, ‘Senator. He hasn’t been inaugurated yet.’
    ‘Another number seven,’ said Clare. ‘Success, health and long life.’
    ‘
How old?
’ Mikey insisted, a tantrum brewing in his voice.
    ‘Sixty-one,’ Mark said. ‘Poor old boot, she shouldn’t be standing about. Come and park your rheumatics on the settle, gal.’
    They lined up on the settle, the three adults and Mikey, like birds on a wire. When Lucy and Amabel had poured the tea and handed sandwiches they joined them. There was plenty of hard shiny room, but the settle did not make for conversation. Mark, at one end, leaned forward and said to Clare, at the other: ‘’Scuse me, squire, is this the line for Hammersmith?’
    ‘I wondered what was missing,’ Alicia said. ‘No advertisements to read.’
    The adults made do instead with the flames which were mounting, revived, about a new pile of long logs. But the children were restless, hurried in their courtesies with sugar or cake. At length Alicia said: ‘All right, Lucy. Get out that silly game, as your heart is set on it.’
    Instantly the table was cleared, and the board was conjured from somewhere by Amabel. Mikey seemed to have very precise ideas about the placing of the chairs. Lucy’s final touches were even more precise, measurable in millimetres.
    ‘Now, Crispin,’ said Mikey, standing lackey-like by a chair.
    Clare rose, but hesitated. ‘Who is the other person? Amabel?’
    ‘I think,’ Lucy said, ‘it’s best if you start with someone who’s really bad at it. That means Marco.’
    Mark, getting up, slouched to another chair, collapsed his long legs and grinned at Clare. ‘One does feel a charley,’ he said. Confronted by him, Clare noted that a term of university had already matured and fined down his face, with its sharply angled jaw. He seemed likely to inherit a share of Alicia’s faintly pre-Raphaelite looks.
    ‘What do we do?’ Clare asked him.
    ‘Well,’ Mark said, ‘we each put a finger on the little tea-trolley thing, and wait. Thank you, Mikey.’ For Mikey had also precise ideas about the placing of their fingers.
    ‘I’m waiting,’ Clare said. And went on waiting. Because there was nothing else to look at, they looked at one another, which began to get on their nerves.
    From the settle, Alicia remarked: ‘You two have the most fed-up expressions I’ve ever seen on you.’
    ‘I just don’t find Cris all that interesting,’ said Mark. ‘I mean, he’s normal—he’s got a mouth-shaped mouth and a nose-shaped nose. But there’s nothing you want to linger over.’
    ‘I’m keeping my mind occupied,’ Clare said, ‘by counting the acne.’
    ‘Oh you sod,’ Mark muttered.
    ‘Marco,’ said Lucy, patiently, ‘you ought to say something to it.’
    Mark cleared his throat. Then he said in a Goon Show voice: ‘Hullo, folks, hullo, folks, calling all folks. Is there anyone there?’
    Immediately the little wheeled indicator came to life. It said, firmly and emphatically: NO.
    ‘Marco!’ yelled Mikey, with rage.
    ‘You fraud, Marco,’ Lucy said. ‘Oh well, no harm done, I suppose. Let Amabel have your chair now, see what she can do with Crispin.’ Mark’s long shape reared up, shadowing the table, and almost at once Clare saw the uncanny