The Insect Farm Read Online Free Page B

responsibility.
    The point was that, on this summer’s evening when I was lured by the unique charms of Harriet, Roger was due to return home from a trip which had been organized by a group at the local church. I don’t remember where they had been or for how long they had been away. All I recall is that Roger was due to arrive home in Croydon by midnight, and that I had promised to be back before then to be there to make sure he was OK. My parents had said they would like to takethe opportunity to go to bed early, and I was responsible for ensuring that Roger was safe and settled.
    “I have to go,” I said, dragging myself to my feet. “My brother Roger needs me.”
    Nothing in Harriet’s face gave a clue as to whether she regarded this as good news or bad news or even particularly any news at all. What was perfectly clear was that she by no means shared or even sensed my desolation. What appeared to her to be no more than a casual meeting for me was an evening that was to change my short life.

Chapter Three
    Just how strange is it to become as obsessed as people do? Just how potty can you become? Little wonder that it has been the cause of wars. Even now I recall pondering for many hours the configuration of three honey-coloured freckles on one side of Harriet’s nose, which to me looked as though they had been painted on in watercolours by some marvellous pre-Raphaelite artist. I remember the exquisite thrill arising from the ever-so-faint suggestion of the rise of her nipples as seen through a thin woollen pullover in pink. I still get a visceral charge from calling up the memory.
    I cannot now remember whether Angela finished things with me or whether I finished things with her. There was no row or break-up, it just seemed that one day we were and then one day we were not. Maybe on my side it was to do with my new-found preoccupation with Harriet. Who knows what it was on hers – probably she just got bored.
    It was scarcely a couple of weeks after that first party back at her flat in Carnaby Street when I contrived to call on Harriet, apparently by chance, while browsing around shops. I don’t imagine that she was fooled for a moment, and she seemed to be amused as she held open the door in welcome. The flat smelt of the recent smoke from marijuana, whichfelt in contrast with the operatic music that was playing in the background. I caught a glimpse of the album cover, but quickly decided against pretending more knowledge than I possessed.
    “ The Pearl Fishers ,” I said. “Do you like this kind of thing?”
    “I like it sometimes,” she said. “Like now. I love to listen to music when I’m reading, but if it is something with words I recognize, I find I can’t concentrate on the text. Anything sung in a foreign language works well for me.”
    We drank black coffee and smoked a little bit of grass I had brought with me, and we talked about ourselves and our ambitions. She spoke more about her love of music in terms as weird and unworldly to me as those she had used following the concert, and then I asked if she played a musical instrument herself.
    Harriet – of course, it must be obvious from what I have said of her already – played the flute. Perhaps the impact of the sound upon me was so great because I had not heard the music of a solo flute before I heard it played by Harriet. I still recall in microscopic detail watching her as she opened the black wooden box and assembled the instrument from three pieces, carefully adjusting the fit so that the mouthpiece would sit at a precise angle. I remember the dull silver plate and the distorted reflections of stars from a chandelier. She placed the rim of the mouthpiece against the top front of her chin, just below her lips, which formed into a chaste kiss. As she prepared to play it was asthough her whole body animated, and she seemed hardly to breathe into it, but rather to become the instrument. The sound was forming all around us, not from her mouth