Time and Time Again Read Online Free Page B

in saying nasty things.' He was thinking of Palan.
    'Why's that?'
    'Perhaps because the world isn't getting any better.' Charles rallied himself from the dark reflection. 'Though I must admit I see it looking pretty good here and now.' Henri was serving the Vino de Pasto. 'I'm very happy to be with you tonight, Gerald. I drink an affectionate toast to your future.'
    Gerald grinned embarrassedly, then sipped from his glass. 'Thanks, dad. Is this sherry?'
    'Yes. . . . Smoke a cigarette if you like--it's the only wine that isn't spoiled by smoking.' Charles, proffering his cigarette case, thought he had conveyed his hint rather tactfully. 'I hope you like it.'
    'It's--well, I daresay one could get used to it.'
    'Just about my own first reaction. That, I remember, was at a Foundation dinner at Cambridge. I mixed my drinks rather recklessly--with the inevitable result. My gyp told me afterwards I'd tried to festoon the chapel belfry with toilet paper.'
    Gerald laughed. 'It's hard to imagine you ever getting drunk.'
    'That's because you think of me as I am today.'
    'Or else because I really don't know you properly.'
    The remark, so seemingly cold, was actually warm to Charles; it hinted that Gerald too was aware of the barrier and that such awareness might be a first step towards their joint effort to remove it. He said agreeably: 'I've often thought that's one of the biggest drawbacks of a career like mine. Chopping and changing posts, with you in England half the time when you were a baby, then the war came and you went to America, and even after that there was school and we could only meet during the holidays if I happened to be in London. The wonder is we know each other at all. But now you're getting older and I'm not likely to be abroad so much, things ought to work out better.'
    Charles waited for a word of encouragement, then decided that the boy's friendly face was itself one. He continued: 'Besides, I'll be off duty for good in a few more years. I'd thought of buying a place in the country if I can find something that isn't too huge or too cute. How would you like that?'
    'You mean a place like Beeching, dad?'
    'Oh no, much humbler . . . but I'm sure you don't remember Beeching.'
    'I do--because I remember Grandfather there.'
    'Really?'
    'There was a big white fireplace and once a hot coal fell out on the rug and Grandfather squirted soda water over it. I think that's really the first thing I remember about anything.'
    'I don't recall the incident, but there was certainly a big white marble fireplace in the hall, so perhaps you're right. . . . Much TOO big--the fireplaces and everything else--we used to consume fifty tons of coal a year and still the rooms were chilly in the winter. Think of trying to get fifty tons of coal nowadays to heat a private house. . . . No, the place I might look for would be small and modern--just to settle down in after I've retired. Not too far out of London, but quiet.'
    'You might be lonely. You're so used to London.'
    'Don't forget there's the book I'll be writing.'
    'You're really going to do it?'
    Charles smiled; the book was almost a joke because it had been talked about for so long. Whenever Charles said anything witty at a dinner party, which was fairly often, people were always apt to exclaim: 'You know, Charles,' (or 'Stuffy' if the occasion were intimate or ribald enough) 'you really ought to write a book some day', to which Charles would answer either thoughtfully 'Yes, I suppose I might', or confidently 'That's exactly what I intend to do.' But nobody really believed he would, whatever he said; somehow he dined out too often and lived too elegantly to seem capable of such sustained effort. So one day the book would astonish everyone by actually appearing--published by Macmillan, he hoped, and at not more than twenty-five shillings, if the price of things didn't go up any more. But it would offer a further surprise by being the kind of book few would expect from him--a really