The Friendly Ones. Philip Hensher

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СКАЧАТЬ levers; it described what wasn’t there. What was there was duty and miserable escape, sodden carpet and torn grass. He wanted to be on this side of the wall, in fact, in Uncle Stephen’s woods that he’d paid for and deprived of a name at all.

      Something struck the side of his head with a blow; a cold wet thwack, a torn lump of soil and grass. ‘You berk,’ Tamara said. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes wide with excitement. ‘You unutterable berk. Standing there staring into space. I bet you were writing a poem in your head, weren’t you, about the forest and the babbling brook and the fucking wood sprites?’

      ‘We’ve got loads of fucking wood sprites in the fucking forest,’ Thomas said, plucking at his Faunties with gross, clutching abandon.

      ‘Or we did before Tresco shot them with his fucking rifle,’ Tamara said, gambolling off, lifting her skirts and skipping with fury. ‘Ow – I’ve hurt my ankle. No, I’m all right. I’m not going to sprain my ankle, not today, no fucking way.’ She ran off in the direction of the wall.

      ‘She’s such a fucking moron,’ Tresco said. ‘She’s no idea what wood sprites even are. I swear to God she thought we were talking about jays or magpies of something. They’re mythological fucking beasts,’ he called after her. ‘Before she starts asking Mrs Arsehole if she can make a wood-sprite pie or something. Well, go on, do your stuff.’

      Thomas’s face took on an evil, set expression. He ran off after his sister. His white tights were falling down; the froth of shirt and the front of his Cambridge-blue velvet jacket were thick with mud where Tamara had pushed him into the puddle, twenty minutes before.

      ‘Here we go,’ Tresco said, his voice lowered and intense, egging himself on. ‘Here we go. Here we go. They go first, then we come as a lovely surprise. Yeah?’

      Josh said nothing, but Tresco must have seen that he didn’t know which way was up, as they said.

      ‘Today’s fun and games. You’ll like this, Josh. It’s called Get the Proles. You watch. It’s going to be fun.’

      There was nobody about but, fifty yards away, Tamara and Thomas, their spattered white and blue garments winking through the trees, but Tresco now hurled himself behind an oak like a commando and, squatting down, ran to the next one. He pulled a woolly hat out from his pocket and stuffed it over his shock of white-blond hair. He might have been concealing himself from a sniper. They dashed from tree to tree, Josh following. Ahead, Tamara and Thomas had reached the wall. Were there kids playing in the Wreck? It looked as if there might be. The proles. Tamara and Thomas paused, faced each other, and Tamara gave Thomas a sweet smile, raised the skirts of her ball-gown with a pinch of either hand. Thomas scowled, then made an effort and gave a smile that lasted no more than two seconds. He had been instructed. Tamara began. She gave a dainty skip, then another, then a twirl, a bow. Thomas said something – perhaps ‘Do I fucking have to?’ – then gave in, and made his own dainty skip, a second, a twirl, a bow.

      Tresco and Josh had reached the edge of the woods. They would not be seen by the kids in the Wreck; only Tamara and Thomas, giving their courtly dance behind a wall in ball-gown and Faunties, only they would be seen by the proles. It occurred to Josh that in this part of the wood, they were quite close to the Pit. Tamara and Thomas bowed at the same time, advanced, took each other by the crook of the elbow and rotated; Tamara’s left hand rose above her head and twiddled, as if at a magnificent and embarrassingly beribboned tambourine. Over there, the kids sitting around on the swings and the slide weren’t playing any more, if they ever had been. They had noticed the palaver the kids from the big house were kicking up. They had seen something maddening: two posh kids, one wearing a big posh gown like a wedding dress, the other wearing frills and fucking knickerbockers, prancing like shit. Tamara lifted her ankles, delicately waggled her feet. Thomas’s knees leapt up almost to the foaming linen of his chest. The proles had seen them. They were watching.

      5.

      Blossom’s hand, its ring with the ruby as big as a pomegranate seed, went across the desk, spinning the Rolodex, as if thinking on its own. Blossom looked, open, sincere, happy, at her ex-sister-in-law.

      ‘What would you think,’ she said, ‘if we made the arrangement with Josh a touch more permanent? Do you know anything about Apford? The school? Tresco’s school?’

      There must have been something that Catherine gave out, some physical withdrawal, some veiling of the eyes, because Blossom in a moment said, ‘I’m really only thinking of Josh’s welfare,’ in a mildly reproving way.

      ‘And in the holidays?’ Catherine said lightly.

      ‘Of course we would take care of the fees,’ Blossom said.

      ‘Yes,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s incredibly kind of you, it really is. I can see that. I need to think it over.’

      ‘Well, don’t take too long,’ Blossom said. She turned to her desk. ‘It’s a complete waste of time, writing letters, and three-quarters of them are nothing but thank-you letters, but there you are.’

      For five minutes Blossom wrote steadily. Catherine could feel her face was flushed. Nothing that she wanted to say could be said. Blossom was thinking of Josh’s best interests. Catherine was thinking only of her own. After a while, Blossom looked up and, as if surprised that Catherine was still there, said, ‘It’s a lovely day – don’t let me be selfish and trap you inside like this.’

      ‘I might go and read a book,’ Catherine said despairingly, thinking of vodka.

      6.

      There were seven proles in the Wreck. It was school holidays for them as well. They were three girls and four boys, one quite small. They were wearing the sort of clothes that proles wore. They weren’t shiny shell suits, but jeans and T-shirts with some sort of writing on them. One was wearing the top of a tracksuit, a red one with stripes, as if they were ever going to do any exercise. There was another who had a pair of cream chinos on and a blue polo shirt. That was quite like what Josh was wearing. That was the funniest thing, really – that the proles in the village would look at Josh and think he was posh, that they wanted to dress like him.

      The proles were sitting on the kids’ roundabout and chatting, about a hundred and fifty yards away. Another was on the swings, swaying gently back and forth. They were deep in conversation. A bark of a laugh came from one of them. Tamara and Thomas skipped to and fro, but they hadn’t seen them; the power of a ball-gown and Faunties and pastoral frolicking went over their heads. Or perhaps they had seen their wealthy neighbours and had no interest in it – that would be too bad.

      ‘What’s going on?’ Tresco said, squatting behind the tree where he couldn’t be seen. ‘Hey – you need to put a bit more welly into it. Go on. Up and over, dosie do –’

      ‘I’m doing the best I fucking can,’ Tamara said, out of the corner of her mouth.

      The proles had noticed Tamara and Thomas, skipping and dancing around each other. They had stopped where they were, and were casting looks at the edge of the forest. But in a moment they turned away again, definite that the posh rich kids weren’t worth their attention. Perhaps it was a decision; perhaps they were unable to see the spectacle behind the wall, remote from jeans and Wreck and trainers and semi-detached houses in yellow brick. ‘Not working,’ Tresco said. ‘Wish I’d brought my gun.’

      ‘I can’t believe it,’ Tamara said, pausing and puffing with breathlessness.

      ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Tresco said. ‘They’ve not seen СКАЧАТЬ