LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You’ve caused a right barny,” said Roger. “Nancy’s been throwing her apron over her head and threatening I don’t know what, your mother’s had a fit of the vapours, and now Nancy’s on her dignity. She’s given my Dad her notice three times already.”

      “Why doesn’t he accept it?” said Alison.

      “You should know Dad by now,” said Roger. “Anything for a quiet life: that’s why he never gets one. But you’d a nerve, working that switch on her. Pity she knew the plates were decorated. How did you manage it?”

      “I didn’t,” said Alison.

      “Come off it.”

      “I didn’t. That was the plate I traced the owls from.”

      “But Gwyn says you gave Nancy an ordinary white one.”

      “The pattern disappeared.”

      Roger began to laugh, then stopped.

      “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

      Alison nodded.

      “Ali, it’s not possible,” said Roger. “The plate was glazed: the pattern was under the glaze. It couldn’t rub off.”

      “But it did,” said Alison.

      “But it couldn’t, little stepsister. I’ll show you.”

      Roger climbed the ladder and opened the trap door.

      “It’s too dark. Where’s your torch?”

      “Here,” said Alison. “Can you see the plates? They’re in a corner over to your left.”

      “Yes. I’ll bring a couple to prove they’re all the same.”

      “Bring more. As many as you can. Let’s have them. Hand them down to me.”

      “Better not,” said Roger: “after the tizz. But I don’t think these’ll be missed.”

      “Mind the joists,” said Alison. “Gwyn nearly fell through the ceiling there. It was queer.”

      “I bet it was!”

      “No. Really queer. He slipped when he touched the plate, and he went all shadowy. Just for a second it didn’t look like Gwyn.”

      “It’s the darkest part of the loft,” said Roger.

      They washed the plates and took them to the window. Roger scrubbed the glaze with a nailbrush. “The glaze is shot,” he said. He picked at it with his fingernail. “It comes off easily.”

      “All right,” said Alison. “I want to trace these owls before the light goes. I’m making them properly this time, out of stiff paper.”

      “Not more!” said Roger. “Why do you want more? Where are the three you did earlier?”

      “I couldn’t find them.”

      “If you’re going to start that drawing again, I’m off,” said Roger. “When you’ve done one you’ve done them all. Shall I take your supper things down?”

      “I’ve not had supper,” said Alison.

      “Hasn’t Dad been up with your tray?”

      “No.”

      Roger grinned. “Your mother sent him to do the stern father act.”

      “He’s not come.”

      “Good old Dad,” said Roger.

      Roger went downstairs and out through the kitchen to the back of the house. He listened at the door of a long building that had once been the dairy but was now a billiard-room. He heard the click of ivory.

      Roger opened the door. His father was playing snooker by himself in the dusk. A supper tray was on an armchair.

      “Hello, Dad,” said Roger.

      “Jolly good,” said his father.

      “I’ll light the lamps for you.”

      “No need. I’m only pottering.”

      Roger sat on the edge of the chair. His father moved round the table, trundling the balls into the pockets, under the eyes of the falcons and buzzards, otters, foxes, badgers and pine martens that stared from their glass cases on the wall.

      “Don’t they put you off your game?” said Roger.

      “Ha ha; yes.”

      “This room was the dairy, wasn’t it?”

      “Oooh, yes, I dare say.”

      “Gwyn was telling me. He thinks it might have been the original house before that – an open hall, with everybody living together.”

      “Really?” said his father. “Fancy that.”

      “It often happens, Gwyn says. The original house becomes an outbuilding.”

      “Damn,” said Roger’s father. “I’m snookered.” He straightened up and chalked his cue. “Yes: rum old place, this.”

      “It’s that olde worlde wall panelling that gets me,” said Roger. “I mean, why cover something genuine with that phoney stuff?”

      “I thought it was rather tasteful, myself,” said his father.

      “All right,” said Roger. “But why go and pebble-dash a piece of the wall? Pebble-dash! Inside!” A rectangle of wall near the door was encrusted with mortar.

      “I’ve seen worse than that,” said his father. “When I started in business I was on the road for a few years, and there was one Bed-and-Breakfast in Kendal that was grey pebble-dashed all over inside. Fifteen-watt bulbs, too, I remember, in every room. We called it Wookey Hole.”

      “But at least it was all over,” said Roger. “Why just this piece of wall?”

      “Damp?”

      “The walls are a yard thick.”

      “Still,” said his father, “it must be some weakness somewhere. It’s cracked.”

      “Is it? It wasn’t this morning.”

      “Right across, near the top.”

      “That definitely wasn’t there this morning,” said Roger. “I was teaching Gwyn billiards. We tried to work out what the pebble-dash was for. I looked very closely. It wasn’t cracked.”

      “Ah, well it is now,” said his father. “Not much use doing any more tonight. Let’s pack up.”

      They collected the balls, stacked the cues and rolled the dustsheet over the table.

      “Would you like me to take Ali her supper?” said Roger.

      “Yes – er: no: no: I said I would: I’d better. Margaret thinks I ought. She’s a bit upset by the fuss.”

      “How’s Nancy?”

      “Phew! That was a real up-and-downer while it lasted! But I think we’ve managed. A fiver cures most things. She’s dead set against some plates or other – I didn’t understand what any of it was about. No: I’d better go and chat up old Ali.”

      Alison was cutting out the last owl when she heard her stepfather bringing the supper tray. She had arranged the plates on the mantelpiece and had perched the owls about the room as she finished them. He pushed the door open with his shoulder and came in backwards.

      “Grub up!”

      “Thanks, Clive,” said Alison. “What is it?”

      “Nancy’s Best Limp Salad, with sheep-dip mayonnaise.” He put the tray by the bed and lit the lamp. “I say, these are jolly fellows. What are they?”

      “Owls.

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