Free Tim by Colleen McCullough Page A

suggestion of sureness about his usage.
    ‘Come on, Tim, let’s go inside before it gets chilly. When the evening breeze comes up the river it cools things down awfully fast, even at the height of summer. What would you like for your supper?’
    After the supper had been eaten and the dishes washed and put away, Mary made Tim sit in her one comfortable armchair, then looked through her records.
    ‘Do you like music, Tim?’
    ‘Sometimes,’ he answered cautiously, craning his neck to see her as she stood behind him.
    What would appeal to him? The cottage was actually better equipped with the kind of music he might like than the house in Artarmon, for she had brought all her old, outgrown tastes here. Ravel’s Bolero, Gounod’s Ave Maria, Handel’s Largo, the march from Aïda, Sullivan’s Lost Chord, the Swedish Rhapsody, Sibelius’s Finlandia, melodies from Gilbert and Sullivan, Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance march: they were all there with dozens of other selections equally rich in mood and melody. Try him on stuff like this, she thought; he doesn’t care if it’s hackneyed, so see how it goes.
    Overwhelmed, he sat entranced and all but physically inserted himself into the music. Mary had been doing some reading on mental retardation, and remembered as she sat watching him that many retarded people had a passion for music of a fairly high order and complexity. Seeing that vivid, eager face reflecting every mood change, her heart ached for him. How beautiful he was, how very beautiful!
    Towards midnight the wind coming up the river from the sea grew cooler still, gusting in through the open glass doors so vigorously that Mary closed them. Tim had gone to bed about ten, worn out with all the excitement and the long afternoon of swimming. It occurred to her that he might be cold, so she rummaged in the hall closet and unearthed an eiderdown to put over him. A tiny kerosene lantern was burning dimly beside his bed; he had confided to her, rather hesitantly, that he was afraid of the dark, and did she have a little light he could keep near him? Treading noiselessly across the bare white floor with the eiderdown hugged close in her arms in case it brushed against something and made a sound, Mary approached the narrow bed.
    He was lying all curled up, probably because he had grown cold, his arms wrapped across his chest, knees almost touching his chest. The blankets had half slipped off the bed, baring his back to the open window.
    Mary looked down at him, hands twisting within the cuddly folds of the eiderdown, mouth open. The sleeping face was so much at peace, the crystal lashes fanned down across the lean planes of his cheeks, the wonderful golden mass of his hair curling around his perfectly shaped skull. His lips were slightly turned up, the sad little crease to their left side lending the smile a Pierrot quality, and his chest rose and fell so quietly that for a moment she fancied him dead.
    How long she remained staring down at him she never knew, but at length she shivered and drew away, unfolding the eiderdown. She did not attempt to pull the blankets up around him, contenting herself with straightening them on the bed and tucking them in, then dropping the eiderdown over his shoulders and twitching it into place. He sighed and moved, nuzzling into the warmth, but in a moment he had slipped back again into the world of his dreams. What did a mentally retarded young man dream about, she wondered: did he venture forth as limited in his nocturnal wanderings as he was during his waking life, or did the miracle happen which freed him from all his chains? There was no way to know.
    After she left his room Mary found the house unbearable. Shutting the glass doors silently, she crossed the veranda and descended the steps to the path which led down to the beach. The trees were tossing restlessly in the grip of the wind, a mopoke was calling, ‘more pork! more pork!’ sitting with his round owl’s eyes blinking from