Free Gillespie and I by Jane Harris Page B

could be bolted from the adjacent hall or corridor; thus, in the unlikely event that an intruder did gain access to one of the rooms, he would find ingress to the rest of the house thwarted, unless he was possessed of several rods of dynamite.
    Despite this, and Ramsay’s wealth, there did not seem to be much that was worth stealing. Most of the rooms were unfurnished and simply functioned as store places for his various gadgets. On the one hand, my stepfather appeared to be frustrated by his malfunctioning machines, but he also seemed to gloat at their failure, as though this confirmed that the modern world, for all its baffling contrivances and precocity, was not so clever after all. In the morning room, he encouraged me to admire a mechanical graphophone: a talking machine, which had apparently never uttered so much as a syllable. Next to the scullery, he showed me a refrigerator; this object not only never got cold, but also (according to the cook) intermittently leaked poisonous gases. Outside, on the carriage drive, we paused to gaze into a shrubbery, at a half-concealed, steam-powered lawnmower. Sadly, the machine was out of puff, and crumbling with rust, since the gardener had refused to use it. We arrived, eventually, at the study, the tiny room in which my stepfather seemed to spend most of his time. He sat down and, picking up a pile of murky glass negatives, he began to shuffle through them. I was about to bring up the subject of Ned when he enquired, abruptly, whether I knew how to operate a camera (or, as he called it, a ‘photographic apparatus’), and when I replied that I did not, he raised an eyebrow. ‘But you are young,’ he cried. ‘As a female, you can be excused an ignorance of photographics—but you don’t know the first thing, either, about these new carpet sweepers? Dearie me.’
    I smiled at him, graciously, and said, ‘I know that they are very useful, sir. And—come to think of it—I do know a person who has a carpet sweeper in his home: the artist Ned Gillespie.’ I will admit that this last was not entirely true: as far as I was aware, the Gillespies owned nothing more sophisticated than a broom, but I was keen to get my stepfather off the subject of his contraptions. I went on, quickly: ‘Do you know his work?’
    Ignoring my question, Ramsay waggled his hands at me. ‘Your friend’s machine—where is it manufactured?’
    â€˜I think you misunderstand me, sir. He’s an artist, not an inventor.’
    â€˜Yes, but you said he had a carpet sweeper, did you not? What I really want to know is—can his machine wash the carpet as well as sweep it?’
    â€˜I’m fairly confident that it doesn’t wash the carpet, sir. But what I wanted to say was that Mr Gillespie—’
    â€˜Ah-hah!’ said my stepfather. ‘In that case, tell me this, young lady, do you know of any device that washes as well as sweeps? Does such a machine exist?’
    This was an exhausting conversation, hostile and full of dead ends. I had forgotten that such was the only type of discussion in which my stepfather engaged; his interlocutors were always his adversaries; indeed he did not feel that he was engaged in a real dialogue unless one participant ended by triumphing over the other. I will admit to feeling frustrated. We had not seen each other for many years; it seemed hard to believe that we were embroiled in such a pointless, combative exchange about nothing more meaningful than gadgets.
    â€˜No, sir,’ I said, shortly. ‘I know of no such device.’
    His lip curled, and he gazed at me, askance: if I were a representative of the modern world, then it would appear that I was distinctly below par in his estimation. Immediately, I was filled with regret and anxiety: I had let him down! As a child, I had learned all about kaleidoscopes, in the hope of pleasing him. If only I was better informed, now, about