Free Atonement by Ian McEwan Page A

away. He knew that he was in
trouble, that he deserved to be in trouble, and he was about to run for it when
she seized him by an ear and put her face close to his.
    “If you
hit me,” he said quickly, “I’ll tell The Parents.” But
he himself had made the invocation useless, a ruined totem of a lost golden
age.
    “You
will never
ever
use that word again. D’you hear me?”
    Full of
shame, he nodded, and she let him go.
    The boys had
been shocked out of tears, and now Pierrot, as usual eager to repair a bad
situation, said brightly, “What shall we do now?”
    “I’m
always asking myself that.”
    The tall man
in a white suit standing in the doorway may have been there many minutes, long
enough to have heard
Jackson
speak the word, and
it was this thought, rather than the shock of his presence, that prevented even
Lola from making a response. Did he know about their family? They could only
stare and wait to find out. He came toward them and extended his hand.
    “Paul
Marshall.”
    Pierrot, who
was the nearest, took the hand in silence, as did his brother. When it was the
girl’s turn she said, “Lola Quincey. This is
Jackson
and that’s
Pierrot.”
    “What
marvelous names you all have. But how am I supposed to tell you two
apart?”
    “I’m
generally considered more pleasant,” Pierrot said. It was a family joke,
a line devised by their father which usually made strangers laugh when they put
the question. But this man did not even smile as he said, “You must be
the cousins from the north.”
    They waited
tensely to hear what else he knew, and watched as he walked the length of the
nursery’s bare boards and stooped to retrieve the brick which he tossed
in the air and caught smartly with a snap of wood against skin.
    “I’m
staying in a room along the corridor.”
    “I
know,” Lola said. “Auntie Venus’s room.”
    “Exactly
so. Her old room.”
    Paul Marshall
lowered himself into the armchair lately used by the stricken Arabella. It
really was a curious face, with the features scrunched up around the eyebrows,
and a big empty chin like Desperate Dan’s. It was a cruel face, but his
manner was pleasant, and this was an attractive combination, Lola thought. He
settled his trouser creases as he looked from Quincey to Quincey. Lola’s
attention was drawn to the black and white leather of his brogues, and he was
aware of her admiring them and waggled one foot to a rhythm in his head.
    “I’m
sorry to hear about your play.”
    The twins
moved closer together, prompted from below the threshold of awareness to close
ranks by the consideration that if he knew more than they did about the
rehearsals, he must know a great deal besides.
Jackson
spoke from the heart
of their concern.
    “Do you
know our parents?”
    “Mr.
and Mrs. Quincey?”
    “Yes!”
    “I’ve
read about them in the paper.”
    The boys
stared at him as they absorbed this and could not speak, for they knew that the
business of newspapers was momentous: earthquakes and train crashes, what the
government and nations did from day to day, and whether more money should be
spent on guns in case Hitler attacked
England
. They were awed, but
not completely surprised, that their own disaster should rank with these godly
affairs. This had the ring of confirming truth.
    To steady
herself, Lola put her hands on her hips. Her heart was beating painfully hard
and she could not trust herself to speak, even though she knew she had to. She
thought a game was being played which she did not understand, but she was
certain there had been an impropriety, or even an insult. Her voice gave out
when she began, and she was obliged to clear her throat and start again.
    “What
have you read about them?”
    He raised his
eyebrows, which were thick and fused together, and blew a dismissive, blubbery
sound through his lips. “Oh, I don’t know. Nothing at all. Silly
things.”
    “Then
I’ll thank you not to talk about them in front of the children.”
    It