Free The Echoing Stones by Celia Fremlin Page A

Arnold wondered whether he shouldn’t try and pick up some hints from the two of them? Never had his guided tours attracted such numbers. And it wasn’t just retired couples and family parties, either. Lots of really young people seemed to have opted for this tour, and from the buzz of eager conversation that came to Arnold’s ears it seemed that they had been impressed. It takes a lot to impress the young – or at least this had always been Arnold’s experience – and so he listened attentively to see what clues he could pick up.
    “No, it did move, I saw it! No, it couldn’t have been a trick of the lighting, because …”
    “The chains , that’s what got me! I nearly screamed when …”
    “I don’t really believe all that about the toads, but all the same …”
    His eye was caught by a slight female figure that seemed somehow familiar. The slim, golden-brown legs, the psychedelic shorts, the mass of coppery corkscrew hair falling around a face all-but concealed by enormous sun-glasses – in all this the girl was much like a dozen others, but all the same …
    It can’t be! Oh no! It can ’t !
    Yes it can! Oh my God, it is !
    Arnold’s mouth fell open as his daughter languidly approached him, smiling, so far as he could judge, what with the hair and the sun-glasses, and what with her face (as much as was visible of it) being puckered-up against the sudden sunlight outside the dungeon. It was a long time since Flora had actually smiled at her father, but – yes, it was a smile. Must be, her teeth were showing, anyway, he’d have recognised them anywhere, so white and even and beautiful. He’d always been proud of Flora’s teeth and how, when she was eleven, the dentist had said they were the finest set he’d ever seen, no fillings anywhere.
    “Hi, Arnold!” In that first moment of recognition, he’d somehow hoped she was going to say “Hi, Dad!” But of course it was a long time since she’d called him “Dad”. How one forgets.
    “Hullo, Flora,” should have been an easy thing to say, but somehow it wasn’t. Partly the shock, of course – for what could have been more unlikely than that his all-but-estranged daughter should have exerted herself to come and visit him in this out-of-the-way place? But partly also, because he couldn’t yet guess her mood, and, with Flora, the mood she happened to be in was of crucial importance. “Hullo” could be just the wrong thing to say, and might set off such a train of recriminations as it would be beyond his power to cope with, especially without Mildred at his side to draw some of the fire.
    *
    However, he must have said something, for not many minutes later here they were, the two of them, en route for the Tea Room. Here, for once, he was to enjoy the experience of being the customer instead of the harassed manager or emergency tea-dispenser.
    It was Pauline who served them, pop-eyed with curiosity as to how so dried-up an old stick as her boss could havepicked up so trendy a bird as this one with her psycho shorts and designer glasses. He decided not to disabuse Pauline, not for the moment. Let her guess. Both she and Tracey had been showing signs of flagging when he’d entered the restaurant, and unsatisfied curiosity is always a fine pick-me-up as any observant employer knows.
    Seated opposite one another at one of the small tables, the vase of artificial flowers between them, conversation between Flora and her father did not flow easily. Arnold did not dare ask his daughter direct questions, such as “Well, how are you getting on?” as that way serious altercation lay: How do you think I’m getting on in this rotten, polluted, clapped-out world that your generation has handed on to me? It was all very well for you , you never had to contend with unemployment, inflation, housing shortages, rapacious landlords, hospital waiting-lists …
    That sort of thing. And when, nettled beyond endurance , Arnold would point out that he and Mildred had