Free The Pyramid by William Golding Page B

know.”
    “Meet you here this evening.”
    She smiled at that, a little of the lop-sided grimace I had seen once before.
    “No fear.”
    “Tomorrow then.”
    “How should I know?”
    “Tomorrow—after surgery. In the evening.”
    “Want to bet, Mr. Clever?”
    I took her firmly by the shoulders.
    “Tomorrow evening after surgery. I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll have some more—”
    She said nothing but stared darkly through my chest.
    “Shan’t we, Evie? I said ‘Shan’t we?’”
    Evie drooped a little between my hands.
    I watched her slide, at her accustomed pace, past the vicarage and the cottages, down towards Chandler’s Close. I stood there, in the pride of possession, enjoying her bob, the swell of her seat and the little motion of her delicate arms. I went home and faced the music. There was plenty of it and all the more powerful for being muted. My father treated me with a serious concern that was as fearsome as open anger. Nobody mentioned the split panel of the piano. My mother thought I ought to be ashamed; but with such a desperately concealed fear for my sanity that it was very obvious to me. My father examined my hand, painted the cuts with iodine, and gave me some opening medicine. I apologized all round of course, saying I had not known what came over me. I would mend the piano or pay for it to be mended somehow when I could. I would not offend again; and yes, I felt perfectly calm. And once more, I was desperately sorry. But really, nothing touched me, not the smashed panel, nor my father’s deep anxiety. Not even my mother’s tears.
    *
    That evening when I went to bed, my left hand jumped and throbbed. I put it outside the bedclothes to cool it; and then, finding that not much relief, I propped my forearm on the pillow so that my hand was above my head in the air and some of the blood drained from it. It was extraordinary how different life had become. Even the thought of Imogen, though she caused me my usual pang, brought no more than a covered one, a pang with the point blunted. I pinned the memory of a scented, white body over it. I found myself wishing strange things, wishing that Imogen might know I had had Evie; that she might see—but she knew of course—how pretty was our local phenomenon, this hot bit of stuff through which I had achieved my deep calm. I found myself envisaging Stilbourne with college gents to the east, stable lads to the west, a spread of hot, sexy woodland to the south of it and only the bare escarpment to the north. Chandler’s Close to the Old Bridge—a silver thread, a safe, patrolled line; but Robert had tapped the line with his motor bike by way of side alleys; and I, the even safer thread between the Close and her wooden, ridiculous church. I had, in terms of set book, cuckolded Sergeant Babbacombe. I was a bit vague about cuckolding, but it seemed the right word. Most of all, I returned to her body, enjoying it again in detail. I knew about the details now. I began to plan new triumphs. Tomorrow, with careless grace and ease, I would weave a chain of kisses from one pink tit to the other, laughing, and enjoying the shivers and the tremors of my possession. Hand throbbing above my head, head filled with white femininity, it was after dawn, before I fell asleep.
    The next day lingered even by breakfast time—stretched ahead an unendurable length. It was hot and bright and I could not think how to pass the time of waiting. My parents were still grave and anxious; so to make what amends I could I behaved as considerately as possible, helping with the washing up. I asked what I could do—shopping, perhaps; but my mother would not have it. When I went into the dispensary and asked my father if he would like me to deliver medicine—a thing I had not done for years—he merely shook his head. I could not go for a walk; for the opening medicine proved effective and powerful so that for most of the day I had to stay close to the house. Nor, with my swollen