Free Tim by Colleen McCullough

in a gesture of remorse and pity. "Oh, my dear! My dear, I didn't mean it! I was asleep and you frightened me, that's all! Don't look at me so! I wouldn't hurt you for all the world, Tim, truly! Oh, please don't look at me like that!"
    He avoided her hands, holding himself just out of her reach because he wasn't sure if she meant it or not, if she wasn't just trying to soothe him.
    "It was so beautiful," he explained timidly. "I just wanted to touch it, Mary."
    She stared at him, astonished. Had he said "beautiful?" Yes, he had! And said it as if he really knew what the word meant, as if he understood that it was different from "lovely" or "nice" or "super" or "grouse" or "beaut" in degree, these being the only adjectives of praise she had heard him use. Tim was learning! He was picking up a little of what she said, and interpreting it correctly.
    She laughed at him tenderly and went right up to him, taking his reluctant hands and gripping them strongly. "Bless you, Tim, I like you better than anyone else I know! Don't be annoyed with me, I didn't mean to hurt you, really I didn't."
    His smile came out like the sun, the pain faded from his eyes. "I like you too, Mary, I like you better than anyone except Pop and Mum and my Dawnie." He paused thoughtfully. "I think I like you better than my Dawnie, actually."
    There he went again! He had said "actually," just the way she did herself! Of course, to a large extent it was simply parroting, but not entirely; there was 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 Aida, Sullivan's Lost Chord, the Swedish Rhapsody, Sibelius' 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!
    Toward 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