Free The Forgotten Story by Winston Graham Page B

undertone with the air of having received the news direct from the surgeon’s lips. ‘It’s all U.P. when a person gets that.’
    â€˜Hm. I’m sorry. Is it …?’
    â€˜Well, there we are …’
    Uneasily: ‘It surely isn’t catching.’
    â€˜Oh, I wouldn’t say that. But I’ve noticed husbands and wives often seem to get it after each other, haven’t you? Of course, mind you, mm-mm-mm-mm …’
    â€˜Poor old Smoky.’
    â€˜Yes. Poor luck for him.’
    A moment later the men had passed on and Anthony found himself facing Ma Poulton in the box office.
    He bought the seats and waited for Patricia to separate from her husband and join him. She did this almost at once and they entered the tent together. But Anthony’s excitement and anticipation for the evening had dropped from him. Somehow the pleasure of the present had become submerged in a dread of the future.

Chapter Eight
    Whatever the Poulton Players lacked in the finer points of acting as understood by the sophisticated few, they made up in verve and power and conscientious determination to see that nothing was missed by the slower members of the audience. The play was called The Last of His Line ; a title, the boy thought at first, with some aptness for the grey little tragedy which was taking place behind the drawn curtains of Smoky Joe’s. But as the play progressed even the encounters of this evening were driven from his mind by the strange glamour of the footlights. For nearly three hours he lived in a world of Marquises and milkmaids, of mortgages and suicides, of love trysts broken and hearts with them, and of Christmas reconciliations to the sight of snowflakes and the sound of church bells.
    He came out with his mind still staggering under the weight of enormous visual impressions. He was thrilled and delighted almost to the core of his being. But at the very core was a hard heavy weight which seemed to say: ‘This isn’t what’s happening to you; the part of the evening that’s yours is what happened before you went in.’
    As they were leaving the tent Tom Harris joined them again. He asked if he might see them home, and although the boy felt that this was a usurpation of his own position he could see that Patricia was not unwilling to accept the offer. There were bound to be numerous drunks about at this time of night.
    They walked some distance talking of the play. Anthony thought how much more reasonable they seemed in each other’s presence now they were alone, except for himself. Then Tom Harris spoiled it by suddenly saying:
    â€˜Patricia, I want you to leave Joe’s. I want you to come back to Penryn with me tonight.’
    She said: ‘I thought we’d finished discussing that, Tom.’
    â€˜I don’t know why it is,’ he said. ‘I can’t give you better reasons than I’ve already given you. But I’ve a feeling. I don’t like the atmosphere of the place. I want you to get out of it.’
    â€˜I’m not coming, Tom. I’ve told you; I’m not coming.’
    They walked on.
    â€˜In a different way,’ he said, ‘you’re just as obstinate as your father.’
    â€˜If knowing my own mind is obstinacy, then I am. But what is obstinacy? Only the determination of another person to do what you don’t want them to do.’
    â€˜You’re learning, Pat. You’re learning the art of argument. But don’t get too theoretical, I beg of you.’
    â€˜I thought,’ she said, ‘you would like me to get all dry and precise and withered up like Aunt Phoebe.’
    â€˜Why should I? Why should I compare the lily and the teasel?’
    Against her better judgment she uttered a brief murmur of amusement. ‘ That’s just right for Aunt Phoebe. She’s hard and dry and – and prickly and rustles when the wind blows.’
    â€˜But even teasels have their