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. Ach, God, look at you anyway.Aren t you the spit of your mother? Shemight as well be sitting there instead of you.I never thought to see her put in theground before me not her or your brother either.She was my bairn, Nichol.With you gone, I d have nothing left. My mouth went dry. Well& I don t mean to go anywhere.Not unless youchuck me off your land for being a Quiet.I don t want to hear it. He was up again, this time heading for thedoor.He stopped by my chair for a moment, prodding a finger down onto theEdinburgh brochure. This nonsense they ve sent you is this what you dwant? I don t know.I haven t looked at it.Yeah, probably, but it s not an option.Listen before you banish Cam as well& If it s the gille-toine thing that upsetsyou, that s not really him. I had to try.I didn t know why Cam thought so muchof the miserable old bastard, but that was the one thing I could save.I braced upfor a big lie. It was me.I pressured him, okay? He only did it because he feltobliged to me for A swift rush of footsteps down the stairs.Only half of them, I thought, andyes, there was poor Cam, stumbling into the room with the air of a man who dbeen sitting halfway up them, listening unhappily to make sure no blood wasspilled. No, Nicky, he said, striding over to me.He stretched out a hand and Iautomatically took it. Don t you say that.Mr.Seacliff, I love this place.AndI& I m grateful to you for everything you ve done for me, and I ll leave if youwant me to.But I loved your Nichol the moment I saw him.I always will. Joy hit me, a compact high-speed truck.It knocked out the ghosts from me,sent my second-best childhood flying.I wasn t alive by grace of somewww.samhainpublishing.com 207 Harper Foxadministrative error on the part of God, who d chosen to call home the wrongbrother.As usual, elation sparked in me unholy laughter.Forcing it back, I stoodup and wrapped an arm around Cam s waist. You know, I said, if it s having no heir that worries you, there s alwaysbonny Shona from over the hill.Maybe she d let us have a surrogate with her.Then the kid can inherit her acres as well as yours, and keep the bloodline intact. I was joking, but beside me I saw Cam give a short, loyal nod, as if the prospectof a baby with a man he d known for less than four months was no big deal tohim.Way too much for the old man.He gazed at us for a moment as if we d beena pair of ladyboys dressed up for a drag version of the Folies Bergère, and thenhe turned his back and slowly walked away, forgetting even to summon hisdogs.Cam and I stared after him, hand in tight-clenched hand.208 www.samhainpublishing.com Chapter ThirteenSeacliff Farm was quiet after that.The peace had an aftermath quality to it, asif some natural disaster had struck and left us all alive but shaken.Cam and Imoved around the old man cautiously, in a state of eggshell truce he seemed forhis part to return.We kept our exchanges even a touch of hand to hand,anything stronger than a warm glance well out of his way.Cam kept hisdistance altogether.He was courteous with Harry as ever, but the shyfriendliness he d offered before, the daring approaches he d made to a joke withhim, were gone.If Harry missed them, he gave no sign.We worked, ate togetherround the kitchen table, keeping conversation to the weather and the livestock,and let the dust settle.On the fourth day, another letter came for me from the Edinburgh distance-learning centre.I was first to the post that morning and I took it outside,planning to glance at it and recycle before the logo on the envelope could causeany aftershocks.I sat on my ma s bench by the porch, nursing a mug of coffee.Iwould have to ask them to stop sending me brochures, I supposed.It wasn t a brochure.It was a letter thanking me for payment and enclosingfull details of the PhD course in linguistics on which I d been enrolled.My firstbatch of coursework had been dispatched and an introductory phoneappointment with my tutor scheduled.Cam appeared in the doorway, andreceiving no response to his greeting, sat down cautiously beside me. Is this your doing? No.Not a bit of it. Harper Fox Have you seen Harry since breakfast? Yes.He was heading down to the south barn to carry on the re-roofing. I folded up the letter and tucked it back into its envelope.I put the envelopeinto a deep pocket of my coveralls, where it wouldn t get muddy or torn, and Icould take it out at my leisure and think about its promised delights.Phonetics,dialectics, morphology and syntax& My mind was reaching out like a light-starved ivy stretching tendrils to grab at a fence.I turned to look at Cam, who was beaming broadly. Wow, he said. I know.I can t believe it.I d better go and find him. Harry was dangerously perched at the very top of a ladder on the south barnroof.I d given up telling him we didn t need to worry about fixing it till later inthe year. Hoi, I said quietly, not wanting to startle him. I ve had some mysteriousmail. Oh, have ye now? He continued fixing slates into their place in the newwooden framework. What interest do you imagine that could hold for me? None, I should think.But I ll have to cancel it, you know.We can t affordthis. Don t you be telling me what I can and can t afford on my own farm. Theladder wobbled precipitously.I made a steadying grab for it. Yon lad hasshowed me his accounts.I have my money for the timber, and& He picked up amallet, waved it at me threateningly. And whatever I have besides is nobusiness of yours. You ve got it all stashed in your mattress, haven t you? I always knew. He took a handful of nails, stuck five of them into his mouth and hammeredthe sixth into a beam.I had to wait until he d disposed of them all before he210 www.samhainpublishing.com Scrap Metalspoke again, and when he did he sounded altered, unlike himself [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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. Ach, God, look at you anyway.Aren t you the spit of your mother? Shemight as well be sitting there instead of you.I never thought to see her put in theground before me not her or your brother either.She was my bairn, Nichol.With you gone, I d have nothing left. My mouth went dry. Well& I don t mean to go anywhere.Not unless youchuck me off your land for being a Quiet.I don t want to hear it. He was up again, this time heading for thedoor.He stopped by my chair for a moment, prodding a finger down onto theEdinburgh brochure. This nonsense they ve sent you is this what you dwant? I don t know.I haven t looked at it.Yeah, probably, but it s not an option.Listen before you banish Cam as well& If it s the gille-toine thing that upsetsyou, that s not really him. I had to try.I didn t know why Cam thought so muchof the miserable old bastard, but that was the one thing I could save.I braced upfor a big lie. It was me.I pressured him, okay? He only did it because he feltobliged to me for A swift rush of footsteps down the stairs.Only half of them, I thought, andyes, there was poor Cam, stumbling into the room with the air of a man who dbeen sitting halfway up them, listening unhappily to make sure no blood wasspilled. No, Nicky, he said, striding over to me.He stretched out a hand and Iautomatically took it. Don t you say that.Mr.Seacliff, I love this place.AndI& I m grateful to you for everything you ve done for me, and I ll leave if youwant me to.But I loved your Nichol the moment I saw him.I always will. Joy hit me, a compact high-speed truck.It knocked out the ghosts from me,sent my second-best childhood flying.I wasn t alive by grace of somewww.samhainpublishing.com 207 Harper Foxadministrative error on the part of God, who d chosen to call home the wrongbrother.As usual, elation sparked in me unholy laughter.Forcing it back, I stoodup and wrapped an arm around Cam s waist. You know, I said, if it s having no heir that worries you, there s alwaysbonny Shona from over the hill.Maybe she d let us have a surrogate with her.Then the kid can inherit her acres as well as yours, and keep the bloodline intact. I was joking, but beside me I saw Cam give a short, loyal nod, as if the prospectof a baby with a man he d known for less than four months was no big deal tohim.Way too much for the old man.He gazed at us for a moment as if we d beena pair of ladyboys dressed up for a drag version of the Folies Bergère, and thenhe turned his back and slowly walked away, forgetting even to summon hisdogs.Cam and I stared after him, hand in tight-clenched hand.208 www.samhainpublishing.com Chapter ThirteenSeacliff Farm was quiet after that.The peace had an aftermath quality to it, asif some natural disaster had struck and left us all alive but shaken.Cam and Imoved around the old man cautiously, in a state of eggshell truce he seemed forhis part to return.We kept our exchanges even a touch of hand to hand,anything stronger than a warm glance well out of his way.Cam kept hisdistance altogether.He was courteous with Harry as ever, but the shyfriendliness he d offered before, the daring approaches he d made to a joke withhim, were gone.If Harry missed them, he gave no sign.We worked, ate togetherround the kitchen table, keeping conversation to the weather and the livestock,and let the dust settle.On the fourth day, another letter came for me from the Edinburgh distance-learning centre.I was first to the post that morning and I took it outside,planning to glance at it and recycle before the logo on the envelope could causeany aftershocks.I sat on my ma s bench by the porch, nursing a mug of coffee.Iwould have to ask them to stop sending me brochures, I supposed.It wasn t a brochure.It was a letter thanking me for payment and enclosingfull details of the PhD course in linguistics on which I d been enrolled.My firstbatch of coursework had been dispatched and an introductory phoneappointment with my tutor scheduled.Cam appeared in the doorway, andreceiving no response to his greeting, sat down cautiously beside me. Is this your doing? No.Not a bit of it. Harper Fox Have you seen Harry since breakfast? Yes.He was heading down to the south barn to carry on the re-roofing. I folded up the letter and tucked it back into its envelope.I put the envelopeinto a deep pocket of my coveralls, where it wouldn t get muddy or torn, and Icould take it out at my leisure and think about its promised delights.Phonetics,dialectics, morphology and syntax& My mind was reaching out like a light-starved ivy stretching tendrils to grab at a fence.I turned to look at Cam, who was beaming broadly. Wow, he said. I know.I can t believe it.I d better go and find him. Harry was dangerously perched at the very top of a ladder on the south barnroof.I d given up telling him we didn t need to worry about fixing it till later inthe year. Hoi, I said quietly, not wanting to startle him. I ve had some mysteriousmail. Oh, have ye now? He continued fixing slates into their place in the newwooden framework. What interest do you imagine that could hold for me? None, I should think.But I ll have to cancel it, you know.We can t affordthis. Don t you be telling me what I can and can t afford on my own farm. Theladder wobbled precipitously.I made a steadying grab for it. Yon lad hasshowed me his accounts.I have my money for the timber, and& He picked up amallet, waved it at me threateningly. And whatever I have besides is nobusiness of yours. You ve got it all stashed in your mattress, haven t you? I always knew. He took a handful of nails, stuck five of them into his mouth and hammeredthe sixth into a beam.I had to wait until he d disposed of them all before he210 www.samhainpublishing.com Scrap Metalspoke again, and when he did he sounded altered, unlike himself [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]