Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [107]
“‘And it was said unto them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth . . .’”
Newby hissed his impatience and turned to Enoch’s brother.
“Amos, what in hell is all this about?”
“The hour is at hand, Neville.”
“Don’t you bleddy Neville me,” Newby said fiercely. “Thas Constable Newby to you, Amos.”
“All office is cleansed away,” Amos said beatifically.
“What?”
Amos said (while his brother announced, “‘And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war’”), “We’re doing nothun illegal. Is it against the law to declare our love of the Lord? Or to surrender ourself to his unimaginable mercy? Strip off the trappuns of earthly power, Neville Newby. Take off thy helmut and stand with us. Even at this moment it ent too late.”
By now the constable was so hot with anger that it seemed his abundant nostril hair might spontaneously ignite.
“You ent right in the head.” He glared around the circle of saints. “None of yer is.”
“‘And they had breastplates,’” Enoch declared, his voice rising, “‘as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to war.’”
“I’ll give yer bleddy chariots,” Newby declared. “I’m off to phone Norwich. If yer still here when they come, be that on yer own head.”
He strode back to his bicycle, but didn’t risk the ungainly act of mounting it in the full gaze of the public. Instead, he marched it back through the square, as if it were a young vandal he’d nabbed by the collar. At the church gates, he caught sight of Ruth’s stricken face, and halted.
“I’m sorry to see yer mother here, Ruth,” he said. “She dint seem as mental as the rest of that lot. Why don’t yer see if yer can’t talk some sense inter her?”
He noted the mackintosh over George’s arm.
“An see if yer can’t get that coat on her. That ent a pretty sight, is it?”
And with that, he plodded on his way.
Ruth looked at the faces around the square. There were none she didn’t know, hadn’t spent her life among. The idea of them all watching her as she made the long walk to her mad mother, the shame of it, brought her to the edge of nausea, of swooning. She burst into tears, noisily, and stumbled back into the churchyard. Reaching the bench where, in her long-gone age of innocence, she’d shared lunch with poor soft Stanley, she sat down, took off her spectacles, and wept.
George came to her and, after a moment or two of hesitation, sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Clem whispered.
“Don’t say that. Don’t spoil it.”
They were lying on their sides with their arms around each other. He could feel Frankie’s breath on his neck. His fingers trembled in her hair.
“It was nice,” she said.
“Was it?”
He remembered her short hiss of pain, or anger, her lips pulled back from her teeth. It had shocked him.
The light had changed, brightened. A wind they could not feel rattled the gorse above them. He wondered about the tide, how high it might come, and when. Stupid holidaymakers were always getting cut off by high tides, all along the coast. Having to be rescued. If he and Frankie were . . . God. He quelled a ripple of panic.
She said quietly, seriously, “I expect it’s something one gets better at with practice. Like the violin. Or anything, really.”
He sort of laughed, or scoffed. He couldn’t help it. She lifted her head and looked at him gravely. Her eyes were so dark and liquid and lovely. He forgot this, sometimes, because he thought so much about her other parts.
“What? Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah. I spose.”
“You spose,” she said, mocking him. “Well, let me tell you, Clement Ackroyd, we are going to find out. We are going to put in lots of practice.”
She kissed him.
“Lots and lots. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
She propped her head on one hand. “You don’t sound too sure.”
He was in a state of sticky wilt. He didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Frankie, leave off.”
“Or are you one of those boys who lose interest in a girl once they’ve had her? Are you going to finish with me now