The Clocks - Agatha Christie [81]
“Your daddy’s out, I suppose,” I said.
She replied with the same promptness and fullness of detail which she had already shown.
“Cartinghaven Engineering Works, Beaverbridge,” she said. “It’s fourteen and three-quarter miles from here exactly.”
“And your mother?”
“Mummy’s dead,” said Geraldine, with no diminution of cheerfulness. “She died when I was a baby two months old. She was in a plane coming from France. It crashed. Everyone was killed.”
She spoke with a certain satisfaction and I perceived that to a child, if her mother is dead, it reflects a certain kudos if she has been killed in a complete and devastating accident.
“I see,” I said. “So you have—” I looked towards the door.
“That’s Ingrid. She comes from Norway. She’s only been here a fortnight. She doesn’t know any English to speak of yet. I’m teaching her English.”
“And she is teaching you Norwegian?”
“Not very much,” said Geraldine.
“Do you like her?”
“Yes. She’s all right. The things she cooks are rather odd sometimes. Do you know, she likes eating raw fish.”
“I’ve eaten raw fish in Norway,” I said. “It’s very good sometimes.”
Geraldine looked extremely doubtful about that.
“She is trying to make a treacle tart today,” she said.
“That sounds good.”
“Umm—yes, I like treacle tart.” She added politely, “Have you come to lunch?”
“Not exactly. As a matter of fact I was passing down below out there, and I think you dropped something out of the window.”
“Me?”
“Yes.” I advanced the silver fruit knife.
Geraldine looked at it, at first suspiciously and then with signs of approval.
“It’s rather nice,” she said. “What is it?”
“It’s a fruit knife.”
I opened it.
“Oh, I see. You mean you can peel apples with it and things like that.”
“Yes.”
Geraldine sighed.
“It’s not mine. I didn’t drop it. What made you think I did?”
“Well, you were looking out of the window, and….”
“I look out of the window most of the time,” said Geraldine. “I fell down and broke my leg, you see.”
“Hard luck.”
“Yes, wasn’t it. I didn’t break it in a very interesting way, though. I was getting out of a bus and it went on suddenly. It hurt rather at first and it ached a bit, but it doesn’t now.”
“Must be rather dull for you,” I said.
“Yes, it is. But Daddy brings me things. Plasticine, you know, and books and crayons and jigsaw puzzles and things like that, but you get tired of doing things, so I spend a lot of time looking out of the window with these.”
She produced with enormous pride a small pair of opera glasses.
“May I look?” I said.
I took them from her, adjusted them to my eyes and looked out of the window.
“They’re jolly good,” I said appreciatively.
They were indeed, excellent. Geraldine’s daddy, if it had been he who supplied them, had not spared expense. It was astonishing how clearly you could see No. 19, Wilbraham Crescent and its neighbouring houses. I handed them back to her.
“They’re excellent,” I said. “First-class.”
“They’re proper ones,” said Geraldine, with pride. “Not just for babies and pretending.”
“No … I can see that.”
“I keep a little book,” said Geraldine.
She showed me.
“I write down things in it and the times. It’s like trainspotting,” she added. “I’ve got a cousin called Dick and he does trainspotting. We do motorcar numbers too. You know, you start at one and see how far you can get.”
“It’s rather a good sport,” I said.
“Yes, it is. Unfortunately there aren’t many cars come down this road so I’ve rather given that up for the time being.”
“I suppose you must know all about those houses down there, who lives in them and all that sort of thing.”
I threw it out casually enough but Geraldine was quick to respond.
“Oh, yes. Of course I don’t know their real names, so I have to give them names of my own.”
“That must be rather fun,” I said.
“That’s the Marchioness of Carrabas down there,” said Geraldine, pointing. “That one with all the untidy trees. You know, like Puss In Boots. She has masses and masses of