Camomile Lawn Read Online Free Page B

symmetrical, her expression masklike. Most people had two sides to a varying degree, good and evil, happy and sad. Walter was particularly varied, as though he had been sat on at birth, and she herself had a slightly bent nose, while Oliver had the trace of a squint.
    They lined the cliff that afternoon, Walter and Polly starting Sophy off from the headland under the coastguard station, the twins stationed above the path half-way along the course, Calypso and Oliver waiting at the finish. For most of the course Sophy would be visible, only out of sight where the path ran through dense thorn or at one point just above the sea, where it twisted sharply round high granite boulders.
    Up on the cliff that afternoon the twins sat with their backs to the fence which prevented straying cattle from falling over.
    ‘She’s off. Walter’s unleashed her.’ They looked down at Sophy leaving Walter at a run to tear along the path.
    ‘I wonder what it will look like from the air.’
    ‘We’ve never flown. D’you think they will let us keep together?’
    ‘Surely they won’t separate us?’ Paul looked at David aghast.
    ‘It may happen.’
    ‘My God, I hope not.’
    ‘Death may.’
    ‘Not us. We shan’t get killed.’
    ‘Hi, we’ve forgotten Sophy. I can’t see her.’
    ‘She must be among the thorns.’
    ‘Or the boulders. She was going lickety spit. You don’t really think we can get split up, do you?’
    ‘Father says the authorities are bound to. He may be right. Think of the confusion at school.’
    The other twin laughed. ‘Whatever happens we’ve had fun.’
    ‘If you die, I die.’
    ‘Oh, gloom! It hasn’t started yet. Where the hell is Sophy?’
    ‘She may have hurt herself. We’d better follow her. Remember Walter’s ankle.’
    They scrambled down through the gorse and heather to the path, unusually tall young men, loose-limbed as puppies, their maize-coloured hair flopping over brown eyes fringed with feathery lashes, their looks the more noticeable because duplicated. They brushed their hair back from brows untouched by experience and ambled along the path.
    ‘Where are Walter and Polly?’
    ‘They must have gone back by the short cut.’
    At the finish Calypso sat with Oliver, holding his hand.
    ‘I tell you what, Olly, even if I won’t marry you I’ll sleep with you. Have you ever done it?’
    ‘Yes, I have.’
    ‘Is it nice?’
    ‘Nice.’ Oliver looked at Calypso and repeated ‘nice’. How could ‘nice’ be a word applied to Calypso? ‘I want to have you to myself. I’ll wait.’
    ‘If there’s a war I’ll sleep with you before you get killed. That’s what maidens did in books and I am a maiden.’
    ‘How you carry on about your virginity. Virginity’s nothing. You can lose it riding a bicycle.’
    ‘I never knew that. I must be careful. I’m going to ride a bicycle in London. Pa says petrol will be rationed.’
    ‘And virginity not. How shall you find your rich prince from a bicycle? It’s so bourgeois.’
    ‘I will find him. If you want something hard enough you get it, and I want a very rich husband, always have.’
    ‘Oh, Calypso, don’t.’ Oliver put his arms round her. ‘Oh, my love, I will get rich, very rich. Then you will marry me.’
    ‘What’s that?’ Calypso drew away from him and sprang up. ‘Somebody screamed. Sophy.’
    ‘Something’s wrong.’ They ran down the path to meet Sophy, who approached them in a rush, hurling herself into Calypso’s arms, sobbing wildly.
    ‘What is it? What happened? Are you hurt? What’s the matter? Stop it, Sophy, stop it.’ But Sophy, clinging to Calypso, could not stop. Her sobs turned to screams, her fingers dug painfully into Calypso’s neck.
    ‘Sophy, you are hurting.’ Oliver pulled the child away and smacked her face. ‘Stop, Sophy. What happened?’
    Through white lips the child said, gasping, ‘Pink, pink snake.’
    ‘What?’ Oliver stared at the child, her tears splashing white cheeks. ‘Speak