was going to ask if you’d lend me this picture. It’d blow up quite nicely. My paper would pay –’
‘No,’ said Jenny.
‘Golly, how fierce!’ said Mr Joyce, pretending to shrink. He looked about him. ‘Now why not?’ he asked.
Major Barrimore said: ‘I don’t know why not. I can’t say I see anything wrong with it. The thing’s happened, hasn’t it, and it’s damned interesting. Why shouldn’t people hear about it?’
‘O, I do agree,’ cried Miss Cost. ‘I’m sorry but I do so agree with the Major. When the papers are full of such dreadful things shouldn’t we welcome a lovely, lovely true story like Wally’s. O, yes!’
Patrick said to Mr Joyce: ‘Well, at least you declared yourself,’ and grinned at him.
‘He wanted Jenny’s photograph,’ said Mrs Barrimore quietly. ‘So he had to.’
They looked at her with astonishment. ‘Well, honestly, Mama!’ Patrick ejaculated. ‘What a very crisp remark!’
‘An extremely cogent remark,’ said Dr Maine.
‘I don’t think so,’ Major Barrimore said loudly and Jenny was aware of an antagonism that had nothing to do with the matter under discussion.
‘But, of course I had to,’ Mr Joyce conceded with a wide gesture and an air of candour. ‘You’re dead right. I did want the photograph. All the same, it’s a matter of professional etiquette, you know. My paper doesn’t believe in pulling fast ones. That’s not The Sun’s policy, at all. In proof of which I shall retire gracefully upon a divided house.’
He carried his drink over to Miss Cost and sat beside her. Mrs Barrimore got up and moved away. Dr Maine took her empty glass and put it on the bar.
There was an uncomfortable silence, induced perhaps by the general recollection that they had all drunk at Mr Joyce’s expense and a suspicion that his hospitality had not been offered entirely without motive.
Mrs Barrimore said: ‘Good night, everybody,’ and went out.
Patrick moved over to Jenny. ‘I’m going fishing in the morning if it’s fine,’ he said. ‘Seeing it’s a Saturday, would it amuse you to come? It’s a small, filthy boat and I don’t expect to catch anything.’
‘What time?’
‘Dawn. Or soon after. Say half past four.’
‘Crikey! Well, yes, I’d love to if I can wake myself up.’
‘I’ll scratch on your door like one of the Sun King’s courtiers. Which door is it? Frightening, if I scratched on Miss Cost’s!’
Jenny told him. ‘Look at Miss Cost now,’ she said. ‘She’s having a whale of a time with Mr Joyce.’
‘He’s getting a story from her.’
‘O, no!’
‘O, yes! And tomorrow, betimes, he’ll be hunting up Wally and his unspeakable parents. With a camera.’
‘He won’t!’
‘Of course he will. If they’re sober they’ll be enchanted. Watch out for K.J.’s “What’s The Answer” column in The Sun.’
‘I do think the gutter-press in this country’s the rock bottom.’
‘Don’t you have a gutter-press in New Zealand?’
‘Not as low.’
‘Well done, you. All the same, I don’t see why K.J.’s idea strikes you as being so very low. No sex. No drugs. No crime. It’s as clean as a whistle, like Wally’s hands.’ He was looking rather intently into Jenny’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t like that, either, did you?’
‘It’s just – I don’t know, or yes, I think I do. Wally’s so vulnerable. I mean, he’s been jeered at and cowed by the other children. He’s been puzzled and lonely and now he’s a comparatively happy little creature. Quite a hero, in a way. He’s not attractive: his sort aren’t, as a rule, but I’ve got an affection for him. Whatever’s happened ought to be private to him.’
‘But he won’t take it in, will he? All the ballyhoo, if there is any ballyhoo? He may even vaguely enjoy it.’
‘I don’t want him to. All right,’ Jenny said crossly, ‘I’m being bloody-minded. Forget it. P’raps it won’t happen.’
‘I think you may depend upon it,’ Patrick rejoined. ‘It will.’
And, in the event, he turned out to be right.
IV
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
Do You Believe in Fairies?
Wally Trehern does. Small boy of Portcarrow Island had crop of warts that made life a misery.
Other Kids Shunned Him Because of his Disfigurement. So Wally washed his hands in the Pixie Falls and – you’ve guessed it.
This is what they looked like before.
And here they are now.
Wally, seen above with parents, by Pixie Falls, says mysterious green lady ‘told me to wash them off’.
Parents say no other treatment given.
Miss Elspeth Cost (inset) cured of chronic asthma?
Local doctor declines comment.
(Full story on Page 9.)
Dr Maine read the full story, gave an ambiguous ejaculation and started on his morning round.
The Convalescent Home was a very small one: six single rooms for patients, and living quarters for two nurses and for Dr Maine who was a widower. A veranda at the back of the house looked across a large garden and an adjacent field towards the sea and the Island.
At present he had four patients, all convalescent. One of them, an elderly lady, was already up and taking the air on the veranda. He noticed that she, like the others, had been reading The Sun.
‘Well, Mrs Thorpe,’ he said, bending over her, ‘this is a step forward, isn’t it? If you go on behaving nicely we’ll soon have you taking that little drive.’
Mrs Thorpe wanly smiled and nodded. ‘So unspoiled,’ she said waving a hand at the prospect. ‘Not many places left like it. No horrid trippers.’
He sat down beside her, laid his fingers on her pulse and looked at his watch. ‘This is becoming pure routine,’ he said cheerfully.
It was obvious that Mrs Thorpe had a great deal more to say. She
