Evangelista's Fan (22 page)

‘Now we know,' his wife once heard him mutter. ‘Now we know all about it.'

When the war ended he was still married to the dancer. His son was five years old. They lived in a manor house with an ancient tennis court and an east-facing croquet lawn. Though his head was still full of the war, he had a touching faith in the future and he usually knew, as each night descended, that he was looking forward to the day.

Very often, in the summer of 1946, he would wake when the sun came up and, leaving the dancer sleeping, would go out onto the croquet lawn wearing his dressing gown and slippers from Simpson's of Piccadilly and stare at the dew on the grass, at the shine on the croquet hoops and at the sky, turning. He had the feeling that he and the world made a handsome pair.

One morning, he saw a stoat on the lawn. The stoat was running round the croquet hoops and then in and out of them in a strange repeated pattern, as if it were taking part in a stoat gymkhana. The man did not move, but stood and watched. Then he backed off into the house and ran up the stairs to the room where his son was sleeping.

‘Wake up!' he said to the little boy. ‘I've got something to show you!'

He took his son's hand and led him barefoot down the stairs and out into the garden. The stoat was still running round and through the croquet hoops and now, as the man and the boy stood watching, it decided to leap over the hoops, jumping twice its height into the air and rolling over in a somersault as it landed, then flicking its tail as it turned and ran in for another leap.

The boy, still dizzy with sleep, opened his mouth and opened wide his blue eyes. He knew he must not move so he did not even look round when his father left his side and went back into the house. He shivered a little in the dewy air. He wanted to creep forward so that he could be in the sun. He tiptoed out across the gravel that hurt his feet and onto the soft, wet lawn. The stoat saw him and whipped its body to a halt, head up, tail flat, regarding the boy. The boy could see its eyes. He thought how sleek and slippery it looked and how he would like to stroke its head with his finger.

The father returned. ‘Don't move!' he whispered to his son, so the boy did not turn.

The father took aim with his shotgun and fired. He hit the stoat right in the head and its body flew up into the air before it fell without a sound. The man laughed with joy at the cleanness and beauty of the shot. He laughed a loud, happy laugh and then he looked down at his son for approval. But the boy was not there. The boy had walked back inside the house, leaving his father alone in the bright morning.

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Epub ISBN: 9781446450574

Version 1.0

  

Published by Vintage 1999

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3

Copyright © Rose Tremain 1994

Rose Tremain has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Some of the stories in this collection first appeared in the following publications: ‘Trade Wind Over Nashville' (
Pandora's Stories IV
, Pandora, 1990); ‘Over' (
Soho Square III
, Bloomsbury, 1990); ‘Two of Them' (
Marie Claire
, 1992); ‘Ice Dancing' (
Telling Stories
, Sceptre, 1993); ‘The Candle Maker'
(Trio
, Penguin, 1993); ‘The Crossing of Herald Mountjoy' (
Independent
, 1993); ‘John-Jin' (Radio 4)

First published in Great Britain in 1994 by Sinclair-Stevenson

Vintage

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London SW1V 2SA

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780749396985