I am instructed by my tutor to read Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Bridehead Revisited’. Here is a passage from the Great Man.
Charles meets his father at home.
My father, I knew, was in the house, but his library was inviolable, and it was not until just before dinner that he appeared to greet me. He was then in his late fifties, but it was his idosyncrasy to seem much older than his years; to see him one might have put him at seventy; to hear him speak at nearly eighty. He came to me now, with the shuffling, mandarin-tread which he affected, and a shy smile of welcome. When he dined at home – and he rarely dined elsewhere – he wore a frogged velvet smoking suit of the kind which had been fashionable many years before and was to be so again, but, at that time, was a deliberate archaism.
I’m with Waugh every step along the way. Are you?
Now let’s see how near I can get to the great man.
As I sit at the keyboard thinking what next to write, I hear the unmistakable sound of entry. Then quiet. I know it’s Thomas. I know why he’s here.
Then padded footsteps on the well worn stair carpet. “Hello granddad.”
Hello Thomas. What do you want?”
“Nothing. I’ve just come to see you.”
“That’s nice. Do you want to go now?”
“Yes. Can I have a chocolate eclair?”
“And!”
“Please.”
“No. There are only two left, and they’re for in the morning before you go to school.”
“Ok. Seeya.”
“Seeya. Close the door and the gate behind you.”
Padded footsteps down the well worn stair carpet. Then silence. More silence. I know what he’s doing. I hear the door close and get up and go to the window just in time to see him stuffing something into his jeans pocket. I open the window. “What are you eating, Thomas?”
A startled grin. “I’ll have a biscuit in the morning, granddad. Seeya.”
The gate swings half-open; and I know I’ll have to go downstairs and shut the damned thing, but I’m grinning when I do.
OS? Not quite, but it’s fun trying. 😉
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