‘I told him about the reports,’ her husband said. ‘You asked me to, you know. I did it as tactfully as I could. I couldn’t exactly congratulate him on them, except on his good conduct, which he didn’t seem to like. Yes, I remember now, he was upset: I did my best to calm him down and thought I’d succeeded. I hope the poor boy isn’t going crackers—we’ve never had anything like that in my family.’
‘He’s highly-strung, that’s all, and your presence, Roger, is a bit overpowering. I know you don’t mean it to be, but if I was a little boy——’
‘Thank goodness you aren’t.’
‘I might be frightened of you.’
‘How can he be frightened of me, when he wants to sleep with me?’
‘I’m often frightened of you,’ said his wife, ‘but still I want to sleep with you.’
‘This is getting us into deep waters,’ Roger said, stretching himself luxuriously. ‘But you won’t be able to sleep with me to-night, my dear, because you’ve arranged for me to sleep with Laurie.’
‘Yes, he’s in the spare-room bed.’
‘He’ll never find another father as accommodating as I am.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘At any rate I hope there won’t be any repetition of the incident—the upshot, the fall-out, or whatever you call it.’
‘I’m sure not, he was fast asleep when I left him. But you know, Roger, he was a bit light-headed—he kept muttering something about the pylon, very fast in that indistinct way children talk when they’re ill and half-asleep——’
‘I hope he doesn’t take me for the pylon.’
‘Oh dear, how silly you are. But what I mean is, if he wakes up and mentions the wretched thing, because it seems to be on his mind, just say——’
‘What shall I say?’
‘Say that it’s dead and buried, or cremated, or on the scrapheap, or whatever happens to pylons that have outlived their usefulness. Say that it’s nothing to be afraid of, because it doesn’t exist, and if it did——’
‘Well?’
‘If it did, which it doesn’t, it’s still nothing to be afraid of, because men made it and men have taken it down, taken it to pieces. It’s not like Nature, there whether we want it or not; it’s like the things he makes with his Meccano. From what I gathered he seemed to think it could have a kind of independent existence, go on existing like a ghost and somehow hurt him. He reads this science fiction and doesn’t distinguish very well between fiction and fact—children don’t.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Roger. ‘Don’t worry, Anne. I shall have the situation well in hand. I shall say, if he wakes up, which please God he won’t, “Now, Laurie, just pretend the pylon is me”—or I, to be grammatical. That will re-route his one-track mind, and turn it in a different direction.’
Anne thought a moment.
‘I’m not sure that I should say that,’ she said. ‘If he asks you, hold on to the pylon being artificial, something that man has made and can unmake, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Very well, dear wife,’ said Roger, and they parted for the night.
Laurie was lying, cheeks flushed and breathing quickly, on the extreme edge of the bed, as he always did to give his father room. Gingerly Roger stole in beside him, and laid his long, heavy body between the sheets. Lights out! He slept late, for his wife wouldn’t have them called, and woke up wondering if Laurie was awake.
He wasn’t; his face was much less flushed and his breathing normal.
I’ll stay in bed till he wakes up, his father thought. He may have something to say to me.
At length the boy began to stir; consciousness returned to him by slow stages, and deliciously, as it does in youth, down gladsome glades of physical well-being. Sighs, grunts and other inarticulate sounds escaped from him, and then he flung his arm out and hit his father full across the mouth.
‘Hi, there, I’m not a punching-bag!’
Laurie woke up and gave his father a rueful, sheepish smile.
‘Well, say good morning to me.’
‘Good morning, Daddy.’
‘Now I’ve got to get up. You, lazybones, can stay in bed if you like.’
‘Why, Daddy?’
‘Because you weren’t too well last night. Your mother gave a poor report of you.’ He paused, regretting the word, and added hastily, ‘That’s why you’re here.’
Laurie’s face changed, and all the happiness went out of it.
‘Because I had a bad report?’
‘No, silly, because you weren’t well. You were sick, don’t you remember? In other words, you vomited.’
Laurie’s face lay rigid on the pillow: the shadow of fear appeared behind his eyes.
‘Yes, I do remember. I had a dream, oh, such a nasty dream. I dreamed the pylon had . . . had come back again. It couldn’t, Daddy, could it?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Will you have a look, to make quite sure?’
‘All right,’ his father said. ‘Anything for a quiet life.’
There followed a convulsion in the bedclothes, gusts of cool air rushed in. The room grew darker. Standing in front of the low casement window, Roger’s tall figure blotted out the daylight. The outline of his arms down to his elbows, his shield-shaped back and straddled legs showed through the thin stuff of his pyjamas; his head, that looked small on his broad shoulders, seemed to overtop the window—but this was an optical illusion, as Laurie knew. Pulling the bedclothes round him he breathed hard, waiting for the verdict.
His father didn’t speak at once. It’ll do the boy good to get a bit worked up, he thought; strengthen the reaction when it comes. At length he said:
‘Seems to be a lot going on over there.’
‘A lot going on, Daddy?’
‘Yes, men working, and so on.’
‘What are they working at?’
‘Can’t you hear something?’ his father asked, still without turning round.
Laurie strained his ears. Now he could hear it quite distinctly borne in through the open window—the thudding and clanging of the workmen’s hammers.
‘What are they doing, Daddy?’
‘Well, what do you think?’
Laurie’s mind went blank. Often it happened that when his father asked him something, a shadow seemed to fall across his mind.
‘Is it anything to do with the pylon?’
‘You’re getting warm now.’
‘Are they—are they——?’
‘Yes, they are. They’re working on the concrete platform where the pylon used to stand.’
‘They’re not building it up again, are they, Daddy?’
‘I couldn’t tell you, old chap, but I wouldn’t put it past them.’
Laurie’s face fell. If only his father would turn round! His imploring glances made no impression on that broad straight back.
‘But if they are, Daddy, I couldn’t go on living here.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to, son, it’s our home, you see. You’ll get used to the new pylon, just as you got used to the old one.
‘I shan’t, I shan’t!’ wailed Laurie, hungering more and more for the sight of his father’s face. ‘Can’t you tell them not to do it, Daddy? Can’t you order them?’
‘I’m afraid not. They wouldn’t pay any attention to me, Laurie.’
At the sound of his Christian name, which his father only used for grave occasions, and at the idea that there existed people for whom his father’s word was not law, the bottom seemed to drop out of Laurie’s world, and he began to whimper.
Then his father did turn round and looked down at his hapless offspring, from whom all stiffening of pride and self-control had melted, huddled in the bedclothes. He stifled his distaste and said what all along he had been meaning to say but had put off saying until the last of his son’s defences should be down.
‘Don’t worry. I was only having you on. They’re not building a new pylon. They’re just breaking up the old one’s concrete base. And high time, too. I can’t think why they didn’t do it before.’
As he turned away from the window the sunshine which his body had displaced followed him back, filling the room with light. He sat down at the foot of the bed.