'How about another cup of tea?' asked Alfred, with a faint smile. I looked at my half-drunk cup and shook my head.
'I don't blame you,' he said, 'It's not like your mum's is it, my old stick-in-the-mud?'
'Stick-in-the-mud' - one of the many nicknames he had called me by when I was a kid, back in the village. It brought back all the flavour of that time, just after the war, when his family and mine had lived next door to each other.
In fact, his only family by then had been his wife Sarah. They had had two sons. One of them had died of polio aged nine. His picture, tinted and misty, had hung, like an angel's, above the piano. The elder son had married early - too early for comfort; they'd had a baby six months later - and Sarah never spoke to her s0n again.
They had called him in from the prison garden as soon as I arrived. Now he sat facing me across the stained wooden table in that drab visitors' room with its faded cushion covers and its out-of-date magazines. He looked almost as I remembered him, which surprised me, after everything that had happened. He wore a long navy-blue gardener's apron, just like the one he had worn as gardener at the Grange.
His hands, resting lightly clasped on the table, were as powerful as ever. They made me shiver as I remembered what I had seen them do. Once they had picked up five small kittens. I had watched hirn put them in a sack, then calmly drop the sack into a tank of water. Those hands had held the sack under water until the bubbles stopped. He had smiled his strange smile and said, 'Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.' But he looked as if he had enjoyed it.
'How about another cup of tea?' asked Alfred, with a faint smile. I looked at my half-drunk cup and shook my head.'I don't blame you,' he said, 'It's not like your mum's is it, my old stick-in-the-mud?''Stick-in-the-mud' - one of the many nicknames he had called me by when I was a kid, back in the village. It brought back all the flavour of that time, just after the war, when his family and mine had lived next door to each other.In fact, his only family by then had been his wife Sarah. They had had two sons. One of them had died of polio aged nine. His picture, tinted and misty, had hung, like an angel's, above the piano. The elder son had married early - too early for comfort; they'd had a baby six months later - and Sarah never spoke to her s0n again.They had called him in from the prison garden as soon as I arrived. Now he sat facing me across the stained wooden table in that drab visitors' room with its faded cushion covers and its out-of-date magazines. He looked almost as I remembered him, which surprised me, after everything that had happened. He wore a long navy-blue gardener's apron, just like the one he had worn as gardener at the Grange.มือของเขา พักผ่อนเบา ๆ clasped บนตาราง มีประสิทธิภาพเช่นเคย พวกเขาทำฉันสั่น ตามที่ผมจำได้ว่า ผมเห็นพวกเขาทำ เมื่อพวกเขาได้หยิบลูกแมวเล็กห้า ผมเฝ้าดู hirn ใส่ไว้ในกระสอบ แล้วใจเย็นปล่อยให้กระสอบลงในถังน้ำ มือที่มีจัดกระสอบใต้น้ำจนฟองหยุดขึ้น เขายิ้มรอยยิ้มแปลก ๆ ของเขา และกล่าว ว่า 'บางครั้งคุณจำเป็นต้องโหดร้ายใจดี' แต่เขาดูเหมือนว่าเขามีความสุขมัน
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