2 PM
CRAIG was thrilled to see Sophie again. He had been captivated by her at his mother's birthday party. She was pretty in a dark-eyed, dark-haired way and, although she was small and slight, her body was softly rounded— but it was not her looks that had bewitched him, it was her attitude. She did not give a damn, and that fascinated him. Nothing impressed her: not Grandpa's Ferrari F50, nor Craig's football skills—he played for Scotland in the under-sixteens—nor the fact that his mother was a QC. Sophie wore what she liked, she ignored "No Smoking" signs, and if someone was boring her, she would walk away in mid-sentence. At the party, she had been fighting with her father about getting her navel pierced—which he flatly forbade—and here she was with a stud in it.
It made her difficult to get on with. Showing her around Steepfall, Craig found that nothing pleased her. It seemed that silence was as near as she got to praise. Otherwise, she would utter an abbreviated1 put-down: "Gross," or "Dumb," or "So weird2." But she did not walk away, so he knew he was not boring her.
He took her to the barn. It was the oldest building on the property, built in the eighteenth century. Grandpa had put in heating, lighting3, and plumbing4, but you could still see the original timber framing. The ground floor was a playroom with a billiards5 table, a bar football game, and a big TV. "This is an okay place to hang out," he said.
"Quite cool," she said—the most enthusiasm she had yet shown. She pointed6 to a raised platform. "What's that?"
"A stage."
"Why do you need a stage?"
"My mother and Aunt Miranda used to do plays when they were girls. They once produced Antony and Cleopatra with a cast of four in this barn."
"Strange."
Craig pointed to two camp beds. "Tom and I are sleeping here," he said. "Come upstairs, I'll show you your bedroom."
A ladder led to the hayloft. There was no wall, just a handrail for safety. Two single beds were neatly7 made up. The only furniture was a coat rail for hanging clothes and a cheval mirror. Caroline's suitcase was on the floor, open.
"It's not very private," Sophie said.
Craig had noticed that. The sleeping arrangements seemed to him to be full of promise. His older sister, Caroline, and his young cousin, Tom, would be around, of course, but nevertheless he was enjoying a vague but exciting feeling that all kinds of things might happen. "Here." He unfolded an old concertina screen. "You can undress behind this if you're shy."
Her dark eyes sparked resentment8. "I'm not sby," she said, as if the suggestion were insulting.
He found her flash of anger strangely thrilling. "Just asking," he said. He sat on one of the beds. "It's quite comfortable—better than our camp beds."
In his fantasy, she would now sit on the bed beside him. In one version, she pushed him backwards10, pretending to fight with him, and having started out wrestling they ended up kissing. In another scenario12, she would take his hand and tell him how much his friendship meant to her, and then she would kiss him. But now, in real life, she was neither playful nor sentimental13. She turned away and looked around the bare hayloft with an expression of distaste, and he knew that kissing was not on her mind. She sang quietly: "I'm dreaming of a shite Christmas."
"The bathroom's underneath14 here, at the back of the stage. There's no bath, but the shower works all right."
"How luxurious15." She got up from the bed and went down the ladder, still singing her obscene adaptation of Bing Crosby's Christmas classic.
Well, he thought, we've only been here a couple of hours, and I've got five whole days to win her around.
He followed her down. There was one more thing that might get her excited. "I've got something else to show you." He led the way outside.
They stepped into a big square yard with one building on each of its four sides: the main house, the guest cottage, the barn they had just left, and the three-car garage. Craig led Sophie around the house to the front door, avoiding the kitchen, where they might be given chores. When they stepped inside, he saw that there were snowflakes caught in her gleaming dark hair. He stopped and stared, transfixed.
She said, "What?"
"Snow in your hair," he said. "It looks beautiful."
She shook her head impatiently, and the flakes17 disappeared. "You're bizarre," she said.
Okay, he thought, so you don't like compliments.
He led her up the stairs. In the old part of the house were three small bedrooms and an old-fashioned bathroom. Grandpa's suite18 was in the new extension. Craig tapped on the door, in case Grandpa was inside. There was no reply, and he went in.
He walked quickly through the bedroom, past the big double bed, into the dressing19 room beyond. He opened a closet door and pushed aside a row of suits, pinstripes and tweeds and checks, mostly gray and blue. He got down on his knees, reached into the closet, and shoved at the back wall. A panel two feet square swung open on a hinge. Craig crawled through it.
Sophie followed.
Craig reached back through the gap, pulled the closet door shut, then closed the panel. Fumbling20 in the dark, he found a switch and turned on the light, a single unshaded bulb hanging from a roof beam.
They were in an attic21. There was a big old sofa with stuffing bursting out of holes in the upholstery. Beside it a stack of moldering photograph albums stood on the floorboards. There were several cardboard boxes and tea chests, which Craig had found, on earlier visits, to contain his mother's school reports, novels by Enid Blyton inscribed22 in a childish hand "This book belongs to Miranda Oxenford age 9 1/2," and a collection of ugly ashtrays23, bowls, and vases that must have been either unwanted gifts or ill-judged purchases. Sophie ran her fingers over the strings24 of a dusty guitar: it was out of tune25.
"You can smoke up here," Craig said. Empty cigarette packets of forgotten brands—Woodbines, Players, Senior Service—made him think this might have been where his mother began her addiction26. There were also wrappers from chocolate bars: perhaps plump Aunt Miranda was responsible for those. And he presumed Uncle Kit16 had amassed27 the collection of magazines with titles such as Men Only, Panty Play, and Barely Legal.
Craig hoped Sophie would not notice the magazines, but they caught her eye immediately. She picked one up. "Wow, get this, porn!" she said, suddenly more animated28 than she had been all morning. She sat on the sofa and began to leaf through it.
Craig looked away. He had been through all the magazines, though he was ready to deny it. Porn was a boy thing, and strictly29 private. But Sophie was reading Hustler right in front of him, scrutinizing30 the pages as if she had to take an exam on it.
To distract her, he said, "This whole part of the house used to be the dairy, when the place was a farm. Grandpa turned the dairy into the kitchen, but the roof was too high, so he just put a ceiling in and used this space for storage."
She did not even look up from the magazine. "Every one of these women is shaved!" she said, embarrassing him further. "So creepy."
"You can see into the kitchen," he persisted. "Over here, where the flue from the Aga comes up through the ceiling." He lay flat and looked through a wide gap between the boards and a metal shaft31. He could sec the entire kitchen: the hall door at the far end, the long scrubbed-pine table, the cupboards on both sides, the side doors into the dining room and the laundry, the cooking range at this end, and two doors on either side of the range, one leading to a big walk-in larder32 and the other leading to the boot lobby and the side entrance. Most of the family were around the table. Craig's sister, Caroline, was feeding her rats, Miranda was pouring wine, Ned was reading the Guardian33, Lori was poaching a whole salmon34 in a long fish kettle. "I think Aunt Miranda's getting drunk," Craig said.
That caught Sophie's interest. She dropped the magazine and lay beside Craig to look. "Can't they see us?" she said quietly.
He studied her as she stared through the gap. Her hair was pushed behind her ears. The skin of her cheek looked unbearably35 soft. "Have a look, next time you're in the kitchen," he said. "You'll see that there's a ceiling light right behind the gap which makes it difficult to make out, even when you know it's there."
"So, like, nobody knows you're here?"
"Well, everyone knows there's an attic. And watch out for Nellie. She'll look up and cock her head, listening, as soon as you move. She knows you're here—and anyone watching her may catch on."
"Still, this is pretty cool. Look at my father. He's pretending to read the paper, but he keeps making eyes at Miranda. Yech." She rolled on her side, propped36 herself on her elbow, and fished a packet of cigarettes out of her jeans pocket. "Want one?"
Craig shook his head. "You can't smoke if you're serious about football."
"How can you be serious about football? It's a game!"
"Sports are more fun if you're good at them."
"Yeah, you're right." She blew out smoke. He watched her lips. " I'hat's probably why I don't like sports. I'm such a spastic."
Craig realized he had broken through some kind of barrier. She was talking to him at last. And what she said was quite intelligent. "What are you good at?" he asked.
"Not much."
He hesitated, then blurted37 out, "Once, at a party, a girl told me I was a good kisser." He held his breath. He needed to break the ice with her somehow—but was this too soon?
"Oh?" She seemed interested in an academic way. "What do you do?"
"I could show you."
A look of panic crossed her face. "No way!" She held up a hand, as if to ward11 him off, although he had not moved.
He realized he had been too impetuous. He could have kicked himself. "Don't worry," he said, smiling to hide his disappointment. "I won't do anything you don't want, I promise."
"It's just that I've got this boyfriend."
"Oh, I see."
"Yeah. But don't tell anyone."
"What's he like?"
"My boyfriend? He's a student." She looked away, screwing up her eyes against the smoke from her cigarette.
"At Glasgow University?"
"Yes. He's nineteen. He thinks I'm seventeen."
Craig was not sure whether to believe her. "What's he studying?"
"Who cares? Something boring. Law, I think."
Craig looked through the gap again. Lori was sprinkling chopped parsley over a steaming bowl of potatoes. Suddenly he felt hungry. "Lunch is ready," he said. "I'll show you the other way out."
He went to the end of the attic and opened a large door. A narrow ledge38 overhung a drop of fifteen feet to the ground. Above the door, on the outside of the building, was a pulley: that was how the sofa and tea chests had been brought up. Sophie said, "I can't jump from here."
"No need." Craig brushed snow off the ledge with his hands, then walked along it to the end and stepped two feet down on to a lean-to roof over the boot lobby. "Easy."
Looking anxious, Sophie followed in his footsteps. When she reached the end of the ledge, he offered her his hand. She took it, gripping unnecessarily hard. He handed her down onto the lean-to roof.
He stepped back up on the ledge to close the big door, then returned to Sophie's side. They went cautiously down the slippery roof. Craig lay on his front and slid over the edge, then dropped the short distance to the ground.
Sophie followed suit. When she was lying on the roof with her legs dangling39 over the edge, Craig reached up with both hands, held her by the waist, and lifted her down. She was light.
"Thanks," she said. She looked triumphant40, as if she had come successfully through a trying experience.
It wasn't that difficult, Craig thought as they went into the house for lunch. Perhaps she's not as confident as she pretends.
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abbreviated
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| adj. 简短的，省略的 动词abbreviate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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scenario
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| n.剧本，脚本；概要 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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ashtrays
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| 烟灰缸( ashtray的名词复数 ) | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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scrutinizing
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的现在分词 ) | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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unbearably
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| adv.不能忍受地，无法容忍地；慌 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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