the sin of avarice. We didnât have any money of our own so we gambled with the bag of silver milk bottle tops that mum was collecting for the blind. I loved the feel of them, and the noise they made, shimmering together in the bag.
âWhat do blind people need milk bottle tops for?â I wondered aloud.
âThey hang bunches of them in their doorways,â Christian said confidently, âso they can hear them rattling when anyone comes in.â
He had broached the subject of pocket money once, without success. Instead of agreeing to hand over ten penceevery Friday, mother proposed delegating a quarter of the family budget to Christian. He would, of course, be responsible for his share of the food bills, rates, gas and electricity, not to mention clothing and household repairs. They sat down together with pen and paper to calculate how much change he might look forward to at the end of each week: the result was a deficit of £3.75 and the idea was shelved.
These Sunday evenings were especially precious because so much of Christianâs time was taken up with matters more important than Monopoly or me. It was his final year at Junior School, and he seemed to spend every waking moment being drilled by Mother in Maths and English in preparation for some great test. After school, instead of tearing around the garden with me or practising new ways of getting from the attic to the cellar without touching the floor, he would sit in the dining room, chewing his pencil over
Fletcher Book Three
, and
More Verbal Reasoning
. At first I was allowed to be present at these lessons, in the hope that I might pick up some crumbs of knowledge as they fell. I would sit next to Christian while he wrestled with sets and sequences, and dash off crayon drawings one after another. In half an hour I might have produced twenty pictures, and Mother would be muttering about paper not growing on trees. Eventually I was expelled from the sessions for disruptive behaviour. My habit of clamping my tongue between my teeth and humming while I drew was too much of a distraction to the would-be scholar.
On Saturdays Mum would put on the newest of her nearly-new dresses and drag Christian off to various open days run by local schools. On her return she and Dad wouldwithdraw to the dining room to confer, while Christian tore off his shirt and tie and joined me in the garden. The few free hours remaining to Christian during this period were spent outdoors, practising one or other of the sports at which he excelled. He was the sort of boy who could spend hours quite happily chucking a tennis ball against a wall, or bouncing a football on his head. He even took his cricket bat to bed with him and hugged it while he slept. He couldnât stand still for a minute without his arms wheeling around in a burst of imaginary spin-bowling, or walk down the street without dribbling a pebble along at his feet. On one occasion we rigged up a badminton net in the garden using two bamboo canes from the runner beans and a gooseberry net. Dad chewed a rectangular court out of the long grass with the rotary mower and for weeks we did nothing but chase shuttlecocks as the wind sent them swooping into the rough. Then the birds started eating the gooseberries, and that was that. Instead we put a wellington boot on the end of the bamboo poles and used them for jousting on our rickety bicycles. We faced each other at opposite ends of the garden, lances balanced on handlebars, and rode like the wind, until â Whump! â Iâd feel the impact of a boot in my chest and Iâd be on my back in the grass, gazing at the sky through a spinning pattern of oakleaves.
The letter offering Christian a scholarship to the best boysâ school in the area arrived on a Saturday morning in spring. Having exerted themselves for some months with just this end in mind, Mum and Dad were oddly subdued. Success, of the sort that comes in envelopes, was always to be
âWhat do blind people need milk bottle tops for?â I wondered aloud.
âThey hang bunches of them in their doorways,â Christian said confidently, âso they can hear them rattling when anyone comes in.â
He had broached the subject of pocket money once, without success. Instead of agreeing to hand over ten penceevery Friday, mother proposed delegating a quarter of the family budget to Christian. He would, of course, be responsible for his share of the food bills, rates, gas and electricity, not to mention clothing and household repairs. They sat down together with pen and paper to calculate how much change he might look forward to at the end of each week: the result was a deficit of £3.75 and the idea was shelved.
These Sunday evenings were especially precious because so much of Christianâs time was taken up with matters more important than Monopoly or me. It was his final year at Junior School, and he seemed to spend every waking moment being drilled by Mother in Maths and English in preparation for some great test. After school, instead of tearing around the garden with me or practising new ways of getting from the attic to the cellar without touching the floor, he would sit in the dining room, chewing his pencil over
Fletcher Book Three
, and
More Verbal Reasoning
. At first I was allowed to be present at these lessons, in the hope that I might pick up some crumbs of knowledge as they fell. I would sit next to Christian while he wrestled with sets and sequences, and dash off crayon drawings one after another. In half an hour I might have produced twenty pictures, and Mother would be muttering about paper not growing on trees. Eventually I was expelled from the sessions for disruptive behaviour. My habit of clamping my tongue between my teeth and humming while I drew was too much of a distraction to the would-be scholar.
On Saturdays Mum would put on the newest of her nearly-new dresses and drag Christian off to various open days run by local schools. On her return she and Dad wouldwithdraw to the dining room to confer, while Christian tore off his shirt and tie and joined me in the garden. The few free hours remaining to Christian during this period were spent outdoors, practising one or other of the sports at which he excelled. He was the sort of boy who could spend hours quite happily chucking a tennis ball against a wall, or bouncing a football on his head. He even took his cricket bat to bed with him and hugged it while he slept. He couldnât stand still for a minute without his arms wheeling around in a burst of imaginary spin-bowling, or walk down the street without dribbling a pebble along at his feet. On one occasion we rigged up a badminton net in the garden using two bamboo canes from the runner beans and a gooseberry net. Dad chewed a rectangular court out of the long grass with the rotary mower and for weeks we did nothing but chase shuttlecocks as the wind sent them swooping into the rough. Then the birds started eating the gooseberries, and that was that. Instead we put a wellington boot on the end of the bamboo poles and used them for jousting on our rickety bicycles. We faced each other at opposite ends of the garden, lances balanced on handlebars, and rode like the wind, until â Whump! â Iâd feel the impact of a boot in my chest and Iâd be on my back in the grass, gazing at the sky through a spinning pattern of oakleaves.
The letter offering Christian a scholarship to the best boysâ school in the area arrived on a Saturday morning in spring. Having exerted themselves for some months with just this end in mind, Mum and Dad were oddly subdued. Success, of the sort that comes in envelopes, was always to be
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