Four

40
Now three meandering lines in the glaze, converging like rivers in an atlas,
were all that showed. [mndr]_ ;
She was outraged that he should be back in the house.
Face down his insolence, or his mockery, and was confronted instead by
her sister, clearly in distress. _ nslns_; [d
stres]
Her eyelids were swollen and pink, and she was pinching on her lower lip
with forefinger and thumb. _; _
Her eyes lowered fractionally to take in the vase, then she pushed on
past, to where the easel stood supporting the poster with the merry,
multicolored title, and a Chagall-like montage of highlights from her play
in watercolor scattered around the lettering___
__
41
Cecilia knelt down to retrieve the fragment before her sister began to
trample on it. __
But she was no longer tugging on her lip
The great brass lion [brs]
The cousins are stupid. But its not only that. Its She trailed away,
doubtful whether she should confide her recent revelation. ()
();
Cecilia smoothed the jagged triangle of paper ; ;
[dgd]
It would have suited her better had Briony wept and allowed herself to be
comforted on the silk chaise longue in the drawing room. _
After a frustrating day whose various crosscurrents of feeling she had
preferred not to examine [krsknt]
Addressing Brionys problems with kind words and caresses would have
restored a sense of control. _ [kres]
But what is it then? Cecilia could hear the neediness in her own voice.

The driveway curved across the park

A tiny shape, made formless by the warping heat, was growing, and then
flickered and seemed to recede. __; ;

42
But Briony was hobbling away on soft white soles across the fiery gravel.
[hbl]_ [sl]_ [grvl]
The artful disorder she preferred [tfl]
With the taller stalks evenly distributed around the rim
_
The creaking corridor
The room was pleasingly uncluttered by personal possessions _

Under the chintz counterpane the sheets would be staunchly pure.

_[kantpen]_ [stntli]
The seat would have seemed a desecration. [deskren]
43
The gleaming surfaces of the furniture seemed to ripple and breathe.
; ; ; ;
As her approach altered her angle of view, the revelers on the lid of an
ancient trousseau chest writhed into dance steps. ; _ [trus]_
[ra]
The lakeshore trees [lekor]
His outline seemed to fuse with that of the visitors
The manly punches to the shoulder, the horseplay
[hrsple]
Robbie was in disgrace
A sound of exasperation [gzspren]
Set off for her room in search of a cigarette
Several minute of irritable raking through her mess ;

Notions as self-evident to him as natural justice

Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her the
courage to confront him.
The lighthearted ironies she might have deployed among her friends
deserted her in his presence. __;
; [dzt]
Docile contradiction [dsal]
44
The indirect afternoon light, reflected from the gravel and filtered through
the fanlight, filled the entrance hall with the yellowish-orange tones of a
sepia print. _
When they embraced she felt against her collarbone through the fabric of
his jacket a thick fountain pen. [klbn]_ [fbrk]
Made a faint bow ;
There was something comically brooding about his face. ; ;
[brud]
45
She was giving the nettles a good thrashing. [r]
In the center of the checkered, tiled expanse _ [tlt d] _
; [kspns]
Across his brow a constellation of acne had a new-minted look, its
garishness softened by the sepia light. ; _[kni]_
__ [sip]
A swath of the Northern Territories in Canada

46
For most of their childhoods, she had been a sweet-natured, bedridden
invalid who withered away to an uncomplaining death when Cecilia was

ten. _; [nvld]_ ; _

A high thicket of bamboo [kt]

They walked through, bending their heads under low canes, and emerged
onto a terrace of dazzling white stone from which the heat rose in a blast.
_
Leon unfolded the canvas chairs
A ten-minute monologue
Enslaved to a vision, he had shuttled between headquarters, his
boardrooms and the factory doors ; [nslev]_ ;
;
Offended some elderly bishops
The search for a site had been generally sullen
When all had been brought to fruition ;
A dead duck(); ()
Accused Marshall of being a warmonger [wmgr]
Cecilia felt a pleasant sinking sensation in her stomach as she
contemplated how deliciously self-destructive it would be, almost erotic,
to be married to a man so nearly handsome, so hugely rich, so
unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his big-faced children, all of
them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns and football and
aeroplanes. ; ; _; _
She watched him in profile as he turned his head toward Leon. ()
A long muscle twitched above the line of his jaw as he spoke ; ;

From his earholes there sprouted the same black growth, comically kinked
like pubic hair. _; [kk]_
A baffled and severe folk _
A lost tribe who arrived at the house in black cloaks having wandered
peevishly for two decades in an alien, frivolous century _ [trab]
[klk] _ [pivli]__[frvls]
A giggling fit was always just a breath away. [ggl]
The one who caught the look was helpless, the one who bestowed it,
immune. ; [bst] _
48

He was doing his look to consign her to ninety minutes of quaking torture.
_
Leon would be free, needing only to top her up occasionally if he thought
she was beginning to recover.
Only rarely had she reduced him with an expression of haughty pouting.
[hti] [pat]
Causing Leon to spray soup from his nostrils onto the wrist of a great-aunt
_
Leon raised a cupped hand to shield his face, but could not disguise from
his sister the tremor along his shoulders. _;
49
He was in a teasing mood. ; ;
Is he bothering you? For Gods sake! (
), , ; ,
A swimming pool pavilion, an open structure supported by three fluted
pillars _;
50
He had a neutral, vaguely inquisitive air, and seemed untroubled by this
sibling squabble. _; _ [skwbl]
Her brother said, You think he cant hold a knife and fork. Leon, stop it.
You had no business inviting him. What rot! _()
The silence that followed was partly mitigated by the drone of the
filtration pump. ; [mtget]_ _
She lolled against the warm, lazily finishing her cigarette and
contemplating the scene before her the foreshortened slab of
chlorinated water; [ll]_ _
_
The two men in cream linen suits of infinitesimally different hues
__;
It looked carved

A fancy kind of drink

Paul Marshall banged his hands together and the sound ricocheted
between the columns and the back wall of the pavilion. _
[rke]__
With crushed ice, rum and melted dark chocolate ; ; _