‘A poor soppy thing, dancing and singing like a lassie. There’s not a soul in the Old Testament I’d trust to go to a sheep sale.’
He sat erect in the middle of the back seat, too alive with rebellion to relax, his bleak eye watching the road ahead in absent-minded fury. And it occurred to Grant that he might equally have slumped in a corner and sulked. He was glad that this cousin of his was a rude and erect flame of resentment and not a small collapsed bundle of self-pity.
The injured heathen got out at the church, still rude and erect, and walked away without a backward glance, to join the small group of children by the side door.
‘Will he behave, now he is there?’ Grant asked as Laura set the car in motion again.
‘Oh, yes. He really likes it, you know. And of course Douglas will be there: his Jonathan. A day when he couldn’t spend part of it laying down the law to Duggie would be a day wasted. He didn’t really believe that I would let him come to Scoone instead. It was just a try-on.’
‘It was a very effective try-on.’
‘Yes. There’s a lot of the actor in Pat.’
They had gone another two miles before the thought of Pat faded from his mind. And, then, quite suddenly, into the blank that Pat’s departure left, came the realisation that he was in a car. That he was shut into a car. He ceased on the instant to be an adult watching, tolerant and amused, the unreasonable antics of a child, and became a child watching, gibbering and aghast, the hostile advance of giants.
He let down the window on his side to its fullest extent. ‘Let me know if you feel that too much,’ he said.
‘You’ve been too long in London,’ she said.