I'm the King of the Castle: Chapters 12-17

The surface was the colour of damp sand, rough and grainy to the touch, except where bits of moss and lichen grew out of the cracks.

They had put new mortar between the spaces, though, so that there were no loose stones.

Kingshaw began to wave his arms about, and to prance a little, delicately, on top of the wall.

If he walked forwards a few yards farther, he would come to a gap. If he could jump it, he would be out on the parapet, leading to the tower.

Then they set off towards the ambulance, a little procession, marching in time.

It was quite deep, even then, and oddly hypnotic, it went up and down in a rhythm.

A combine harvester rolled down a field like a dinosaur, corn disappearing into its great, scarlet maw.

He kept glancing at her, furtively.

The thunderstorm had faded away, and the air was still, hot and clammy.

Mrs Helena Kingshaw heard the warmth of his voice and flushed with gratification, relaxing into the thick, soft upholstery of the car.

He could make out the shapes of the furniture, and the pale sheen of the silk coverlet on the bed.

The quad was on a slope, and a lot of them were running down it very fast, bunched up together, playing jets.

'All the same. It's where the parson goes, and you’re not the parson.'

Now, he pulled up some plantains and knotted them quickly, and then began to shoot off the brown heads.

There was the sound of the cow panting and the breathing of the men, the sweet smell of sweat, and then a soft, quick suck, as the calf came out, slithering and unwieldy, and lay on the straw covered in blood and skin and long, colourless strands of slime.

‘Heifer calf,’ he said casually. ‘Nice and big.’

‘You ought to be here when we do them at Christmas. There's a guillotine and I have to hold the dustbin to catch the heads when they fall off.’

‘Do you want to see my hamster?' Kingshaw nodded, numb before this battery of experience, bewildered by so many sights and smells and terrible truths, but still willing to be led by Fielding, to be shown everything at once.

Everything that Hooper had ever done to him, all the things he reminded him of, the crow and the moths and the dead rabbit, the shed, and the way he had looked falling off the castle wall, were crowded inside his head, but it was impossible to convey how terrible they were, to say that it was not what Hooper really did, as what he might do, it was how he could make him feel.

He held it, and the snake-shaped, neolithic head poked forward, the mottled skin of the neck flaccid, like that of a very old man.

He held it, and the snake-shaped, neolithic head poked forward, the mottled skin of the neck flaccid, like that of a very old man.

It was down in the old pavilion on the lower sports field.

He had looked at Mr Hooper surreptitiously across the dining table, and when he passed by him on the staircase, trying to understand.

The door of the Red Room was slightly ajar, he looked in quickly and saw the first of the glass cases, with their outstretched, shadowy shapes.

He thought that life had taught him not to make impetuous decisions.

It hit the far wall and dropped, landing upside down on the linoleum beside the carpet.

He was a little resentful.

There had been a dining room which was always cold, and they had their own table, by the mirror in the corner, people said, 'That is the Kingshaws' table,’ in odd, dispassionate voices.

Kingshaw bent his head forward, closer to the model, breathing in the thick, acrid fumes of glue and metallic paint quickly, trying to forget.

He looked at the shaded, sombrely-papered bedroom, with the neatly made double bed in which he slept alone.

The fusty smell seeped from out of the chinks in the dolls' glass cabinet, into the room.

The white paint was like a skin stretched over it, glistening with sweat, and there was a huge scarlet mouth, opening and shutting like the mouth of the carrion crow, there were the eyes, staring into his own.

He came here sometimes, when he could get away from Hooper, because there were grey squirrels, darting and leaping about in the trees, and he liked to watch them, he liked their soft, agile bodies and swaying tails.

He could neither frighten nor humiliate Fielding, because his temperament would reject all of it without trouble, he would not bring out the worst in Hooper, as Kingshaw himself did.

Outside, rain and a high wind, tearing through the yew trees. Mrs Kingshaw packed a long-sleeved woollen dress, thinking of outings along the promenade at Torquay.