He did not want to know, to think, to
realize, he wanted to be only the driver of that quick taxi.
The town drew near, suddenly. There were allotment-gardens with
dark-purple twiggy fruit-trees and wet alleys between the hedges. Then
suddenly the streets of dwelling-houses whirled close, and the car was
climbing the hill, with an angry whirr,--up--up--till they rode out on to
the crest and could see the tram-cars, dark-red and yellow, threading
their way round the corner below, and all the traffic roaring between the
shops.
'Got anywhere to go?' asked Sutton of his nephew.
'I was going to see one or two people.'
'Come an' have a bit o' dinner with us,' said the other.
Berry knew that his uncle wanted to be distracted, so that he should not
think nor realize. The big man was running hard away from the horror of
realization.
'All right,' Berry agreed.
The car went quickly through the town. It ran up a long street nearly
into the country again. Then it pulled up at a house that stood alone,
below the road.
'I s'll be back in ten minutes,' said the uncle.
The car went on to the garage. Berry stood curiously at the top of the
stone stairs that led from the highroad down to the level of the house,
an old stone place. The garden was dilapidated. Broken fruit-trees
leaned at a sharp angle down the steep bank. Right across the dim
grey atmosphere, in a kind of valley on the edge of the town, new
suburb-patches showed pinkish on the dark earth.
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