Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Ritual, 1969 [two stories]

top of his stove. He put it on the counter top, then nodded at it, which was the cue for the woman to pick it up. She wrapped both hands around it. Amanda decided that she would ask her papa for a few copper coins so that she could buy some of the flowers. Amanda, although she was only nine years old, sensed in a barely understood way that she wanted possession of two or three of those strange flowers so that she could understand better the woman who made them, and understand too Monsieur Arbot, and the shortage of real flowers and everything beyond that; everything that seems to radiate outwards from the little flower shop with its soft gas light that turned the snow on the pavement outside yellow.

‘Papa, please can I have some money, so that I can buy Mama a present to cheer her up?’ Papa smiled, though Amanda could see that sadness hid somewhere on his face – perhaps it was in his eyes, or in the set of his shoulders. He leaned to one side in the winged armchair by the fire, lifting one hip so that he could reach into his pockets for the loose change he kept there. ‘May I go tomorrow? May I tell Julienne you said I might?’ She was excited now, and wanted time to fly away; for the hands on all the clocks to suddenly give up their slow, barely perceptible progress and spin faster and faster until it was morning. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said and

81