‘This is Mr Bancroft’s workshop,’ said Mr German in a stagey whisper. ‘I’ll show you the ones with all the flowers in later.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bancroft, probing at last into the packing of moss around the bulb. The backs of his hands were covered with coarse black hair. His fingers moved like creatures of the soil, tender and firm, nudging their way through the loose stuff to ease the bulb free. He brought it out and held it up, pressing with short, broad thumbs against its unfolded scales.
‘Dried out a morsel, her has,’ he said. ‘More’n a morsel. Ah. But there’s life there still. Yes, Mr Monty, we’ll get a bloom out of her yet. Yes, there’s life there still.’
Dazed with the mild warmth and the sense of ending, Theodore watched Mr Bancroft’s fingers fondle the crabbed root. The universe seemed to hum around this centre. The panes of the walls and roof were the facets of an inward-watching eye, focused not on any of the three humans but on the lily-bulb. Yes, perhaps there was life there, a soul there, a soul being watched at the very start of its almost endless journey up the river, its struggle through life after life, against the rushing current of created things, until it reached the source of its being, which would also be its ending.
Now Mr Bancroft was bending to scoop dark fine earth out of a bin into a red clay pot. Carefully he settled the bulb into the earth, spreading its frail remaining roots around it, and then began to dribble more earth down the gap between the bulb and the wall of the pot. While he worked he murmured.
‘Ah, yes, my beauty,’ said Mr Bancroft. ‘Yes, yes. There’s life there, aren’t there?’
THE END
About the Author
Peter Dickinson was born in Africa, but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for adults and children.
Amongst many other awards, Peter Dickinson has been nine times short-listed for the prestigious Carnegie medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. His books for children have also been published in many languages throughout the world. His latest collection of short stories, Earth and Air, was published by Small Beer Press.
Peter Dickinson was the first author to win the Crime-Writers Golden Dagger for two books running: Skin Deep (1968), and A Pride of Heroes (1969). He has written twenty-one crime and mystery novels, which have been published in several languages.
He has been chairman of the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 2009.
Also by Peter Dickinson
Eva
A Bone From A Dry Sea
Shadow Of A Hero
Chuck and Danielle
TULKU
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17263 4
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
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This ebook edition published 2012
Copyright © Peter Dickinson 1995
First Published in Great Britain
Corgi Childrens 1995
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