Page 242 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Dave was startled. This was a new approach. He said nothing.

"But I want you to be clear about where we stand. When you leave school, I expect you to work."

"I am working, quite hard. I play three or four nights a week, and Walli and I have started trying to write songs."

"I mean that I expect you to support yourself. Although your mother has inherited wealth, we agreed long ago that we would never support our children in idleness."

"I'm not idle."

"You think that what you do is work, but the world may not see it that way. In any event, if you want to continue living here you'll have to pay your share."

"You mean rent?"

"If you want to call it that, yes."

"Jasper's never paid rent, and he's lived here for years!"

 

; "He's still a student. And he passes his exams."

"What about Walli?"

"A special case, because of his background; but sooner or later he must pay his share, too."

Dave was working out the implications. "So, if I don't become a bricklayer or a shop assistant, and I don't make enough money with the group to pay your rent, then . . ."

"Then you will have to look for alternative accommodation."

"You'll throw me out."

Lloyd looked pained. "All your life, you've had the best of everything handed to you on a plate: a lovely home, a great school, the best food, toys and books, piano lessons, skiing holidays. But that was when you were a child. Now you're almost an adult, and you have to face reality."

"My reality, not yours."

"You scorn the kind of work that ordinary people do. You're different, you're a rebel. Fine. Rebels pay a price. Sooner or later, you have to learn that. That's all."

Dave sat thoughtful for a minute. Then he stood up. "Okay," he said. "I get the message." He went to the door.

As he left, he glanced back, and saw his father watching him with an odd expression.

He thought about that as he went out of the house and slammed the front door. What was that look? What did it mean?

He was still thinking about it as he bought his Tube ticket. Going down on the escalator, he saw an advertisement for a play called Heartbreak House. That was it, he thought. That was his father's facial expression.

He had looked heartbroken.

*

A small color photograph of Alice arrived in the post, and Walli studied it eagerly. It showed a baby like any other: a tiny pink face with alert blue eyes, a cap of thin dark-brown hair, a blotchy throat. The rest of her was tightly wrapped in a sky-blue blanket. All the same Walli felt an upsurge of love and a sudden need to protect and care for the helpless creature he had made.

He wondered if he would ever see her.

With the picture was a note from Karolin. She said that she loved Walli and missed him, and she was going to apply to the East German government for permission to emigrate to the West.

In the picture, Karolin was holding Alice and looking at the camera. Karolin had put on weight, and her face was more round. Her hair was pulled back, instead of framing her face like curtains. She no longer resembled all the other pretty girls in the Minnesanger folk club. She was a mother now. It made her even more desirable in Walli's eyes.

He showed the photograph to Dave's mother, Daisy. "Well, now, what a beautiful baby!" she said.

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