Agatha Christie The Hollow Chapter I At 6:13 a.m. ... - bzelbublive.info

Even Mother, he thought, ought to know about nitroglycerine. He sighed. Thereswept over him that intense sense of loneliness that only childhood can feel. Hisfather was too impatient to listen, his mother was too inattentive. Zena was only a sillykid . . . Pages of interesting chemical tests. And who cared about them? Nobody!Bang! Gerda started. It was the door of John's consulting room. It was John runningupstairs.John Christow burst into the room, bringing with him his own particular atmosphereof intense energy. He was good-humoured, hungry, impatient. . . . "God," he exclaimedas he sat down and energetically sharpened the carving knife against the steel,"how I hate sick people!" "Oh, John." Gerda was quickly reproachful. "Don't saythings like that. They'U think you mean it." She gestured slightly with her headtowards the children. "I do mean it," said John Christow. "Nobody ought tobe ill." "Father's joking," said Gerda quickly to Terence. Terence examinedhis father with the dispassionate attention he gave to everything. "I don't think heis," he said."If you hated sick people, you wouldn't be a doctor, dear," said Gerda, laughinggently. "That's exactly the reason," said John Christow. "No doctors like sickness.Good God, this meat's stone cold. Why on earth didn't you have it sent down tokeep hot?" "Well, dear, I didn't know. You see, I thought you were just coming--"John Christow pressed the bell, a long, irritated push. Lewis came promptly. "Takethis down, and tell cook to warm it up." He spoke curtly. "Yes, sir." Lewis,slightly impertinent, managed to convey in the two innocuous words exactly heropinion of a mistress who sat at the dining table watching a joint ofmeat grow cold. Gerda went on rather incoherently: "I'm so sorry, dear, it's allmy fault, but first, you see, I thought you were coming, and then I thought, well, if I didsend it back ..." John interrupted her impatiently. 'Oh, what does it matter? Itisn't impor- tant. Not worth making a song and dance about." Then he asked:"Is the car here?" "I think so. Collie ordered it." "Then we can get away as soon aslunch is over." Across Albert Bridge, he thought, and then over ClaphamCommon--the short cut by the Crystal Palace--Croydon--PurleyWay, then avoid the main road--take that right-hand fork up Metherly Hill--alongHaverston Ridge--get suddenly right out of the suburban belt, through Cormerton, andthen up Shovel Down--trees golden red-- woodland below one everywhere--the softAutumn smell, and down over the crest of the hill . . . Lucy and Henry . . .Henrietta . . . He hadn't seen Henrietta for four days. When he had last seen her,he'd been angry. She'd had that look in her eyes . . . Not abstracted, notinattentive--he couldn't quite describe it--that look of seeing something--something that wasn't there--something (and that was the crux of it) something thatwasn't John Christow! He said to himself, "I know she's a sculptor.I know her work's good. But, damn it all, can't she put it aside sometimes? Can'tshe sometimes think of me--and nothing else?" He was unfair. He knew he was