A Line of Blood. Ben McPherson

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СКАЧАТЬ me, my body cradling hers. She lifted my hand across her breasts, pushed her thighs gently back against mine. I could feel the weight in my limbs now, feel the tension easing from her body.

      We lay like this for some time. I pushed gently back against her, not wanting to break the moment.

      ‘Millicent?’ I said at last. ‘Love?’

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘Will this be anything like Sarah?’

      ‘No,’ said Millicent, her voice heavy with the promise of sleep. ‘No, Alex, this will be nothing like Sarah.’

      I woke in the middle of the afternoon, stiff of neck and leg. I had been lying on my left arm, and could hardly feel it. I flexed the hand underneath me, felt it move slightly; an alien thing, a part of me that wasn’t.

      When I raised my head I saw that Max was lying in front of Millicent. Her arms were tightly wound around him, and he too was asleep. He must have let himself in and climbed on to the sofa to join us. Millicent had rearranged my right arm so that I was cradling both of them. Or perhaps Max had done it himself. The three of us on our cramped little sofa. My little tribe. How had he managed to sleep without falling off?

      I raised my feet so they were on top of the sofa back, then gently freed my arm from around Max. I pushed my back as gently as I could away from Millicent. She murmured something that I didn’t understand. Sleep talk, I guessed. Probably nothing.

      With my right arm I pulled the rest of my body up so that I was balanced sideways on the sofa back. I brought my left leg down to the floor behind the sofa, then my right.

      I heard voices through the wall again. Were they really not finished?

      I stood up too quickly, saw stars falling past my eyes, felt my left arm tingle as the blood returned. I stood, massaging my arm in the space behind the sofa, glad that no one could see the strangeness of the scene. Then I held my breath and slid out along the wall behind the sofa.

      I brought my head down to Millicent’s. ‘Love?’

      ‘Mmm? Hey.’

      ‘You have room now.’

      ‘Mmm,’ she said, and relaxed backwards into the space I had made for her, pulling Max gently with her. Max’s eyes flickered open and for a moment I thought he was awake, but he screwed himself even tighter, pulled Millicent’s arm firmly about him, and slept on.

      Little Max-Man, I thought. Catch you when you fall.

      A knock at the door. The police, I thought. It could only be the police. I wondered for a moment about not answering. What would happen then? How long would they knock for before they let us alone? But this had to be faced.

      Another police officer. She wore a neat two-piece suit, and carried a leather briefcase exactly like the officer who had spoken to Max.

      ‘Mr Mercer?’ she said, and held out her hand. I’m fairly certain that she told me her name, but I have no memory of what it was.

      ‘You want to speak to me about finding the neighbour?’

      ‘That’s right. I do.’

      ‘And in principle yes,’ I said.

      She looked puzzled.

      ‘Now isn’t good. Could we please schedule this?’ I kept my voice as level as I could. ‘That really would be much more convenient.’

      ‘Schedule?’ she said. ‘I’m not really sure I understand.’

      I opened the door wide so that she could see Max and Millicent asleep on the sofa.

      ‘Oh,’ she mouthed.

      ‘He’s exhausted,’ I said.

      ‘I can see that,’ she said, ‘but it’s you I want to speak to.’

      ‘Do you have children yourself?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘He’s asleep. It’s a small house. And he’s already told your colleague everything.’

      ‘We do need your side of the story, Mr Mercer.’

      ‘And I don’t want to add to his burden. He’s experienced a major trauma. I’d be grateful if we could do this tomorrow during school hours.’

      ‘It’s not that I don’t see,’ she said. ‘But you’re making this difficult for me, Mr Mercer.’

      ‘Please,’ I said. ‘It’s stability he needs.’

      She blew out her cheeks a few times, then she said, ‘I’ll make a call.’

      She took a small Bluetooth headset from the breast pocket of her jacket and crossed to the other side of the street. I stood, watching her from the threshold. Children shouted in back yards, and the traffic on the main road was loud, but I could hear most of what she said. She reported the conversation we had had, in the words that I had used. She spoke of my concern for my son. She kept looking across at me as she spoke, one hand on her briefcase, the other on her headset.

      ‘Mr Mercer thinks … Mr Mercer feels … Mr Mercer suggests.’ If she was irritated with me she didn’t let it show. Her words made me sound reasonable and adult, and I was grateful to her.

      I smiled at her; she smiled weakly back.

      ‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,’ she said when she had crossed back over. ‘Best I could do. Ensure you’re in, please.’

      ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Sorry to waste your time. But he’s only eleven.’

      ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do understand.’

      ‘I don’t have much to say anyway. Max has told you pretty much everything.’

      Millicent woke at six and gently extricated herself from Max. We ate linguine in front of the television. Millicent sat on the sofa with Max’s legs in her lap, balancing the plate in one hand, her white shirt flecked red-orange from the sauce. I sat on the floor, my back to the sofa, with Millicent’s legs on each side of me.

      Max hardly stirred. At nine I carried him up to bed.

       5

      That first night the sex was drunken and good-natured. Millicent allowed me to believe I had charmed her into bed.

      Later we had sat side by side and eaten breakfast at an all-night café in Holborn. I was surprised to find she was nervous. She spilled orange juice in my lap, was mortified, apologised like an English girl. I offered her my last cigarette – she’d long since finished her own pack – and she gulped the smoke down with obvious relief, her spine lengthening, her shoulders descending, balance and poise returning to her body. She took another of her double drags and handed the cigarette back to me. She liked me, I realised, and СКАЧАТЬ