Christmas Magic. Cathy Kelly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it. In the small bag, she had the paper upon which she’d written her hopes and dreams, as the book had told her, and she’d said a couple of prayers over it, which wasn’t entirely magic either, but by now Genevieve had read enough to decide that magic was rather more open to personal interpretation than Catholicism.

      YOU have the power, said the book.

      Genevieve Malone, who’d never felt as if she had any power in her whole life, was determined to reclaim some of it now. She was going to start by dancing skyclad under the moon over a wishlist of her dreams. Perhaps then, she’d have the courage to go to the Holy Land instead of just looking at books about it. Sybil did it. Wasn’t it time that she and Dolores did it too?

      The dogs were hysterical with delight to be let out into the garden on this windy night hours after they’d been put to bed. Pixie kept chasing her tail wildly, and bumped into Genevieve.

      ‘Be careful, sweetie,’ whispered Genevieve, steadying the lamp.

      The wind roared around the garden, rattling the holly bushes and the bare trees.

      Genevieve picked her way through the dark over to the copse in the middle of the garden. It was obviously entirely accidental that her mother’s garden had hazel, rowan and elder trees in it; all magical trees. There, she put down her lamp and laid the precious paper under it.

      ‘God, I’m not turning my back on you,’ she said, looking up at the night sky. ‘I’m only opening my mind up to other belief systems. Asking for help wherever it is, if you like. I mean, I’ll still be at Mass on Sunday, and you know we’ve got the Advent wreath in the kitchen. And these are your trees and this is your moon, after all.’

      She stripped off her dressing gown and was caught in a riptide of mid-winter air.

      ‘This is your body, too, God!’ she cried, shivering. ‘I don’t know why we’re supposed to be ashamed of it. Mother wouldn’t let us wear skirts shorter than our ankles, you know. Why? I mean, why?’

      There was no point whispering now. Shouting was the only way to go.

      She began to twirl with her arms outstretched, feet bare on the damp, cold grass. ‘I want to travel and have adventures. I’m asking the universe to help me do it! You and the universe, God. I’m asking everyone!’

      It was at this moment that Pixie started at something, leapt to her feet and bounded off, knocking over the hurricane lamp on to Genevieve’s pink candlewick dressing gown, which burst into flames.

      Snowy began to bark, Genevieve began to shriek. She rushed back towards the house to find something to put the flames out, and fell over Dolores’ ornamental wheelbarrow, planted with January’s snowdrops and crocuses. She lay on the grass, her lower back, always prone to stiffness, locked into a spasm of pain, and screamed.

      ‘I’ve got a gun, I’ll shoot you!’ roared Dolores from her window, brandishing a broom.

      ‘It’s me,’ yelled Genevieve in agony.

      A light was turned on.

      ‘What are you doing in the wheelbarrow, for the love of God?’ Dolores said. There was a pause. ‘And why are you naked?’

      Ben rushed out into his back garden but it was clear that the noise was coming from next door. Dogs were barking and someone was screaming. Without pausing to dial the police, he grabbed a golf club and hopped over the wall connecting the two gardens.

      There, he discovered a naked Genevieve sobbing with pain and shivering with cold by a wheelbarrow.

      ‘She’s never done anything like this before,’ gasped the other elderly lady, emerging from the back door with a blanket and a broomstick.

      ‘Of course not,’ said Ben. He worked in advertising. He’d seen it all.

      He stomped out the fire and rescued a piece of paper that was blowing in the wind. It had some writing on it. Something about hopes and dreams. He put it in his pocket.

      He averted his eyes till the naked lady was suitably covered and then tried to calm her. She was consumed with pain and embarrassment, that was clear. The other lady kept saying, ‘What were you doing, Genevieve?’ in bewilderment.

      It took a few minutes to extract Genevieve from the plants and she was surprisingly light and sweet-smelling.

      ‘That’s lovely perfume, Genevieve,’ he said, as if it was daytime and they were meeting out the front of their respective houses.

      ‘Grapefruit oil,’ she said, and he sensed her relax.

      ‘But, Genevieve, why? With no clothes on?’ Dolores was saying.

      ‘I wanted to be out at night,’ began Genevieve shakily.

      ‘Of course,’ agreed Ben, with no hint that midnight excursions into gardens in the middle of winter might be considered strange by most people. ‘Wonderful for putting you in touch with nature and, er …’ He looked at Genevieve for a hint on which way to go in order to soothe her worried sister.

      ‘God,’ she said swiftly. ‘God loves us to appreciate our world.’

      ‘And His great universe,’ added Ben, who only stepped into churches for weddings and funerals. ‘You had a light to see by and your dressing gown caught fire, perhaps?’

      ‘I had to take it off then,’ said Genevieve, grabbing this explanation.

      ‘Very wise.’

      Ben helped her on to the couch in the kitchen, and Dolores went off to get painkilling tablets and more blankets.

      He took the piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Genevieve.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at it sadly. ‘Nobody’s ever come to my rescue before. Dolores would be upset if she knew what I had been doing. Going skyclad into the night. I got this magic book by mistake and it made me want to try something different, you see. I wanted to change my life before it’s too late.’

      At that moment, Ben felt a kinship with this old woman.

      ‘I can understand that,’ he said. He thought of Lori and all the bottles, of how she’d lied, and of how he wanted it all to be different.

      If only it could be different.

      ‘Are you all right?’ It was Genevieve’s turn to ask him. There was something about those wise eyes that made him think she’d understand.

      Dolores bustled around making tea. Genevieve told her to go to bed. She’d manage.

      Ben said if they wanted, he’d stay to carry Genevieve up to bed when she felt ready.

      ‘She’ll be safe with me,’ he told Dolores gravely. ‘Plus, the dogs are here too.’

      Genevieve’s painkillers took a while to work, but when they did, the spasms were less painful and she was able to get off the couch.

      ‘Should you do that?’ asked Ben.

      ‘The doctor says you have СКАЧАТЬ