The Unbreakable Trilogy. Primula Bond

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ The big print of a man’s boot on one of them. Some ripped. Why on earth didn’t she burn them?

      I shouldn’t do it, I know it’ll be opening a can of worms, but there’s nobody here and so I open one at random.

       Today my calendar says it’s my seventh birthday. I put a big pink heart around the day. I told everyone at school and they sang to me in assembly. Miss Joney gave me a packet of felt pens and was very kind.

       When I got home I hoped there would be a chocolate cake with seven candles that I could blow out, but there wasn’t. Not any sandwiches or squash. She was there and she threw the teapot at me. It was full of tea and it didn’t hit me but the tea burned my hand.

       She said the school had phoned her but it isn’t my birthday and I’m a wicked little liar. She says I’m the only girl in the world who doesn’t have a real birthday. I don’t even have a real mummy or daddy. Nobody wanted me. When I was born he found me in a plastic bag when he was coming out of church. He was a vicar then. He’s not a vicar now.

       He was sitting there while she said all this new stuff. He sat in his chair, not looking at me or the teapot or at her, just looking at the floor as if he wishes I was down there so he could step on me.

      I shut the diary and slam it back down on the desk. A red mist has come down over my eyes. Seven years thinking I belonged somewhere, belonged to someone, all shattered in that one moment.

      A train clatters over Hungerford Bridge. The light is already fading. Try not to think of it, try not to remember, but here it comes. The paralysing sense of betrayal that lingered for months after that. Maybe years. They must have been relieved to get that off their chests. Someone could have advised them how to tell me the truth, but they never consulted anyone. I don’t know how I coped, because I can’t remember, and I didn’t write anything in my diary for about two years.

      This fading winter darkness reminds me though of the muffling boredom when I was a child, too young to get away. As the light faded, closing off the cliffs and the sea behind the darkness, I would stare out of the window as the night rolled in, with no-one to talk to until I got to school the next morning, nothing to do except read and draw sad pictures in my cold little room.

      They’re still hurting me, even though they’re six feet under. Making me feel, again, like that piece of shit on the dirty kitchen floor. The one that had to mop up the spilled tea and shards of teapot and go to bed with no supper.

      What did Gustav say about being besotted, blinded, belittled, blamed? Well, they were the adults. I was the child. There’s no-one else to blame.

      The phone rings.

      ‘There’s something I want to show you, Serena. I think it’s time. Can you shut up shop and meet me?’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Are you alright? You sound breathless.’

      I take a deep breath. Open a drawer to shove the diaries away, and something catches my eye. A hasty sketch on a piece of paper torn from Crystal’s clipboard.

      A woman’s face. Big eyes. A swan-like neck. Face turned sideways, mouth half smiling, half gasping in secret rapture, an arm outstretched pointing at something. She looks like the pre-Raphaelite Rapunzel in Gustav’s house. She looks like me. I recognise the long drop earrings I was wearing at the private view. Someone sketched me that night when I was leaning against the wall, remembering Venice.

      ‘Are you there, Serena?’

      ‘Er, yes.’ The diaries topple on top of the sketch and without thinking I slam the drawer. Wipe the sweat off my hand, off the phone itself. Stare out of the window at the sliding river.

      ‘I’m OK, Gustav. Just had a trying trip to Devon yesterday.’

      ‘I missed you when I came to the gallery. Important business, was it?’ He clears his throat. ‘That ex-boyfriend hassling you?’

      ‘Tying up loose ends, yes.’ I can feel myself calming down as I hear his voice. My heart rate slowing. ‘Ex-boyfriend hassling me? No. I was making sure I never need to go back there.’

      ‘You still sound stressed, Serena. What’s happened to that feisty mare with the tangled hair?’

      Tears are welling up, obscuring my view of the river and the London Eye opposite. Goddammit. How does he do that? Takes what I’m feeling, reads it even through the phone, processes it, susses it, even makes it rhyme?

      ‘If I start telling you what’s dead and buried, I would never stop.’

      ‘I’m a good listener.’

      ‘One day, Gustav.’

      ‘Fine. So. You’ve looked at the figures? Crystal held the fort while you were out and she’s shifted nearly half the pieces now. Your amazing delivery the other night has tapped into some kind of underground zeitgeist. I thought I had my finger on the pulse when it came to trends, no matter how off the wall, but the response to your masochist voyeur motif has hit the mainstream!’

      ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

      There’s a silence at the other end of the phone. Rain is starting to hurl itself against the window.

      ‘You can thank me by meeting me in half an hour,’ Gustav answers at last. ‘Indulge me by letting me show you something that will extricate you from all those memories once and for all.’

      ‘In that case I’ll bring my bags. They’re right here. I’m coming to you tonight.’

      ‘Leave everything at the gallery. I’ll send Dickson for them.’ I hear a quiet hiss of satisfaction at the other end of the phone. ‘This will blow your mind. But if I’m wrong, you can walk out of my life with your head held high.’

      He’s waiting for me at an anonymous-looking house in Baker Street which has seen better days. Rain stains run green and brown down the facade, over the peeling plaster and cracked woodwork. It’s almost opposite where Sherlock Holmes fictionally lived, in fact, and not far from the weirdness of Madame Tussauds. So much effort put into recreating the make-believe.

      He is walking towards me. We are both holding umbrellas. As he sees me he picks up his pace, and I pick up mine. I can practically hear the swelling of violins in the backing track. He’s wearing the red scarf again but the vampire-slayer’s black coat has been replaced by a cool rain jacket. Underneath that he’s wearing another business suit, black, almost funereal.

      But despite the formal garb it’s his face that catches me unawares. He looks happy. Slightly unshaven, with that rough, gypsy look that makes me want to touch his face. The cold air and the rain seems to have washed life into him. His eyes under the shade of the umbrella are bright and lively, and when he sees me it’s as if someone has switched on a light behind them. He starts to smile. Really smile. As if he’s about to burst into laughter.

      I smile back uncertainly. We’re still separated by a few yards. I look down at myself. Have I spilt something onto my jeans? Is my jacket buttoned unevenly?

      ‘You look even more beautiful than when I last saw you. That sea air has blown roses into your cheeks.’

      ‘It’s the only СКАЧАТЬ