The Possession of Mr Cave. Matt Haig

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      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Did you ever see it?’ Cynthia asked me. ‘You weren’t there, were you? When he was struggling to push that bloody creature on the stage?’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. I had a meeting, I think. A dealer. I can’t remember.’

      You smiled a distant smile. ‘I was there.’

      ‘Yes,’ Cynthia nodded. ‘Yes, you were. You were.’ She saw you looking at her unframed sketch and waited for the silence to run its course. ‘Now, I must tell you what happened at life drawing . . .’

      Two days before the end of your term we sat upstairs, eating breakfast together. You were in the same uniform you had been in the previous morning, your hair in an identical style, yet as you sat there eating your limp cornflakes I couldn’t help but notice that you looked transformed.

      ‘Dad? What’s up? You’re creeping me out.’

      I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell you that I was made numb, made petrified by your sudden beauty.

      Of course, you had always been a pleasure on the eye. I had never been able to ignore the way strangers had shied away from Reuben’s frowning, birthmarked face to focus on yours. Nor had I been surprised when Mrs Weeks had wanted to paint your portrait. Yet rather than a source of pride, that morning I must confess your face triggered a startling fear.

      Someone had overfilled the cup. You were never meant to look quite this way. Oh certainly, your mother had been a gorgeous creature in her youth, yet her beauty was an acquired taste. Like Bow porcelain. Or art nouveau. When I first met her she required a certain Byronic imagination to render her wholly perfect. Those slight, asymmetric flaws were part of her charm.

      What troubled me was the obvious nature of your loveliness. In that tiny last skip from girlhood to womanhood, in that most subtle overnight alteration, you had bloomed from a limber elf-child into a Juliet, a Dido, a Venus. My fear was about the impact this beauty would have on the male population. After all, boys don’t acquire such taste. It is there from the start, formed in the bliss of their womb-warmed dreams, their sole incentive for being born.

      I knew that this spelt trouble. I knew that you would soon be inspiring the wrong kind of attention. Boys would buzz around you and I feared you would enjoy that buzz, welcome it, walk like a novice beekeeper straight into it, unaware of any potential sting.

      ‘Dad. Stop staring. It’s impolite.’

      Tell me, how do you respond? ‘My daughter, my darling Petal, you must never leave the house again.’

      No.

      ‘Your eyes,’ I said. ‘Have you done something to them? Are you wearing make-up?’

      ‘A bit.’

      ‘For school?’

      ‘You can wear make-up to school now, Dad. It’s not 1932. It’s not a nunnery.’

      ‘Green eyeshadow?’

      ‘It’s two days before the holidays. Nobody cares.’

      I knew I shouldn’t have been overly concerned. After all, there were only girls at school. But what about afterwards? What about your walk home? You must surely have crossed paths with the lowly specimens from St John’s. In my mind I saw you laughing. In my mind I saw an anonymous boy’s anonymous arm around your shoulder, steering you down a leafy, houseless path. And then the vision became less anonymous. It became him. It became that boy, Denny.

      ‘I will drive you to school. And I’ll pick you up.’

      ‘Dad, why? You haven’t driven me to school since I was twelve. It’s only up the road.’

      ‘I worry about you, that’s all. Please, let me drive you. And let me pick you up. Cynthia will be here to look after the shop. Please.’

      I squeezed so much into that final ‘please’ that a flash of your old self returned. You probably realised I was thinking about Reuben, that I was feeling guilty for letting him slip beyond my radar so many times.

      You shrugged. ‘Do whatever you like.’

      In the car I told you about Rome.

      ‘Rome?’ You said it as though it were the name of a former friend who had let you down.

      ‘I booked it last week.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I could feel the blast of your stare, even as I kept my eyes on the road.

      ‘Well, I thought it would be a rather jolly surprise.’

      ‘I’m meant to be going out with Imogen next Monday.’

      ‘Going out?’

      ‘I mean, going around. To see her.’

      ‘Well, can’t it wait? I’m sure she’ll still be visible the following Monday.’

      ‘When do we come back?’

      ‘On the thirtieth, so the world won’t end. And anyway, you always told me you wanted to go to Rome. You’ve wanted to sit on the Spanish Steps since you were ten. Since Roman Holiday. Or have you changed?’

      You scowled. ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘It means: have you changed?’

      ‘Since I was ten?’

      ‘No. Since . . . never mind.’

      Two boys crossed at the lights, nudging and staring, making wild simian noises at the sight of you. You scrunched your nose in disgust but I detected the smile. Embarrassed, flattered.

      ‘You still want to see the Sistine Chapel, don’t you?’

      You shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

      ‘And Petal, I couldn’t help noticing, why have you taken the poster down from your room?’

      ‘What poster?’

      ‘The Pablo Casals poster. I thought he was your hero.’

      Another shrug. ‘It gives me the creeps.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘At night. I feel like he’s looking at me. I feel his eyes staring at me.’

      It felt like blasphemy. Those harmless eyes of that former ambassador for peace, those eyes that had to be closed every time he played to a public audience. My anger was tempered by a guilty memory of me standing in your doorway, watching you sleep.

      ‘Well, I don’t see why you couldn’t have put it on the opposite wall,’ I said.

      ‘What’s the big deal?’ Your voice was fading now, the anger at a dull pitch, as though a part of you was already beyond the school gates, inside the СКАЧАТЬ