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.She built a fortress of secrets to protect her surviving son, then suffered the wretchedness of imprisonment within it, carrying the burden of unspoken truth alone.I can see that she is on the point of drifting off again.I decide it’s now or never.‘You said there was something you knew about – something about Danny’s death that you never mentioned at the inquest.’‘When Danny was in hospital – after it happened – I would sit holding his hand, hour on hour.I sometimes wondered why you never came – but they said you were ill too.they said you were in shock.’ She pauses for some confirmation, but I wait for her to continue, afraid that now I’ve brought her to this point, finally steeled myself to hear whatever she is going to say, any diversion may prove fatal to her willingness to confide or my resolve to hear her.When she realizes I am not going to reply, she picks up where she left off.‘I would sit holding his hand, and talking to him.They said it might help, so I talked and talked.I begged him to come back to us.begged him to live.’ The length of the pause is unbearable, but I am determined not to break it.‘One afternoon, I realized that he was responding: squeezing my hand in answer to questions.The nurses said it was just a reflex, but I knew it wasn’t.I’m not sure if even Stan believed me, but Danny and I were so very close – if anyone could get through to him, it would have been me.’Her eyelids are drooping again.She tries to keep them open, but it’s a losing battle.‘The medication,’ she whispers.‘So sorry.’‘That’s okay.Don’t worry.’ I am whispering too.I don’t know why.‘Come and see me again,’ she hisses urgently.‘Come again – a week today.’This is crazy – I live a couple of hundred miles away.I tell myself that there is nothing to fear from her.Surely I am not going to take these fantasy communications seriously.It’s only a step away from table tapping.Is it the time bomb of the knowledge that she does have – the faintest possibility that she will say to one of her non-existent visitors, ‘I wonder what happened to Simon’s girlfriend, Trudie.’ Or perhaps it is something else that makes me say: ‘Okay.A week today.’EIGHTEENI intended to tackle Danny about what his mother had said straight away – but Simon got in first.The moment the Wolseley had vanished down the lane he began to tell Danny all about a builder in Kington, who had been unexpectedly let down on a job and was therefore available to come and do the concreting for us the day after tomorrow.The builder had quoted him a price, and they had shaken hands on it.‘If we work flat out,’ Simon said, ‘we can have the sand base installed before he gets here.’ He was unmistakably relieved that everything was working out so well.‘Was he wearing a Stetson?’ asked Danny.Simon grinned.‘I know, I know, he could be a complete cowboy.But whoever he is, he’ll surely make a better job of it than we could.’Danny didn’t seem inclined to argue with this.By now we had drifted into the kitchen, where Trudie was washing up the cups – perhaps like me smitten with a sense that things had been allowed to slide.I didn’t require an audience for our discussion, so I signalled Danny to come upstairs, but Trudie intervened: ‘Don’t go away, you two.I’ve got some corned beef and salad for tea, and I want a hand getting things ready.’While Trudie sliced cucumber and tomatoes, I set about opening the corned beef tin and Simon laid the table.Danny excused himself on the grounds that he needed the bathroom.This enforced engagement with the workaday realities of our life made my conversation with Mrs Ivanisovic seem fantastical.I was more than half convinced that it was all a stupid misunderstanding, which Danny would iron out in minutes flat.I wound the metal key all round the corned beef tin, then without thinking I attempted to prise the two halves apart using my fingers.The raw edge of the tin bit into the ball of my thumb, producing an instant stream of bright red blood.It splashed steadily on to the floor while I gaped at it in horrified surprise.Luckily Simon saw what had happened and came instantly to my aid, pulling out a kitchen chair and instructing me to sit down, while he produced a tissue from his jeans pocket which he told me to hold against my thumb.‘It won’t stop bleeding,’ I said.‘Look, it’s soaking through the tissue already.’‘Don’t worry,’ he said.By now he had opened the drawer where the clean tea towels were kept and extracted one of the most faded.‘It won’t be a deep cut.It’s bleeding so much because there’s a pulse in your thumb.Here—’ he took my hand and replaced the tissue with the clean tea towel – ‘keep your hand wrapped in this for a few minutes and hold it up – like this – to give it a chance to stop bleeding, while I get a plaster.’ Something in his voice completely reassured me.Trudie had stopped what she was doing, but seeing that Simon had taken charge she went back to her chopping board.By the time he returned a couple of minutes later with a strip of Elastoplast and a pair of nail scissors, my knees had stopped wobbling and I had dared to investigate the injured thumb, which had already all but stopped bleeding as he had predicted.‘Better?’ he asked, as he took a look at the cut before cutting a piece of plaster to size.‘Yes, thanks.’He squatted on his heels in front of me to apply the plaster.When he’d finished his eyes met mine and I felt oddly ashamed – as if he knew all the nasty thoughts I had ever entertained about him.‘Thank you,’ I said meekly.‘No probs.Better just sit here for a few minutes.It can knock you sick when something like that happens.’ He took over the corned beef tin and levered it open with the aid of a dinner knife, extracting the meat and slicing it neatly into eight pieces, putting two on each plate – every action performed with the elegant precision which characterized all his movements.By the time Danny reappeared our meal was on the table.While we ate our corned beef, lettuce, tomato and cucumber – all of which would have been vastly improved by the addition of some salad cream if only we had remembered to buy some – Simon and Trudie chattered about their trip into town and the work that still needed to be done before the builder came.The two of them had called in at the library to return Simon’s book about garden ponds and while they were there Trudie had come across a local interest book called Mayhem, Murder and Mystery which she had persuaded Simon to take out on his ticket.Needless to say the Agnes Payne case was in there, and of course Trudie could hardly wait to read it.‘I’ve been thinking a lot about Agnes,’ said Trudie.‘What’s new,’ I muttered under my breath, but no one took any notice.‘I think we might be able to make contact with her in the wood.I bet her ghost walks there.’‘A midnight ghost walk?’ Simon grinned.‘Spooky.’I tried to catch Danny’s eye, but he didn’t see me.‘You can hang about down there all you like, but I bet she doesn’t appear,’ he said.Trudie rose to the challenge.‘How much do you want to bet?’My attempt to kick him under the table misfired and I banged my toe against the table leg instead.‘How much have you got?’‘A hundred pounds,’ said Trudie.‘You haven’t,’ said Danny.A hundred pounds was a fortune to us.What on earth would Trudie be doing with a hundred pounds?Trudie was rattled.She didn’t like her word being doubted.In a movement she’d scraped back her chair and was thundering up the stairs to her room.‘Don’t,’ I pleaded.‘Don’t get her started [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]