A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,19
lips working in rejection, lines drawn in deep grooves down to her chin, pale blue eyes filled with tears. She clutched an artificial leather album to her bony chest.
"Caught me, Mum." Barbara forced a smile, putting an arm round the woman's bird-like shoulders and leading her to the table. "I had a bite at the Yard, so I wasn't hungry. Should I have saved it for you or Dad?"
Mrs. Havers blinked quickly. The relief on her face was pathetic. "I...I suppose not. No, of course not. We wouldn't want chicken and peas two nights in a row, would we?" She laughed gently and laid her album on the table. "
Dad got me Greece," she announced.
"Did he?"
So that's what he was doing out of the cage. "All by himself?" Barbara asked casually.
Her mother looked away, fingering the edges of her album, picking nervously at the artificial gold leaf. She gave a sudden movement, a quick, brilliant smile, and pulled out a chair.
"Sit here, lovey, let me show you how we went."
The album was opened. Previous trips through Italy, France, Turkey - now there was a bizarre one - and Peru were flipped through quickly until they arrived at the newest section, devoted to Greece.
"Now, here's the hotel we stayed at in Corfu. Do you see how it's just right there on the bay? We could have gone down to Kanoni to a newer one, but I liked the view, didn't you, lovey?"
Barbara's eyes smarted. She refused to submit.
How long will it take? Will it never end?
"You've not answered me, Barbara." Her mother's voice quivered with anxiety. "I did work so hard on the trip all today. Having the view was better than the new hotel in Kanoni, wasn't it, lovey?"
"Much better, Mum." Barbara forced the words out and got to her feet. "I've got a case tomorrow. Can we do Greece later?" Would she understand?
"What sort of case?"
"It's a...bit of a problem with a family in Yorkshire. I'll be gone a few days. Can you manage, do you think, or shall I ask Mrs. Gustafson to come and stay?" Wonderful thought, the deaf leading the mad.
"Mrs. Gustafson?" Her mother closed the album and drew herself stiffly upright. "I think not, my lovey. Dad and I can manage on our own. We always have, you know. Except that short time when Tony..."
The room was unbearably, stiflingly hot. Oh God, Barbara thought, just a wisp of air. Just this once. For a moment. She went to the back door, which led out to the weed-choked garden.
"Where're you going?" her mother asked quickly, that familiar note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "There's nothing out there! You mustn't go outside after dark!"
Barbara picked up the discarded chicken dinner. "Rubbish, Mum. I won't be a moment.
You can wait by the door and see I'm all right."
"But I...By the door?"
"If you like."
"No, I mustn't be by the door. We'll leave it open just a bit, though. You can shout if you need me."
"That sounds the plan, Mum." She picked up the package and went hurriedly out into the night.
A few minutes. She breathed the cool air, listened to the familiar neighbourhood sounds, and felt in her pocket for a crumpled pack of Players. She shook one out, lit it, and gazed up at the sky.
What had started the seductive descent into madness? It was Tony, of course. Bright, freckle-faced imp. Fresh, spring air in the constant darkness of winter.
Watchme, watchme, Barbie! I can do anything! Chemistry sets and rugger balls. Cricket on the common and tag in the afternoon. And horribly, stupidly chasing a ball right onto the Uxbridge Road.
But he didn't die from that. Just a stay in hospital. A persistent fever, a peculiar rash. And a lingering, etiolating kiss from leukaemia. The wonderful, delicious irony of it all: go in with a broken leg, come out with leukaemia.
It had taken him four agonising years to die. Four years for them to make this descent into madness.
"Lovey?" The voice was tremulous.
"Right here, Mum. Just looking at the sky." Barbara crushed her cigarette out on the rock-hard ground and walked back inside.
Chapter 4
Deborah St. Jamesbraked the car to a halt on a breath of laughter and turned to herhusband. "Simon, have you never been told you're quite the world's worst navigator?"
He smiled and closed the road atlas. "Never once. But have a heart. Consider the fog."
She looked out the windscreen at the large, dark building that loomed in front of them.