But I couldn’t, not without telling the truth. The truth he never knew. Without saying ‘I did it. It was me.’ I’ve only ever said it aloud to one person, but she was the person who’d needed to hear it the most. A kind of peace, then.
Down the hall I can hear Cora clattering pots in the kitchen. I can smell an aromatic stew. Soon enough it will be six o’clock and I can fix myself a drink. (In the immediate aftermath I found myself drinking during the day. I pushed it back, slowly, gradually, to 6 p.m. I smiled with recognition when I read an interview with J. G. Ballard, who said he started drinking all day to cope in the aftermath of his wife’s death, to cope with raising several children on his own. Ballard too finally pushed it back to a six o’clock start. ‘Was that hard?’ the interviewer asked him. ‘Hard?’ Ballard said. ‘It was like Stalingrad.’)
I look up from my book as, through the open windows, I hear the squawk of brakes, then the hiss of hydraulics and the flap-bang of the concertina doors opening, then the chatter of children. I get up from my desk, wincing, using my hands to push myself up, and head through the cool, airy house to greet my son.
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Epub ISBN: 9781409042228
Version 1.0
Published by William Heinemann 2012
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Copyright © John Niven 2012
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