AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘He is. To me.’ She gives a small smile.
I lean forward. ‘You wish he were dead?’
She looks away. ‘I’ve thought a lot about that.’
The guards are all leaning against the walls. No one can hear us.
‘You’ve got hands, haven’t you?’ I say, wriggling my fingers, reminding her of how I managed my own little spot of patricide.
She smiles again. ‘We’re not the same, Georgia. I’ve given up my need to be punished.’
‘But he deserves it.’
She nods. ‘Oh, certainly.’
109
AFTER
‘She’s right, of course,’ I say.
Furo scratches his cheek. We’re outside, watching a game of cricket. The bat, the ball, the wickets are all made of hard foam. If you’re unhinged, you can pretend it’s because we’re at the beach.
‘I shouldn’t have let myself wind up in here,’ I say.
‘You wish you hadn’t done it?’
‘I wish I’d got someone else to do it.’
‘Pffff,’ he says, letting the air rush out between puckered lips. ‘Waste of time. He was dead already.’
‘He still had moments.’
He shrugs.
‘Could I have got someone else to do it?’
He doesn’t turn his head but his eyes slide round towards me.
‘Maybe you’re a lightweight. But you’ve got contacts. Right?’
The batswoman smacks the ball with something approaching a crack; it goes flying over all the fielders and they run for it.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I smile at him. We can sort out the details later.
110
NOW
Tinted BB cream, rose-pink lip balm, a flick of mascara. Maybe a dab of blusher. There. I tuck my greying hair behind my ears and smile at myself in the mirror, take a tissue to blot my lips and smile again, wider, to show my teeth, which aren’t as white as they once were but so what?
I throw the tissue in the bin and walk back into the pub. Music thuds. Bodies sway and spin around me in the gloom, grinning, hands in the air.
I’m several decades older than the next-youngest person here, and never in my life have I been somewhere so small and sweaty, but I wouldn’t miss it. I catch myself in the mirror above the bar – I can’t stop smiling.
I worm through the crowd to the front, where Rose is arguing with Dan about something as they sip gin and tonics with a notable lack of fruit. Rose spots me and turns and grins, holding her arms open. She hugs me tight.
