Read Online A Trick of the Mind by Penny Hancock - Free Book Online Page A

little brother Ben’s hot little hand in mine as my mother deposited us on the train that took us from Liverpool
Street to Darsham where Aunty May would pick us up and drive us back to her house.
    ‘Aunty May let us have more freedom than we ever had at home. We had whole days out on the beach, or in her beach hut, swimming, crabbing, building sand castles.’
    ‘Sounds idyllic.’
    ‘It was.’ I was thinking about what Ben had said, when we’d cleared her things out of the house back in the winter.
    ‘Looking back, though,’ I said, ‘I realise she could be a bit vague, distracted . . .’
    ‘Ah-ha. Like you!’ Chiara said.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Der!’
    They laughed.
    ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘My happiest memories are of being with her. Nights on the beach in midsummer when it barely grew dark. Visits to see the insects trapped in amber in Dunwich
museum. She told us some moments in life are perfect, like the amber. Precious and glowing with an almost unearthly light. Those holidays were like that for me.’
    I paused, remembering. ‘Then she would say, only you have to beware. Sometimes insects get trapped in the amber when it’s soft and then it hardens and they are trapped there forever.
Even the most perfect things can be treacherous.’
    ‘I guess she must have decided later that there were no more amber moments for her, because why else would she have committed suicide?’ Louise said.
    ‘What an odd thing to say, Louise,’ Chiara said, looking at her.
    I
had
loved those holidays, but I was only young. I’d loved going painting with my aunt, out on the shore. But even back then I’d always had to do my three
taps on the gatepost to make sure May wouldn’t die while I was here. Why, I wondered now, had I been so frightened, even at such a young age, that Aunty May might die? Was it to do with being
left in charge of my little brother in this house that was so far from the world I knew, from streetlamps and shops and traffic lights and buses and the things that made the world feel safe to
me?
    If May died while we were there we would be left all alone with nothing but the sea, and miles of unchartered countryside between us and civilisation and I would never be able to let Ben out of
my sight in case he ran away and drowned.
    And so although I was happy to be with my aunt by the sea, I tapped the gatepost, to keep Ben and May safe.
    Now as we drove back towards London, Chiara holding Pepper on her lap on the front seat, I was aware of that lift in my heart again, that felt like happiness. The weekend
had
been a success in the end. It had been so lovely spending time with my friends. They
had
helped bring life back into May’s house. And, although I didn’t say this
out loud, the knowledge my art was going to appear in New York gave me a delicious warm excited feeling in the depths of my belly. I was moving on at last! May would have been thrilled for me.
    I might have been tempted to do a detour through Cambridge to see my mother, tell her my news. But she hadn’t made it to my Private View and I didn’t want to guilt-trip her. She was
busy. This was a full-on time of year for her, she was finishing a novel and would feel she ought to stop and pay me some attention, but would be distracted, her head in a storyline. I’d just
have to save it for another occasion.
    ‘
Madonna!
’ Chiara said, as we sat in a traffic jam coming into London. ‘Does everyone have a second house on the coast? I could do with a wee –
it’s the baby, pressing on my bladder.’
    ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘Yes. I can just about hold on. Distract me, tell me a bit more about these Americans. How soon do they want the commission?’
    ‘I’ve got till August,’ I said, leaning forward, afraid of taking my eyes off the cars in front.
    ‘It’s fantastic, Els, just what you needed.’
    ‘I know!’ I looked at her quickly, unable to suppress a grin. ‘I feel blessed, actually. Things seem to be slotting into