Read Online After the Fall by Charity Norman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Charity Norman
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always been her special skill. He knows you weren’t alone on that balcony.
‘Nobody else,’ I whisper, and tears slide from the corners of my eyes. ‘I was too slow.’
The policemen shut their notebooks. They have other things to be doing, I’m sure. More pressing jobs: criminals to catch, reports to type, cheeseburgers to eat. The pale-eyed one gives me a leaflet with his name scribbled on it.
Once they’ve disappeared around the corner, hospital noises begin to blur in my inner ear. Sleep deprivation, I suppose, and the unreality of disaster. Squeaks of trolley wheels, murmuring of voices, shoes softly thudding on lino; all muffled in white cloud.
Missed an opportunity there .
‘No. Yes. No. I don’t know what to do.’
You can’t sweep this one under the carpet.
‘You don’t really exist, you know. You’re just an embodiment of my conscience.’
This has gone too far, Martha!
‘Mum, I’m desperate. If I make the wrong decision my family will be obliterated. How about a bit of unconditional love?’
I hear her sniff. Honestly, I swear she sniffs. All those years being dead hasn’t sweetened the bitter tang of her.
‘Okay,’ I concede. ‘Perhaps not unconditional love. But do you think you could manage forgiveness, after all this time?’
Finn may die , she retorts. Who will you be forgiving then, Martha Norris?
She has a point.
Seven
That was a long, long journey.
Twenty-four hours in a metal cylinder with Finn and Charlie, and anyone would need to lie on a psychiatrist’s couch. I’m sure the four hundred or so other passengers all suffer from post-traumatic stress to this day. They probably have recurrent flashbacks of cabin-fevered fiends—one blond and cherubic, the other dark and diabolical—pelting up and down the aisle, upsetting the trolleys and howling like tortured banshees just when everyone had finally put on their eye masks and nodded off.
Mercifully, jetlag has somewhat blurred the memory. Also faded, like dreams, are the August days we spent in Auckland, struggling to stay awake during the day and sleep through the upside-down nights. We’d left our beloved English summer, hay bales in the rain, and landed slap-bang in the middle of Antipodean winter. We stocked up on warm clothes, opened bank accounts and bought a people carrier from a car shark. It all seemed fresh and hazy at the same time, like a bracing swim on a hangover. After four days as tourists in the City of Sails we headed for Hawke’s Bay.
I often think our new life began in a single moment, as we crossed the Napier-Taupo hills. Kit had taken over the wheel and was having a wonderful time on the hairpin bends, slamming the gear stick across and making very childish rally-car noises. I’m surprised nobody was carsick. We’d considered filling up with fuel as we left the lakeside town of Taupo but decided to press on. Since then we hadn’t passed a single petrol station. Indeed the hills seemed uninhabited, save for isolated dwellings with paint-peeling porches and murderous-looking hounds. I expected tumbleweed. You could almost hear the strumming of the banjo. The only human beings we saw were the drivers of monstrous logging trucks whose brakes hissed like man-eating pressure cookers.
‘You wouldn’t want to break down out here,’ remarked Kit blithely. I leaned past him to check the fuel gauge. It didn’t look too healthy.
For miles the road wound through New Zealand’s native bush: subtropical rainforest complete with giant ferns, creepers and cabbage trees that looked like palms. Every bend brought another sharp-intake-of-breath view of raw-boned mountains and white waterfalls. These weren’t quiet English hills. They were angular and rock-strewn, like a Chinese painting; jagged peaks and drifting swathes of cloud.
‘It’s the jungle,’ murmured Finn, clutching Buccaneer Bob to his cheek and stroking his left ear. ‘Jungle bells, jungle bells, jungle all the way.’
‘Are there
‘Nobody else,’ I whisper, and tears slide from the corners of my eyes. ‘I was too slow.’
The policemen shut their notebooks. They have other things to be doing, I’m sure. More pressing jobs: criminals to catch, reports to type, cheeseburgers to eat. The pale-eyed one gives me a leaflet with his name scribbled on it.
Once they’ve disappeared around the corner, hospital noises begin to blur in my inner ear. Sleep deprivation, I suppose, and the unreality of disaster. Squeaks of trolley wheels, murmuring of voices, shoes softly thudding on lino; all muffled in white cloud.
Missed an opportunity there .
‘No. Yes. No. I don’t know what to do.’
You can’t sweep this one under the carpet.
‘You don’t really exist, you know. You’re just an embodiment of my conscience.’
This has gone too far, Martha!
‘Mum, I’m desperate. If I make the wrong decision my family will be obliterated. How about a bit of unconditional love?’
I hear her sniff. Honestly, I swear she sniffs. All those years being dead hasn’t sweetened the bitter tang of her.
‘Okay,’ I concede. ‘Perhaps not unconditional love. But do you think you could manage forgiveness, after all this time?’
Finn may die , she retorts. Who will you be forgiving then, Martha Norris?
She has a point.
Seven
That was a long, long journey.
Twenty-four hours in a metal cylinder with Finn and Charlie, and anyone would need to lie on a psychiatrist’s couch. I’m sure the four hundred or so other passengers all suffer from post-traumatic stress to this day. They probably have recurrent flashbacks of cabin-fevered fiends—one blond and cherubic, the other dark and diabolical—pelting up and down the aisle, upsetting the trolleys and howling like tortured banshees just when everyone had finally put on their eye masks and nodded off.
Mercifully, jetlag has somewhat blurred the memory. Also faded, like dreams, are the August days we spent in Auckland, struggling to stay awake during the day and sleep through the upside-down nights. We’d left our beloved English summer, hay bales in the rain, and landed slap-bang in the middle of Antipodean winter. We stocked up on warm clothes, opened bank accounts and bought a people carrier from a car shark. It all seemed fresh and hazy at the same time, like a bracing swim on a hangover. After four days as tourists in the City of Sails we headed for Hawke’s Bay.
I often think our new life began in a single moment, as we crossed the Napier-Taupo hills. Kit had taken over the wheel and was having a wonderful time on the hairpin bends, slamming the gear stick across and making very childish rally-car noises. I’m surprised nobody was carsick. We’d considered filling up with fuel as we left the lakeside town of Taupo but decided to press on. Since then we hadn’t passed a single petrol station. Indeed the hills seemed uninhabited, save for isolated dwellings with paint-peeling porches and murderous-looking hounds. I expected tumbleweed. You could almost hear the strumming of the banjo. The only human beings we saw were the drivers of monstrous logging trucks whose brakes hissed like man-eating pressure cookers.
‘You wouldn’t want to break down out here,’ remarked Kit blithely. I leaned past him to check the fuel gauge. It didn’t look too healthy.
For miles the road wound through New Zealand’s native bush: subtropical rainforest complete with giant ferns, creepers and cabbage trees that looked like palms. Every bend brought another sharp-intake-of-breath view of raw-boned mountains and white waterfalls. These weren’t quiet English hills. They were angular and rock-strewn, like a Chinese painting; jagged peaks and drifting swathes of cloud.
‘It’s the jungle,’ murmured Finn, clutching Buccaneer Bob to his cheek and stroking his left ear. ‘Jungle bells, jungle bells, jungle all the way.’
‘Are there
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